I used to be so good at blogging weekly but I’ve been slacking lately… I’ve been so busy at my other jobs but here are some pictures from the past two months! Because this online journal isn’t going anywhere anytime soon ?
FALL
I truly do think that this is the prettiest fall I’ve ever seen in Utah. We had such a rainy spring/summer and now we are reaping the benefits from it. Unfortunately, the foliage has already started falling off the trees but I’m so glad we were able to enjoy it while it lasted.
One day we drove up to Midway to watch LDS Conference with our cousins and decided to drive Guardsman’s Pass on the way there. It was the craziest thing because it was fall at the bottom of the mountain and winter at the top! We were caught in such a bad blizzard that I started to get worried we were going to have to wait for the storm to pass because it was too scary to drive through it.
Although I’m not quite ready for winter… it’s pretty magical, don’t you think?
Every fall, in between sessions of conference, we launch off rockets in Midway and it is a family tradition that I love!
I’ve loved going to baby showers for my friends lately. I went to Mandi Nelson’s one Saturday and threw my friend Karli the next Saturday. Throwing showers (or parties of any kind) can be stressful but I was contacted by Booyah Box and they made it SO easy.
Essentially Booyah Box sends you almost EVERYTHING you need to throw a successful party. Utensils, plates, cups, decor, balloons… you name it and you are good to go! I seriously only bought the food needed for the party. The rest was taken care of!
I still can’t believe my best friend is having a baby so soon, ah! Isn’t she the prettiest?
We were able to celebrate my Poppy Ball’s birthday up at his grave with my extended family. Miss my two grandpas every single day. I still have a hard time fully comprehending that they are gone.
I’m still teaching Pilates early in the morning and loving it! Even if “sleeping in” on the weekends to me is 6:45 AM haha.
I’ve been practically living in THIS SWEATER from Roolee while I teach. This necklace is the ZOLA (my favorite piece).
Laguna Beach, California
Last weekend we flew down to California to go to the USC/Utah game. The USC stadium was INCREDIBLE!
Well, that’s it for now!
We are off on a super fun trip next week for our four year anniversary and I’m getting so excited!
A month ago, we flew out to California for our annual Diederich family trip! We all look forward to this trip every year and it’s where the majority of our family memories are made. There’s truly nothing better than being with your family non-stop for one week straight! We hit up all of our favorite food stops and relaxed big time which was very needed.
I always loved our family walks in the morning. I promise Jensen didn’t steal Luella’s seat the entire walk 🙂
It was also so much fun to see and catch up with my friend Sarah! She lives in Laguna Beach now (living the dream) so now I look forward to coming down even more so than before.
It’s never a complete trip without a stop at Rose’s!
We always talk about what we did on family trips before we had Emma & Lu join our family. They are the sweetest girls. Luella is just the life of the party always and Emma is always up for a good snuggle. I love them with all my heart!
We went to an Angels game which was a lot of fun. I love baseball games but am I the only one who thinks they are a tad bit too long? I love sporting events but I’m all for the duration of college basketball.
This years birthday was definitely one for the books! It fell on a Monday (the day of the solar eclipse!) so it was a weekend full of celebrations and a historical day that I’ll never forget.
On Saturday night, we went up to Park City with friends to eat dinner at my favorite restaurant, Vessel, and then slept over at our friend’s cabin up in Deer Valley. I think people tend to think of Deer Valley of a winter destination but I think it is just as gorgeous in the summertime!
The owners of Vessel surprised me with an adorable Funfetti cake. We’ve worked with them a lot lately with Utah Grubs and they’ve become great friends of ours. If you ever find yourself up in Park City, be sure to go try it out. The Hash Hash is my favorite dish.
Sunday night was filled with homemade peach pie and lots of great family time. As much as I love fall, I know I’m going to miss these warm summer nights in the backyard with my fam. The peach pie recipe I used is HERE.
