Hey friends, it feels so good to be back blogging today. It hasn’t even been that long and I already have missed it. Although the break and being on vacation has been nice of course! I was debating on writing a blog post this week or not because I kind of wanted to take the week off and just relax but then I realized that I love writing and pretending I’m on a coffee date with all of my blogging friends. So here I am, in the middle of vacation having a coffee date with you. 🙂 I also have a guest post on Thursday so be on the lookout for that. I’m really excited about it!
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am really enjoying the aspect of being on vacation and not having to worry about cooking and cleaning. This is the first time I have been on a long vacation since being married and moving out and let me tell you, not having to worry about those things is a luxury in itself. 🙂
If we were having coffee, I would ask if you liked beach vacations or if you preferred to take a trip to a city or maybe the lake? My husband and I are definitely beach people, but I’m learning that it’s really fun to break from the mold as well. This week we went boating with manatees and it was so much fun. I can’t wait to share all about it.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that this month (when I come back from vacation) is going to be hard. We are most likely moving out of our apartment this month and I am not looking forward to it. I really love our little apartment and we have already made so many memories there and I don’t want to say goodbye.
If were having coffee, I’d say how nice it is to have a break in everyday life to spend time with family. I’m really loving being in Florida with a lot of my family and am having such a great time. Being on vacation and being so far from home makes me also excited to go back to regular life too because I realize how much I really appreciate it.
If we were having coffee, I would share that I am hosting Easter at my apartment this year! It’s only a few people coming but I’ve never hosted a holiday before and I’m really excited about it. Do you usually host holidays? Do you love it or would you prefer to go to someone else’s house to celebrate?
If we were having coffee, I’d just thank you for spending time with me. There’s nothing sweeter than having a friend to sit down with and really talk about how you are doing with (even if that is over the computer).
Today I am linking up with Erin Salmon, where we have coffee every second Monday (or Tuesday) of every month. Come join in with us, we’d love to have you!
Oh hello there. I wanted to get back into blogging so what better way than to do (read: attempt) the Blog-tember Challenge! Bailey Jean at Brave Love Blog has been hosting the #blogtemberchallenge for the past 3 years – talk about dedication. I wish I could be that disciplined. Anyways the point of the challenge is to blog every day in September. I attempted last year, but definitely didn’t touch even close to every day. Let’s see how I do this year!
Today’s prompt is simple – introductions. So hello again, I’m Ashley Zinhobl. That’s my brandy new last name – yep I’m a newlywed. Being married is so much fun and I am learning so much. We got married on May 22 and my life is so incredibly different that I don’t even recognize it but it’s definitely a good thing.
Speaking of different I also switched jobs in March when I got laid off of my first real job. I took a temp job after that and I foresee a post about what it’s like in the temping world in the near future. I am also just about to accept another job (but shh don’t tell anyone yet) as a Document Imaging Specialist. This is what I did at my first job and LOVED it but more on that later.
Hmm what else to tell you.. I am a Christian and try (but fail) to live my life like Jesus did. That is actually what the point of my blog is and why it’s named Set My Heart On You. I pray that I grow closer and closer to God and that He will transform my desires into His more and more. My desire for this space is simple. It’s to share about my every day life and struggles and things that God is teaching me through those to hopefully help you to see how good He is or to help you along with your struggles as well.
But anyways that’s the important stuff. Gotta go now, I’m off to finish packing because my husband and my family are headed to the beach for the next 5 days. (My favorite place ever.) Can’t wait to spend all the time relaxing, reading, and tanning on the beach. But don’t worry I’ll be back tomorrow with prompt two! (Or so we hope 😉 ).
Okay so today I decided it’s finally the day to recap the vacation Tommy and I went on to the Bahamas almost two months ago! 🙁 I can’t believe it’s been that long already and I still miss it so much. I kept putting it off because when we were on vacation we took all our pictures on Tommy’s phone and I thought it would be easy to send them to mine but by the end of the vacation we had over 100 pictures so it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I wanted to wait until I had the pictures on my phone so I could use as many as I wanted in the post but it looks like that isn’t ever going to happen so I’m just going to do my best to recap it the pictures that I do have on my phone before I forget too many details of it.
