We spent the past week dispersed camping in the Ponderosa pine forests of the North Cascades outside of Winthrop, so instead of publishing Friday's Frugal Five, it's out on Monday this time. It was our first real trip to the Methow Valley, and we fell in love. We returned home Saturday afternoon sweaty, dirty, and…
After our first week in Reykjavik during our Iceland trip in January, we spent four days outside of Reykholt, a small town on the eastern edge of the Golden Circle. When we were researching where to stay, we decided that we wanted to pick a couple of places along that loop so we could get…
We've been back from Iceland a bit over a month now, so it probably comes as no surprise that we were itching for a weekend getaway. We don't do big trips that often, but we tend to find the time for at least a night away once every 4-6 weeks it seems. This time, we…
My husband and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary in November and decided to take a two week vacation to Iceland to celebrate the milestone. He doesn't care too much about specific days, but I do, and he was more than up for a longer trip to celebrate. We spent the last couple of years…
We're back! We landed back at home from Iceland on Wednesday night and have since been recovering from jet lag and hanging around home before going back to work on Monday. We were all sick over Christmas and the cold lingered for the start of our trip, but we otherwise had a fabulous time. We…
My birthday was last Friday (the 13th!) so I decided that I wanted to celebrate by renting a big house with a bunch of friends and just hang out for the weekend. It should be pretty clear by now that I am very extroverted, so my idea of a wonderful birthday weekend is one where…
Remember those wonderful neighbors of ours who moved down to Austin, Texas this past May? They had a baby this summer (the impetus for their move) and we managed to squeeze in a Thanksgiving week trip to head down for a visit and to meet the little guy. I had visited Austin five years ago…
September was a month of quite a few travel expenses, from FinCon (both 2019 travel and my 2020 ticket) to the weekend in Gig Harbor for a wedding, and Leavenworth for my grandmother's birthday. Between all of that, I only spent two of the five weekends in September at home, and it showed with our…
We went to Leavenworth's Autumn Leaf Festival this past weekend for my grandmother's 85th birthday. We first took her there three years ago and inadvertently stumbled on the festival. They shut down the main road from cars and have one of the biggest parades in Washington with high school marching bands from around the state.…
Last weekend the three of us had a wedding reception to attend in Gig Harbor, so we decided to stay there for the weekend instead of making the trek out just for an evening. As much as we love spending time on the Olympic Peninsula, we pretty much stick to the areas north of Poulsbo,…