I’m starting a new series this month called Fan Girl Friday. Each Fri- yay, I’ll be highlighting a blogger that I LOVE to follow. You’ll learn a little bit about them, read one of their posts, and I’ll explain why I chose to highlight them on my blog.

First up? The beautiful, the bold…Rachel VanArsdale (Blog: The Reveler)!

Fan Girl Friday: Rachel VanArsdale ((The Reveler))

Photo Credit: Rachel VanArsdale

How do I know Rachel? She is one of my closest friends. She and I met at a small group through a church we were both attending and shortly after became fast friends.

Photo Credit: Rachel VanArsdale

What’s her blog all about? Rachel and her husband fell in love with travel when they both studied abroad in London, England during college (just dating at that time) and have always wanted to return. As fate would have it, they got married and lived that good old American dream life for a few years, but the itch to return to England was still there. They made their dreams become a reality, packed up their belongings (and put the rest in storage), and are currently in their second year of living abroad in Reading, England. Rachel and Jared travel a ton and every time Rachel posts a new blog, I am immediately distracted from work and have to look at all 400 of her pictures. Take a look at one of her recent posts on Wales and you’ll see why…

Week 19: Wales Glorious Wales

“Before you dive into this post, let me set something straight.Wales is the WORST.

I joke. Wales, is as Barney Stinson would say… legendary. Everywhere you look is beautifulness. Yes, I know that’s not a real word, I apologize to all of my English loving friends. We took our first trip to Northern Wales to visit the Snowdonia National Park over the Valentine’s Day weekend.

Fan Girl Friday: Rachel VanArsdale ((The Reveler))

Being the novices we are, we decided it would be a good idea to climb Snowdon. At least we learned our lesson in Durdle Door and had purchased hiking boots for this trek. We took the Llanberis Path which leads to the Peak of Snowdon Mountain. We were blessed with amazing, unseasonably British sunny weather which let us see for miles and miles as we hiked. If you thought England was wet & foggy, Wales has a worse reputation, so this was a small miracle. It was also the first weekend where we could see signs of Spring coming, despite still having to adorn our winter coats. You’ll recognize me as the big purple marshmallow in the photos. The walk was labeled “moderate” on the Snowdonia site. If you’re a skilled hiker, I would call this walk moderate, but if you’re a newbie like me to mountain climbing, moderate is not very moderate. It was a steep incline, which brought me back to my days running halls at YCS for basketball conditioning. But who can complain when your cardio offers stunning views & entertaining sheep grazing about.”