Hey!

I have hit a bit of a reading slump, which is driving me crazy! I am currently in the middle of four books (one is a an audiobook) and I have not been in the mood to read. I haven’t updated here since Monday, so I figured I would do another random picture post. On Monday I updated all about my trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I’ll link that at the end of this post in case you  missed it.

I mentioned how I was visiting my childhood best friend as well as going to Harry Potter world. Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure not only have Harry Potter world, but they have a ton of other attractions and rides. All of the rides we went on were fun, but they were mostly 3D multi-dimensional rides. The big roller coasters we weren’t able to ride, because by time we go to the second park (Islands of Adventure) it had rained, so a lot of the rides were closed down for a bit. I am planning to go back to Islands of Adventure maybe toward the end of the year, so I can really enjoy that park since I didn’t get to do much this time around thanks to the crappy weather at the end of the day.

I am really good friends with Lauren (she wrote Shattered Blue), so I took a copy of Shattered Blue with me on my trip and got a ton of pictures around the parks. I thought it would be cool to get a picture with Curious George holding the book. He pretty much snatched it out of my hands and played around with it, lol. And below are just some random park pictures. I didn’t take a ton of pictures of everything, because I was just trying to enjoy the day and not to worry about getting a ton of pictures.

I am a sucker for sunsets and taking pictures of them. We drove through this town called Lake Wales and I fell in love with it. We drove through it at sunset and the sunset covered the entire town and it changed everything to bright orange and it was so awesome! It lit up the entire town. There was also the brightest double rainbow I have ever seen, because of the sunset reflecting off it. I couldn’t get a very good picture of it since I was in the car, sadly. If I ever move anywhere, I would move to Lake Wales LOL. The town was nice and the town at sunset sold me.

My friend, her boyfriend, the fiance, and my younger sister went Pokemon hunting a lot throughout the weekend. There is this really cool park/garden where they live in Lakeland and it was so pretty. I twas full of different flowers and awesome little statues. It also had this huge lake (maybe why they call it Lakeland 😛 ) that was in the middle of the park. It was a Magikarp nest and I probably got hundreds that weekend. Here are a few pictures from that park.

We ate at this place called Mellow Mushroom on Friday night and that was so good! On Sunday we went to this place called Toojay’s and they had really good food. We also checked out the park again to do some more Pokemon hunting. They had this cute little zen garden type little area and I was totally digging it. It looked so relaxing in there. In the back where all the leaves are is a little waterfall (close up waterfall picture next to it). When I buy my own house one day, I want to recreate this.

On Sunday we also went to this shop called Rocket Fizz and they sold all kinds of old school candy and sodas. I ended up getting a ton of salt water taffy. Did you know that Reese’s came out with new peanut butter cups, but with Reese’s Pieces inside? I FINALLY FOUND THEM! It took going all the way to Lakeland to find them, but I did and they were amazing and everything I hoped they would be. And here is a picture from opening my first chocolate frog. My card was Salazar Slytherin. My sister got Helga Hufflepuff. I still have another chocolate frog to open! I want a Dumbledore card!

I believe that’s all the pictures from my weekend in Lakeland/Orlando. I had so much fun and I am so glad I was able to meet up with my childhood best friend again after so many years. I can’t wait to hangout with her again! I have some other pictures to share with you as well…so here we go!

Craftedvan has this new subscription service called Craftedvan Read Happy Plan and every month for about $10-12 they send you bookmarks! I love their bookmarks, so I wanted to give it a chance. They had just started it and this was the first package. The theme was “sea creatures”. Included was a card that says “just keep swimming reading” and on the back it tells you what’s inside. The bookmarks were sushi, a crab, and an octopus holding a bunch of books. I decided to give next month a try too, because I loved it so much! I also got a wooden “#currentlyreading” bookmark from another shop called Nook & Burrow. I made Harry Potter a birthday hat when it was his birthday last month.

I had that engagement photo shoot and I got some of the pictures back. I’m still waiting on the disc with all the others, but here are a couple of the ones that we got back. These two pictures below are definitely my favorite ones so far.

I went to the beach last night to go Pokemon hunting and I took this picture and I am obsessed with it. It’s my new favorite picture I’ve taken, lol. I also watched the moon rising out of the ocean (obviously not literally out of the ocean, but it looked that way – I wish my iPhone took good pictures, because you couldn’t really tell what it was in pictures). It was the coolest thing ever! The moon was huge and bright.

And last but not least, the furbabies. I also have to post pictures of my furbabies. It’s not a proper picture post without them! October, she discovered the bathtub for the first time. She usually just peeked inside it, but she finally figured out that she can jump inside. Dax, we took him to the dog park while we Pokemon hunted and he was stoked. ColbyJack and I, this was the night I got back from Orlando. I missed him!

That’s all for this post. I hope you enjoy all of my pictures! Feel free to add me on Instagram.

Instagram: heyyitsashley – personal Instagram account
Bookstagram: foreverbookish_ – book Instagram account

Hopefully I can get out of this reading slump and get these books I started read. I hope this weekend I can catch up on reading. If I can finish these books, I’ll have a review up of With Malice and Stealing Snow next week. Crossing my fingers! In case you  missed it, linked below is my post from Harry Potter world with a ton of pictures.

Platform 9 3/4.

I hope you have a great Friday and weekend!