Maine: The Way Life Should Be

Our third day was in Portland, ME. I was excited to be on solid ground, and to see my former roommate Lindsey. She was a fabulous tour guide. We walked around Old Port, then had lunch Lobster Quesadilla, Lobster Bisque and Blueberry Ale :) Then we headed out to the Portland Headlight. This lighthouse is the most photographed NE lighthouse and the oldest light house in Maine. It is still functioning and in use. At the lighthouse, Nick and I bought a painting from a man who paints NE lighthouses. We bought a painting of the Portland Headlight and for each painting he personalizes it and puts your name and year on the boat. It was very cheap and 100% of the proceeds go to preserving the lighthouse. We already framed it and are ready to hang it up today!

Lindsey and I and the Portland Headlight

Nick and I in front of the lighthouse

Me, Katie, and Lindsey touching the lighthouse

Legs, Legs, Legs! Three tall ladies standing next to the lighthouse!

Our framed painting. The boat says: Balanc 2011

A ship wreck at the lighthouse

Berry-Misu my favorite dessert on the cruise! I need to find a recipe for this!

Our first towel animal, a bat

My favorite spot on the ship. These chairs are in the Solarium the indoor pool area and they have floor to ceiling windows! Every night I came and watched the sunset here. It was too cold in Canada to go in the outdoor pool especially at night and I loved hot tubbing and swimming after dinner.

Nick and I in the Solarium to watch the sunset and departure from Portland

Looking back at Portland

Solarium at night

 The fourth day was Nick's 24th Birthday! I decorated our room while he was in the casino. When he came to bed he was somewhat surprised.

The outside of the door

The entrance way to our room

Our bed and decorations

Nick's presents and sitting area

Our vanity area

 On Nick's birthday we were in port in Bar Harbor, ME. Hands down my favorite stop on the cruise. Nick and I want to go back and stay just in Bar Harbor. We went to Acadia National Park and did some hiking from Sandy Beach to Thunder Hole. Then we did some shopping in the cute shops and finished by eating lobster and blueberry pie!

On the tender boat where we met the cutest kid ever. He didn't say a word despite the questions we asked him but as soon as we got close to the boat he screamed "That's my boat!"

Bar Harbor

Lobsters! (Not where we ate)

It was so pretty

In Acadia

Sandy Beach in Acadia

The beginning of the picture taking (I will post more later from Nick's mom)

Hiking in Acadia

LOBSTER!!!!!!!!

"That's my boat"

Ahoy Matey!

A week and a half ago we set sail on a 10 day cruise for vacation! It was awesome! It was great to be on a beautiful ship with lots to do and not internet, phones, etc. to distract us. There was everything you can imagine and we got a break from the heat by going up to Maine and Canada. I can't write about all 10 of our eventful days in a single post so I will periodically share over a couple of posts.

We left out of Baltimore which made things very convenient. We woke up the morning of our cruise at normal time, got in the car drove to the ship, walked on-board and ate lunch on the ship. We then spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the ship. Despite having our super awesome "I <3 Baggage Handlers" Royal Caribbean tags our luggage didn't till we were dinner. This was upsetting to me because I had to violate the dress code in the dining room and wear shorts. Not to mention I was freezing inside. Once we were out on the Bay they opened the casino with dollar tables. Nick went to play and came late to dinner. He did change for dinner. Of course no one cared that night but I felt silly in a dressy tank, shorts, and tennis shoes. After dinner I got to change. We went to the opening show and afterwards hit the sunset at the perfect time for some really pretty pictures :)

The second day was our first day at sea. We started rocking at the trivia games, and the karaoke legends began. We were sitting at karaoke enjoying the first singer, a complete stranger. All the sudden he starts heading my way. Next he is sitting beside me serenading me. In front of everyone! Nick was the third singer and announces he is going to serenade this gentleman's wife. While Nick is singing and carrying on. The man who serenaded me, Stan, snuck back around to sit with me. When Nick asked Stan's wife to come up and dance with him. Stan and I went right out behind him. And Nick NEVER noticed until the end of the song. He was so surprised! The audience loved it and Nick and Stan were a karaoke favorite that night.

I spent most of the afternoon by the pool, drinking my pina colada and then getting ready for formal night.

Fruit animals at lunch the first day

Leaving Baltimore. Nick got sick of me singing "Good Morning Baltimore"

Pretty Sunset

Nick and I the first night at sunset

Mr. Karaoke

Out in the Atlantic Ocean

We got walking in on the track every morning (except days in port, but trust me we walked every where) We took stairs every where and there was a very, very nice gym on board. I liked being moving because then you couldn't feel the boat moving as much. Nick and I both only gained a couple of pounds despite eating non-stop. No 2.5 pounds gained per day like the average cruiser for us!

The second day on the ship was Nick's dad's birthday!

Next post: Onto Maine!

