Day 4 in Portland, Pt. 2

 After spending our morning exploring downtown Portland, we ventured out to Cape Elizabeth. I wanted to see at least one lighthouse before going home. Actually, we really went there because the food truck, Bite Into Maine, aka the "best" place for lobster, is based there. I made sure that even though Tim doesn't like seafood, we had lobster for one meal. Well, I did-he got their caprese sandwich, which he apparently didn't realize had tomatoes and basil on it lol. He wished he had gotten their grilled cheese. Oh well.

This was my favorite meal on our trip. I will say Tim did try my lobster roll (and hated it haha), so I give him props! I got the Picnic Style Lobster Roll. The roll is grilled in butter, then has a layer of coleslaw, lots of butter, and celery salt. Oh, and THEN you take that container of extra butter and pour it all over. SO delicious. I also got some clam chowder, but the chowder Heather and I had gotten in Boston was way better. This one had sand in it. Wash those clams better! That blueberry soda bottle in the first photo is now in our kitchen. We've got a small collection of different drinks that were special to us-like the wine bottle from Chatéau Chantel from my bachelorette party to a few different pops we've tried while on vacation. Every time I look at them, they bring back good memories :)

 I was so insanely happy eating this roll. I was also thinking of my arteries closing up...I'm pretty sure I took a plant enzyme! I will say that I don't think having this much lobster (or butter) so quickly was a good idea. I got super sick that night. But it was worth it lol.

 It was such a beautiful area! We weren't as impressed as most people though because Michigan has lighthouses and the Great Lakes. Maine is supposedly known for their views, but I think Michigan is almost better.

 I had fun going around looking for shells and cool rocks.

 We were here for a good hour, just roaming around, climbing on different rocks. It was fun!

I loved how these walking trails were right next to the water.

After that we drove around for a while, having no clue what to do next. We thought it would have been fun to drive up the coast, but knowing we had a long car drive the next day made that not so appealing. We ended up going to a few book stores and then found a place for pizza (I was SO disappointed, it was terrible. What a way to end our trip!). We took it back to our hotel and watched some more American Pickers.

We left around 6:30am to drive home. I saw the sunrise as we were packing up the car and sprinted over to the beach, wanting to enjoy it one last time. It was the perfect way to end our trip. Our drive home lasted 17 hours. We listened to the podcast Serial the whole way home-I don't know how else we could have lasted that whole ride! It was also our anniversary, so we got to spend every waking moment with each other, in a car lol.

We got home around 11:30pm and walked in to the smell of cat. The guy feeding our cat for us apparently didn't think of cleaning out her litter box. It smelled SO bad. We immediately cleaned up the house and made it smell good before going to bed. Eww.

The best part of our vacation was we had five days of travel and five days to relax at home. Win-win for Tim and I. 

We spent the first day at home playing Gears of War 4. We've played the first and second ones together, so it was fun :) I made sure I had bought a frozen pizza for dinner before we left because I knew we wouldn't want to go anywhere that day.

The next day was back to working out. The kitty stayed next to me the whole time. She definitely missed us.

I was feeling very baker-like, so I wore my new cupcake socks, my "Bake love, not war" shirt, and ate the lemon shortbread cookie from Two Fat Cats. 

I also ate half the whoopie pie. I was nice and saved some for Tim :)

That's about the end of our vacation! I'm so happy we went, even with my car's oil issue costing so much beforehand. I believe it's more important to travel even when stuff like that happens. The way traveling makes you feel, making you forget about work and the stresses of life and exploring new places and the experience of trying new foods, is worth not having that money saved in the bank. Can't wait for our next trip! I think this fall may finally be the time we go to Seattle :)

Day 4 in Portland, Pt. 1

Day 4 in Portland was awesome :) I woke up around 6:30am and went across the street to Old Orchard Beach. They are well known for their pier, which has a bunch of restaurants and also an amusement park with a ferris wheel by the beach. I can imagine during the summer that this is the place to be. There is also a block of tourist shops that were closed down for the season (our motel was actually closing down four days after we left! we made it the perfect time to go, cheap!). I had such a cold but relaxing time taking photos. There were less than 5 people on the beach, all taking photos or enjoying each other's company while the sun came up. It was so beautiful.

After that, Tim and I drove back to Portland for breakfast. We walked about a mile in super windy conditions-thankful for the sun that day so it wasn't super freezing! We were both laughing because it was just so windy lol. We had breakfast at Marcy's Diner, which was such a unique experience. We were seated at the counter and could watch the chef make breakfast while they blared music Tim used to listen to like 10 years ago, more heavy music. It was such a cool experience, besides the fact that we couldn't really hear haha!

