Last Month in Salem

A midst all my busyness, I've forgotten to share my most recent check off my life bucket list: visiting Salem, MA during the month of October. D and I went up to Salem with another couple and friends of ours and it was suuuuuch a fun trip. Like seriously, Salem during October is like this little Halloween-town where all the spirits and ghosts come out, and everyone's love for Halloween is celebrated. I highly recommend to anyone who is Halloween obsessed or who even loves history. Because the city is rich in history. But first up, we took a quick stop into Boston....

Beers from Cheers. Obviously.

 Where everybody knows your name....

 We did a quick stop for beer and dinner. And of course lobster rolls, because when you're in New England, you must get the lobster rolls. It's a rule!

 We booked hotels about 20 minutes outside Boston and Salem which had these charming little fireplaces that totally added to vibe of the weekend. We sipped authentic Boston micro brews by the fire and read up on all the fun, and haunted happenings of the weekend to come. 

 The next day the first stop was the Salem Witch Museum. Which from the outside just oozes creepiness and hauntings. The actual history of the Salem Witch Trials is fascinating, so if you know nothing about it, I suggest definitely grabbing a book and reading up on it. Crazy!!

 Some of the original architecture and buildings are still there from the 1600's. The cemetery below is actually the 2nd oldest cemetery in the country and has people from the original Mayflower voyage buried there. Pretty crazy stuff! D the history buff loved it. 

 Midway during the day, we stopped off at Salem Brew Works for some lunch and tasty Massachusetts brewed craft beers. My favorite was the blueberry ale beer which they garnished with fresh blueberries. Along with their blueberry ale, their pumpkin pie ale with rimmed graham cracker crust was a close second. 

And last but not least, we got to meet Michael Meyers. As in THE Michael Meyers....the one who played the psycho killer from the original Halloween movie (my favorite Halloween/scary movie of all times!) We got his autographs and pictures with him. Creative D even thought it would be cool to have Michael Meyers (aka his real name is Tony Moran) strangle him, which made for great photo ops! So overall we had an awesome time and are even thinking of making it a yearly tradition :)

Anyone else ever been to Salem before? Or intrigued by the Salem Witch Trials like I am?

xo Steph

Halloween Recap

Keeping my promise over here and sharing some of my Halloween pics from the weekend :) So first off, you know D and I LOVE Halloween. Well actually, I love Halloween and D inadvertently had to either start loving it or, well, start loving it. Needless to say, he's on board for dressing up for Halloween for the rest of our years. And I love that!

But here is the unveiling of our 2014 costume. And no, we are not an Italian stereotype and a artsy hipster. 

We are Rocky and Adrian from…….Rocky!

"YOOOOOO Adriannnn!!"

And for those of you who are not familiar with the movie or reference, here is a picture below from the original Rocky movie we were trying to channel. Usually when people do Rocky costumes, they do the typical "Rocky in his boxing gear" or "Rocky in his work out gray sweatpants." As for Adrian, who ever dresses up as Adrian? Well I do because if you know the movie, Adrian is pretty kick ass. So we went as Rocky in his sweet leather jacket and mousey "pet shop" Adrian, complete with short hair and cat eye glasses. Shown below :)

Of course our chalkboard wall had to get some love too.

Halloween in HoBOOken :)

Group shot before we went out. We had a birthday girl and her piñata, Rocky and Adrian, and Goose from Top Gun.

Check out D's shiner I gave him. 

it's pretty amazing what you can do with a little purple eye shadow!

This was one of our easiest Halloween costumes to date. I owned all the clothes to make my costume, and D's pieces were all straight out of my dad's closet haha. I was really worried a lot of people wouldn't "get" who we were -- because let's face it, if we weren't standing together the costume doesn't make sense. But surprisingly we got soooo many compliments and people just loved it!

