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Beach

TRAVEL FAVORITES

Been blowing up my IG with photos of Costa Rica times so I thought I’d do something a little different recapping our trip on here.

While we explored Jaco, I mostly lived in a swimsuit and coverup but did get dressed up once and got showered up a few times. See below for my favorite pieces I had on the trip and all the way at the bottom is the quickest recap I’ve ever done~!

TOWEL

TANK / SHORTS

DRESS / MULES (in black, brown is sold out)

DRESS / BAG (in lighter color, saddle sold out)

SUIT / (in black, green is sold out)

Couldn’t track this down to link but, I’m eyeing this ROMPER and THIS ONE in both red and mustard-gimme all the romps!

SLIP DRESS

Quickest trip recap I’ve ever done….and go….

We spent 6 days in Jaco, Costa Rica with Dustin’s family-there were 11 of us total! It was a super packed out week with a detailed itinerary keeping all of us on track for the activities we signed up for ahead of time. Organized by his awesome mom who made sure everyone had plans they could afford and were going to enjoy mixed with family activities (ie future Christmas card photos) and overall a trip of a lifetime.

On the way to our villa we saw dozen’s of crocidiles from a bridge-super spooky! That same day Dustin surfed-not near the crocs! He totally crushed it. I knew he would with his snowboarding skills. The following day was Easter Sunday church followed by a sunset cruise. Monday the guys and I went deep sea fishing- but sadly didn’t catch a dang thing! Next was zip lining through the jungle (I totally went upside down because they told me everyone did it before me, false! whatever-YOLO!), riding ATVs to a waterfall with his folks, cruising out to Tortuga Island where we snorkeled, hiked around and road a banana float that slung us off and visiting a monkey preserve and private beach. Aren’t you a little bit tired just reading that!? For the most part we cooked and ate in but one night got out for a fancy meal to celebrate a few of our birthdays. We woke up early and went to bed early. The wildlife was WILD. We had two huge red parrots living outside our room, the ground was littered with crabs, frogs, iguanas-you name it! We saw sloths, fed monkeys, harassed crabs and the last night was frightened to see a 6f’ croc on the beach near our house! The vegetation was also out of this world. I could go on for days about the plants like the giant monsteras and species of palms I could never have imagined. We only got a small taste of the Costa Rica and are set to go back and explore the Caribbean side.

Check out my Insta stories for more to all the above ~

OUR WEEKEND

This past weekend Dustin and I skipped town and went to Gulf Shores for my mom’s 50th birthday. That’s right, I’m 29 and mom is 50! Pretty wild to think she had my brothers and I by the time she was my age. She took the ‘have kids young then live it up’ route while I took the ‘live it up now and then probably settle down’ life route (luckily I found Dustin and am more than happy to plant roots and relax!!)

The trip started on Wednesday night driving down and stayed in a cheapy hotel outside of town then on Thursday meeting the family and checking into the condo. Most of the weekend I was tuned out from social media and wasn’t my usual TAKE A PHOTO OF EVERYTHING self, which is pretty nice!

Relaxing and hanging with the birthday lady was the most important thing on the agenda. And that we did. Other activities included eating a lot of seafood (some of which my dad previously caught), beach bocce ball (pretty dang difficult!) body surfing (Dustin’s a pro, well, second to my dad. Sorry babe!) and like I said, A LOT of chilling. Time flew too fast.

Sunday we hightailed it back to Georgia up to Gainsville where we met a group of friends for an evening of party boat times on Lake Lanier. When I say this day couldn’t be topped, I mean that it could not be topped! Ok, this doesn’t include our wedding day or unborn children’s births..you know.. in party terms can’t be beat!

Both Dustin and I jumped off the boat more times than we could count but he really went for record breaking. Once anchored, he didn’t stop! And there was a slide, which he went down in every way possible, including head first and even on a stingray float!

I loved watching him enjoy himself so much. Such a treat seeing someone you love living it up. Don’t get me wrong, I was too, but looking over and seeing someone lit from the inside out with excitement is a true delight.

The sunset was all kinds of crazy beautiful that night on the lake. We stayed in the water from roughly 6 till 11 something. Pruned beyond belief and sore as crap, that afternoon and evening was next level good. Friends and family, I love you! Adventures, love you too!

HONEYMOON PLANNING: TULUM

After a lot of debating between here and there we decided to go with Tulum, Mexico for our honeymoon!

The other spots we tossed around were Costa Rica and Greece but Mexico won for many reasons. Ultimately, we decided we wanted to go to Greece, however, November isn’t the best time to go. Rather then spend all of our money on a Costa Rica trip we came up with the game plan to do a cheaper and easier trip now and save some of our honeyfund to visit Greece when it’s prime time to go in mid-May of 2016.