 We then walked down near the harbor. The thing I loved about Portland is there's not just one "downtown". They have all different sections, and they're all busy! You walk downtown Manistee, and there's nobody out enjoying life. You walk downtown Portland in the pouring rain, and you come across 100 people. Imagine when it's sunny, like it was this day. I just loved it!

Tim and I came across this alligator outside an ice cream shop, and I jokingly told him to pose by it, and he did it lol :)

 Tim didn't mind exploring by the harbor, but I know he was doing it especially for me :) 

 haha

Portland used to have a love locks bridge, like Paris; however, due to the heaviness of the locks, also like Paris, the bridge started to fall apart. They ended up taking down all the locks but kept a small portion of them in memoriam. I was so happy we came across them :)

The Standard Baking Co. supposedly makes the best pain au Chocolat in town. Pain au chocolat is literally pastry dough filled with chocolate and covered with some sugar. Sadly, they hadn't made any that day, so I ended up just getting a regular croissant. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't just eaten a massive breakfast :)

We went to a few more shops, including a Christmas shop. It's tradition that everywhere we go on an anniversary trip, I get a Christmas ornament. This year I got one that didn't quite scream us, but oh well :) It's of two snow shoes and it says Portland, Maine on it. 

Here's Tim letting me shop while on his phone lol

 After that we went back to the Holy Donut and got a BUNCH more donuts :) Our favorite is still the dark chocolate donut. We should have just gotten a dozen of those!

 THEN we went to yet another bakery. I had heard of this cute little place from Bakingdom, who had taken a trip to Portland the last year with her husband. 

 I, of course, wasn't hungry after being to breakfast, so I just got a whoopie pie and a lemon cookie, two of her recommendations. SO delicious! Looking back now at the below photo, I definitely wish I had gotten some pie!

I was glad we walked around so much, probably about three miles, because after this, we were off to Cape Elizabeth, where delicious lobster and views of the ocean awaited us :)

Day 3

Considering it's been four months since we went on our vacation to Portland, I figured I should probably finish up talking about it haha!

Day 3 we woke up to pouring rain. I immediately was in a sad mood because it's so much harder to explore when it's raining, and I also had wanted to photograph the sunrise by the ocean. Tim didn't let that put a damper on the day though, and we decided to proceed with our plans. I put on my new shirt from King Arthur Flour and off we went.

 We went downtown and tried going for breakfast, but the place we wanted to go to had a long wait. So we went to Denny's. If I'm completely honest, it was the worst food I had on the trip, but I think that also had to do with me being upset it was raining :) After Denny's, Tim realized how much his non-waterproof coat was getting soaked, so off we went to the mall. It is amazing shopping with a guy because it always seems that they find what they're looking for IMMEDIATELY. We literally walked into Old Navy, and right in front of the guy's section was a navy blue rain coat, in just his size. If we had been looking for a coat for me, we would have been there all day! We shopped around a bit more, and I bought a winter coat and a couple shirts from Aeropostale (going out of business, so 75% off!). It was about 11am by now, so we decided to go downtown Portland and check out what we could while it rained.

We looked up a comic book shop and went there first. They not only sold comics, but cds, vinyls, old consoles, incense, etc, Tim bought some magic cards there.

There was also a sock shop nearby! It is literally a shop full of socks. I bought some that had cats that were reading on them, as well as some cute little socks with cupcakes on them for my niece, and some wool turquoise and purple socks for my mom for Christmas.

We happened upon Otto's Pizza, which was a highly rated pizza joint in Portland on yelp and trip advisor, but I didn't know they had a shop downtown where you can purchase by the slice! I was so excited!

I believe Tim got a sausage and pepperoni slice, but I was more adventurous, and it really paid off. I got a spicy pulled pork and scallion pizza. I always compare pulled pork to Josiah's food truck, and I have to say this place wins for the perfect spicy sweet pork. Josiah's isn't spicy at all. It was out of this world good. So good that I ate 80% of it before realizing I hadn't taken a photo of it, and I wanted to remember it for sure. 

Look at that clump of sweet pork! Mmmmmmmmm...

After we had walked around for a couple hours and were completely drenched head to foot (even with my umbrella), we decided to go to one more stop before heading back to our motel and see the rest of downtown the next day.

We decided to go to Holy Donut, and it was the best decision we made on our trip!

Holy Donut is the coolest place. They make all of their donuts with Maine potatoes, and they are just brilliant. Best donuts ever. Everyone else agrees with us because we got there around 2pm on a week day, there was a line, and they only had three types of donuts left. They sell out A LOT.

We got the dark chocolate sea salt, pomegranate, and possibly plain? I can't remember because the dark chocolate sea salt took over my brain. It was the BEST donut I will possibly ever have in my entire life. It tasted like the most amazing chocolate cake. You could tell they use the highest quality ingredients. You could taste every bit-the butter, the cocoa, the chocolate chunks. It was SO good.

