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Claireified Travels: Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO

June 15, 2017 by Claire 4 Comments

I hope your week is off to a good start! E and I had another crazy last week: flying back from California, moving back into the college dorms for a few days, graduating, and driving to northern Minnesota for E’s family reunion. We’re currently enjoying a brief vacation lakeside before some grad celebrations with my family, and then flying back out to California because E starts work on Monday! Phew.

Anyhow, let’s just pretend we’re back on our road trip without a care in the world. Last week I shared our trip to Custer State Park, SD. From there, we drove to E’s parents’ house in CO, where we stayed for a few days before leaving for Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado.… Read More »

Claireified Travels: Camping in Custer State Park, South Dakota

June 5, 2017 by Claire 6 Comments

Hello and happy Monday! What a crazy weekend it has been: full of IKEA boxes, Target runs, and soaking in our first home together. I love our new apartment! Today, though, I want to start recapping our road trip and tell you all about stop #1: Custer State Park in South Dakota.

For those of you who are new here, E and I attended college in Minnesota and graduated in March. Afterwards, we lived at my mom’s house for a couple of months while preparing to move out to where E’s new job is. Since you only live once, we decided to make a cross-country road trip out of the move!… Read More »

My 5-Step Bedtime Routine for a Better Night’s Sleep

May 24, 2017 by Claire 6 Comments

Do you struggle to fall asleep at night? Does the sound of your partner snoring keep you up for hours–whilst you wonder how they got so lucky as to fall asleep easily? Do you wake up multiple times each night, thoughts racing, and toss and turn for hours until your alarm goes off?

That used to be me, friends. For over fifteen years!

Since elementary school, I’ve consistently struggled with being able to turn off my brain when it comes time for bed. I naturally struggle with unwinding to reach the peaceful state of mind required to sleep well. And when it comes to staying asleep, without fail I used to wake up at 3am every night. Usually, I spent the rest of it tossing and turning, watching the clock.

When I graduated from college, I decided it was time to deal with the problem. Over several months, I experimented with different relaxation tools to develop the perfect quick and easy sleep-inducing bedtime routine. Today, I sleep much better and I’m finally sharing my routine!… Read More »

Our Engagement Story

May 16, 2017 by Claire 4 Comments

Most of these pictures were taken by my brilliant friend, L, with her DSLR!

There’s something you should know about me: I hate surprises. Well, surprises for me–I love throwing surprise birthday parties, watching family members’ faces light up when they open a surprise gift, and getting up early to make E a nice breakfast. But for myself? No, thank you! I’m that total spoilsport who always dug through my parents’ closets around the holidays to see what Santa was bringing me this year, and rarely did I make it to Christmas without knowing exactly what I was getting.

So you’d think that since E and I had picked out my ring together nearly six months earlier (yes, we had it for almost half a year before he proposed–but that’s another story), it would have been impossible for him to catch me off guard–but it turns out I’m marrying a boy who knows me so well that he did just that.… Read More »