Last week we bought our plane tickets and this week we are working on nailing down our hotels. We want to skip around and maybe even stay in Playa Del Carmen since it’s in between Cancun (where the airport is) and Tulum.

The top hotels that are in the running are Coqui Coqui, Ahau Tulum and Casa de las Olas. Still perusing just in case I missed a goodie and also open to suggestions!

Adorable map by The Kitchy Kitchen, she also has an impressive guide here.

Below are images that I found while doing research on Tulum that got me very excited about our trip-

Photos via Madewell blog, Sincerely Jules, Entouriste, SF Girl by Bay, The Kitchy Kitchen and Lonny

So much charm in this little beach town!

Things we are excited to do: swim in the cenotes, check out Mayan ruins, eat all the tacos, drink all the margaritas, chill, spear fish (Dustin), snorkel, watch the sun set, buy local goods and whatever other adventures we stumble upon!

Let the countdown begin! 131 days to be exact!

DAUFUSKIE ISLAND, SC

If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen some sneak peaks of this post and also seen it postponed. That is because this has been one helluva week. It started out with a fun trip to Daufuskie Island. Then it ended with a semi truck plowing into our car as we were one exit away from our home’s exit off highway 20E. Before I stray too far from the real point of this post, lemme summarize what happened real quick in case you are wondering. Our friend was driving and we all noticed a wreck and traffic ahead therefore we were coming to a stop and the semi behind us didn’t. The impact was so hard and unexpected that we weren’t able to brace for it. Dustin and I both had our heads fly back so forcefully that it felt like my brain and neck were on fire. Thank goodness we were in a fancy Lexus SUV because it took the impact like a boss. The back window exploded into a million pieces but the truck and bumper really held up. We are very lucky to just be dealing with bad whiplash. We’ll be visiting a chiropractor over the next month to get our necks and backs straightened out, literally. Any positive vibes sent our way would be awesome!

Ok, getting back to beachy vacation!

We set out on Friday morning with three other couples and drove into Hilton Head where we loaded up on food and adult beverages then boarded the ferry to Daufuskie Island. That night we ate at the Club House followed by cruising on the golf cart looking for wildlife and visiting the beach. The following day we went hang at a different beach called Bloody Point (I know, has a bad sound but it’s actually pretty!) and on the way spotted a rum distillery and had to stop for a tour.

Our tour guide Geoff, was so sweet leading us around giving us all the knowledge. After the tour and some Q&A we had a tasting of the two rums they currently sell. The group’s consensus was that the spiced rum was the yummier of the two and we each went home with a bottle. Gotta love small batch booze!

My favorite moments of the trip were our adventures in fishing! Not that we caught anything, but we gave it a real good try! Derek was a master at cast netting so we did catch a ton of bait-shrimp, mullet, brim-but the only thing we actually got on a hook was a sassy turtle that kept stealing our bait. Did come close to snagging an alligator but it’s probably a good thing that didn’t happen! Here’s a photo of D and I getting real excited about Derek going after a small gator in a salt water run off! Little guy was too fast and smart for us, it was like playing whac-a-mole!

One of the spots we fished at was a beach that was covered in oyster shells. Even though it was pretty dangerous walking around because those things are crazy sharp, it was so cool! This is a huge coral piece I found walking to said beach, brought it back with me for some porch flare!

Here in Atlanta a group of my buddies joined a bocce ball league and when we spotted this legit course on the island we took advantage and got in some practice. We split into teams and played one game until we decided it was beach time. Watching Jonny go from never having played to owning the course was worth ultimately losing to him!

Another pit stop was the Iron Fish. It’s a workshop and shop (not pictured) by a local man that crafts beachy objects out of iron. I really wanted one of his mermaids for my mom but it cost an arm and a leg. Seriously the little one above was $345. Oh well, perusing around was worth the trip! And we found a few sweet cats, bonus!

Here’s a photo of my dude looking all handsome and stuff next to a horse that was a spitting image of his old horse, Argyle, he had growing up.

The final evening we made a huge low country boil, a rum watermelon (cut watermelon in half, scoop out some, fill with rum, refridgerate and enjoy a few hours later!) and a dance party! What a trip! We certainly packed it out with all the adventures. There’s only so much you can do on the island but we definitely did most of it!

All photos snapped by Christina Moscoso, edits by me.

LOMOGRAPHY 35MM FILM

The scanner we ordered from Amazon came in and we immediately got to scanning all the film we had from months and months ago! For $100 this thing is awesome and will save us TONS of money when shooting film. The Lomography film we used was color negative 100 ISO 35mm which you can buy for cheap here. This film loves the sun and creates interesting light leaks and color.

In this post there are photos from Edisto Island, The Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Piedmont Park , Tennessee, Florida and good ole home life.