August 2022 Life Update

Hey Guys!

Sorry this post is a little but life has been a little busy! I also haven't really had that much time to write any new posts lately, in fact I am supposed to be studying right now instead of writing this post! Anyways, I hope you guys had a great August! Mine was kind of a crazy month! I just wanted to share that I am back home in Florida staying at my parents house for about 8 weeks. Initially I had shared that I was going to be coming home for about 6 weeks as well as going on a week long vacation with my parents to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Badlands National Park but unfortunately my 14 year old dog (my baby) ended up getting sick. My fiancé and I had to take him and leave him over night a couple nights at the emergency vet in the next town over which is about an hour away from where we live. They did some tests on him and he seemed to be fighting some kind of infection which they couldn't really give us an answer why but they also found another tumor. This time it is located in his colon. Last year he was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma and he has a tumor on his spleen. Typically dogs get their spleen along with the mass removed when they get diagnosed with this cancer but due to his age and the condition he was in last year the vet did not recommend it. She didn't think that it would extend his life anymore and he was given about 6 months to a year to live. It has been a little over a year and thankfully that tumor hasn't ruptured and it doesn't like like it has really grown in size but now he has a secondary tumor in his colon which the vet said is most likely unrelated. 

Because of this diagnosis my parents changed their plans and came up about 10 days early so they could pick me and him up and we all drove home together. It was about a 3 day drive and we drove to Orlando and stayed a couple nights with my sister before heading back home to Cape Coral. Overall the drive wasn't too bad and my dog, Dooney just slept pretty much the entire time. Thankfully he does super well with car rides and he absolutely loves being in the car. He just hops right in and passes right out. Sometime he'll stick his face in the air vent so the wind is blowing in his hair and when he was younger he used to love to open the windows and give me a heart attack! Thank goodness for locking windows! 

Anyways, we're both back home and he's doing pretty well so far. We were given a couple different antibiotics to treat the infections that were going on inside of him and we were also given a pain medicine just in case something were to happen. He was also given an appetite stimulant and anti-nausea medicine! It was a lot to be giving my dog all at the same time and I don't think he's ever had to take so many drugs all at the same time. He definitely wasn't a fan of everything but thankfully they helped to get better and he has been doing well ever since. At the moment, we are taking it one day at a time. He is my best friend and it will be absolutely heartbreaking to lose him but unfortunately he can't stay with me forever. It's definitely the worst feeling of being a pet owner. 

Also, during the month of August, I got a black eye! It was actually kind of a funny story! My fiancé and I  were cuddling in bed and he was trying to play a song for me on Youtube and he had his phone up in the air and it accidentally slipped out of his hand and landed on my face! Right below my eye and kind of next to my nose. I bruised right away and had a black eye for over 2 weeks and I can't really press very hard on my face still because it's still kind of sore. I definitely cried but I mostly just laughed it off and when I called his mom to show her, she was like you need to milk that, no cooking dinner of the whole weekend lol. He felt so bad and he kept offering to buy me my favorite food but of course we were also on a diet so I said no to most of them but I did cave for some Chick-fil-a and QDoba! I definitely felt like it was never going to heal though and it changed colors almost everyday, it was kind of crazy!

For now I am focusing on getting my school done along with still planning a few trips that I have coming up. Once I am back home from the last trip, my dad and I will be heading back up to North Dakota! After that, the plans are kind of up in the air because I might have to take a trip to Atlanta in November to pick up my wedding dress and then I am also coming back home to Cape Coral to have my bridal shower along with my second Bachelorette party. My fiancé will also be taking a trip back home to Cape Coral to have his Bachelor party with his groomsmen. Also, my family is also coming up to celebrate Christmas with us in North Dakota and they will hopefully be having a white Christmas! 

I think that's all I have for now! I can't believe September is already half way over! This last half of the year seems to be flying by! 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Wedding Dress Shopping

 Hi Guys!

