Panama City Beach, FL

Over the week of august 8^th – the 15^th, my family along with Austin and my brother’s girlfriend, McKenna, went to Panama City Beach! My family has always gone to Florida during the summer but this was our first time to this beach! This was also the first time that we have taken two cars (yes we drive, no its not that bad). Austin and I drove my car (well Austin drove a lot more than me) and my parents, Alec & McKenna were in the other car.

We stayed at the Aquavista hotel (?) (condos) which was right on the beach! We stayed on the 8^th floor on the corner of the building and had a wrap around balcony! Perfect views of the ocean and beach! Our condo was a 3 bedroom along with 2 pull out couches in the living room. It was a pretty nice condo! Nice enough that my mom booked it again for next year the day we got back haha. 

Day 1 Saturday – We got to the beach around lunch time. And just in time to get into a restaurant before the storm came in! We had some absolutely delish wings at Barefoot Bar & Grill. After the storm died down, Austin, Alec, McKenna and I decided to take the scenic route back to the hotel and walk the beach. Back at the condo we got everything unpacked and basically just relaxed for the rest of the night.

While Austin and I were out hunting for koozies, my parents actually got  to watch a nest of sea turtles hatch and make their way to the ocean! The video that I’m posting is recorded by my dad. 

Day 2 Sunday – I believe this was the day that Alec and Austin met some jelly fish friends (yeah they both got stung but they were fine). We spent the day walking the beach, swimming in the pool and checking out the cool beach houses!

 

Austin has a hobby of saving half dead fish on the beach ;)

Day 3 Monday – This day Alec, McKenna, Austin & myself went on a dolphin jet ski tour! It was so much fun and we actually got to see quite a few dolphin and get pretty close to them. The whole tour had about 8-10 jet skis and two leaders. We stayed with the leaders the whole time but they let us go fast and have some fun! There was also a part of the tour where we pulled our skis up onto an island and walk out into the water. McKenna and I decided to stay on the sand for the most part for this. While everyone was in the water we had a little visit from a shark, disappointed that I didn’t see it. 

Day 4 & 5 Tuesday and Wednesday:  Both of these days we basically just enjoyed relaxing on the beach, walking to the pier and going out to dinner! One night when we went to the pier there were a group of men fishing for sharks which was really cool! They didn't catch anything while we were there but it was really neat to see how crazy big and strong all of their equipment had to be! The same night as the sharks, we decided to dry Nitrofreeze Ice Cream!

 

Alec & McKenna

 

Mom & Dad

 

Day 6 Thursday: Today we decided to rent some tubes and float down a river. I learned Florida rivers are WAY more cleaner than rivers in Illinois, you could see all the way to the bottom for majority of the 4 hour ride. It was pretty fun but 4 hours was a little long I think hah. But the water was the perfect temp for how hot it was out! We all got a little sunburned but thats okay. We found some rope swings along the way but Alec and Austin were the only ones willing to swing off them. We got in at one point of the river and a bus came and dropped off our tubes, then we floated, then the bus was there to pick us all back up to take us back to our car! Crazy that floating for 4 miles took a solid 4 hours

Day 7 Friday: Last day on the beach :( we just spent the day in the pool and on the beach enjoying our last day in the sun :)

On the way home Austin and I made a detour to Nashville! I should have that blog post up tomorrow!

In about 2 weeks were heading to Wisconsin for a relaxing weekend with my grandparents!

 

See ya next year Panama City Beach!

Chicago, IL 7/24/2015

This weekend we decided to go downtown for the day!

It was a pretty laid back day, I had never been to the city in the summertime so Austin and I just decided to go walk around for the day! We took the train in and walked the river walk (where this picture is from) all the way over to Navy Pier! We didn't do anything exciting once we got there hah just walked the Pier. The next destination was the Magnificent Mile, even though we didn't do any shopping, to get our free chocolate from the Hershey's Store and the Ghirardelli Store! :) We saw some street performers while we walked around.

For dinner we decided to go to Dick's Last Resort, which is right on the river. If you have never been there, its a restaurant where basically the workers are assholes and yell at you for everything and use super inappropriate language...super fun ;)  you do get some cool hats if you decide to sit inside

We headed back to the train station after dinner (I had to go to work early the next morning so unfortunately we didn't stay too late) and headed home. We had a great time spending the day together just walking around and being able to talk to eachother :)

This Friday we're heading down to Champaign to go to a concert and visit with some of my friends! :)

Erin Condren - Week 3

This weeks spread is probably one of my favorites! I got the donut stickers from Michaels Craft Store and then used some other stickers that I had from LittlePlannerPrints shop on Etsy!
I found out, the package of washi tape from Michaels, the really skinny one that comes with like 6-8 colors in a tape dispenser type of thing fits perfectly where the morning, day and night sections are so it makes it easy to change up the colors!
I didn't do too well with my meal tracking this week but I knew that I would be eating pretty bad over the weekend so that's partly why I didn't write it down haha.

Toledo & Sandusky, Ohio July 16-19

This passed weekend Austin and I traveled out to Ohio to visit one of my friends and to go to Cedar Point!

