Exploring Middlesex Fells Reservation

Over the last few weeks, the Boston area has really started to feel like Spring is springinnnn'. More and more, we're getting beautiful days with clear blue skies that absolutely demand my presence outdoors.

I've got to be honest, coming from all of the natural splendor of Vancouver back to Massachusetts last summer was not the biggest upgrade, scenery-wise. I needed a reminder about how nice it can be to head out into the woods on a sunny spring day in New England. Hence, my recent maiden trip into Middlesex Fells Reservation - a 2,200+ acre park just north of Boston full of trails suitable for hiking, biking, horseback riding, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and general outdoor merriment.

The Fells, as it's locally known, is one of the "right in my own backyard" points of interest that I'd been meaning to explore, with some of the trailheads as close as a 10-minute drive away. On this particular Sunday in late March, I randomly chose as my starting point the Sheepfold Meadow - a 10-acre field that's actually used primarily as an off-leash haven for dogs of all sizes (and their fleshy parents).

The Sheepfold is located in the town of Stoneham, along the southwest edge of Spot Pond...

... and it's funny that I ended up there, since I'm not - how you say? - into dogs, so much. (Please see point #33 on this blog if you have anything sassy to say about that.) But if you head away from the meadow and into the woods, you can leave most of the dogs behind and catch up with a number of trails.

Walking north from the meadow, I followed no particular trail - just kept my wits about me and remembered which direction I was walking.


The woods were quiet, aside from the occasional dog barking in the distance. There was still snow covering most of the ground, but patches of forest floor were starting to fight through in some spots.

The blue sky was the big star of the day... I spent a good amount of time looking up.

I followed my random trail for a little while before turning around and heading back in the direction I came. (I wasn't familiar enough with the trail network to be attempting to create trail loops for myself off the cuff.) Fortunately, on the way back to my car I noticed there were some trail maps available beside the parking lot, so I grabbed one for the next time.

There are sooo many trails in Middlesex Fells Reservation that I'm finna grab a friend or two and go back there soon to do some more exploring - especially with all these nice days we're finally seeing.

Speaking of nice days... this week I've been packing/prepping for Panama, which accounts for some of the quietness on my blog. I don't expect to post anything while I'm away, soooo if aka Bailey goes utterly silent, just take it as an indication of the good times I'm having down in Central America. I'll probably still be checking in on Instagram or Twitter, if you want to come say hi to me there!

But don't miss me yet, because there'll still be a nail polish post coming on Friday, inspired by a shirt/nails/lipstick combination that I saw in this Ingrid Nilsen YouTube video!

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Back to Da Beach, Boy!

Remember when I posted some pictures of a wintery Revere Beach back in February? Well those pictures were taken just before the Juno blizzard, and we've gotten feet upon feet of snow since then, so it seemed high tide time to head back out to the coast to see how the beach was looking these days.

The last time I was at the beach, the snow had freshly fallen and the entire beach was unsullied. Things weren't quite as pristine this time, since the waves of the many winter storms have battered the sand back over the last month or so...

A plane flew pretty low overhead as I walked along the water's edge...

The line from the tide was marked with a broken wall of sandy ice that stretched along the whole beach...

 And oh, look, there's me!

 As I walked back to my car, I stopped at the seawall to peer through a snow bank back at the beach:

Eventually I suppose I'll make it to Revere Beach when it's not covered in snow. And that day might be sooner than you'd think, since we've been hit with a "warm" week and the snow is finally starting to melt. And by "warm week" I mean that we're into the 40's now, so break out the flip flops, Massachusetts!!

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Where Surf Meets Snow: Revere Beach in the Winter

A beach under a layer of winter snow is probably not something that you see very often. Maybe you don't live near a beach... Maybe you don't live where it snows... Maybe you live near a beach in a place where it does snow... but never thought to take a venture down to the water's edge during a snowstorm to check it out.

Well I have, and it's pretty cool. 

Revere Beach is a short enough drive from my apartment that it's straight up silly that I haven't been there yet. To remedy this, I decided a couple of weekends ago to head there with my camera to take some pictures and see what the shore is like.

