Fall 2016 Trip Day 4

Hey guys,

Sorry I didn't end up blogging most of October, I am really disappointed in myself but I recently got a part time job and I was constantly working at the new house and so I ran out of time to blog. I don't think I can technically tell you where I recently got a job (according to the employee handbook), all I can say is that's a shoe store! So basically bye, bye paycheck haha! No, I'm just kidding. I've surprisingly only purchased one pair of shoes so far even though almost all of my shoes come from this store. However, let's get on with today's blog post already!

On our last day out of the state of Florida, we actually drove to Georgetown, South Carolina. This is one of my dad's favorite cities and he would always visit it while he was stationed in North Carolina. And on one of his trips he discovered this store called Kudzu Bakery and they make homemade items there such as jam, which is the main reason why we stopped there. My mom wanted to pick up some more jars of their homemade jam and bring it back to my dad.

While we were there we also photographed an outfit (which will be up soon) and walked around for a little bit until the store opened up. The town was super cute and they also had a historical home (Kaminski House Museum) that you can tour. Unfortunately, it wasn't open yet when we were there and we also didn't really have enough time to tour it. However, my parent's have toured it and they recommend checking it out if you are in the area or are passing by and enjoy looking at historical homes!

After we left Georgetown, we headed to Charleston, South Carolina. This is the city where my mom went to nursing school so we wanted to check it out! However, we pretty much only checked out downtown Charleston which is nowhere near where my mom lived or went to school. The downtown area is a little confusing and it is much larger than most of the historical downtown areas that we have visited in the past. In my opinion, you can definitely get lost in this city if you don't pay attention (we almost forgot where we parked). The city is cute but it is definitely not my favorite. We ate lunch at The Blind Tiger Pub.

After we finished with lunch, we walked around the city for a little bit to check it out and then we had to head back to the car to back home. To be honest, it was an interesting drive back home. It seemed like it was never going to end and we even ended up driving a little bit out of our way to Gainesville to find some food. We all really wanted Chick Fila and so my sister typed it into her phone and the one on their campus is the one that popped up (which we didn't realize until later on haha).

We were sitting at a light a little confused and saying how this Chick Fila was on UF's campus but we kept hoping that it wasn't. I even stated that if it is on their campus that I am not stepping foot onto their campus, I just couldn't do it haha! (My sister went to FSU and we are seminoles fans). I have never even wanted to visit Gainesville based on the fact that UF is located there (haha, I know I'm nuts!). But then again, I am way too obsessed with traveling to actually stick to that.

We turned at the light and it turns out that my sisters phone had directed us to the Chick Fila on campus but thankfully there was another in town and so we just drove to that one instead. After we finished at Chick Fila, we headed back out on the road and drove until we got home! It was so good to be back home after being on the constant go and spending so much time in the car over the last 4 days.

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to leave a comment or share this with your friends!

XO, Steph

Fall 2016 Trip Day 3

Hey guys,

I hope you had a great weekend and sorry for not posting the last two days of my trip on Thursday and Friday. I was little busy working on the new house. We've been trying to figure out paint colors and flooring options at the moment. Our fridge is going to be delivered to day and that is the last of our appliances to be delivered. I can't wait for everything to finish coming together an to actually be able to move in. 

I filmed a house tour of what the house looked liked when we first got it and eventually I do plan to edit and post it on my YouTube channel whenever I get the free time to start/work on that. I also plan to film another house tour on Tuesday, which will mark two weeks of owning the house, to show how far we have come so far. We have gotten a lot accomplished but there is still so much more that needs to be done.

Anyways, on the 3rd day of our trip (which was my sisters actual birthday) we woke up and visited the USS North Carolina Battleship. This was my second time being on this ship and it definitely went a lot smoother than the first time. The first time I almost had a panic attack because I wasn't a fan of being inside the battleship with no windows and fresh air. Also, this time we visited parts of the ship that we didn't visit the last time so it was nice to see what else on/in the ship.