My actual birthday was unforgettable! I loved the solar eclipse and have been looking forward to it since I first heard about it a couple years ago. We were in 97% totality range so it was crazy to feel the weather turn, see our shadows blur, and witness the eclipse through the glasses. I can’t imagine how neat it would’ve been to be at 100% totality!
It is never a complete birthday without a jog up Pipeline trail! I can’t believe this trail/view is only 7 miles away from my house. It is my favorite tradition to do every year on my birthday… as well as get a giant Diet Coke and chocolate Dunford donut to start it off right ?
And for my birthday eve… we had a date night with just the two of us. We tried an Italian restaurant in Holladay and then went on a walk around my favorite neighborhood, finishing it off with strawberry gelato. My birthday every year is usually the first day/week of school, or spent working full-time in an office, so I loved being able to spend so much time with close friends and family. An incredible birthday that left me feeling so blessed and loved! I just still can’t believe I’m 25. It honestly feels like I just turned 21 haha. Life sure does go by quickly.
Thanks to all those who made my birthday the best yet!
For me, Sundays are always a great day for journaling and reflecting and today while I was journaling I realized what a whirlwind this summer has been! I truly cannot believe it’s coming to an end so soon. Where does the time go, honestly? I love everything about summer but I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t beyond excited for some fall clothes and a change in the temp. Bring on the college football games too!
August is our birthday month and August 3rd (Will’s birthday) is arguably my favorite day of the year! We both worked the whole day but we spent the evening surrounded by good friends and a pickleball tournament in his parent’s backyard. My favorite kind of summer night.
On the weekend of Will’s birthday, we went to Ed Sheeran in Las Vegas which was an INCREDIBLE CONCERT! He is truly so talented and I can’t believe he could play all of that BY HIMSELF. If he ever comes to an area near you, GO SEE HIM. Worth every penny. We actually booked these tickets back in March when his new album was recently released. Much anticipated for sure!
After the concert, I realized that I really wanted to be with my family up in Bear Lake for Raspberry days. They kept sending pictures of everyone together in our family group message and my heart was longing to be up there! So we drove the length of the entire state of Utah and got there by 2 pm the next day haha. I was a little nervous to go up there because I knew it would be the place I would miss Poppy the absolute most but I realized now was a good time to go up and just feel it all with all my family up there.
The second we turned in the canyon and I saw the water I just started bawling. I truly still can’t believe he’s gone but I feel so grateful I can now go up to Bear Lake and feel him so close to me! On Sunday morning I braced myself and walked alone up to the crash site where the car rolled. Exactly 1.7 miles away from our cabin.. so close. It was such an incredible time for me to just sit and feel it all… woof.
I also found my new favorite restaurant recently. VESSEL KITCHEN in Park City. I love everything about it.
I love everything about them too.
And last Wednesday we dropped off Will’s little brother Jake to serve a full-time mission for our church for 2 years! He is serving in CAMBODIA and I can’t wait to hear about all the amazing things he accomplishes out there.
That’s all for now. It’s 10:30 pm which means it’s my bedtime haha. If you’re going to school tomorrow GOOD luck! I’m such a nerd and always LOVED the first day of school.
A couple weeks ago, my sister Eliza and I went to visit our sister Isabelle in New York City! My brother-in-law, Alex, has an internship there this summer so we booked our tickets back in May and tried as hard as we could to keep it a secret. If you saw my Instagram Story the morning we arrived, you’d be able to tell that she was SUPER surprised. Seriously had NO idea! Which made it all the more fun.
My brother-in-law, Alex, has an internship there this summer so we booked our tickets back in May and tried as hard as we could to keep it a secret from Isabelle. If you saw my Instagram Story the morning we arrived, you’d be able to tell that she literally had NO IDEA. Which made it all the more fun.
We spent most of our days walking the city and, let’s be real, mapping out our next food stop. The last two times I’ve been to NYC have been in December so it was so fun to come in the summer and not rush from place to place!
