travel

Travel: #EmnBtoAVL

| The Bee Life

This past Memorial Day weekend we hit the road and ventured to a new city for a new adventure down to Asheville, NC.  From initial research on fun vacation spots, to our friends buzzing about visiting this latest hot spot our curiosity was peaked… so we crashed our friends trip and buckled in for a long weekend of exploring!
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Although our weekend consisted mostly of drinking and eating, we did have other trip highlights that made Asheville a memorable city that we’d be happy to visit again.

Blue Ridge Parkway – Craggy Gardens:  With the rolling mountains surrounding the city, the Blue Ridge Parkway is almost unavoidable.  We drove up to the Craggy Gardens pathway that led us to a stunning view, although the fog was rolling in, it did clear up enough for us to grab a few shots and see the true views.  This manageable hike was perfect for all ages and led for a great photo op and perfect spot for a lunch break.

Dog Friendly:  One of the great parts of this trip was being able to bring Moz! Our friends also brought their pup, Maybel, it was great because almost everywhere in Asheville was dog friendly! The one afternoon we went brewery hopping, the pups tagged along and probably met about 15-20 dogs throughout the day.  It was super fun, and the city is really great for us dog lovers whether your dining or drinking.

Rich with History:  One piece of Asheville history that we visited was the stunning Grove Park Inn. Originally built in 1913, this piece of property is impressive and of course has incredible views of the running mountains and downtown Asheville.  Even if you can just stop here for a drink on the outdoor patio (which we did) you’ll be in for a treat and able to enjoy this treasure and explore the original building.  The city center also held grounds for historic learnings and monuments that led us to google search a few times to learn about the cities origins and historical figures.

Be sure to stop back on Friday as I’ll be sharing more details into our favorite eats and breweries from Asheville!

Weekend Recap – Easter 2018

| The Bee Life

Happy April! So glad to see a month that really makes you think spring – growing up March was always a bit of snow and a bit of sunshine, to be expected. But our Easter weekend was jammed back, yet so much fun.  With a much over-due trip to my parents, we headed in Friday to take advantage of as much of the weekend as we could!
Weekend Recap - Easter 2018 - the bee life
With a weekend full of delicious eats, like a NY fish fry, gourmet donuts with fried chicken, hometown pizza, bubbles with a side of friends and family it was all of my favorite things.  We caught up with K+T, Saturday morning and ventured to a hipster hot-spot called Boxcar and indulged on the finer things in life; donuts, coffee and fried chicken, among other things. It was so good and the perfect spot to relax, chat and people watch. We haven’t seen them since the wedding so it was great catching up with them and getting in person hugs!

Easter celebrations with the family consisted of some of the extended family coming over for some yummy pizza, laughs and spirits on Saturday – I always love that we can make time to see more of the family when we come into town, sometimes it goes too long! Church was super early Sunday morning, but worth it being followed up with some bloody mary’s, Mom’s homemade waffles and fully belly’s.

We ended our night with a super fancy Easter dinner… a bottomless bucket of popcorn at the Cavs game – yup we’re crazy, but they pulled out a good win.  It was an exhausting weekend, but so much fun and so great seeing everyone!

How did you spend your Easter?

 

Life After Wedding

| The Bee Life

Let’s keep the love train going! This weekend, B and I will be celebrating our 2-year proposal anniversary!! Yah, I know it’s a little obnoxious to celebrate every little anniversary or moment – but that’s what makes life special! And we always love an excuse to drink champagne and order Chipotle.

It’s crazy to think it’s been 2-years since we started this new journey of being engaged, wedding planning, and now living life married! After the wedding and all the holiday crazy, I had a weird lull – as I know many brides tend to have – where I kept asking myself; “Now what do I do?” We were consumed for almost 2-full years of planning, meetings, parties, and more planning for one single perfect day… and now it’s all over!  I loved planning our wedding, I would do it again, but our day was also so perfect and special I’d never want to replace it.
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So back to the question, now what? Well, we need to figure out a few trips this year, we have some ideas but nothing is finalized yet, we went on 4-trips last year, and I want to keep that up.  We are also figuring out and prioritizing house projects that have been on the list for the last 3-years… *smiles* … so looking forward to those, since that is something we both enjoy doing. Also, just continuing to experience more things together like more of our city, new foods, new adventures with friends and family and new hobbies.

I am also in the process of scrapbooking our wedding, which means I’ll continue to swoon over all of our gorgeous pictures, randomly post one or two now and then on instagram (or here!) and this lull will quickly turn into getting back on track to a normal life! A normal, beautiful life with B.

XOX

My 2018 Goals

| The Bee Life

It’s that time of the (new) year again! Time to check-in with our 2017 goals, see where were netted out and set goals for the coming year.  I kicked my 2017 goals’ asses, every single one of them – so figuring out goals for this coming year was a little tricky, especially since I want to continue to challenge myself yet make achievable goals.
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Maintain my fitness routine.  I finally reached and exceeded goals this past year, so now I need to maintain and continue to become my best self! I feel so good and confident with myself, I want to maintain that feeling – I want to maintain this through my bootcamp classes and running a few races, maybe another half?