After, we left the battleship we drove back to our house and walked into town. The house below is one of them many adorable houses that are located all over Wilmington.

We decided to have lunch at the Front Street Brewery and to be honest, I had one of the best burgers I have ever had there. It was absolutely amazing and I totally recommend getting it if you like burgers (my sister also really loved it as well).

After lunch, we walked around town a little bit more and headed to The Cotton Exchange. This is basically a multi-level shopping plaza. It was stores located all over the place and there are also a couple different restaurants as well as some other food related places.

After we left The Cotton Exchange we did some more walking around town and we checked out some other stores. We made our way back down to the Cape Fear River and we took a trolley tour of the city. The tour is about 45-50 minutes long and I totally recommend taking it if you want to learn a little more about the history of Wilmington. 

Then, we headed back to our house, hopped in the car and drove to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Our plan was to watch the sunset on the beach, however, the sun ended up setting behind us because of the whole, "the sun rises in the east and sets in the west" thing which we totally forgot about and we currently were visiting the east coast of North Carolina. We did watch the sunset, it just happened to be from a dock instead of the beach haha. I would have included pictures but it was a very orange sunset and so none of the pictures are really that great.

We ended the evening by stopping at The Little Dipper, which is Wilmington's version of The Melting Pot. We ate at The Melting Pot last year for my sisters's birthday and it was my first time ever visiting and I have ever since become obsessed with their s'mores fondue! So I really wanted to go to their fondue restaurant and see try their s'mores fondue. 

It was really good however, The Melting Pot is way better. We went on a Sunday and they weren't very busy and we got stuck in like the back of the restaurant but technically it was the front, but it was really far away from where the kitchen was and where they had seated everyone else so we didn't really get the best of service. Our fondue was really good but they didn't turn the warmer on correctly and so it was cold when we started eating it. We eventually turned up the warmer and it turn out good great but another issue we had was that we ordered way too much. Well, we order exactly what we wanted but they just served us so much of each item. 

The restaurant was adorable and if you love fondue then I definitely recommend checking it out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to leave a comment or share this with your friends!

XO, Steph

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Fall 2016 Trip Day 2

Hey guys,

So on day 2 in Wilmington we tried out the popular Dixie Grill which recommended by everyone online and the owner of the house that we were staying in. I ordered a Belgian Waffle and it was pretty tasty but it definitely wasn't the best Belgian waffle I've ever had haha. However, I do recommend checking out the restaurant though mostly because it didn't seem like a lot of the places served breakfast there.

Once we finished with breakfast, we headed over to the Bellamy Mansion which is probably my favorite historical home. I have visited a lot of historical home and plantations over the years and this one is my favorite because of the square portion of the house that you can see at the top of the picture. This little room is called a Belvedere and it is amazing! It is a little room at the very top of the house with panoramic views. I wish houses were still built like this because I would totally make that area my office space. It would be amazing to just go to the top and look out on the city and write blog posts or get other work done.

This adorable house was located on the same street as ours and I love the look of it! 

Next, we headed out of Wilmington and to the little town of Southport, North Carolina. This little town is where they seem to do a lot of filming. This is basically where they filmed the entire Nicholas Sparks movie, Safe Haven. This is one of my favorite Nicholas Sparks movies and the first time we visited the town was specifically so we could search for all of the filming locations. 

After we got to Southport, we did a little window shopping and then we headed to the Moore Street Market for some lunch. I totally recommend this place and if you have seen the movie Safe Haven, this is where Katie (Julianne Hough) went inside to get coffee while Jo (Cobie Smulders) waited outside.

Next, we headed to the museum inside Fort Johnston and in the back they have a room set up with things that talk about all of the movies and TV shows that have been filmed in Southport over the years.

After we finished with the museum we ended up taking a tour of the town to discover movie and TV locations and so we headed on a golf cart ride around town 

This is Alex (Josh Duhamel's) house in the movie Safe Haven.

