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,…
It's Sunday and I'm headed home from my first ever FinCon. While I had started blogging before the conference in 2017, I wasn't enmeshed in the community in a real way at that point and didn't really think about going. 2018, however, was a very different story. I still didn't go - much because it…
We went camping last weekend for the first time in a few months (and glamping on Orcas Island back in May hardly counts). It is one of our favorite ways to travel frugally, and we actually tend to go more often over the winter. The weather isn't as nice, but off-season travel means lower costs…
Last weekend felt loooong since the 4th of July fell on Thursday this year and we ended up with a four day weekend. We usually take advantage of extra days off to go somewhere, but we stayed local this time instead, and it was great. After our ferry experience on Memorial Day, we really felt…
We had plans fall through at the last minute last week, so we decided to go to Leavenworth again for just Saturday night. We haven't been for a little while, but it's one of our favorite places to visit for a weekend. There's always something fun to do, be it the Accordion Festival like last…