A Very New England Weekend

As I wrote earlier, my mom and I drove from KC to Groton, Connecticut to bring my brother who recently joined the Navy his car!

The journey took us two full 11 hour days of driving plus one 5 hour day. Our first day we trekked across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and halfway across Ohio. The second day our scenery got beautiful as we rolled across Pennsylvania. Finally on day three we drove across NY state and made it to the coast of Connecticut.

the pretty coast

lighthouse from the 1800's!

love the sight of sailboats!

Enjoying the rain at a clam shack

For 2.5 days we meandered around Groton, Mystic, New London, Stonington, and a few other sea side Connecticut towns.

A crazy coincidence is that one of our ancestors is from this area and their house is still there and is now an historic site! My grandmother sent us with a family tree so we could show our tour guide that the man that built the house (Ebinezer Avery) was our great grandfather 16 generations back! The tour guide was also a descendant of  Ebinezer and was thrilled that we came.

The Avery House

Mom, my brother and Me

Kitchen in the Avery House

Pretty old fireplace

My brother and I love history and New England is full of old historic building and museums. I also love being near the ocean and loved being so close to it everyday seeing boats coming and going throughout the day.

Avery Lighthouse

 Another amazing part of being in New England was the food! My favorite meal that I ate a few times was a New England Lobster Roll. My other favorites were crab cakes and fish and chips.

Crab sandwich, Lobster Sandwich, Clam Cakes, Crab Cakes, & Lobster Deviled Eggs!

To end our journey, my mom and I rode Amtrak from New London to Boston to catch our flight home. I loved traveling by train. It was calm, no security like the airport, easy and fast!

View of Boston from the water

 It is so crazy to think busy NYC is just a couple of hours away from the cute little harbor towns we explored in Connecticut.

I loved getting to spend lots of time with my mom and brother during our trip! I also love New England and hope to go back again soon! 

Jewelry Swap Link-up!

What a fun idea this jewelry swap was! I got this cute necklace with matching earrings-

Thanks to Leslie for my jewelry!

I'm heading back from New England, see you tomorrow and I'll tell you all about it!

I think there may be a second jewelry swap coming up soon if you missed this one or want to do it again, click the button below for all the info!

Road Tripping!

I'm currently roadtripping with my mom to Connecticut. We left Wednesday morning from Kansas city with two donuts each, and saw all the corn in America. We ended the day in Columbus, Ohio 11 hours later.

This morning we headed east, I thought we were about to cross the state line into Pennsylvania but the sign said "Welcome to West Virginia". I thought I'd taken us off in the wrong direction, I had no idea West Virginia was up there! Soon we made it across the West Virginia Panhandle and made it into Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is beautiful by the way, I love it! We saw lots of Amish people today in their buggies. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to pass them in my car but eventually I did as friendly as possible.

Late in the afternoon it started raining like crayyyyyzyy and still hasn't stopped. All these roads started closing right in front of us and I was wondering why a rain storm was such a big deal.

For dinner mom and I split a meal because it was a little too much food for one person in my opinion, the plate came with 4 pieces of fried chicken and 3 sides all for $10, geez.

We have about 5.5 hours to go before we reach our destination which is Groton, CT! I'll be back Monday with an overview of our trip! Have a fantastic weekend!

Christmas in July Goodies Link-up!

Thanks Alana for my Christmas in July gifts! This gift exchange was really fun because I was able to make a new blog friend! (and get some cute stuff too:)

Here's what I got-

Fun nail polish, a 3 set of cute earrings, and a cute beaded bracelet!

Glad I joined in on this fun gift swap!

Today I'm on the road with my mom, we're road-tripping to Connecticut from KC so it will take 2.5 days.

I hope you have a lovely Wednesday!

The Only Problem With Chacos...

The only problem I've had with my Chacos is that they are the only shoes I want to wear! So, really there is no problem with them:) Unfortunately, if all I wear are Chacos I look like a college kid/camp counselor but, I'm cool with that because these babies are so comfortable. My feet feel great in my Chacos and long for them when I wear other shoes.