One of my favorite treat stops was Milk & Cream. Pictured above is the BANANA CREAM. Which had a blend of granola crisp, bananas & Teddy Grahams topped with banana, honey and actually teddy’s! It was AMAZING. And maybe my new favorite treat in NYC.
Please note the unbuttoned pants. VERY necessary.
Mornings in Central Park were a dream. If I lived anywhere near that park I’d be in there every single morning!
My purchase of the trip were these Madewell jeans. How did no one tell me that high-waisted jeans actually change your life?! They’ve always been out of my “price range” but after hearing my sisters rave about them nonstop I tried them on and was SOLD. I’ll never go back to regular jeans.
Went to Waitress, again. Loved every second of it, again.
Ah, this backpack. My favorite little traveling companion.
I was a little nervous about the weather being too humid/sticky in the summer but it was beyond perfect! I just mostly wore light dresses and felt fine the entire time! This dress is from Roolee.
Big Gay Ice Cream. Always a favorite stop of mine!
Overall a very successful first sisters trip. Definitely not our last!
Over the 24th of July weekend, we went up to Island Park with some friends and it’s now become one of our new favorite places! We had three days filled with a lot of kayaking, paddleboarding, four-wheeling, treats, games and good friend time. We even drove up to Yellowstone one afternoon which is always amazing. This time we saw zero Buffalo but we saw the springs and hot pots which were super neat too. The last time we were in Yellowstone we were in awe at all the buffalo!!
This is what I like to call a MEGA S’MORE. Graham cracker, peanut butter, marshmallow, and brownie. It was amazing!
This moose was always hanging out on the river right behind the cabin. My friend Taylor and I got a little toooooooo close and it actually started charging us after this picture and we ran for our lives. My heart was beating for a solid hour afterward. Oops.
Taylor took this picture of us while we were four-wheeling and I can’t help but laugh every time I see it. We look sooo intense.
Last Tuesday morning, I woke up around 5am to go teach Pilates and saw a notification from my co-worker asking if I could leave for California at 8am for a work trip. WHAT!! I was supposed to teach Pilates until 8am, we were babysitting a family, and I had a million things to do that week. But since it seemed important, I dropped everything and went.. which was probably one of the more spontaneous things I’ve done in my lifetime. It’s so insane when a day takes you a completely different direction than you plan.
Since my job is remote, it’s rare that we are all together so it was a blast working in the same room for a couple days. My boss owns a trampoline park in Tijuana so we left the office one day and drove 40 miles South to Tijuana to go jump and have lunch. So random, but so fun.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned this year, it’s that saying YES can lead you to some pretty remarkable experiences. I had every reason to say no to the work trip. I had too much going on, felt stressed out of my mind, and was leaving the next week for NYC to surprise my sister. But for some reason, I just jumped for it and said yes and it turned out being one of the most fun trips of my life. I don’t know if it’s because of the stage of life Will and I are in or what, but we’ve said yes to almost every experience thrown our way the last couple months and it’s been some of the greatest months of our life.
Another year at Jackson Lake is in the books! I absolutely love this tradition of the Gochnour’s. I’ve been able to come the past four years and love it more & more every time!
Although this year was filled with a lot more mosquito bites and A LOT more work during the week, it is always nice to escape the July heat and go up to the mountains where everything is a little more laid back.
I am LOVING this book. I haven’t finished it yet but I couldn’t put it down all day yesterday! Also, you can’t really see it but the Gathre mat that I’m sitting on is a game-changer.
*clenching fist because mosquitos were starting to swarm*
We had so many beautiful early morning runs in the woods, dinners with all the cousins, hikes, paddle-boarding and even a bear sighting! Right before our run actually ? Which made Grace and me a tad bit paranoid the entire run haha.
“I will be the biggest mess the day Poppy Wilford dies.”
Something I’ve said to Will numerous times throughout the course of our relationship. I knew I would be a mess, but I didn’t know he’d die this way which in turn made me into an even bigger mess.
