I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! I know I sure did, can we press rewind? I headed out east for the long weekend for a little family, relaxation and FLOATIE time!! Oh yessss.

I've been dying to use my donut floaties I picked up during my trip to Washington and the time came this weekend to bust out these cuties for some quality pool time. 

I can't say weenie was totally excited about the idea at first, but I think he realized that I wasn't going to make him swim in the pool (he didn't love that experience last summer) he warmed up to the idea and we floated around the pool all afternoon.

To celebrate the holiday we got our red, white and blue on and headed to Southampton. I'd never been before and it's been a long tradition to go to the 4th of July parade in Chris' family so that was neat to be apart of! 

On our way to the parade we passed... what do you know... a floaty shop that was seriously up on its game! Floaty envy!

Scoots decided he liked the Hamptons too... especially if he got to live in one of the places below. Keep dreaming Scooter ;-)

To celebrate the rest of the weekend we headed to a delicious family BBQ that let to an inevitable food coma and we had a little bit more time visiting before it was time to head back to the city again. Hope you all had nice weekends too!

Hey everyone! I'm officially back in NYC after some fun summer trips and this week I'm going to give you a little look into my trips!

If you caught my last post, you already know I headed back home for Little Duck's high school graduation! I'm so glad I got to be there for her graduation and I'm so excited for her next chapter!

It was the last trip I was going to be home for before she goes away to college so I really tried to get in some quality girl time -- Anna and Faithy style. 

Our adventures usually involve some delicious food (insert Red Robin here), jamming out in the car, and definitely a Target trip or two. ;-) One of our big adventures this time around was focused around something totally awesome too... DORM SHOPPING! Shopping for my dorm brings back so many fun memories and I was so excited to help Faithy get ready for hers. Plus, after living in NYC for awhile, I've gotten pretty good at decorating a small space and learning all sorts of storage hacks!

In between shopping, we also checked out a couple of really fun places! One being Sub Zero Ice Cream. I had never been before but it's totally awesome if you have any near you!

You start by picking out the flavors you want and they mix the ingredients into a bowl and then....

Poof! They use liquid nitrogen to freeze your ice cream right in front of your face. It's just like magic (or a little science!). So cool and it was really tasty too!

We also stopped into a spot I've been wanting to check out since Christmas.. The Root Beer Store. I absolutely love root beer and I found out about this shop up in Puyallup that sells over 100+ brands of just that! How cool!?

They also have some fun other options like bottled shirley temples, birch beer and other flavored pops. Basically if you're a fan of root beer you are in for a treat with this spot!

Along with some really awesome time with Little Duck.. I also got to go to Happy Hour for a mini Napa reunion with some of the ladies from my trip in September! 

I also squeezed in a trip to spend some time with my grandma which was really nice. She had a rough start to the year so it was really wonderful to catch up and see that she's doing much better now. 

To celebrate Father's Day, we went up to Seattle for the Fremont Solstice Fair. I was a little surprised when my dad suggested it because it's a little wild and well, not really his cup of tea, but I guess he was feeling a little adventurous this year.

It ended up being a lot of fun and I even got to spend a little time with one of my good friends who moved up there this year!

And just as soon as I arrived it was time to head back east.. We ended my trip on a pretty exciting note by checking out my mom's new house! I just missed the move by a week when I was home but I did get to watch the house go through some pretty dramatic changes over a week which was pretty neat. SUPER excited for my mom and my sister.

Another wonderful trip in the books! Missing home and the lovely non-humid weather already!

I have a friend visiting from Portland this week, so while I’m out and about I have some back-posts for you!

My summer adventures were seriously lacking this summer, so I’m trying to make up for lost time before the cold weather hits us hard. 

One of my favorite neighborhoods in Manhattan is the Upper West Side. I work in the area, so I generally don’t get over there much during the weekend, but made it a point to for this adventure. 

We started out by checking out Magnolia Bakery. There’s several locations throughout the city, but surprisingly I’d never actually been to one. We decided to pop in and pick up an ice cream sandwich to split — had to fuel up!

From there we headed towards Lincoln Center to hang out before the crazy of Fashion Week took over the beautiful space. One of my favorite sites was this cafe that had a slanted roof with grass on top. Grass that you can actually go up on and hang out on! Crazy right?

After Lincoln Center we headed to the Hudson River waterfront. Something a little different than our usual Central Park!

Along our walk we stumbled onto a Kite Festival! So cool!

Here’s a look at the skyline along the river. I see one Trump building.. two Trump buildings.. three.. four.. five. It’s kind of like counting sheep!

We wrapped up our adventure back on the Upper West Side with some dinner and yummy desserts from a new place called Treat House, which serves gourmet rice krispies! Yum!