Vacation Round-Up

Skirt-Goodwill, Tank-Urban Outfitters, Button-down-J.crew Outlet

Well, as quickly as it came, my vacation went and now it is back to normalcy. It's always nice to get back to normal but at the same time I would not mind living in the Outer Banks always. I'm pretty sure I would never tire of waking up, having some coffee, and heading down to the beach.

I wanted to deal with the pain of it being over in one fell swoop so I decided to combine an outfit post with a summary of our spending for the entire week.

First of all recognize the skirt? It's the dress I bought at Goodwill the day of the blogger meet-up. This is actually the second time I wore it. The first time was kind of a production and by the time dinner was over it was too dark for pictures (bad blogger). The first time I had thrown a quick and dirty hem in it so the dress hit me above the knee and pinned the crap out of the sides. This time I opted to wear it as a skirt (obvi). I loved it except now I am noticing in the first picture I only have one leg because of how I was standing. Ha! I still have both legs. I swear. Anyway, what do you think?

Second, the really painful part, how much we spent.

We started with $893 reserved for vacation spending.
Gas: $100
Segway Tour: $250 ($230 + $20 tip)
Food/Groceries: $162
Shopping: $128

A vacation total of: $640

We came in under our budget by $253 dollars which makes SSBF very happy.
 And just for fun here are some more pictures that didn't make it in any of the posts.


SSBF in the waves ( I kind of love this one)


my nephew and I in the roughest water all week


the stray cat SSBF and I lovingly dubbed "trash bag"

Between Storms

Dress-Coastal Karma OBX, Scarf-Urban Outfitters, Sandals-Old Navy, Bangles-F21, Initial Pendant-Delicate Raymond

Thunderstorms tend to be a pretty common occurrence down here, especially as it gets to the end of the week. By then I've usually punished my skin enough to need a break from the sun. Don't get me wrong I slather on the sunscreen, it's just my unwillingness to leave the beach/pool that gets me in trouble. It's hard to tell in these pictures but my shoulders and chest are actually pretty red! I really wanted to get some genuine outfit shots in while I was here so SSBF and I  ran down to the beach after the first storm had moved offshore a little. There is something eerily awesome about a storm at the beach, especially when you can still see the lightening as it moves over the ocean. It was so windy though I thought my dress was going to blow up scandalously while SSBF was snapping the photos.

I've been feeling like I am in a clothing rut lately. I tend to buy a lot of very similar items so when I look in my closet I see button down, button down, t-shirt, t-shirt, jeans, t-shirt, jeans. I decided to do something about it. I set up a few ground rules for when I start shopping for fall. First, no jeans. I have so many already in all kinds of cuts so what I really need are any non-denim bottoms. I am thinking lots of skirts and fall dresses. Second, no basic t's. I have an obsession with basic t-shirts which is fine, but I am limiting my purchase of 100% cotton to ones with interesting details (Like the Dolman Sleeved one from Gap).

Given my rules this dress was an ideal purchase. I actually bought it here on Monday night. Shopping in the Outer Banks is generally limited to surf or souvenir shops so you can imagine my surprise to have stumbled on a cute little boutique called Coastal Karma tucked away in one of the outdoor shopping centers. Their selection was very reminiscent of a Modcloth or Spotted Moth type store. I wanted to leave with everything but somehow narrowed it down to this dress and a skirt with a little help from SSBF.

Hope you are all having a good week. While I am sure you are begging for the weekend I'm trying to extend this week as long as possible cause come Saturday we are driving home.

Northern Beaches

"We should live, until we die"

A lyric from a Fun. song that has been resonating with both me and SSBF lately. You see, we tend to get caught up in thinking about the future and material things like money and clothes instead of making the most of what we have. Life should be about the places you go, the people you meet, and the things you see--not what you are wearing or how much you spend to do it.