We went to Freeport, Bahamas at the end of August. The trip was actually a graduation gift from Tommy and my best friend Kristin. They surprised me with it and it was by far the best gift ever, I literally couldn’t think of something better if I tried. So anyway it was a four night, five day trip to an all inclusive resort and it was so much fun.
When I went to book the flight it accidentally got booked to fly out of Pittsburgh instead of Philadelphia like they purchased from Groupon so at first this was really bad and I tried to get it changed because Pittsburgh is over a six our drive from my house. I called and explained that it was supposed to be from Philadelphia not Pittsburgh but they told me that it was too late to change it and I would have to pay 500$ to fix it. There was no way I was paying that much money so we decided we would just figure it out and we did. We drove to Pittsburgh the night before the flight and stayed in a hotel and flew out the next morning. It actually turned out to be a fun little trip (minus the ride back) but it was worth it.
Tommy driving through a mountain to Pittsburgh! (Blurry sorry)
We flew out on a Thursday morning and got to the resort around 2ish I believe. We had to wait around for check in and it was raining the first day anyway so once we got settled in we took a 2 hour nap. We were exhausted from all the traveling and the nap was glorious. Once we woke up we decided to go and explore. I still have the first view of that water etched into my memory. I’ll never get over how beautiful the beach is.
Our days consisted of waking up, going to the buffet to get breakfast then heading down to the beach to relax. We did a lot of reading (I was reading the Mingling of Souls by Matt Chandler and Tommy just read the Bible). We went in the ocean a few times but there was a lot of palm tree branches in the water and it freaked me out to step on them lol. There was also a gorgeous pool that I think we only went in once but was also fun to sit by. For lunch we would head back to our room, change and go back to the buffet. The buffet had pretty good food but there was so so much and we literally ate way too much the whole time we were there (but that’s what vacations for right 😉 ).
After lunch we would hang out for a bit, sometimes go back to the beach but it rained a lot while we were there so sometimes that wasn’t an option. If we were stuck in our room it honestly didn’t bother us too much, we hung out and talked or watched Gossip Girl on my kindle ;). We played tennis one afternoon too and also went to the gym once too (yes this was Tommy’s idea haha). Also before we got ready for dinner we would try to always remember to take a dip in the Jacuzzi 🙂 I’m actually really wishing I could do that right about now!
For dinner there were two options – you could either go back to the buffet, which had different types of food every night – of course we went to Italian night haha – or you could make reservations to go to one of the restaurants in the resort. One night we went to the Italian restaurant, which was pretty good and on our 10 month anniversary we went to an Asian restaurant, which was different but still pretty good. It was really exciting getting to celebrate our 10 month anniversary in the Bahamas.
Italian Restaurant Night (My Fav Pic)
After dinner we usually got drinks at the bar, and sat in this sitting room sort of place that was near the bar. This was actually something that we kind of felt like we had to do – to enjoy the time we had there the most we could – but our introverted selves wouldn’t have minded staying in the room and hanging out together after dinner haha. It was fun sitting and talking with Tommy at the bar though.
So that’s basically it. Some fun/interesting stories include:
A guy came up to us on the beach and asked if we wanted to buy any drugs from him so that was interesting lol
There was another woman who makes money off of tourists and walks up and down the beach and literally just shouts at the girls “Hey lady… hair braided?” and she must have asked me about 5 times while we were there haha Tommy and I now have a joke about it and we’ll just randomly say it to each other now.
Tommy bought a conch shell that’s really pretty.
We didn’t get home until I think 1 in the morning the night we landed because we had to drive back from Pittsburgh and the next day was literally misery lol
There was a crab next to our room door the one night that we names Henry and there were stray little cats on the island and Tommy named one Arturo.
There was a lady that must have been on drugs in the Jacuzzi talking to everyone one day
Henry The Crab!
