Vacationing

I've was blessed to have almost two full weeks of vacation with my family this year and though I had a wonderful time,it is nice to be back home again.

So before we left we did some exploring and look what we found!

Since the hubby is required to work weekends we started our vacay with some local touristing. This is somewhere around Lake Nockamixon, PA. We were able to watch the sunset, saw some eagles, and a few blue herons...pretty awesome for almost in our backyard.

Then we did our first trip to the Southern New Jersey coast. It was a nice, quiet get away with the hubby's parents and our own little girls(yes, I refer to my dogs as my girls). Most of our days were spent on the beach in Sea Isle, but we took the girls to visit a few other places as well since they are not aloud on the Sea Isle beach. The first stop was the back bay where everyone goes crabbing. Peek loved it and even voluntarily went for a swim. Unfortunately, I was overcome with excitement over this and forgot to take a picture! I do have an after the bay shot.

Climber was not thrilled at all. Too muddy for her.

Next, we brought them to Stone Harbor...they were both a bit nervous! Too noisy I think, but we did get a good amount of photos LOL!
At this point just curious...

Peek not excited in the least bit... afraid something might get her perhaps?

Climber so terrified she is hanging on to her daddy!!!

We also brought them to the Carson's Inlet in between Ocean City and Strathmere. The girls both loved exploring. It was clean enough for Climb but not too noisy! We didn't get any pictures the day we brought the girls but we stopped the day we left to take some pictures because the water was incredibly high from the rain the night before. I wish I had before pics to show. :( Sad face, very sad face.

I promise there was a beach here yesterday!!(You can see a very tiny bit of it at the end)

The hubs checking it all out...no beach here either.

The steps are even covered!

Sorry for the squinty eyes...it is the only pic I have of us together!

A view of the other side.

Oh P.S. Did I mention we had to bring the Element(our regular travel vehicle) to the shop? So we drove our good ol' Mercury Sable. For 175,000 miles she's not doing too bad!

After safely arriving home, hubby getting some work in, switching vehicles, doing laundry, and bringing our girls to the in-laws we headed off to OCMD to hang with my side of the fam. The place I have gone every year since I was a babe myself. I didn't take any pics this year but here is one of the typical happenings at OCMD.

ahhhh.....I love that place. <3 <3 <3

my thrifty apartment porch garden

I did mention a little bit ago that I'd post my little garden I've been working on this summer. Though it is nothing spectacular, I'm pretty proud of how it has turned out. The hubs and I both love the outdoors and were a little sad when we moved into a 3rd floor apartment and gave up our yard. One of the requirements of our apartment search was a place with a porch. Well we have one, but let me warn you, it is very, very tiny. Anyhow, we still really wanted to create an enjoyable outdoor space but we are under a tight budget so the less mulah spent the better!
So I started small. Very small with these.

I wasn't as successful with the seeds as I had hoped, but I did get a few things to grow! Check it out!

As I'm sure you can tell, it was a gradual process. I had already collected a few things before we put it all together.

So finally the hubs and I decided to finish our little porch. We wanted to have a spot for each of us to sit and relax, have a cup of coffee, read a book, etc. So we checked out craigslist....nothing worth the money or the gas, so then we decided to check out our local thrift store. This is what we found.

Not exactly what I envisioned myself, but the hubs really loved the table and I figured the flower tray went pretty well with the whole garden theme. Plus, for a total of $15 for both, that's not too bad.

So since we still needed some chairs we decided to check out Target. Unfortunately we struck out, but finally hit a homer when we went to Lowes. Each chair was $20 a pop. I'm sure if I had waited I could've found something cheaper and maybe even a little more interesting, but we were ready for our porch to be done yesterday so it worked!

A little miss matched perhaps, but we have a comfy outdoor spot now! We also got some planters and a few veggies. Take a peak at our thrifty garden!

We also have watermelon, zucchini squash, dill, and mint. These are mostly from Lowes.

You definitely can't beat Produce Junction's flower prices!

What I Wore and Trying to Make a Picasa Collage

I tried looking pretty a few times this week...here are 2 of the times.

obviously not so successful with the collage. oh well.