As soon as we tasted this donut, we decided to come back the next day for more :) We also got some hot drinks: me a hot cider and Tim a mocha. It was the perfect food after being cold and wet for so long :)

Pomegranate was delicious too, but this picture bugs me because of that black spot on the right! I wish I had seen it before taking the photo! It makes it look like a not-so-perfect donut, but it was definitely good too :)

After we got back to our motel and got into some dry (yes!) clothes, we decided to go watch "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" at a local theatre. I had read the book and loved it, and expected the movie to be pretty darn good. I was sadly disappointed :( What should have been a PG-13 scary/slightly creepy movie was made for kids. There were a couple Tim Burton parts for sure (like the eyes in the end and the kid that cuts up things and puts them back together weirdly), but other than that, it just didn't quite cut it. Super disappointing, but not awful.

We were pretty hungry after the movie, so we looked around for a fast food place, seeing as it was around 10pm. We found a local burger place that was based at an old train station that is actually open 24 hours! We got burgers with fries that had no flavor and even though they were made in front of us tasted like they had been sitting for a while...it was still fun trying a new place :) 

After a long day of walking around, we finally got back to our motel. Each night we watched American Pickers lol and fell asleep (and woke up during the night) to the sound of the train LOUDLY going by our motel window that we couldn't shut because it was also the vent in the bathroom :) That's what you get when you only spend $60/night! It's those things, however, that help us remember our trip :)

Balayage, from black to blonde

I've been dying my hair for about 3 years. I am a natural dirty blonde, but I've always loved how shiny brown hair is. It always looks so silky soft!  It started the week before we got our engagement pictures done. I really wanted to be a brunette for our wedding because that's when I feel prettiest (I've dyed my hair in the past), and I thought it would be weird if in our engagement photos I was a blonde but for our wedding I was a brunette :) I bought some medium brown dye from Sally's. It took two applications to cover my hair, and it. was. DARK. But, I had to stick with it. And I did, for three years. It looks so pretty for about two weeks after dying, but then my blonde roots start coming in, and they're SO noticeable. I felt like it looked like I was balding haha. 

oh the glamour of dying your own hair :)

 There's my beautiful roots...it probably doesn't help me at all that I take photos of my hair when I'm at my absolute worst haha

 I was browsing Instagram a couple weeks ago and a friend had liked a photo of one of their friends getting their hair done. It looked amazing! I immediately looked at all of the photos posted by this stylist and called and scheduled an appointment with her a couple weeks later, even though she lives 1 1/2 hours away. Her name is MacKenzie, and she works at Salon 804 in Traverse City. Here's her instagram.

You know how some things feel like they're meant to happen? This was. I didn't feel nervous in the pit of my stomach at all driving up to Traverse City that morning by myself. MacKenzie and I ended up having a TON in common! Rebecca, one of the heads of Teen Mania (I'm assuming Ron Luce?) had asked her mother to marry him but she didn't! She knew all about Teen Mania, her parents are planting a church in Traverse City, her brother is the worship leader (my brother-in-law is a worship leader!), our spouses both work with creating websites/computer tech-y stuff, we got married within a year of each other, etc. It was weird just how comfortable I was. I absolutely love when that happens because not everyone gets me. I didn't feel nervous when I saw how platinum blonde my hair got during the bleaching/toning process because she kept me informed during every step. Seriously, this girl is amazing.

Before:

After:

She cut about 3 inches off and added a bunch of layers. She also taught me how to curl my hair, which took her about 2 minutes (and it lasted all day and all night! Seriously! I'm sitting on the couch this morning and most of my hair is still curly!) compared to my 45 minutes haha. I'm excited to finally be able to do my hair cute! Oh, and should I note that she didn't use any hair spray? It was Redken Diamond Oil, so my hair is silky soft. Seriously. It's so worth paying someone who knows what she's doing.

 She left my roots alone and miraculously matched the tone of my natural hair color throughout my hair on top to make natural highlights. The rest of the toning process resulted in many different colors, so throughout my hair I've got reds, blondes, black, and browns. I was shocked at first because I am not one to be bold at all with colors in my hair, but now I absolutely love it :)

I don't quite understand this little part of hair why some didn't turn red. Oh well haha

 There's my roots! But see how it blends super well??? Like I said, she's amazing.

MacKenzie was happy I used professional grade dye and not from a box, but certain areas still didn't lift well. That just means more sessions, which I'm fine with. This first appointment only cost me $150, which is nothing for how light she got my hair! She thinks it'll only take 3-4 sessions, so about $600, compared to double that amount last time with my previous stylist who did the highlight route.

Yay for change!