Some other tid bits for you on this Tuesday-

Have you tried the Paleo Diet? I've been reading about it on blogs and I'm really intrigued. I'm thinking about trying it out, I think I would really struggle with cutting out all added sugar and dairy but the rest of the diet looks kind of awesome.

I've also been reading on blogs lately about people using apple cider vinegar as their toner. I've tried it for 2 days now and will give it another week before I decide what I think. I will say it smells super strong but fades quickly.
 
I got 3 really stupid tickets from the Chicago Toll people in the mail, apparently I ran through 3 tolls while in Chicago and now I owe them $65. I reluctantly mailed my payment on Saturday, so annoying!

I just finished Elizabeth The Queen today. This was a great biography on the Queen! I learned that she is a tough outdoorsy lady that is pretty brave, she was shot at during a parade but still finished the parade on her horse showing that she wasn't afraid. A crazy man also snuck into her bedroom at the palace one morning and she sat and talked with him for an hour about his problems without screaming for help. She's also had the same hairstyle her whole life! If you are at all interested in the monarchy read this book! It takes you through Elizabeth's childhood all the way to William and Kate's wedding.

I hope you have a fantastic day today!

It's Ok Thursday!

Linking up for the first time with It's Ok Thursday!

It's ok that all i've blogged about this week is our Kitchen renovation. That's all I've thought about so that's all I've got to talk about!

It's ok that I've eaten like a hoodlum this week because we don't have a kitchen so I eat out every meal (pizza 4 times, chickfila, Taco Bell, custard, chips, lots of unhealthy junk). My body is so not liking my choices and I'm ready to eat healthy again (I had some veggies at lunch, progress!)

It's ok that I sat about 5 inches from my fan all day at work today because the A/C broke and it was 90 degrees in my office!

It's ok that I text pictures of kittens to my husband even though he isn't as amused by it as I am.

It's totally ok that tomorrow is Friday, woohoo for the weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Oh Happy Friday!

Dear rainy Friday, I love waking up to rain, especially since we haven't had much this summer!

Dear Carrots from my garden, you are so awesome, carrots may be my favorite thing I've grown this year!

Dear Church Rummage Sale, wow, so much fantastic junk! I bought a new $15 microwave for the Airstream and a $3 sewing machine because it was $3.

Dear fat night, this week I fried catfish, hushpuppies, and french fries. It tasted great but I felt nasty after eating all of that!

Dear Weekend, great to see you again and hopefully you'll be a great one!

Have a happy Friday and a great weekend everybody! 

Liebster Award!

Thank you to Jeni from Two Shades of Lovely for this awesome award! Jeni has a beautiful blog and a shop full of cute things!

What is this Liebster Award?
"The Liebster award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome."- Adrian (Adrian Loves Owls)

The Rules:
- Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
- Answer the questions that the tagger set for you PLUS create 11 questions for the people you've tagged to answer.
- Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
- Go to their page and tell them.
*No tag backs!*

11 Things About Me

1. Being on the water (the ocean, a river, or a lake) is my favorite place in the world

2. My husband and I own an Airstream!

3. In college I tried out for the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and was in a few shots on the CMT show, Making the Team!

