Imagine I write a newsletter every time I get an hour or two completely alone (well, surrounded by strangers at a coffee shop just the way I like it) and you get a pretty good idea of how little alone time I get. But I’m working on that.
We got home a week ago from a Disney cruise. That was… an adventure. Ha! Matt and I had a years-long dream of taking the whole family on one ever since his parents treated us to one just after we got married in 2017. We had actually booked one two years ago that was canceled due to Covid precautions and it ended up working out for the best at the time. Taking eleven people on a Disney cruise is an enormous investment (it took three staterooms to fit our family) and we actually found our dream beach home at the time and put the money toward the down payment. It took a couple of years, but we managed to book another. It was a whirlwind of themed dinners, water play, unlimited soft-serve ice cream, movies, trying to locate each other half the time, mixed in with some swirling emotions, vomiting, and potty training accidents. We chose to potty train Indi on the cruise. 😂 Quite the experience. Am I planning a second one with everyone? Ehh maybe not. Am I glad we did it? 100%. Memories to last a lifetime. I’m planning to put together a big ass old-fashioned photo album from our thousands of collective photos, digital and film.
While I genuinely feel like Instagram is a bright spot for me, being disconnected from social media for a week was a nice break. Now that we’re plugged back into life, I’m happy to be working on the launch of my City + Sea shop. My first branded items were waiting for me when I got back and I could not be happier with them! Really fucking cool soft, unstructured corduroy hats embroidered by Tony of Ramona Press / Tightrope EMB in Austin, Texas. Tony also screen printed my first couple of shirt designs and some koozies. Can’t wait to show you guysssss. I’ve gotta get a photo shoot on the books. If you know me, you know I’m gonna get this shit on film. After all, the photo side of this endeavor is my film work: City + Sea
I’m diving into some site design and getting back to artists and makers who emailed me while we were traveling while Matt is making plans with the band and the kids are headed out in all directions: Nashville, NYC, back to work in Seaside, theater camp. I’ll leave you with a few photos from the trip and I’ll see ya on Tuesday.
xo
Laura
a special one from the last night on the ship…