I got a new design… and a NEW NAME. Jigga WHAT?!! Yup, it’s time for an overhaul and in an effort to keep my life entertaining I have revamped the whole blog. But I couldn’t have done it without the brain support of some very awesome ladies. Oh yeah, and my brother.

So for starters, I have been feeling some frustrations. Let’s start with my camera, a nice new (barely touched) Nikon D3000. Not the biggest kid on the playground but certainly capable of doing some serious work. Except that would require knowledge and somehow every time I picked up the dang thing it was like beginning at square one all over again. Cue my brother, the 18-year-old “I’m not a” professional photographer. He works for a wedding photography company by day and rocks out on the DC rave scene at night. For all his awesome photography find @bunnyboipro on instagram.

Geoff flew down for the weekend and following him around for just a few days did wonders for me and my camera. We’re finally friends – the camera and me that is. I can’t wait to collaborate with Geoff on a blog post so you can have all the tips he shared with me. Now that I’m comfortable shooting in manual mode I feel like I can get the shots I want… Atleast half the time. I mean, it’s a work in progress over here. Now with the images in place I feel I can create more (and better) content.

Part of my 24 for 24 list was to #6 get back to blogging. So I looked around the web, got some inspiration and wrote down a plan. Then it all clicked for me. I started hanging out on Codecademy and realized (SURPRISE!)… this is #2 learn a language!! So here you have it. Instead of taking the quick and easy buy a theme sort of route, I challenged myself to make my own template (of course). As you can imagine, many more frustrations. But I really believe Google has an answer for everything and with the help of a bunch of sites I created this new look.

I’m so excited to be well on my way to crossing off two more items from my 24 for 24 list AND I have some exciting things to show for it.

As for the name, I was trying to explain to Yuko what I want to offer as a blogger. I was using a thousand words to describe my crazy organizational freak habits and how I wish I could just plan vacations all day long and somehow in the jumble the combination together traveler fell out of my mouth. We literally had this ooh and aah moment and then she started branding the name at a hundred miles a minute. Something has to be said here for support. Seeing someone else get excited on my behalf really gave me the push to make it happen and after that the name felt right.

Hopefully you like the new look and maybe even dig the new name too. Take a look around and let me know what you think because I’d love to hear your thoughts!!

Now for the visit with my brother. We spent the weekend working and playing at BUKU fest but Sunday we had to ourselves. We started off the morning with a big breakfast at home and then headed to the Fly while it was nice and warm outside.

This is the perfect spot to just lay around with a stunning view of the Mississippi river.

When the breeze picked up we decided to move on and headed for the quarter. We walked down Decatur all the way to the French Market. Along the way we stopped in Peaches record store, H&M (of course I couldn’t resist), Cafe Du Monde and Jackson Square.

This lady behind Cafe Du Monde is my dad’s favorite. He snapped a picture with her when he was in town to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina and took me to find her again when he helped me move in. I have been posing with her each time I pass by ever since he introduced us.

It was a beautiful day and I’m glad we got to spend it outdoors exploring the most popular spots in town. Alas, my brother flew off into the sunset again (it was actually, quite literally the sunrise) but I think it was a pretty fun weekend.

*All the images featured in the post are the awesome work of my brother as you might have noticed.. hold tight for some of my new and improved work 🙂