Travel out of the country. And get a passport! Yup. Never had one, need to get one so we can start crossing off bucket list trips. In addition to <hopefully> traveling out of the country, we’d like to explore some more/new cities.

Listen more. I often find myself being distracted with my surroundings or my own thoughts in my head – making a conscious effort to listen more, engage and remember conversations is definitely something I need to work on.  This includes shutting down digitally!

Get out. Of the house! Go to local events, take a road trip, learn new things, visit friends, go to concerts and games, takes classes, go out dancing… have new experiences!

These are just the starting points for my 2018 goals as I’ll continue to reflect and challenge myself this year. One of the keys of having a successful year, is not only reflecting on your goals, but writing them down!

Cheers to another year of new possibilities!

Travel: California Honeymoon

| The Bee Life

**This post was written before the recent turn of events with the California/LA Fires; my heart goes out to every single living creature directly and indirectly affected by these sad and destructive fires.  Donate to the Greater Los Angeles American Red Cross to help those affected.

In case you missed our Thanksgiving in Palm Desert, you can catch-up on it here.  Our #emnbhoneymoon was our first vacation that we took together – usually we are with family, so that in and of itself was fun, plus it was our first time in Cali!

We flew in and out of Burbank, which helped save us some money and was also super manageable for being right outside of LA. We had a quick 2-hour trip to the desert each way and were able to explore some more sites around the Hollywood area on our way back to the airport.
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While we were in Palm Desert, we stayed close to the resort, only heading out to random stores to pick up groceries for various meals.  The pool was right next to our condo and it was the perfect spot for us to soak up the sun, take a nap, and just detox from the world. Mornings started with the sunrise, and usually a long walk around the complex exploring the sites.  We went out to brunch and dinner a few times but the standouts besides Eight4Nine were Trio for dinner and Wilma and Frieda for brunch – WOW, both were so delicious.

Before our flight, we headed back early to the Burbank area so we could check out Venice Beach and both see the Pacific Ocean for the first time! It was neat to check out the area, grab some pictures, walk along the beach and stick our feet in the ocean.  From there we found the closest In and Out Burger, each ordered a double and soaked up some more sunshine as we indulged!  From there we headed to Beverly Hills and took a drive down Rodeo Drive – it was unlike anything we ever imagined and blew shops in NYC out of the water. It was stunning. We didn’t have as much time as we would’ve liked to explore the greater Los Angeles area but we were able to drive around in our mustang convertible and take in the Cali life and all the sunshine before heading back to reality.

It was so fun exploring California – although there are a lot more places we will need to check out since it’s a biigggg state, but our mini-moon was the perfect little getaway after all the wedding excitement.

Where should we visit the next time we are in Cali?! Leave a comment below.

Travel: Thanksgiving in Palm Desert

| The Bee Life

We were lucky enough to take our #emnbhoneymoon right after our wedding, meaning we spent our first Thanksgiving as husband and wife in sunshine, just the two of us!  We love our families, but it was nice to detox, soak up the sunshine and do something new and not rush around to three different dinners within 48-hours.

Since we were still on east coast time, we woke up fairly early and were ready to roll, enjoying the sunrise from our balcony.  We started our Thanksgiving off with a walk through our resort over to the main hotel to grab Starbucks and explore the extensive campus of the Marriott Desert Springs.  We got back to our condo and B cooked breakfast, we found Home Alone on TV and vegged out, made some calls back home and figured out where we could eat that night searching for a spot to make dinner reservations on Thanksgiving!
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By 10:30 we were suited up and at the pool, soaking up the sun as it warmed from 75-to 91-degrees.  The pool was fairly quite, we were able to nap, cool off and just soak up the sunshine while sipping some drinks. By early afternoon we headed back up to the room to get ready for our early dinner at 4pm. We headed to Palm Springs for our dinner reservation at Eight4Nine.

Luckily they had some Thanksgiving dinner reservations available and we snagged one up for their limited 4-course menu for the evening. This modern venue is sported in all white furniture, with pops of pink and fun art throughout and a stunning patio. Our “First Impressions” was a house-made ricotta with autumn root and shishito pepper giardiniera.  The “Second Course” we were able to select from 5-choices, I went with the Pear Salad while B had the Curried Cauliflower Bisque. For the “Main Event” there were 6-mouth watering options, one of which was your Traditional Roast Turkey – as tempted as I was, I went with the Marsala Pork Tenderloin; dried plum, roasted spiced yams, greens, candied bacon, and toast pine nuts.  B went with the Sourdough-Crusted Chilean Sea Bass with dungeness crab-stuffed piquillo pepper, saffron aioli, greens.  It was all so phenomenal, and we both ended withe the Bourbon Pumpkin Tart and some hot coffee to finish up our Thanksgiving meal.