Happy Friday! I wanted to share a little bit about my experience going wedding dress shopping! First of all, I said Yes to the dress! It is my absolute dream dress and everything I could ever want in a dress. I will not be sharing any details about the dress and only a few close people know which dress I selected. Everyone else in my life, including you guys will just have to be surprised on my wedding day and when I finally get around to sharing a post about the dress after we get married. Anyways, we went dress shopping in Atlanta with my mom and sister. My future mother in law and sister in law were also supposed to attend but unfortunately neither of them were feeling very well and were unable to attend. We did FaceTime with them during the whole process of trying on dresses though so we definitely made sure to include them as I am very close with both of them! 

My Winter 2022/ Spring 2023 Travel Plans

 Hey Guys!

So this is kind of part 2 of Fridays post! It is a list of more of my travel plans for the later half of 2022 and the first part of 2023. I hope you enjoy!

My Summer/ Fall 2022 Travel Plans

 Hey Guys!

So I wanted to talk a little bit about my upcoming travel plans! You all know how much I love to travel and go on vacation! lol Except most of the places I am going to will not be new so I don't really count it as traveling so much, just more going back home. 

Update on 30 Things to do before I Turn 30

Hey Guys!

So I have a little less than a year and a half left in my 20's which is beyond crazy to think about. I am definitely nowhere near ready to turn 30. I still feel like I'm 22 most of the time. Honestly, this whole aging experience is kind of weird. I guess if I had settled down much sooner than I might feel differently but I am so happy that I did not settle down. I am so happy that I can still go to Disney or Universal at 28 and not have to worry about bringing a stroller with me, I honestly feel like that life is for your 30's lol. I never wanted to settle down early. Growing up I always had a rule that I would not get married until I was at least 25 and I think that a lot of this had to do with my parents getting divorced from their first marriages and not remarrying until they were in their 30's as well as my love for travel and independence. 

Boston Day 3

On day 3 in Boston we did quite a bit! It was probably my favorite day even though part of it was spent in Salem. We also did a lot of walking around this day and covered a lot of Boston. In the morning, my sister and I got up and walked down to the harbor near Fanueil Hall and took a ferry from Boston to Salem. We took a tour of The House of Seven Gables. We then walked around the town a little bit looking for filming locations for Hocus Pocus! We also participated in the Salem Witch Trials at the Salem Witch Museum. It was very interesting and we did not stay for the whole thing but that was mainly because we had to leave for the 1 o'clock ferry or be stuck there until like 3 and we had nothing left on our list to do.

Once we got back to Boston we decided to start walking the Freedom Trail. We weren't exactly at the beginning but we figured we could do like half of it one day and then finish it the next day. We also had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe because this seems to be our thing! We enjoy checking out Hard Rocks in different cities. Our first stop on The Freedom Trail was Paul Revere's House. We did a self-guided tour of the house. I don't really remember all of the stops along the way but if you follow a walking tour online, it's fun to walk around the city and see a lot of the historic sites. 

We walked all around town and made our way to Newbury Street, which is like their version of 5th Ave in NYC. This is where the restaurant was that we were going to dinner. We also checked out Johnny Cupcakes, which I totally thought was a bakery up until we got there! But my sister bought a shirt from them and I got a couple stickers! That was pretty much all the shopping we did for the day except for random souvenirs that we had bought throughout the day.

This last picture is from dinner! We met up with some of my boyfriends family members in the city and we had some really good pizza this time! It was a really fun night, we all got drinks and pretty much just chatted the night away. They had never met my sister before so it was nice to be able to introduce them all. We all got along really well and we just talked about life and jobs and family!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Boston Day 2

On day 2 in Boston we took the train out to Harvard to walk around the campus. I am obsessed with Legally Blonde and even though the movie wasn't filmed there, it is based off of Harvard so it was really fun getting to walk around the campus and the town of Cambridge. We did some shopping at a couple of the bookstores in town. It was also graduation day on campus which is crazy! The whole entire lawn and down the sides of buildings is pretty much covered with chairs for people to sit in. They also have screens for people who don't have a view of the stage can watch people walk across. It made my college graduation look very tiny haha!

We then decided to walk around a bit and find MIT which is kind of spread out a lot more than Harvard. We did go to the MIT museum though. It was kind of fun to explore. They made these little metal creations/machines that would like do different movements. Some of them were a little weird and other ones were super cute.