This is where Katie worked in the movie Safe Haven. It was called Ivan's and on the side of the building they have one of the Ivan's signs and a poster for the movie.

After our tour was over we explored the town a little bit and checked out the pier and beachy area.

For dinner we stopped at Fishy Fishy cafe. My dad recommended it to us because this where he ate when he came to visit the town a couple of times. I shared some chicken tenders with my sister and my mom had the fish & chips. The food was pretty good but our view wasn't the greatest. We were seated at a table at the front the restaurant which means we didn't have a beautiful view of the sunset. This restaurant is was used in the pilot episode of Revenge as Jack's "Stowaway Tavern." 

After we left Southport, we headed back to our house in Wilmington because it was super late and we had another full day of activities planned for the next day so we needed to make sure that we were fully rested.

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to leave a comment or share this with your friends!

XO, Steph

Fall 2016 Trip Day 1

Hey guys,

So today's blog post is a travel diary from the 4 days my mom, my sister, and I went out of town to celebrate my sister's birthday! We hopped in the car around midnight on Friday morning and drove through the night and we made it to Savannah, Georgia around 9 something in the morning. I didn't actually drive that much at all and the reason we left so left/early was because our main destination was Wilmington, North Carolina which is about 11 plus hours away from Cape Coral and we wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to spend there. So we left after my sister got off from work because she works evenings. 

The first location we stopped at wasn't technically on our list but it was one of the places that we wanted to visit. The theme of our trip was Nicholas Sparks movies and so our main goal was to try and see as many places as possible that had been seen in a Nicholas Sparks movie. So our first stop was the Wormsloe Historic Site which technically has a plantation on it as well but unfortunately you aren't able to see the plantation because it is still owned by the family. However, the rest of the property is really and fun to explore. They are also known for having the worlds longest oak lined road. It is absolutely gorgeous and that is actually where I photographed this outfit!

The Nicholas Sparks movie that was filmed here was The Last Song with Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth. They used the oak lined road to film a couple shots and the plantation is supposedly where "Will" aka Liam lived.

The next stop on our list was Tybee Island, Georgia which is also where parts of the last song were filmed. This is where "Ronnie" aka Miley and her dad and brother lived, this is also where the pier is located and the church where her father's funeral is at. However, the church was purchased a few years ago, moved to a new location, and is now being used as a wedding chapel. It pretty much looks completely different than the movie and they even added on and built a second building attached to the original.

When we first got there we parked down by the lighthouse and ate across the street from the it at a restaurant that is located near the beach. We also walked out onto the beach to check it out and it was really cool because their beach had a bunch of swinging benches that you could sit and relax on.

Next, we checked out the lighthouse because my sister had never been before and she really likes lighthouses. We didn't end up going up it but the property has a couple of buildings/houses that you can tour to see what it would have been like back in the day for the lighthouse keeper.

After we finished at the lighthouse we got back in the car and drove a little bit more around town. We ended up going to the opposite end of the island and we found the pier where the movie was filmed and we also found the wedding chapel before leaving town.

Next, we headed in the car to Wilmington, North Carolina which is our end destination for the trip.  My family discovered Wilmington a few years ago when my dad was stationed in North Carolina and we had taken a couple trips there and we fell in love with the city. The city is known as Hollywood of the East.

We rented a house while staying in the city and so we found our house, brought our stuff inside, and decided what we should do for dinner. We were actually staying only a few blocks away from the main downtown area so we walked downtown to find somewhere to eat since we had basically been stuck in the car all day. We ended up eating a restaurant called Fat Tony's and this is the same place that we had eaten at before but we didn't even realize it until we walked inside.

This time we decided to eat outside on their back patio which was pretty nice. It would have been much nicer during the day because you would have been able to see the Cape Fear River but that's okay!  The food is really good and I totally recommend this place. We ordered a salad to share and we got meat lovers type pizza. 

After we finished with dinner we headed back home and went to bed because we had a very busy, fun-filled weekend ahead of us! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to leave a comment or share this with your friends!

XO, Steph