I awoke that Saturday morning to heavily falling snow, but rather than letting that deter me from my plans, I just became even more excited to photograph the wintery beach.

I drove straight out to the coast, then headed north alongside the beach on Revere Beach Boulevard, where I eventually pulled over to the side of the road and parked. Battling the fierce wind and whipping snow, I climbed over the seawall and trudged through the snow to the shore.

The line where the surf meets the snow always makes for terrific pictures, if you ask me. And the higher the snow level, the cooler it looks. (At the end of this blog, there's a 2010 photo of a beach on Cape Cod, with about 2-feet of snow at the shoreline!)

Not surprisingly, I was the only one on the beach that day... except for these three beach bums:

This guy.

When David and I lived in Cape Cod, back in 2009-2011, we lived within walking distance of Falmouth Heights Beach. Here it is under 2 feet of snow, which proves my point about wintery beaches looking even cooler when the snow is higher:

.  don't mind the blurry photo quality; digital cameras have improved tremendously since 2010  .

Have you ever seen a snowy beach?

Want to come build a snowman family on the beach with me?

Let's go! Bring your green hat!

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Children of the Corn Maze & Other Amherst Adventures

This past weekend I took a spontaneous day-trip to Amherst with my friends Kara and Kyle for some reminiscing about our college days at UMass Amherst. October is such a perfect time to be in that part of Massachusetts, and I'd personally been craving a Pioneer Valley trip the entire month thus far, so it was just the thing to lift my spirits.

When I think of Amherst in the fall, I think of beautiful foliage splashed across the hills surrounding the valley, pumpkin patches, farm stands, corn mazes, haunted hayrides, apple cider, and the UMass campus teeming with students wearing North Face jackets, UMass gear and Ugg boots. Since Kara, Kyle and I were only going to be there for the morning/afternoon, we couldn't pack all of those pleasures into this one trip, but we picked a nice selection of Amherst-area activities and gave it our all.

We made it to the Valley by around 10am, and after swinging through Northampton for some coffee, we made a bee-line for Mike's Maze in Sunderland - a local corn maze and farm stand that I'd been to once before with David some years ago. And what a gorgeous day to do a corn maze!

And looking north, here was the gorgeous view of Mount Sugarloaf from Mike's Maze:

Sidebar, Mount Sugarloaf is also a great attraction on a fall day if you're in the Pioneer Valley. It's a short hike with lovely views of the Connecticut River and the surrounding hills.

While I'm sure all corn mazes are different, Mike's Maze does a different maze design every year and also incorporates a whole game/challenge into the maze. This year's maze design was a raven, and you can (and should) check out the bird's eye view of it here. The game aspect involved a bit of animal trivia and some drawing, and while that part was obviously mostly for the kids, we still got into it pretty unabashedly that morning. Here's an intense shot of Kara completing one of the drawing challenges, while Kyle makes sure she doesn't go over the allotted 30-second timeframe to do so.

What a nice day to be lost in a corn maze...

After we found our way out of the maze, we were each rewarded with a free sugar pumpkin to take home. Did you even know there was such a thing as a "sugar pumpkin"? Apparently that's what the smaller pumpkins are called - and they actually have differently textured flesh that makes them better for baking with than larger pumpkins. Now you know. 

From Sunderland, we drove into Amherst and through the middle of the UMass campus as we made our way towards the town center for lunch. If you are a UMass alum, you don't need me to tell you where we went for lunch that day. You already know. For everyone else, our lunch stop of choice was Bueno Y Sano - aka the best Mexican restaurant in the entire world. Yep, even better than the ones in Mexico probably. But seriously, Bueno is famous in Amherst (and beyond) for its in-cred-i-ble burritos, tacos and quesadillas. Most people go for the burritos but I'm more of a chicken soft taco girl myself. I ordered two of them while Kara and Kyle each nommed on different types of burritos. Everyone was more than satisfied with their choices - and it was SO good to eat at Bueno again after my 3 or 4 year hiatus.

We followed up lunch with a stop off at a local watering hole - McMurphy's. It was definitely one of the most popular bars in town when we were students, and it's one of the few that has remained relatively unchanged in the years since we graduated. Many of the other bars have changed owners or been renovated or moved completely to new premises in the last 7 years.