We got to Toledo Thursday night around dinner time, then got up early to head to Sandusky! We managed to find a bagel place to grab some bagels for the ride :)

When we go to Cedar point it was pretty chilly and raining and windy (Cedar Point is on an island on Lake Erie so that explains the wind), which actually ended up working out to our advantage. The park was empty. Whenever we were telling people that we were going there they all told us that we would ever get through the whole park in one day, well we did...in about 7 hours! We hit all 11 major coasters (we skipped the super small ones and the carnival rides) and only waited 40 minutes for one but everything else was a half hour or less wait. The weather also ended up being 90 and hot and sunny! Since it was so hot we found this super yummy ice cream place in the park (we always get ice cream, kinda addicted). Perfect day over all :)

On Saturday, Austin, my friend Paige, her boyfriend Chuck and myself all went to Maumee Bay State Park where we found a little beach! We packed a cooler with some drinks and lunch and spent the day laying on the sand and swimming! (well they all swam, I'm not a huge fan of lake water) Some rain decided to roll in mid afternoon, so we went on a walk on a nature trail that was at the park which was pretty neat. After our walk we headed back to the beach for a bit. Then we headed back to Paige's to hangout for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning was the worst part of the trip. We were packing up, planning on leaving at 10am so we could make it back in time for me to get to work at 4pm. Well, we walked out to Austin's car to find the window completely broken out and his stereo system stolen! Absolutely ridiculous. Luckily they didn't steal anything else from the car, and luckily we didn't leave much in there. We then had to wait 2 and 1/2 hours for police to show up to write the report :/ finally by 12:30pm we were ready to start our 5 hour drive, missing a window and having no music to listen to. Let's just say by the time we got home we were very happy that my mom had dinner ready and we were both alseep before 10pm that night!
Besides Sunday morning we had a blast! (always is visiting Paige)

This Friday, the 24th, we're heading into Chicago for the day to explore :)

Erin Condren - Week 2

Here is last weeks spread in my ECLP! Again, using stickers from Little Planner Prints on Etsy & a Michael's Craft Store $1 Sticker book. Really liking all of the colors in this weeks spread but starting to think about going to more simple when school starts! (But I still have a few weeks of fun spreads ;) )
I have been using some InkJoy pens & Sharpie Pens but I just ordered some Papermate gel pens so itll be fun to see which I like more!

Myrtle Beach South Carolina

Little Late for this post but May 14-17th my boyfriend and I traveled to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend getaway!

We stayed at the Sea Dip Hotel which was a little over a mile walk North of Pier 31 & about a 10 minute cab ride from the airport. We came to walk the beach and to relax, so we didn't do many of the touristy things just south of the pier. That area reminded me a lot of Wisconsin Dells or Gatlinburg Tennessee.

This was our view from out hotel room! We had a nice little balcony :)

I had never been to an Atlantic Coast Beach, I usually visit the Gulf Coast of Florida, so it was pretty different for me! The sand was definitely more rough than I am used to, a lot of broken shells. There was quite a bit more wind and waves, since I didn't have Florida blocking all of that. It was really cool to actually see some bigger waves though!

We found a really good bagel place closer to Breakers Hotel (the bagel shop is right next to the dollar general if you find that first) and we made that kind of our morning routine. We would walk the beach, stop at Starbucks for some coffee, get a bagel then walk the beach back to our hotel.

     Myrtle Beach was definitely nice but a little too touristy for me! I loved the waves and just love getting to walk the beach, so it was perfect for a little get away. There was a pretty equal amount of younger adults to families to older couples, no one was too rowdy and we didn't have any problems!

My Opinion on Sea Dip Hotel --> The staff at the hotel was very very nice, welcoming and helpful (even called a cab for us to get to the airport). The hotel itself though was not the cleanest; our room had a weird smell to it when we got there and we ended up leaving our sliding door open all weekend to keep it aired out, it didn't seem as clean as it should've been either. Our room had a small kitchen which was really nice and helpful but they don't give you anything to do dishes or towels to dry them, so bring that stuff or walk over to the dollar general like we did. The lady at the front desk told us ahead of time that there was a little grocery store type of place across the street...it was basically a place to get drinks and mixers, they didnt have much else. Luckily we found the dollar general (as you can tell we made a lot of trips there) which had everything we needed to get us through the weekend. Since my boyfriend and I are both under the age of 21 it was very nice that this hotel let us check in on our own because the more we travel we are realizing the harder that is!
All in all it was a great trip, the hotel wasn't bad to just stay for the weekend and we had such a good time!

We're off next weekend to Toledo, Ohio!

Erin Condren - week 1

Finished week 1 in my first Erin Condren planner! I will try my hardest to upload my weekly spread every week :)

Currently getting a lot of my stickers from Michaels craft store and an easy shop that I found called LittlePlannerPrints! I have my planner set up as the top section being used for school, the middle kind of as a to do list and then the bottom section is where I keep track of my workouts and meals! On the very bottom section of my planner I try to write something good that happened every day :) working on being a more positive person ;) I also got a sticker to keep track of my spending every day to help me stay on budget!

If you would like $10 off of your Erin Condren life planner use this link: https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/baileylucius1027