Packing Our Bags! 💼 | Blogmas Day 15

I nearly forgot to post for Blogmas today - my bad! 😅 I've been spending a lot of the late afternoon/evening gathering everything and packing up for the road trip we're taking later this week. I'm finding it's much more challenging to pack for a road trip than it is to pack for a flight. There's just so many variables you need to consider, and especially so because Snowy is coming along! I think we're fairly well prepared, though (hopfully I didn't just jinx it!), and we're looking forward to this adventure as a lil family. Hopefully this Winter Storm Gail won't throw too many wrenches into our plan. Of course the day we plan to leave is the day one of the biggest snow storms we've seen in years decided to show up on our doorstep... 🙄 We're still planning on hitting the road Thursday morning, though. Good thing we're not flying!

My mom makes ornaments every year, and her ornament for 2020 arrived in the mail today! It's an adorable sailboat - colored purple (my fave) - and even has a lil Snowy on the bow! The Snowy came unglued in transit, unfortunately, but we can fix that right up. I love the ornament for this year and love this little tradition that my mom has created! 🎄

Beach Weekends

These last two weekends Brett and I have been soaking up summer like it's our job! I was sick with a migraine on the 4th, so I think we felt a sense of obligation to make up for it these last two weeks. Each weekend has been gorgeously sunny and 80+ degrees so we've taken advantage and made sure that we made time to be out on the water and laying in the sun as much as possible. Needless to say, my summer-loving soul has been very happy.

It started last weekend when we ventured north to visit my parents & pups on the lake. I picked up Brett at his house after work, and we enjoyed the Undisclosed podcast (which studies the same case that Serial covers) on our ride north (already addicted). When we finally got into town we came across the Raymond Town Fair in full-swing, so of course we had to stop for fried dough.

Pretty much all of Saturday and Sunday we were at the beach or on the boat. There were some paddle boards on the beach on Saturday so of course we had to try them out! (So fun!) We got a solid stick-throwing session in with Kiwi, and capped off the evening with a fire in my dad's new fire pit, s'mores, and Not Your Father's Root Beer floats. Absolutely perfect!

After my #SundayRunday of 9 miles (and where I accidentally wound up becoming part of a 10k in the town center... hilarious), we went back to the beach for a few hours to bake in the sun and swim around some more. The weather was unbelievably perfect and I'm still so confused as to why summer isn't EVERYONE'S favorite season. After getting home and showering, Brett and I made our usual pilgrimage to La Festa and chowed down before returning to MA.

*drooooooollllll*

This past weekend was our trip to our friend Ashley's Cape house! We really couldn't have asked for a better weekend for it either. We spent most of the day Friday and Sunday just lounging on our floaties in the water, which was actually bearable for being the Atlantic Ocean! Because I'm a huge wimp to being cold, I was thrilled that I was able to float and swim around all weekend. I brought my GoPro to take some fun pictures and videos, so be sure to check those out below! :) Huge shoutout to Ashley for having us to her house for sunshine, good food, fun times, and great company! <3

We only really have two more weekends before Brett reports for football camp, so we're really trying to pack as much summer as we can into the month of July. This upcoming weekend we're headed back north to hang out with his family in Ossipee, and the week after that we're planning (as of now) on taking a trip all the way up to Maine to see my extended family for our annual family camping trip! I have a few more beach days planned with some friends after Brett's life is taken over by football, and I'll likely be taking at least one more trip home to NH before the school year takes over mine, but for now I'm trying to take full advantage of this extremely relaxing summer!

Lobster. Traffic. Must be the Cape. (25 Before 25 - #9)

Brett and I were invited down to our friend Ashley's Cape house this week! 

We packed up the car and headed down Sunday and got there right around lunch time. Ashley, Andy, Grazia, and Dre were all there just starting their day with some brunch! Grazia made us some delicious coffee drinks and there were snacks everywhere! (I mean, they had a whole candy corner. Talk about dangerous!) It wasn't the best day for weather, but we enjoyed ourselves by watching Rocky I & II on TV, playing Kan Jam in the back yard, eating an awesome BBQ dinner, and indulging in a few board games. 

Monday was another gross weather day, but more friends - Jenny, Gina, and Mike - came to join us! We did more Kan Jamming, more eating, more drinking, and more being merry-ing. There was a dinner of delicious steaks, marinated chicken and roasted vegetables, and amazing trifle dessert. Just thinking of it makes me so hungry!

We finally had a beautiful beach day on Tuesday. I got up before everyone else for a run (and so I can look at all of the gorgeous Cape houses in the area!) and I returned everyone else was just starting to wake up and make breakfast. We were on the road to the beach by 9:45 and parked at our beach base camp at 10:15, just before the crowd started to arrive! The water was so cold, but its was so hot outside so we all sucked it up and went swimming between our beach lounging.

After a solid day at the beach we went back to the house for yet another amazing dinner of Italian sausages, melon and prosciutto, and an incredible summer salad. We played a hilarious game of Cards Against Humanity (I had never played before... I was laughing so hard I was in tears!) and Grazia made us all delicious monkey bread to snack on. If I can say anything about this trip, I'd say we ate like kings!

We had to leave out mini-vacation Wednesday morning as I had to get back to work and reality, but we had a wonderful few days down there and we're looking forward to returning in the future!

Unfortunately, the above photo was the only real picture I took the entire time we were there (#terriblebloggeraward), but I did a bit of vlogging through our trip so be sure to watch the video for a few fun clips!

*This crosses off #9 on my 25 before 25 list - Go on another road trip somewhere. I'm attempting to reach 25 goals before I reach the age of 25! Want to see the whole list? Check it out here!

Breakfast Pizza and Polish Horseshoes

If you have no idea what those words mean, then you probably haven't spent much time here:

Ossipee Lake in Ossipee, NH!

Brett invited me to spend the weekend with him and his family at their camp in Ossipee for the 4th of July. Ossipee is spoken about so highly in his family so I was excited to take the trip with him. We spent a lot of time at Long Sands (this giant sand bar that can only be reached by boat) swimming, drinking, playing, and relaxing, and when we got back to camp at night we made s'mores and I taught everyone to play my favorite card game, Egyptian War! I had such an awesome time with everyone, and I hope that Brett and I can sneak in one more weekend up there before the school year eats up all our free time again!

Escape to New Hampshire

On Wednesday, Brett and I escaped from campus up to my family's house in New Hampshire for a few days. It was great spending time with my parents and dogs, as well as getting some awesome time to just enjoy the outdoors together. Nothing's better than some lake-side therapy!

I-95

A few weeks ago, my good friend Rob and I took a road trip all the way down to South Carolina to visit my sister, the University of South Carolina, and to feel some sunshine on our faces. It took us about 16 hours on 95 South to get all the way to my sister's place where we were staying, but we made it fun by stopping in Philadelphia, Washington DC, and South of the Border on the way down, and even got to visit Noble and my loves from New Jersey on the way back up! 

I took a million and one photos (naturally), so I picked out some of my favorites to share with you!