Same goes for UMass itself! An impressive number of new buildings have gone up all over the campus. Guess that's what they did with all of our tuition money haha! Has anyone else gone back to their college campus and been like, "Whaaa? Where'd all this new shit come from??"

We took a stroll through campus and checked out our Student Union and Campus Center while we were there. Again - things changing left and right. There are some really fancy new common areas and dining facilities inside of those buildings that have the whole place looking like something from THE FUTURE. Kids these days. They're growing up spoiled! (Shakes fist at young'ns.)

The proper way to conclude our Amherst trip was to drive past a few of our favorite college apartments of yore (#RUSSELLST, #TRIANGLEST, #EASTST, #BESTYEARSOFOURLIVES) for some ceremonial sighs and memory-lane'ing, and then stop into Hadley's The Donut Man for some treats on our way out of town. I was thrilled to see that Donut Man still sells my much-beloved Frozen Hot Chocolate drink - which is just effing out of this world, guys. Tastes EXACTLY like a delicious Swiss Miss hot chocolate, except it's a frozen, ice-blended version. Mmm... I'd like one right now, in fact.

All in all, I'd say this day-trip to the Valley was a roaring success. And, as Kyle keenly pointed out, having had such a lovely time in such a short amount of time (a span of just about 4 or 5 hours, not including the drive) will hopefully encourage us to head to Amherst more often in the future. In other words, students of UMass... see us in a bit.

When was the last time you headed back to your college? Leave a note in the comments and let me know where you went to school! I'm curious :)

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Ye Olde Moving Day

Yesterday was sorrrrrt of a rough day for me. I ended up moving into my apartment on Sunday instead of Saturday, thanks to a slight delay in the arrival of my belongings in Massachusetts from Seattle. Once my stuff arrived and my father and I packed it all into his truck/trailer in Western Mass, it was a completely law-abiding pace the entire drive east to the Boston-area. One can never drive too carefully when there's a demi-precarious trailer full of my entire life bouncing around behind one's truck.

Once in Medford, my rock star of a father helped me move everything as only dads can, while my new roommate and her boyfriend both also earn co-MVPs for helping me move in ALL of my things without my even asking them to!! Seriously, so nice of them.

The big hiccup in the move-in was when several tenants in the apartment building took turns yelling (no, really, yelling) at me because apparently a) one of the two elevators was broken that day, and b) there is a rule against moving in on Sundays. Of course, if I'd known that, we certainly wouldn't have been bogarting the sole elevator for 20 minutes or moving in that day - I'm not an asshole, as you guys hopefully have picked up on - but they were livid. LIV-ID. No amount of my apologizing calmed them. In fact, we've even been promised a fine for our misdeeds. So... Welcome to the building, Bail! Ugh. Apparently there are a lot of rules in this apartment building that I need to study.

... But the reason that I think everyone is so serious around here is because this building is pretty freaking nice. There's a gorgeous lobby, a community party room that can be rented out by tenants, a pool, and even a little gym. My apartment unit has a balcony, a washer/dryer, hardwood floors in the main area, and I even get my own bathroom. (Oh, and the apt also comes with a seemingly very nice roommate with an equally kind boyfriend.)

After my dad left (which, I was told later, he did NOT want to do), I spent the rest of the evening opening boxes and slowly putting things away. Between the symbolic (dramatic) drive east to Boston, getting yelled at by strangers, and unpacking alone in a room that's now just my bedroom... not gonna lie, I cried more than a few times. In fact, for most of the day I was feeling like little more than a helpless, emotional clusterfuck.

But as the hours went by and my belongings became less and less scattered around the room, breathing became a little bit easier. I started to notice how rather pleasant the steady rush of traffic sounded, down in front of my building on the parkway. Then as it became darker outside and I readied myself for bed, I could hear crickets begin to chirp from the nearby river banks.

It wasn't the most brilliant series of pleasant thoughts of all time or anything... but they helped me end the night with a little more peace of mind than I'd had all day.

