Well hello everyone!

I guess I took a little 4 month hiatus on this blog; totally unintended, but life happens.

Not a lot of big changes have happened since my last post. Here’s just a few highlights:

Section Hiking the AT in Massachusetts & Vermont

For our second vacation of 2018 (we went on a road trip in August…which I still haven’t blogged about!) it was David’s turn to pick. As I’ve mentioned previously, he’s hoping that we’ll hike the Appalachian Trail some day. Until then, we’ll work on the section hikes. The trip was supposed to take us from North Adams, Massachusetts to Wallingford, Vermont but unfortunately the weather had other plans. We ended up going 22 miles from Sunday to Wednesday. We still had a great time though and made the best of the rainy weather.

Eleanor

Our wonderful daughter is almost 21 months old, and she continues to keep us on our toes and laughing. She’s learned to climb, and loves to get up on the kitchen counters or the dining room table. And since giving her some colored pencils at Christmas, she’s turned our walls into canvases (those have since been apprehended until she learns that paper is the only thing she can draw on). She doesn’t nap every day but she still sleeps through the night. And she’s still a picky eater but we’re just adjusting as we go, making sure that she’s still getting enough calories (even if that means 4 peanut butter sandwiches a day).

Photography

A few Christmas’s ago, my parents gave me a Canon EOS Rebel T5 camera, and most recently I’ve been upgrading my set to include some new lenses. I’ve since purchased a Canon 50mm and a Sigma 10-20mm. I can now photograph close up and far away! Since then, I’ve tried to include myself in the local photography groups, namely the Igers Boston group. I submitted a few photos for one of their auctions in October, and it was actually selected! And it sold at the auction!

Can’t go wrong with Fenway Park! Especially since the Red Sox won the World Series!

I also had the amazing opportunity to explore and photograph at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I had never been so it was an even better experience. (Especially since we were there before the museum opened for the day.)

Those photos above were taken with either my iPhone 6S or my 50mm lens. These next ones I took with my new 10-20mm lens, and I upgraded my editing software to Lightroom.

My next goal is to create a logo for my new photography hobby. I currently post these photos on Instagram under the new handle “photosfromalaina”, as I’m trying to gear more towards better photos and away from day to day life (although I still like to share those things on my stories ). I will continue to use my blog name “Made with Bliss” here, and I hope to get back to blogging more regularly. There’s so much going on that I want to share!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and new year! Any exciting things happening for you this year? The hotel I work for is finally opening in June! If you’re local, hope to see you there!