i’ll spare you a long intro. here’s the stuff that happened in july, between the cracks. firstly. i’ve lived in winston-salem for 20ish years now. and for the last six, i have driven past this lotus filled marshy area at least twice a day. i always say, “i should walk there someday” and then i […]
swimming
holden beach, party of four.

we had a really busy summer and it almost looked like we weren’t going to be able to squeeze a beach trip in, but we had one available long weekend and managed to book a little airbnb at holden beach for an annual dose of salt, sand and sun, just before the school year starting […]
summer beach trip. first days.

i’m not gonna lie. after our michigan trip, i wasn’t super excited to load us all back up in the car for another family vacation. but this one was a much shorter commute and would hopefully be a bit more laid back. you know. beaches and all. so we loaded up the posse, including ruby […]
iceland. day two.silfra fissure, oxarafoss, bruarfoss, gullfoss.

while we would have liked to have slept in on our first morning in the campervan, a snorkeling appointment was on the books, so instead we were up bright and early and ready for another day of adventures. but first. coffee. getting geared up for snorkeling was quite an ordeal. turns out, when you’re planning […]
iceland. day one. reykjadalur thermal hot springs.

whelp. i’ve procrastinated it long enough. in august, derek and i embarked upon a 10 day trip to iceland, sans children, to celebrate our 20th anniversary. and i’m about to post a barrage of blog entries, with vague details from the epic but whirlwind excursion. so, i’m actually going to begin on day zero. we […]
flume gorge and the basinfranconia notch state park

our first order of business in the white mountains of new hampshire was the flume gorge in franconia notch state park. it was sort of similar to the ausable chasm hike we had gone on in the adirondacks, both in expense ($$$$) and length and strenuousness. and since that hike was a raging success amongst […]
2023 summer road trip. week one. batavia.

summer in north carolina is super dumb. hot. humid. and dumb. this year, we escaped much of said dumbness by heading north for most of july. our first stop on the road trip took us to my homeland of batavia, new york. we piled into the subaru, which feels smaller and smaller each summer, but […]
august in western new york.

usually, we head up to western new york for our annual summer pilgrimage in june or maybe early july. but this year, my baby brother’s wedding was set to take place in august, so we planned our excursion around the wedding date. we arrived the weekend before the wedding, so we could get in some […]
atlantic beach week. cape lookout shenanigans.

as previously mentioned, the weather for most of our atlantic beach week was pretty windy. for this reason, the big epic adventure we had planned kept getting postponed. but, finally, on our second to last day, we received word that our adventure was ON! what adventure, you ask? well, two-ish years ago, during a trip […]
atlantic beach week. the beachy times.

now that we no longer have an rv, we are forced to vacation like regular people again, staying in hotels and resorts and the like. for christmas last year, the grandlidboms gifted us with a week’s stay at own of their timeshare properties, so for our first such regular people vacation, we headed out to […]