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Big Changes on the Horizon

So I've been totally putting off writing this blog post for as long as possible because... well because honestly it sucks and I'm still having a pretty rough time digesting it myself. Nevertheless, it needs to be addressed, and that's got to happen sometime. I'll try doing it now.

Earlier this summer, Dave made the decision to end our relationship of nearly 7 years. I'm not going to go into the details of it all because I'm not a teenager and this is not a diary, but one of the most important things to know is that we have been best friends for a long time now - and that hasn't changed. Not yet, anyway. I'm heartbroken, but I'm not angry. Well. Maybe a tiny bit angry. But I imagine that just makes me more of a human than a robot.

With that massive "uncoupling" news in an itty bitty nutshell, there are going to be some big changes coming up for my life in the coming weeks.

Those changes will start with a cross-country move back to Massachusetts, which means - among many other things - a new home for me. For this, I took to Craigslist to look through the listings of Boston's many suburbs for a suitable apartment in which to embark on my new life path.

I've never lived alone before, but it was a pretty serious consideration for me for my "next step." I always thought I'd live alone at some point in my life, and there have been times over the last decade or so that a small wave of disappointment has washed over me upon realizing this had never come to fruition. Unfortunately, as my search for a Boston-based apartment escalated, it became clear to me that I could only afford to live alone if it was in a relatively crappy apartment or neighborhood, or somewhere so far outside Boston that it would be difficult for me to get into the city.

After some re-structuring of my expectations, my search began to include apartments with potential roommates - roommates I would not know, roommates who I would not meet in person before moving in, since my apartment search was happening from Vancouver. Luckily, I have some of the best friends in the entire world, and my friend Kara (who lives in Cambridge, MA) offered to check out any apartments/roommates in person for me. (By the way, it's become clear to me over the last month that there is no shame in asking for help from people right now.)

Eventually I found an apartment listing that was in my price range, looked big and clean, and had a great location a short walk from a T station (the Boston subway system) and a small reservation land. The apartment building also boasted a pool and a gym, and the young woman living in the apartment (my future roommate) is a professional who certainly seemed nice and polite when we Facetimed as Kara checked out the apartment.

Long story short - I'm moving in to my new Medford apartment this weekend with my new roommate Helen.

Today is actually my last day in Vancouver - a city which, as you've likely noticed, has won me over completely over the last 22 months. This is my favorite place that I've ever lived, and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to call it my home. The stunning mountain views, endless hiking opportunities, palm trees, beaches, English Bay, bald eagles (my goodness, all the eagles!), restaurants, shopping, huge ships, gorgeous flowers, enormous trees, friendly and inspiring blogging community... I have to keep reminding myself that this was all going to end soon anyway. Our permits for being allowed to live in Canada were to expire at the end of December 2014 when Dave's schooling is to end. But obviously, this isn't the way I'd prefer to be leaving.  

Nevertheless, it's happening. We drove a car-load of my belongings down to Seattle this weekend to send them off to Massachusetts via Amtrak... now I just have to send myself. And there's a one-way ticket with my name on it for a red-eye flight tonight.

So. That's the big news with me and my life right now. Huge and somewhat abrupt life changes like this are never easy, so I'm giving myself permission to say without shame that it mostly sucks. It's going to be excruciating to no longer see David everyday and to let go of all the hopes/plans/expectations I had for the two of us... but I have to believe it will become easier with time. Wish me luck and please forgive any lapses in posting over the next couple of weeks as my life in Massachusetts begins to fall into place. Look forward to pictures and stories from a new city here on my blog.

And now..... just so you know I'm still "me" even though my heart is broken and I'm feeling terrified, here is a nice caps lock hashtag from The Bright Side:  #DUNKINDONUTSHEREICOOOOOOOME!!!!!!!!!!

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A Massive Massachusetts Recap!

I thought a run-down of my recent time in Massachusetts would be good for me - to both relive the memories as well as share some pictures with you all!

After the planes, trains and automobiles I had to take to get to the east coast, I finally arrived at my sister Mallory's house in Pittsfield on Saturday June 7, where I immediately found my niece and nephew playing in their driveway while their dad (my brother-in-law) Doug tinkered away on a new "toy" in the garage. Doug is constantly finding/buying/fixing up toys like 4-wheelers, John Deere Gators (more on that later), and - his newest project - a Pennsylvania Panzer. The kids love it... and so does Doug.

We spent that afternoon playing outside - it was a gorgeous day with sunshine and hot temperatures. That evening after the kids were asleep, Mallory invited some of her friends over and we played some cards and drinking games out on their deck. And by "played drinking games" I mean that I nursed a single Twisted Tea drink for about 3 hours while playing Asshole (that's how I roll).

One exciting surprise that was waiting for me in Pittsfield was my good friend Sarah (who you may remember came to visit me in Vancouver earlier this year!). Sarah currently lives in Missoula, MT where she attends school for physical therapy, so imagine my surprise and delight when we realized that we were both in western Mass at the same time! She promptly invited me over to her mother's house for a potluck dinner with some other excellent ladies. It was a delicious and fun evening with good food and wine - and especially nice because of how unexpected it was.

The first Thursday of my visit was a special day because my nephew Cohen was graduating from his pre-Kindergarden program. Living on opposite coasts means I typically miss out on things like this, but it was timed perfectly with my visit :)  The group of 4- and 5-year-olds sang us a few songs before receiving their end-of-the-year binder full of all of their pictures and projects from the year. Cohen is getting so bigggg!

Showing off his end-of-the-year notebook:

Tierney found the toys in the classroom and got right to work playing with them all in the corner:

The next day (Friday June 13) I headed across the state from Pittsfield to Boston in a brand new Chevy Cruze rental car.

My friend Kim would be getting married the following day in Lincoln, MA (at the beautiful Codman Estate), so my plan was to turn the whole weekend into an Eastern-Mass friend-fest. That Friday night, I caught up with my faaaabulous friend Kara at her Cambridge apartment before we headed out for a night of bowling with our friends J-rod, Derek and Adam. I was way, WAY worse at bowling than is reasonably excusable (I bowled a 48 my first game and a 69 my second game), but it was sooooo muchhhhh funnnn. Why on earth don't I go bowling more often?? I could OBVIOUSLY use the practice.

The next day I made my way to my friend Steph's new condo in Canton, MA to get ready for the wedding that evening. Getting dolled up with friends is way more fun than getting dolled up alone. I wore a colorful tie-dye/floral inspired dress...

.  definitely a picture from last year  .
.  look how sassy my bent leg is  .

... with the pair of white wedges that I showed you guys in this blog. Accessorizing such a colorful dress was a blast. With pink, purple, mint, green, yellow, violet, and navy all represented in the dress itself, color options for accessories were pretty much endless. I went with a purple and aqua-inspired theme, with a navy/rhinestone bracelet (a recent Salvation Army find), mint-rhinestone silver Forever21 earrings, and a slim mint-turquoise stretchy Forever21 bangle that I've had for years.

I also wore a dainty little ampersand ring from Forever21.

I found that beautifully violet-hued, dazzling blue clutch at American Apparel back in May. I own a wallet in the same color, but I needed a clutch to fit a camera/phone/etc for the wedding. It took me an afternoon of scouring every store along 4th Avenue before deciding upon this one.  My nail polishes were Luminous Tulips by Sally Hansen (on my fingernails) and Endless Blue by Sinful Colors (on my toes).  Endless Blue is a gorgeous bright blue that looks amazing against white sandals, by the way. I borrowed that polish from Mallory, but Sally Hansen's Pacific Blue (shown above) is a close dupe. For perfume, I only packed one option for my trip - Bright Crystal by Versace (not an affiliate link). It's a versatile enough scent for day/night/wedding/beach/winter/summer, so it was a good choice for travel. (Travel Tip Sidebar: I save all of the boxes for my perfume bottles, to make it easier to travel with them. If you don't have a travel-sized version of your favorite perfume, you can just throw the large bottle back into the secure box that it came in, wrap that box up in a t-shirt, and then pack it away into your suitcase.)

To finish off the wedding guest look, I straightened my hair and put it into a side fishtail braid. Would you believe I never got a detailed picture of my full outfit/makeup/hair/accessories? Because I didn't. But here's a close-enough look:

.  this is not my picture - i stole it from the beautiful babe in the center of this pic  .

The Codman Estate was an absolutely stunning wedding venue. It's a historical site with a dreeeeamy Italian "secret" garden and a great barn for dancing.

.  the garden, site of the ceremony  .

.  beautiful bride kimbo and her handsome dad!  .

.  kim and sam mid-ceremony  .

And here are the newlyweds arriving at their wedding reception!

.  whoohoo!!!  sew happy  .

Kim was a radiant bride, Sam was quite the dashing groom, and the bridesmaids all looked like Grecian goddesses. The weather was a bit iffy at first - but just when it seemed inevitable that it would rain upon the wedding ceremony, the sun began to come out. By the time we walked across the estate property to the reception tent area, it was a beautiful and warm sunny day! There were yard games, delicious appetizers, good wine, good music, and a BBQ-style buffet that was a huge hit. We had a blast dancing up a storm and playing with the party props that were brought out onto the dance floor at some point during the night. Each guest even got to take home two insanely delicious, homemade chocolate chip cookies as favors (a personal touch, care of Miss Kimberly herself). An after party at the hotel with a million Dominos pizzas was exactly the right way to end the night. The next morning I drove back west to Pittsfield and dropped off my rental car.

Back in Pittsfield, I enjoyed a night out for a spectacular dinner with my grandmother (aka Gram) at Mazzeo's Ristorante in Pittsfield, where we each had a feast of pan-seared scallops with sautéed spinach & oven roasted tomatoes (finished with a lemon wine butter), mashed potatoes, salads, and bread. Gram even kicked it with a glass of white wine, that feisty gal! It's always great to chat with my Gram - she's a real wealth of knowledge, and I adore picking her ear about "the old days." She just turned 94 (!) this week, and though her sight has failed her at this point, her mind is still perfectly sharp, and she continues to enjoy life. This summer she actually made the decision to put her house on the market and move from her home into an assisted living community. It will be good for her to finally rid herself of the burden of maintaining a home. That can be a real bitch, with all the yard work and lawn care and dusting and painting and snow removal. Not to mention the laundry and cooking that also needs to be dealt with. It was probably a tough decision for her to make, but ultimately I think she'll feel extremely relieved to no longer have to deal with the house.

That night after dinner at Mazzeo's, she and I talked at length about family history and she even showed me a detailed family tree document that her own second cousin had been working on. It was incredibly interesting for me to pour over the tree and learn more about the family members who preceded my grandmother (and me!) in her lineage. Sometimes I feel ashamed and disappointed in myself for not caring about these kinds of things when I was younger and had more time to ask my Gram questions about her and her family. I wish I knew more about her siblings and parents and late husband (my mom's father). I try to really absorb everything she says when we're together. If your grandparents are still around, you would do very well to ask them as many questions about their lives as you can while you still have the chance.

And now I realize I just wrote an awful lot about my Gram. Can you tell I love her? :)

Before leaving Pittsfield for good, I made a trip out to Windsor, MA with Mallory, Doug, Cohen, and Tierney to pick up a new John Deere Gator for Doug's arsenal of toys. The man who owned the Gator had amassed a solid collection of Man Toys himself - his barn garage was FULL of tractors, John Deeres, ATVs and skidders. All of which Cohen could identify, by the way. At 5 years old, he is already a boy genius when it comes to trucks, tractors, Gators, and whatever else Doug brings home.

Once home with the new Gator, the kids got to work putting it to some (parked) use in the garage:

.  note the seatbelts. safety first  .

On Thursday, June 19, in preparation for an epic bachelorette weekend for my good friend Abigail, I said goodbye to my family...

.  me and tierney girl, the little angel  .

... and rented a car in Pittsfield to drive it out to Boston. The rental "car" ended up being the biggest Dodge Ram truck that anyone has ever seen, but it was all they had for me at the Enterprise. Knowing that The Largest Pickup Truck of All Time wasn't an ideal vehicle for me to take across the state and into Boston, the good folks at the Pittsfield Enterprise comped me a half a tank of gas for the inconvenience. However, they weren't anticipating the struggle of trying to park a gargantuan truck in the Enterprise Parking Garage at the other end of my trip, so that created a bit of an obstacle once I actually arrived in Boston. Height limits for parking garages aren't something you typically have to think about when casually renting a car, but now I know better.

From Boston, it was off to Kennebunk, Maine for the rest of the weekend to celebrate Abigail's bachelorette! We had a great crew of ladies with us for our stay in a freaking mini-mansion right on the water. I'd never been to Kennebunk before, but it's a cute little New England beach/port town about 1.5 hours north of Boston.

The house was incredible, with an amazing kitchen/stove, a grill, full walls of gorgeous windows with beautiful views, a deck on every level of the house, a million bedrooms, several luxurious bathrooms, a grand piano, a subzero freezer, and really interesting artwork throughout. It also had a grassy backyard that ended up being perfect place for us all to lounge in the sunshine.

The house was even within walking distance of all the parts of town we wanted to check out. The town itself was full of cute fish restaurants and markets, beachy souvenirs and nautical-inspired home decor and fashion.

On that Friday night, we all put together a fabulous spread of food in a potluck-gone-right:

While we were making food, we realized there was a massive fire of some sort burning outside in the not-so-distant distance, so we ran up to the third floor deck to see what was going on...

It did end up being a house fire - some sort of multi-family residence was badly burned, we found out the next day. Thankfully no one was hurt, but the amount of smoke the fire produced was really remarkable...

On Saturday (June 21), we decided to forego the beach and instead opted to spend the day at our McMansion, where we could enjoy the sun as well as all the conveniences of our luxury vacation home. It was an excellent decision. We were able to relax in the backyard in our bathing suits, bask in each other's company, do plenty of chatting and mimosa-drinking...

 And toasting to our bride!

.  abigail is the babe in the stripes!  .

.  cheers!  .

After a perfect day in the sun, we watched the sunset from the third floor deck... a much nicer sight to see than a blazing house fire:

That night we all had fun pre-gaming at the house by playing drinking games while getting ready to go out to Federal Jack's, one of the best bars for 20- and 30-somethings in the Kennebunkport area. Federal Jack's was also the go-to spot for a random wedding's after-party as well as another bachelorette party that night, so there were a lot of people celebrating in the bar that evening. We met some interesting characters, and made our presence known - as gaggles of bacheloretting ladies tend to do. The night ultimately ended at the house around 3 AM when just a handful of us were still up and putting in a fabulous dancing and singing performance in the kitchen, much - I'm sure - to the delight of our housemates. Don't worry though - Abby was among that late-night handful of revelers. :)

The next morning, we needed to be out of the rental house by 10 AM, so then it was back down south to Massachusetts. My friend Jenna (whose wedding, you may remember, I was in last summer) had generously volunteered to feed and house me for the remainder of the night, as I'd be flying out of Boston the following day to head back to Vancouver. The two of us spent the rest of that Sunday afternoon sprawled shamelessly across the couches in her living room, trying to regain a bit of strength and energy (and dignity) after a fabulously draining weekend. Then, as if she got her second, third, and fourth winds all at once, Jenna set about preparing a feast for us for that night - chicken, pork chop, garden-fresh salad, wine, roasted vegetables, salmon... Ermergerd. She's such an incredible cook, guys. You are a lucky person if you are ever invited to be a guest at her table! Though you might not want to bring your man with you, because she will inevitably make you look like a chump cook in comparison. We were joined that night by Jenna's hubby Dan, as well as Kara and her boyfriend Kyle. (Sorry Kara, but I guess that means Kyle's probably been judging you.)

It was a satisfying conclusion to a long and jam-packed trip. By the time I got onto my plane at Logan Airport the next afternoon, my Dramamine-induced drowsiness was exactly what I needed to settle me in for my long journey home!

Thanks for reading my re-cap. I'm aware it was the length of Moby Dick.

Who else is doing some traveling this summer? I'm thinking of taking another trip very soon - just a weekend jaunt to somewhere warm, like San Diego, Hawaii or Las Vegas. Where should I go?? What should I do??

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