Hey There, Chelsie

Lifestyle + Personal

5 Lessons from 5 Years of Marriage from my Husband

Dustin and I celebrated 5 beautiful years of marriage this last Friday with a weekend escape to Las Vegas, It was perfect. We ate so much good food, we painted with dolphins, we played Blackjack (and won!) and we explored as many casinos as we possibly could. We ended the weekend spending time with our very best friends from college who live in Las Vegas now, and I swear I haven't laughed so hard in years. Sometimes you make friends who are irreplaceable, and even though you only see them once a year, when you get together, it's like you've seen each other every day. ANYWAY! Today, I'm turning HTC over to the man behind the blog, my Instagram husband (cue fanfare . . .

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Lifestyle + Personal

Thoughts on 4 Years of Marriage

Dustin and I celebrated 4 years of marriage in April, but because we had just bought a house, gotten back from a wedding, brought home a new puppy AND had gone through a scary emergency surgery all within the two weeks before, I didn’t have a chance to sit down and write anything about it. At first, I figured that I would just wait until next year since the time had passed, but I then realized that I shouldn’t have to wait for our official anniversary to write about our love. So today, I’m pulling out all the photos from the day we got married (I don't think I've ever shared them on here before) and wanted to open up a little bit about what 4 years of marriage . . .

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Marriage & Relationships

Our 5 Marriage Goals for 2017

Dustin and I are approaching 4 years of marriage in March and 7 years of being together in May. It's absolutely insane to me that we've been together for that long - I mean, I can't imagine my life without him, but 7 years is a long time! Our marriage has been filled with ups and downs, some really hard things, and some really beautiful things, too. We get asked a lot (especially living in Utah) when we're going to start having kids. While I strongly believe that this isn't anyone's business but ours, I wanted to talk about it for just a second to make sure that we're all on the same page. One of the reasons why we haven't even started planning for kids is because . . .

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Marriage & Relationships

4 Things We Do Together to Get a Good Night’s Sleep

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and Breathe Right® Nasal Strips. All opinions are mine alone. #TomorrowStartsTonight #CollectiveBias Dustin and I did not live together before we got married, so moving in together and learning how to cohabitate (on top of figuring out how to be married) was quite the adventure. We had to figure out who was responsible for doing the dishes, who was in charge of the trash duty and the balance between spending time doing our individual hobbies and doing things together. I don't think I'd say that the first year of marriage was the hardest for us, but it was a challenge in a different way compared to other . . .

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Marriage & Relationships

5 Must-Have Apps For Married Couples

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, Walmart Family Mobile. All opinions are mine alone. #DataAndAMovie #CollectiveBias I really loved our home in Arizona, I loved the weather and I loved being within a 15-minute drive of five of my favorite makeup stores. I loved that we were only 5 hours from Vegas (where some of our best friends live) and that we were only 2 miles away from Rosie's favorite place to go hiking. I loved that Dustin's work schedule was predictable and that he went to work in the morning and came home in the evening and we had dinner together and watched our favorite tv shows. I loved that I could plan on . . .

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Marriage & Relationships

How to Deal with a Long Distance Relationship

I'm so, so excited to have one of my best blogging buds, Amanda from Blissful Gal, guest posting today. Amanda and I team up every month for our Blog Boss series, and her blog is full of amazing posts about college, relationships, and health. Amanda is a part of my closest blogging tribe and it's an honor to have her guest posting today about long distance relationships! Dustin and I were in a long distance relationship for 1 month before his mission and then 2 years while he was on his mission and recently did the whole married long distance last summer for 5 weeks! Make sure you read about the cool site she mentions in her post about watching tv shows together . . .

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Marriage & Relationships

To my Husband who let me follow my Blog Dreams

I know it's been quiet around here for the last week and I appreciate you being patient with me (if you love reading LWR, that is). These last couple weeks of the year have been filled with spending time with friends and family, making big plans for this space in the new year and unplugging and reconnecting with my husband. Today, I want to dedicate this post to him and his support of this little blog of mine. You may also like: 5 Ways to Reconnect with Your Spouse A little backstory: Dustin and I met at college, the summer semester I decided to stay instead of going home to New Hampshire and Dustin's first semester out there (our school operated on a . . .

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Marriage & Relationships

Date in a Box: Last Minute Gift Idea for your Man

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.#GiftingAMemory #CollectiveBias At this time last year, Dustin and I were living the picture perfect life of "poor college students." I was working part time, going through my mid-life crisis about not wanting to pursue a job in my chosen field and Dustin was working 30+hours at a rental car company while taking a full load of classes. We were paying bills, paying students loans and paying off a car, so our Christmas budget was definitely...tight. It was our first year hosting Christmas (my sister and her husband, along with some of our best friends in Idaho all . . .

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Beauty + Health

My Date Night Essentials + 15 Minute Date Night Makeup Tutorial

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #BeHealthyForEveryPartofLife #CollectiveBias I mentioned last week how Dustin passed his huge series 7 test to become a licensed investment consultant. It's been a huge relief to have that test behind us; if Dustin didn't pass, he wouldn't have been able to stay at his job and we would have been up a creek! He took his test last Monday and I was an anxious wreck all day. I literally holed up in my bed with my computer, watched a ton of Netflix and tried to nap as I waited for his 6-hour test to be over and to find out if he had passed. I knew that if he did . . .

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