After that we got an Uber to take us to one of the local malls in the area because we wanted to check out the Pandora store since the one we went to the day before was a bust. They were basically sold out of their entire new collection and everything that had to do with Boston. Thankfully since we had just gone to MIT and seen these cute little machines we saw a very cute Robot charm and that's what we got as our Boston charm. We also checked out the Old Navy while were there and I bought a new dress and we also bought tote bags because they charge for bags in every single store you go in, in Boston. This is not something we knew about before we went so we decided to buy some totes so we could carry those around instead of having to pay for shopping bags everywhere we went. 

Next, we headed to the harbor to check out the USS Constitution and the USS Casin Young. Our dad was in the Army so growing we pretty much had to stop at every military related item whenever we would travel somewhere. The ships were only open for like another hour by the time we got there so we had to check them out pretty quickly but both ships were pretty cool. One was more of a modern warship and the other was a really old historic wooden boat. I am awful at stuff like this so I'm not really sure what either one was made out of but I'm sure you get the point haha!

Next we headed to find some dinner and we both really wanted some pizza and we ended up finding a place in like their Little Italy district and the pizza was not very good. Neither of us liked it and I don't think we finished it. We think it had some kind of weird sausage on it and that's what made it taste so strange to us. After, we finished with dinner we headed back to our hotel and called it an early night. Both of us were very tired and we had dinner plans the next night so we figured we might as well rest up!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Boston Day 1

Happy Labor Day everyone! This blog post is a little late but like they say better late than never! So for Memorial Day my sister and I took some time off from work and took a trip to Boston. My sister was actually born in Massachusetts but left when she was like 6 weeks old. So technically it doesn't really count but we've always wanted to take a trip to her hometown state! We had a lot of fun and took in a lot of the sites. My only complaint about the city is that I was expecting it to be a lot like Manhattan and it is not! The buildings are way shorter and way older and more of like a brick style. I was expecting there to be a lot more cabs and there were not. We had to rely on Uber a lot and we've discovered that we are not big fans of Uber. The drivers were never able to figure out who we were. One time we had like the same Uber driver, drive around the block like 3 times and still couldn't find us so he dropped us. We were waving at him every time he drove by! It was ridiculous!

Anyways, on our first day in Boston we got up and grabbed some Dunkin' of course because Boston runs on Dunkin'! Then we headed to the Boston Public Library. My sister is a big reader and we have to go the library or any place relating to books on pretty much ant trip we take. The library was absolutely gorgeous inside and I could definitely see myself going there and studying for class or something. Or even if I just needed a quiet place to write a blog post.

The Boston Marathon Finish Line is also in that area so we checked that out as well. Then we walked around the city a little bit. We walked to one of the locations where you can pick up the Boston Duck Tours. Everyone kept recommending that we do this but from our point of view we would not recommend that you do this. We're guessing we had a bad tour guide or something but we didn't really learn anything at all about Boston and the best part was getting to pretend to drive the boat! I would never say turn down a tourist attraction, so don't let our interesting experience make you avoid doing the Duck Tours. If you have never done one before then I highly recommend them. They are a lot of fun no matter how petrified you might be of drowning! I was actually having horrible anxiety the whole before and during but my boyfriend really wanted me to do them and he was in basic training doing things I'm sure he didn't really want to do so I figured I might as well give it a try!

Next, we headed to the Prudential Center, which Bostonians call The Prude! We decided to head to the top to the Skywalk Observatory and check out the Boston Skyline! I love looking at city skylines even though I am totally afraid of heights. I think there is something so peaceful about being on top of a really tall building and just looking out onto the city. Also, while we were at the Prudential Center we grabbed some lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, which is my favorite restaurant. We also did a little shopping and stopped by the post office so I could drop off a letter for my boyfriend!