4. My husband and I like to watch Wheel of Fortune every evening while eating dinner.

5. I've been to Africa, Peru, Paris, Italy, and England

6. I'd like to run a B&B someday

7. My husband and I have known each other our whole lives but didn't start dating until college!

8. I have a twin brother

9. I love cats

10. I've never had a cavity

11. I eat chocolate in some form everyday

Jeni's 11 Questions

1. If you could vacation anywhere, where would be it?
I would take a sailboat tour of the South Pacific!
2. What is one of your family traditions?
Christmas Eve! We always eat a big dinner then go to the candelight church service and then have dessert and open some presents after.
3. What was the best concert you've ever been to?
Dolly Parton! She is amazing
4. What skill do you wish to learn?
I want to be able to play the piano
5. What is (or who) can always cheer you up?
Matt, my husband
6. How did you meet your best friend?
At church!
7. When did you start your blog, and why?
about a year and a half ago because I loved reading blogs and wanted to join in the fun.
8. What is one goal that you want to achieve by the end of 2012?
Renovate our kitchen.
9. If you could go back and tell the high school you one thing, what would it be?
Become a doctor! 
10. Backstreet Boys or Nsync?
Nsync! I never bought the Backstreet Boys CD.
11. What are you most proud of?
Probably all the work we've accomplished on our house so far!

Questions for You!

 1. What is your dream job?
2.Which Olympic sport would you like to compete in if you could?
3. What does your dream house look like?
4. What food would you not want to live without?
5. What skill do you wish you had?
6. What is your favorite city you've ever been to?
7. If you could go back in time, what decade would you go to?
8. Water ski or snow ski?
9. If you could get a free pedicure or  massage every week for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
10. Favorite childhood tv show?
11. What is your dream car?

My Nominees are-
Anna at Owls and Lace
Brook at Cutsie Bootsy 
Frances at Keynotes 
Bethany at Laugh. Dance. Create. 
Emily at SweetBellaRoos
Heather at Keeping Up With The Giffords 
Baylee at The Day I Stopped Making Cents
Kaylin at Stay Blonde Ski Local
Abbey at Finding My Forever
Melanie at Metropolitan Money Pit
Jen at Boys will be Boys
 

What I'm Learning From My Backyard Garden

Tuesday Night's Harvest

I'm learning that squash and peas are easy to grow in our garden and have been super successful. I think this is our 5th squash from one plant this summer.

Bell Pepper Turning Red

 Bell peppers are great but they are tough to get all the way from green to red without something happening to them. As you can see this one is turning red, I hope it makes it and we get to eat it!

Carrots!

The seed packet said to thin out my carrots meaning, I needed to pick the carrot plants when they were young to space them out so they wouldn't get too crowded as they grew, but, I couldn't bring myself to pull up any of my little living plants but, now I see what happens when you don't thin out your plants, some get big and crowd out the little guys so they can't get very big.

The tomato plants have little green tomatoes growing! I started these plants from seed and they are just now producing, I hope I get lots of tomatoes for the rest of the summer, we'll see.

I've learned that not everything you plant will be a success! I planted a whole bunch of these Caladiums to fill this whole bed, but only one came up, and it came up just last week!

I've also learned that gardening is fun and rewarding, I love it!

Matt and I went to Sonic for 1/2 price shakes last night, mmmm good. I only got the mini because I already had ice cream earlier in the day, it's ok to eat ice cream twice on a summer day.

Happy Wednesday, I hope you have a great day!

Coconut Oil as Face Moisturizer

Something  I've been doing for a month now is, I've replaced my face moisturizer with virgin coconut oil. I know it sounds crazyyyy but, it's working really well with my acne prone and sensitive skin, seriously! I've been using PCA skin moisturizers for a couple years and it's just a little more expensive than I'd like.

I read that you can use coconut oil on your face and was really skeptical and thought it would cause all kinds of problems for my skin but, I tried it anyway. After a month of using it, I'm happy with it and will keep using it! Using coconut oil as my nightly moisturizer does a good job of keeping my skin balanced and feeling/looking plenty moisturized, it hasn't caused my skin to breakout and its hasn't clogged my pores.

Since it is oil your face will be oily when you put it on but is soaks in after about 30 minutes. I apply it right before I get in bed so I'm not all oily all evening. Also, I apply it after I wash my face! You have to wash your face every night! This is the moisturizer I use after I wash with my Basis face wash on my Clarisonic Mia and then use Neutragina Toner. If you just put coconut oil on your face and don't wash it you will absolutely get breakouts.

I wouldn't use this as a daytime moisturizer because again it is shiny and oily on your skin. I use this sunscreen in the morning which moisturizes my skin plenty.

I bought my Coconut Oil at Trader Joe's. A big ol jar for about $6 that will probably last me several months! That's a cheap face moisturizer and it smells great!

Something else coconut has done for me lately is helped me replace Coca Cola (I love it so much) with sparkling water mixed with a little coconut water. I'm not saying it tastes like Coke (because duh, it doesn't) but, it gives me something sweet and carbonated which is really the best parts of Coke to me. This little concoction over ice is great and helps me not need a coke, its calorie free and there's no artificial sweeteners (which I refuse to drink/eat b/c I think they taste horrible and they are bad for you).

Yay for coconut products! I feel like coconut is so popular right now! Would you ever try Coconut Oil on your face?

I Went Shopping This Weekend

So, I got to go to my favorite store this weekend, Cargo Largo! It's in Independence, MO so, if you are ever near there you need to go to this place. It is a totally random store with all kinds of things from all kinds of stores that look like they fell off the delivery truck and this store sells it for way discounted prices! (Most things are in perfect condition, some things have a little bit wrong with them).

This weekend, I got a pair of Chaco Yampa Sandals for $35! I've been wearing them non-stop. I'm very proud of them.

Next, we found a nice faucet for our bathroom to replace the old one that never quite worked right (the handle was really hard to turn) for $15.

Lastly, we found a queen size memory foam mattress for $150 that we will use as our bed in the Airstream! The mattress came from QVC, why it ended up at Cargo Largo I'm not sure.

Sorry for bragging about these deals I found but I was pumped about them!

Besides shopping, Matt and I polished the Airstream some more, took naps (glorious!), I read, did laundry, and it rained for the first time in weeks which helped cool things off!

I also made 1 minute chocolate cake, it is not too bad for you and tastes amazing! I was having a sweet tooth attack Sunday night so, I went over to this amazing blog for something to satisfy my needs! It totally did the trick.

This weekend felt long which is always good. Now for another week, do you have anything exciting coming up? Have a good Monday, I can't wait to watch the Bachelorette Monday night! 

Safely Rolling on New Tires and Wheels

Our Luxe Land Yacht is in need of new shoes... tires and wheels to be exact!  The Cooper tires that came with our Sovereign are cracked and showed some real aging.  I could not see us ever making a trip on those tires, so it's out with the old and in with the new.

Arriving via UPS from eBay we picked up the BF Goodrich Commercial T/A tires.  The tires were $170 each, not cheap, but they are load rated "E", have great reviews on airforums.com, and should fit in the wheel wells.  They were delivered by UPS right to our door.  We are upgrading from 15" to 16" tires, just so that we could get into that next echelon of tire quality and selection.  I expect to get 5-6 good years out of these tires.

To complement our new rubber, I searched for aluminum 16" wheels and stumbled upon Tredit.com which just happens to have one of their 7 locations a mile from my office. Very helpful staff pointed me to the wheel I was looking for - the TR4 Mod 16" aluminum wheel. This wheel was designed to compete with Alcoa's wheels at a fraction of the price. Again Airforums.com confirmed that the wheels are up to par, so I will be having the new BF Goodrich tires installed on these rims this week.

I expect the new tire/wheel combo to look like this-

Much better looking (and safer I hope) than our current setup.

Friday's Letters!

Chillin on the River over the weekend, I want to go back!

Dear short week, you should come around EVERY week!

Dear Kale Chips, you were pretty good, I think I'll make you again sometime.

Dear Hubby, I love how you ordered tires online and they were waiting in the driveway when I got home, I just find that funny.

Dear fun bloggy parties, I sent out two packages of goodies yesterday! I hope the girls receiving them like their fun surprises!

Dear mid-day pedicure, what a fantastic way to spend my lunch hour! I must do this again sometime:)

Have a happy Friday! And a wonderful weekend!