I think that’s all I can remember. I honestly wish I could go back tomorrow. It was so much fun and so relaxing. The only thing that we didn’t do that we wanted to was go paddle boarding but I kind of chickened out because I got scared to paddle at the waves lol. Maybe one day we’ll get to go back again.
And I will be in the Bahamas!! I’m so excited guys 🙂 Just wanted to drop in and let you guys know about a trip that I’ve been counting down the days until.
Back in May of this year, I graduated from college with a bachelor’s in Psychology and one of my best friends and my boyfriend surprised me with this trip for Tommy and I to go on. It’s literally the best surprise I’ve ever gotten and I’m beyond excited to go. One of the best things about the trip is that it’s all inclusive so we don’t have to worry about paying for almost anything.
Let me just fill you in on a little bit about myself. I don’t know if any of you have visited my about page but my favorite place in the world to be is the beach. I only really ever remember going to a Jersey beach, which I love but will admit there are many other beaches out there that are much nicer.
So knowing this, my best friend planned the trip for my boyfriend and I because she said that I deserved to “sit back and relax on a really nice beach”. Well boy is that exactly what I will be doing for the next 4 days. I’m also really excited to try paddle boarding because they have that at the resort as well 🙂
Welp now yah know where I’ll be until Monday, I’ll be back to update how it was when I get back 😉
Hi guys, I’m sure no one has been wondering where I’ve been, BUT if you have I’ve been, I’ve been here…
Lake George, New York. It’s been so much fun and I’ve been super busy which is why I haven’t posted at all this past week or so. I just thought I’d recap my vacation and let you all know what I’ve been up to.
So my boyfriend’s family has been going up to Lake George every year for as long as he can remember. This year I was lucky enough to join them for a few days. My boyfriend and I drove up Saturday night and stayed until Wednesday night because I had to work today and tomorrow. Our days have been packed full of fun stuff so I thought I’d just recap each day so I can try to remember everything we did.
S U N D A Y
Tommy’s parents had a wedding to go to so they weren’t up at the lake yet but his brother was. On Sunday we woke up kind of late because we didn’t get there until pretty lake Saturday night. We went shopping for some food and things that we needed at the store, then hung out at the public beach for the day. At night we stayed in and watched some Friday Night Lights on Netflix (our new fav show we watch together).
M O N D A Y
Sunday night I had researched a cute coffee shop to go to the next morning and I found one called “Cafe Vero” so on Monday morning we went out to breakfast there.
I’ve never seen latte art before this so I thought that was pretty cool. I got a peppermint mocha latte and it was delish. Tommy parent’s got there while we were out to breakfast. We all went down to the beach and hung out. We got to float around on the tube, lay in the sun (my fav), play ping pong and just hang out with Tommy’s family. At night we went out to a cute little Italian restaurant. We got to eat outside, it was really nice. Tommy and I were planning on going down to the beach to hang out by the fire but we both passed out when we got back from dinner. We had a long day 🙂
T U E S D A Y
On Tuesday Tommy woke up early to go wake surfing (see picture below) while I slept. (He’s the morning person obvi). I woke up when he got back and we headed down the beach again to hang out. I got to try wakeboarding for the first time – which was really difficult. I almost got it but will have to try again next time.
We also went fishing on Tuesday and I caught a small mouth bass (woohoo!).
W E D N E S D A Y
One of our plans while we were up at the lake was to go hiking so we did this Wednesday afternoon. I was hoping we would get a nice view of the lake but it was kind of hard to find trails or really know what they looked like before we picked one. The one we picked was a cool one though and wasn’t like any of the hiking trails we normal do in New Jersey. We hiked near this cute little lake:
After we went back and hung out with his family at the beach again before we had dinner and drove home.
It was an awesome little trip and we decided were going to drive back up Friday night and spend the weekend up there too. It’s a nice little getaway and is super relaxing. God has been showing me lately how awesomely good He is and reminding me that he really only wants what is good for me and that I do not have to be afraid because He’s always with me. This trip really reminded me just how blessed I am. I have the greatest boyfriend who always showing that he loves me, and I’m so thankful that he wanted me to be apart of this vacation.