Cows, Harps, and Seashells

What do those three things have in common? Our last weekend. Friday was Cow Appreciation day at Chik-Fil-A. If you dressed up as a cow you could get free food. For a partial costume you got a free sandwich, for a whole costume a full combo meal! You bet Nick and I were there as fast as we could tape our spots. Unfortunately our printer was out of black ink so we had to color in our costume ourselves. As you can see in one of the pictures Nick didn't color his tail and it looks REALLY weird.

Friday night, Nick dragged me to this Video Game concert. I had no interest in going at all based on that description. Come on all I even know is Mario, Mario Kart, and a couple others from childhood and this sounds like nerd mecca! But he wanted to go and I agreed to be DD. Well it ended up being kinda great! Don't get me wrong this was DEFINITELY nerd mecca! But the concert was the National Symphony Orchestra. It was great listening to a symphony version of Mario with clips of Mario through the years shown on the big screens. Other than that I knew none of the songs, Nick didn't really either. But some of the games had really beautiful compositions. It was great to listen to even not recognizing it. Did I mention his friend got us 2nd row center seats?? Can't beat that! I really want to go back for the Disney night, when the National Symphony performs classic Disney hits.

Then off we went on our next trip down to the beach. I was nervous, very nervous about how this trip would turn out. I took a chance on Priceline and tried a "Name Your Price" deal. We leave for a cruise in 3 days and were not looking to pay full price to stay at the beach for a friends wedding for a night. We don't care about being ocean front, in three days we will have 360 degrees of Ocean front! We decided to stay inland a bit. I took a chance and requested a $50 a night for a minimum 3 star hotel. I was shaking in my boots nervous about what dump we could end up in or bed bugs haven. We pulled up and it wasn't the fanciest from the outside and inside it was very modern, clean, and fancy. I was impressed. The room was great!! The area was in the middle of nowhere but not far from our destination.

The wedding was wonderful! The reception was waterfront and there was good seafood, wine, and dancing!

No One Mourns the WICKED

 As a collector of anything Wizard of Oz. I was stoked to hear Wicked was coming to DC. I have anxiously waiting for the day to come for us to go to the show! We went with Nick's parents. The show was everything I could have hoped for. The night before Nick and I watched the Wizard of Oz to see the story from that perspective and get in the spirit. The show was amazing. It is witty, humorous, relatable, and the music was phenomenal.

The Kennedy Center sits right on the river.

Nick admiring the Kennedy Center and view of the river

There are multiple theaters in the Kennedy Center but we were in the main Opera House.

In front of the sign

Afterwards we headed to Chinatown for some good food! We ate at a nice Chinese restaurant called Tony Cheng's. It's a hidden gem in Chinatown.

Slacking on the Job

I have been so caught up with moving into my new home and enjoying the time with the fiancee that I haven't been good about updating the blog. We have been so busy it seems with unpacking, cleaning, yard sales, and traveling. Just this week I am finally starting to settle in and feel at home. This past month has been filled with many momentous occasions. I officially finished my coursework for grad school. I moved to a new town and in with Nick. We have been so blessed! Two days after I moved in we had yet another yard sale to get rid of more stuff. We have been soaking up the cheap fun in the area! Here are some of the fun summer activities we have been up to:

Reston has a free concert series on Friday nights. The night we went it was an all brass band rock band. It was also the Taste of Reston Night, where vendors lined the street with food and drink.

The next weekend, I went to the wedding expo with my mother. Holy free stuff! There was so much food, coupons, and goodies. It was a lot of fun but we aren't really planning yet so it was just for fun and ideas. We did find a reception site we liked a lot. :)

Our apartment complex has a big gas grill for community use. We live right next to the patio and pool area. For dinner it's been easy to send Nick down to the grill to cook a few things while I make the rest of the food up in the apartment. He loves being grill master and is very eager to cook food on the grill. His favorite is cooking up fruit on the grill. For the fourth, Nick and I made fruit kabobs with pineapple, peaches, and plums. They were delicious and a HUGE hit. In the past week we have grilled out three times: steaks, chicken and pork.

Our roommate made us steak on the grill one night that was delicious. We spent the afternoon down at the pool!

For a date night we set up a table on our balcony and enjoy a good meal as the temperature dropped.

Grilled Chicken, Broccoli, Ukrops Mashed Potatoes, and Spoon Bread

Nick was so excited for the meal! He ate 4 pieces of chicken.

Enjoying the summer weather

We love going on walks! Only now our walking times are changing. We used to have to walk mid day for it to be warm enough and now we are having to wait til sunset for it to be cool enough. I much prefer summer sunset walks!  I may have written about this before but it is a great way for us to get quality time together with no other distractions. We usually get caught up with nature and standing in awe of the beauty! We are so blessed to have a bike path that runs right by our apartment. We like heading out there to walk and people watch. We are trying to mix it up and find some new places. One day we took some pictures while we were out on the trail.

Out for an evening walk