It was nice being served an extravagant dinner while enjoying each others company after a day of sunshine and pool.  It was definitely a fun and a different Thanksgiving, but one for the books as Mr. & Mrs.

Weekend Recap – Fall Faves

| The Bee Life

Guys! It’s November! And we kicked off the start of wedding month soaking in all of our fall favorite things and got away for a nice little overnight getaway.   We headed east to our perfect spot when we just want to get away, and it just so happens to be close to our second favorite spot – Souther Tier Brewery.

We were able to leisurely wake up and enjoy the morning at home before hitting the road and grabbing a Starbucks including Moz’s pupachino! She now knows when we’re in the drive thru or spots our Starbucks cups and thinks they’re all for her, #spoiled.  Once we arrived at the cabin, we got settled in before heading to our spot for a few beers and an afternoon snack.
Weekend Recap - the bee life
We’ve been lucky enough to make this a little tradition the last few years, with Southern Tier Brewery being a must-stop, so we were so happy we were able to squeeze it in this year! We were really hoping their Christmas Ale (2XMAS) would be on tap, but it wasn’t just yet! So we settled for our other STBC favorites, B with his IPA and myself with the Porter. Yum!  The sun was shining and it was a nice afternoon for us to chat the day away and discuss our upcoming exciting events – it was good to get out of town.

When we got back to the cabin, we took Moz for a walk around the property and up to the nearby farm so she could bark at the horses and pigs – we even snagged some quintessential fall photos with the perfect foliage around us.  The drives were breathtaking with the beautiful orange, yellow and red leaves bordering the roads.  It was a perfect little getaway!

Mighty Niagara Half Recap

| The Bee Life

ICYMI (here and here) B and I were training for a half marathon! After 12-weeks of training and knocking off a majority of our long runs together we were feeling good going into the race. In addition we knew the race course was fairly flat, with little surprises, so we were ready to conquer it! Plus, it was a completely new race for us, it was on a Saturday, we were excited! We headed to the area Thursday to grab our race packets and made a quick stop to explore Niagara Falls, after all we were running the Mighty Niagara, so it only made sense to visit the mighty falls.

Fast Forward Race Morning: A race morning wouldn’t be a race morning if you didn’t have to wake up before the sun. With an hour-plus drive we had to leave by 6:30am to have plenty of time to figure out parking and get to the start line! With a start time at 9:15 – the sun was in full force, but luckily the first part of the course was nicely covered, and navigated us through the adorable town of Lewiston, we were off to a good start, and sticking to our pace.
Mighty Niagara Half Recap - the bee life
By the time we hit mile 4/5 we were in straight sun down a lonngg straight road. The mental game set in. By mile 7, I couldn’t handle the heat – I had to stop and take off my tank top and pour some water on my head, this would become the trend for the next 5-water stations.  By mile 8/9, the heat had really gotten to me, and I was in bad shape – but B stuck by my side. The remaining 5 miles were slow, hot and miserable, the mental and physical game was strong.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to finish a race before. I was defeated, mad at myself, mad at our time and overheated, but we finished and we finished together! My parents and Moz were waiting for us at the finish line, so it was good to see them and be done with the race.  And at the end of the day, we accomplished a difficult feat and didn’t give up!

The after race festivities were impressive and the scenery throughout the race was beautiful, running along the Niagara River was stunning! We would definitely run the Mighty Niagara Half Marathon again, but would hope for much cooler weather.  This being the first half in almost 3-years, it definitely wasn’t a walk in the park, but I can’t say I’ve completely hung up my half-running sneaks just yet!

Latest Obsessions 08.17

| The Bee Life

This months latest obsessions are a bit all over the place, so bare with me!
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Table Runners: OBSESSED. And the reason I love these so much is because they’re affordable ways to decorate and dress your dining room, or a hutch in the kitchen! Especially if you shop at a Home Good or Marshall’s they’re always switching these out seasonally, so your collection can keep growing. #guilty

Gaga: All over the place… I told you! After seeing Gaga in concert,  I still can’t help but crank up her music, belt out some lyrics and bust a move.  Her latest single, The Cure is also a latest obsession.  Not to mention her upcoming documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two on Netflix looks intense!

House Projects: Since we’ve put a lot of things on hold since our big patio make-over earlier in the summer, and with another big event coming quickly *cough wedding cough* we’ve been behaving ourselves and holding off on a few things! But it’s just about that time when we’re just looking for something to work on.  I’m itching for some landscaping, ready for that new kitchen, and maybe an office make-over?

Trips in 2018:  Beyond seeing 2018 in writing (yikes!) – I’m super pumped for a number of vacations and trips that are being talked about/planned, it’s going to be another busy year of travel. ❤ I am jonesing to add more miles and a few new spots to my list of visited places!

What’ve you been obsessing over lately? Tweet me @mmariebee or leave a comment below!

Photo sources: Gaga Poster | Kitchen | Table Runner | Mykonos