It truly didn’t feel real when I received a text from my mom on June 29th at 3:47 PM telling me that my Poppy Wilford died in a bad accident on his way up to the cabin in Bear Lake. How could this happen? We were all supposed to go up and be there as a family that weekend to celebrate the 4th. Our favorite holiday. Our favorite place. Our favorite person. Gone.
It didn’t feel real.
I don’t know why, but I always felt like my Poppy and I had a special connection. I felt like he understood me and I loved the way he carried himself. He was always joking with people, sarcastic to an extreme, hard-working, loving, and always made family the most important focus in his life.
I loved everything he embodied. He was a true hard worker and worked up until the day he passed away. Literally, he was fixing a flood at my parent’s rental the morning he passed away. He turned 80 last month and had yet to retire because he truly loved to work.
We were able to spend so much quality time together on Sundays at his house (less than a mile away from mine), summers at his pool, and also on our many trips we took as a family together. We loved going to Newport (remember this post from last month?), Bear Lake, London, Italy (he took my cousin Rachel and me to Italy when I was in 7th grade. A trip I will never forget!), Germany (see this post if you want to cry)and many more trips I will cherish forever.
Although I miss him daily and want to cry on command every second, I’m grateful for my family and for the Plan of Salvation that I believe in. It’s going to be a huge healing process for me but I can’t wait to see him again and am so comforted by the knowledge of that.
Life is too short and can be taken from you in a flash! Be kind. Hug those you love. Call those you love.
Thank you so much to everyone that gave me so many great book recommendations last night and today! Here’s a little roundup of what some of you are reading right now.
Also, I should probably mention one book that was recommended a lot of times that I’ve already read…
WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR by Paul Kalamanthi. Probably in my top 3 favorite books of all time. I’m going to read it again this week. Puts life beautifully in perspective! Please read it!
Althought I am the farthest thing from a “mogul”, a couple months ago I was interviewed on the Munching with Mogulspodcast and loved being a part of it! (fair warning: I say “like” a lot…. whoooops). Alexa and I discussed an array of things together but one thing that really stuck out to the both of us was my personal perspective on productivity. I work about six different jobs and am usually always on the go. Sometimes my busy schedule gets in the way of the more important things in life, but most of the time I’m actually really satisfied with the life I live. I truly do LOVE working and feel like it fuels me in some odd way. Although sometimes I bite off more than I can chew (okay, a lot of the time), simple productivity apps and tricks help me stay somewhat sane.
Here they are!
WUNDERLIST.
I mentioned this in the podcast. But WUNDERLIST is probably my #1 favorite app to date. I use it every single day. I use it for all my to-do lists. You can share your lists with other people, assign them out, set due dates, submit sub-tasks, add comments, attachments etc. I’ve been using Wunderlist for four years now and absolutely love it. I’ve set up almost all my different jobs on it and it’s helped a ton with productivity in the workplace.
iCAL.
I pretty much calendar everything in my life. I mean it, EVERYTHING. Some of my different calendar categories include Work, Church (including activities), Meals, Exercise, Parties, Vacations, Volunteering and even Reading time. Will and I have synced calendars so we always know exactly what we have coming up. They are all color coded and synced to our iPhones too.
EMAIL HABITS.
Airmail: A little over a year ago I chose to download Airmail for my email software and it’s been a huge game changer for me. I have all of my different email accounts combined together which makes it seamless to not have to log in and out of accounts. I have the app on my computer and my iPhone. It costs money but is well worth the cost in my opinion.
Unsubscribe. Taking an hour or two to just UNSUBSCRIBE from a majority of your emails will make you feel so refreshed. I only receive the emails that I need or want every day. There’s no need to receive emails from a restaurant where you put in your email once to join their free wifi! If you ever do input your email somewhere, just unsubscribe after you receive your first email. You won’t feel as bogged down every morning taking 20 minutes to just delete unnecessary emails.