Once we were done we decided to go walking around the city and eventually we made our way to the Boston Common. Which was beautiful! Definitely a lot smaller than Central Park, which is what I'm used to but I still love parks and I love spending time in them. They had flags covering a portion of the ground for Memorial Day to honor all of the fallen soldiers in Massachusetts. I definitely won't forget this trip to the park because while we were there, I got a surprise phone call from my boyfriend while he was in Basic Training! I was totally not expecting it at all so it was nice to be able to sit down and tell him that I was in his hometown and tell him the very few things we had already done.

Once we were done at the park we headed to find Primark! We probably shopped around for about an hour or so and then headed back to our hotel. If you have never been to or heard of Primark then you need to look it up! It's basically like the British version of Forever21 except cheaper and nicer! We first went to a Primark store in London back in 2016 and haven't been back since but I have been dying to go to one and I knew Boston had one so we added it to our list of must do things! I actually bought quite a lot and only spent like $130! I did have a hard time putting it all back in my carry on though haha.

Once we were done shopping we headed back to our hotel for a little bit. Once we got to our hotel room we ordered dinner but I can't remember where from. After we relaxed a little bit we headed back out for a ghost tour! We were both expecting it to be really good but it was kind of a let down. It was more of history tour than a ghost tour. I feel like they didn't really talk too much about actual ghost sightings. It was still fun to experience though and I'm glad we did it. Ghost tours have been a big thing for us lately. We did one in New York the last time we went and we also did one in St. Augustine when we stayed with our friends that live there. 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Biloxi Mississippi June 2019 Day 1

Hey guys,

So my boyfriend is currently stationed in Biloxi, MS and my mom and I took a trip up there about 2 weeks after her got there which was about 2 weeks after his BMT graduation. I'm actually about to head there myself in about a week in and a half! I'm flying up after work on Friday and then flying back on Sunday in the afternoon/evening. 

Anyways, on our first trip up there, my mom and I actually drove up. We left on a Thursday after work and to be honest, driving up there again is not something I'm really looking forward to doing again. It was very long drive and even though we broke it up on the way up there it still felt like it took forever before we finally got there. We got there on Friday afternoon round 4 and then we left Sunday around 10:20 am and then we didn't end up making it home until about 10 at night. It was a very long day and we were both exhausted by the end of it. However, since I'm flying up there this time I'm going to compare the two and see what happens. We also have friends that live in Tallahassee so I kind of want to drive up there and stay their house for one night since it's like the half way point. 

On our first night we stopped like an hour outside of Tally and found a random hotel that we paid wayyyy too much for. And then on Friday morning we got up, ate breakfast and headed back on the road. Our first stop was Mobile, Alabama. I thought it would be fun to make a quick little pit stop. So we did and we ate lunch downtown at a very cute BBQ place and then we did a guided tour of a historical home in Mobile. It was called the Richards DAR House Museum. It was a very cute tour and ended with tea or lemonade and cookies! I believe it was $10 per person which isn't too bad of a price considering you get cookies!

Once we were done with the tour we headed back to our car and got back on the road. We were only about an hour and a half away from the base so that was nice. Granted the drive still seemed to take forever. We made it to the base at a really good time. We got there only like 30 minutes before he got done with his classes so we just hangout until he was able to meet up with us. We couldn't figure out how to check into the hotel on base so thankfully he helped us with that and then once we got all unloaded we decided to head into town and check out the fancy hotels down by the water. We parked at the Hard Rock and then he and I went on a date at the Hard Rock restaurant there because he had never been to one before. It was a lot of fun and split an appetizer and a meal and a milkshake!

We then walked around the hotel a little bit and then watched the Sunset which is what we are doing in the last photo. Some people apparently thought this photo was an engagement announcement because of my hand placement so that was kind of awkward! But it's okay, I'll just be more careful of where I place my hand in the future. I'm just an awkward posing so I didn't really know what else to do with my hand haha but other than that I thought it was a great photo!

We also walked to the hotel next door to the Hard Rock which is called the Beau Rivage and it is basically Biloxi's version of the Bellagio. It is an absolutely beautiful hotel and I would love to stay there someday. The Bellagio is my favorite hotel on the strip so I think it would be cool to stay at like the mini version of it haha!

Once we got done with all of that we headed back to the base and hangout for a little bit before it was time to go to bed and get ready for the next day!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph