I find such beauty in hand drawn illustrations. No more so than when I discovered this artist. 

I find her work completely and utterly enchanting. 

You can purchase her prints in her Etsy shop here. 

Katie Daisy is an incredible talent. Her style is so romantic. My favourite is the one above. I long for salt air in my hair! It just makes me think of holidays and I feel awash with happiness! 

I bought it a couple of weeks ago, it arrived just as we got back from our holiday and I can't wait to frame it for my office.

What illustrators do you love? I'd love to discover some more. 

I took too many photos on our American Adventure, to see my brother and sister in law, even for me, to shoe horn into one blog post!

Here is Part 1. 

• A flight with just 2 Heaths (The other two got left behind and had to travel on the next flight - that's the downs of staff travel - the ups being Rich and Ollie travelled over in Business Class!) who had to race through Terminal 5, so fast I thought we would miss it. Sammy and I got our tickets with 10 minutes to get to the gate! As we boarded the plane the doors shut behind us and that was it! Air bound for America.
• A long queue at immigration and as we finally got to the front (with me carrying 3 bits of hand luggage) Sammy exclaimed "Mama, I need a wee!" Back to the end of an even longer queue...
• Being the last at the luggage carousel watching the empty belt with no sign of Sammy's car seat. Queue a long wait, a pink replacement for a couple of days, but an excuse to grab the first of many holiday donuts!

It was an eventful week and this is the beginning! 

As we waited for the rest of the Heath party to land safely and arrive in the hire car, Sammy took a yard sale tricycle out for a spin and made two little friends! They live in a picture perfect US cul de sac, complete with basketball hoops at the end of the driveways and cute mail boxes on sticks.  

This was the first time we had visited their new home and I couldn't get over the space. It is huge! I am so proud of my brother. For starting a life in America, buying an incredible house and making it into the home of their dreams.

The next two days looked liked this. 

Sunday was going swimmingly (quite literally) until this. 

A "forwards back flip" off the diving board, a shoulder bone sticking up and out in a contorted fashion, a 911 call and an ambulance ride for Rich, in a pair of flip flops and wet board shorts. 

Men.  

I had warned him it was silly, had mentioned he was getting on my nerves having kept splashing me every time he launched himself into the pool and warned him he was pushing his luck. 

Boys. 

The night before my birthday was a fraught affair. Text updates from hospital, worries about travel insurance and a one armed wonder coming through the door, tired, full of morphine and a 31 and 364 day old, feeling very unsympathetic. 

We saw this window display on our travels a few days later... it totally sums up the incident! 

Part 2 coming up... my birthday! 

Today we have been married 8 years. 

I use social media a lot. Like everyday, probably every hour, a lot. 

But I realised, bar a couple of others, these were the only pictures of just the two of us, that I have tweeted or posted to Facebook in the last year. (The one next to the glasses was from our anniversary last year - wow - I need to get back to Slimming World!)

A lot gets in the way of being just a couple. Children, work, family, worries. Sometimes it's easy to forget you are a couple, not just a mother and father. 

We always say we know why we get on best, when we are getting on really well, and it's because we are working as a team. 

And when we stop working as a team, life gets tetchy. Bickering starts and sometimes you need something to snap you out of it. 

I think we need to realise, that every year you are together, is another year you have grown. And you have to hope you continue to grow in the same direction. 

Someone once said to me, that how they have managed to stay together for 25 years is that neither of them wanted to get divorced at the same time! That every year on their anniversary, they said "Shall we give it another year?!" 

I took every bit of sentiment out of those lines and think it's an excellent way to live. That there may be times when you are driven to distraction or are being pulled in different directions. But as long as you both consciously make the decision to stay married, you consciously choose to work together.  

If you make an effort to be a team, then happiness happens all by itself. 

Well that's what works for us anyway. 

Happy Anniversary darling. I love you. 

ps. I hope you like your "bronze" present ;) 8 years, and we still follow the old traditional gifts! 

We had a glorious wedding, a big white marquee in the grounds of the school where we met. The ceremony was in the school chapel and the only thing I would have changed would have been the weather! It poured and poured and poured! (Well I may have changed a few little things now I have Pinterest in my life!)

Here's the black and white short version of our wedding video, if you'd like to have a peek!