So how was your Halloween? I'm always a little bummed when it's over, but at the same time the trifecta of holidays for me is just beginning. Now on to Thanksgiving……

xo Steph

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! Ok, now that I have your attention, first things first. I'm the worst. I said I was going to be blogging away this month and October has been a huge fail in that regard. Well, only a fail in that I haven't actually sat down with my computer to blog -- but a huge WIN that I did sooooo many fun things this month, I have tons of cool stuff to share with you in the next days and weeks coming up. PROMISE! So to ease myself into the blogging world, and in celebration of one of my favorite holidays, we will recap the last few years of Halloween costumes because -- Halloween costumes are kind of my thing. My jam. I just love dressing up and being someone else for the night. So take a look at years past and enjoy your Halloween weekend :)

 2010 was my first Halloween with D and I LOVED our costumes -- Popeye and Olive Oil!

 Kisses for my sweet sailor.

 That year, my brother showed up in a costume you might remember from a popular SNL skit.

I'll leave that up to you whether you catch the reference or not!

 Halloween 2011 D and I went as Mario and Luigi from Super Mario brothers. This was the year we had that weird blizzard in October -- and yet we still managed to call a cab, and head to the bar for our party like a bunch of crazy people! We went out with D's cousin and her boyfriend (who went as Publisher's Clearing House winners -- complete with giant check) and could you believe it -- they actually won the costume contest and won $500!

 This year, D and I went as us in 50 years. Basically a grumpy old couple. It was a hit at the bar and I have to say -- I was the most comfortable Halloween costume I ever wore. A mumu and slippers from Sears was clearly the way to go. D got his whole costume from our local Goodwill.
This will also be known as the Halloween of Hurricane Sandy.
The hurricane hit us only a few days after these pics were taken....

Our friends went as Double Dare -- and they really went all out. They even had fake slide to put in their helmets! Unfortunately they weren't even nominated for best costume like they were last year so that was a bummer -- boo.

Halloween 2013. EPIC WIN! I left it up to D so pick this years costume and since Guns n Roses is one of his favorite bands -- Axl Rose and Slash it was. Admittedly I was a little skeptical, but our costumes were so easy to recreate and such a hit at the bar, we even won second place at a costume contest at a local bar. I'm only slightly bitter because 1st place was $500, while 2nd place was a stainless steel cooler. An awesome stainless cooler, but at the end of the day, it is a cooler. And not filled with $500. But probably one Halloween we had the most fun!

D even brought he real guitar out to make the costume complete.

Please, no flash photography.

ROCK OUT.

Our family and friends also represented with awesome costumes including Pulp Fiction and The Price is Right contestants.

At the end of the night D even got to go up on stage with the cover band to channel his inner rock star.

Welcome to the jungle anyone??

So there you have it. A round up of a few Halloween's past. Stay tuned for this weekend's costume.

Any guess what we might be?

Happy Halloween friends ;)

Hello, October!

First off, hi! I'm back from the radio silence (otherwise known as the month of September!) and I'm so sorry I've let blogging go to the way side, but the start of this school year has been ROUGH to say the least. Things are finally starting to calm down and I feel like I can get my head above water now. Which is great, because it's just in time for my absolute favorite month........

Happy October everyone!!  

October, let me count the ways why I love so: the changing of the leaves from green to vibrant reds, oranges and golden yellows (the reds are my personal favorite!), the crisp fall air, cozy over-sized sweaters, chunky knit scarves, boots, bonfires, football season and tailgating, apple picking, hot and fresh farm stand cider, pumpkin picking, carving, and decorating......ok, just pumpkin everything. Including the coveted pumpkin spice latte (Dunkin is preferred over Starbucks), Cheers to Oktoberfest, and fall flavored beers, scary movies, haunted houses and hayrides (D has a love/hate relationship with these - but always ends up going anyway), Halloween, and preparing this years Halloween costumes (because you know, costumes are kind of my thing!) Finally booking a weekend trip up to Salem, MA for a weekend filled with witch hunts and scary ghost tours. The return of scary fall TV shows like American Horror Story and The Walking Dead......and hopefully the final installment of the Paranormal Activity movies (D and my yearly tradition) And lastly, we're having our engagement party this month! So many fun things to look forward to (and blog about), so I promise more blogging coming your way.I just hope I have enough time to fit in all my October fun :)

xo Steph