Star. For work, I will receive an email but sometimes have to ask someone else the answer so I immediately STAR ? it to know that it needs to be responded to. Some mornings I will just work off my starred folder and email back everyone that has been waiting for a response.
COMPUTER HABITS.
Closing Tabs. Since I work from my computer for all my jobs, I feel a huge difference when my computer feels clean and organized. If I ever have over 20 tabs open in my Chrome browser (which happens daily), sometimes I will just completely close Chrome and start fresh. It forces me to re-focus and feel organized again. It also helps me realize which project has priority because I am only opening tabs related to that project to start off.
Bookmarks. In my bookmarks bar, I have all my most frequently visited websites in folders listed at the top and then separated into categories. I can just click on each folder and be directed to each site without having to type it in.
Desktop. Sounds silly but sometimes a new background on my computer and organizing all my files on my desktop can help me feel good as new. I LOVE finding new backgrounds from Design Love Fest!
PASSWORDS.
Ah, passwords can be such a pain. Especially when you have 5 different emails that correspond to various accounts. I use Evernoteto list all my logins and passwords. However, if anyone were to find it they wouldn’t know my passwords because they are all slightly encrypted in some way. For example, if my password was ilovecookies (none of my passwords are that so don’t try ? ) I will write down ilc. So essentially an acronym for each one. It has SAVED me!!! So I’ll list “pinterest, og (oliviagochnour email), ilc” or something. I have yet to be locked out of an account using this method!
READ RECEIPTS.
I recently turned on Read Receipts on my iPhone which has really helped me text people back in a more timely manner. I open a text when I know I have time to sit and respond and it assures me I’ve texted back (almost) everyone I need to. I’m still not perfect at being a great texter but it’s helped me become a lot better! Progress is better than nothing, right?
TALLY.
I discussed this app, TALLY, in the podcast as well. I love it! You can pretty much add anything you want to tally off either weekly or daily and it helps you track how well you are doing. Streaks is a fun app that does this as well.
RELAX.
Lastly, sounds dumb, but it’s super important to just relax. Since all my jobs are paid hourly, sometimes I just want to sit and work work work but I work so much better after I’m able to step back and relax for a bit. When I first got to Europe all I wanted to do was find an internet cafe and send some emails off but I refrained and worked less and less as each day of our trip went on (thanks to my incredible, understanding bosses!). The night we got back from Europe, I was so excited to start working again the next morning! Taking that week break helped my mind become so refreshed and I felt like I worked even better when I got back.
Anyways.. there you go! I’m obviously no “productivity pro” but all these tools/habits help me on a daily basis and help make me feel happier. Do you have anything you highly recommend when it comes to productivity?
Hope this helps at least some of you. Thanks again for the interview, Alexa!
A couple days after we returned home from Europe I tagged along on my parents trip to Newport. This may sound odd, but I really needed to just isolate myself for a bit and catch up on tons of work/projects. Newport was the place to do just that. During the day I was left in the hotel by myself, without access to a car, which meant I had tons of time to catch up on work, journaling, checking things off my to-do list, etc. It felt so good! Each night when I went to dinner with everyone I felt so refreshed and more present because I didn’t feel like I was drowning in my work anymore.
We hit up all of my favorite Newport stops and even drove down to San Diego one day so I could work with my team in the office which I loved. I’ve only been down there once before so it was neat to meet my co-workers that I communicate with daily in person ha!
My favorite part of the trip was spending so much quality time with my grandparents. They are the sweetest souls. One day we took dan hour walk on the beach and I’ll never forget it. We talked about their favorite places they’ve ever traveled to (Galapagos by the way), their memories from Crystal Cove and why they love California so much. It was just me and them (which has never happened before) and I loved every second of it.
My least favorite part of the trip was how jacked up my back felt after sleeping for 8 straight nights on a pull-out mattress in the hotel ? No, but really, least favorite part was being away from Will for so long!! Way harder than anticipated. Especially after spending 10 straight days together in Europe! I never want to be apart from him for that long ever again.