With that being said we had decided long before vacation that we were going to have an experience while we were here. We decided to take a guided tour of the Northern Beaches and the Spanish Mustang Reserve. In addition to being a fabulous beach locale, the Outer Banks has a rich colonial history. It is home to Roanoke Island the "Lost Colony" and is where many explorers came ashore in the "New Land". Spanish explorers are thought to be responsible for bringing the original horses here that now roam freely in the Northern Beaches.

The area where the horses now live is accessible only by 4WD vehicles by means of a "road" which is actually just the sand on the beach. While the land is mostly animal refuge there are two small communities of beach front houses, Swan Beach and Carova. The houses are beautiful, naturally, and the area is so isolated it is like having a private beach. I've already decided that this is where SSBF and I will be getting married. He laughs and rolls his eyes because we're not engaged yet and I have basically planned our wedding, but I know he wants it too (right ssbf?). Anyway, after about a 40 minute drive across the beach we pulled into Carova and rode our rented off-road Segways around trails and were lucky enough to spot some horses.

I never rode a Segway before so at first I was uncomfortable and made terribly jerky turns and movements.  It was hard to enjoy the sights when I was spending so much time trying not to fall off. As time went on though I got more comfortable with it and enjoyed zooming around checking everything out. We spent $115 dollars each for the tour but it was well worth it. Being out there was amazing, and is a part of the Outer Banks I would have never seen if we hadn't decided to do it. It will definitely be hard next year to visit somewhere else when I feel like there is so much more I could do here.

Currituck Light House and The Beach

SSBF and I left at 4am on Saturday and got here around 10 which was just what we wanted. The only problem was check in for the house wasn't until 3ish. So to kill sometime we took my nephews to the Currituck Light House in Corolla. One of SSBF's biggest concerns on vacation is how much we spend. Luckily the cost was only $7 per person and my one nephew was free because he was under the age of 8. We climbed all 214 steps to the top so we could see both the Atlantic Ocean and the Currituck Sound.

Then hit the beach for a little bit where I made the mistake of thinking a 6 and a 9-year-old would listen to me when I told them they could only go in up to mid-calf because they weren't wearing bathing suits.

Oh well. It's vacation.

Oops I did it again

shirt-NY&Co seen here & here, shorts-J.Crew outlet, floral shirt-j.crew, necklace-juicy couture, rings-gifted

Last week it was stripes, now it's all about the button downs. I know some of these pictures are kind of random. I was feeling the more candid ones that SSBF snapped as opposed to the ones I attempted to look indifferent in. The clothes just looked better when I was doing something natural like walking, or staring at the cars that were pulling into the otherwise abandoned high school parking lot on a Saturday afternoon. There was quite a few of them. I didn't realize how popular high school parking lots were!

How was everyone's weekend? It was raining here on Saturday so SSBF and I did some cleaning around the house. We are slowly getting it ready for some friends that will be visiting at the end of the month. I can not wait until the end of July, it's going to a whirlwind of activity flowing right in to when we leave for the Outer Banks in August! hooray for vacation!  

We also went to the mall to find SSBF a pair of flat front shorts. Warning: Gap's prefall line is a budget disaster waiting to happen. We went in for shorts and came out with 8 other items, including the most fantastic pair of jeggings I've ever tried on. I am so proud of them for finally stepping up their game. The Gap brand has been so hit or miss lately I can't remember the last time I left there with a desire to buy one of everything in the store. Until Saturday that is.

This weekend also marked the start of my credit card ban. I am so nervous. I only have $180 to spend until August 11th. I cut my amount down drastically from the inital $250. I'm pushing myself to really limit my spending until we go on vacation. Normally we try to spend as little as possible on vacation but this year we really want to go bananas since it will be our last year down there. We are thinking about doing a segway tour through Back Country Outfitters & Guides to the Spanish Mustang Reserve! How cool!

That's still 4 weeks out though. The point is I have $45 from now until the end of the week. I'm starting the Spending Diary feature back up so I will let you know how it goes :)