Impromptu Vacation - Ogunquit, ME: Day 1

We arrived in Ogunquit with no issues late Thursday afternoon, checked-in, and then went exploring. We got our grub on  at a cute little Italian cafe called Caffe Prego. Mmmmmm panini and sorbetto, YUM! It was so nice just to sit, relax, and not be on any sort of time line.

Over the course of our meal, we noticed that the knick-knack store across the street had a cat. Not just any cat, a GIANT rag doll cat. The cat had free reign of the area, going in and out of the store as it pleased. Now, if you know Jake, you know that he love, love, LOVES animals. He wanted to run across the street at start playing with it. At one point the cat  (whom Jake has named Mau-Mau, cat-cat in Canto) was just laying in the middle of the side street next to the house. The guys walking back from the beach knelt down to pet the cat. My reaction was "what are those guys picking up? Are they picking up garbage? Oh wait, there's a tail. OOOH it's the cat!" Now, if you know Jake, you know that he love, love, LOVES animals. He wanted to run across the street at start playing with it.

After finishing up our panini's (and sorbetto and cappacino), we took a walk on the beach. We started from the Norseman Resort at the South end of the beach. The weather couldn't have been more perfect; high 70's with a warm breeze. I didn't think that we would walk far. Just a short walk, take some pictures, and then turn around and walk back to our hotel. Boy was I in for a surprise. Once we were started, Jake decided that he wanted to see the houses at the end of the beach. I don't think he had any reference to how far away the houses were (3 miles!). So we kept walking, and walking, and walking.

When we arrived at the first house, he wanted to see them all. "We're here, might as well see all of them." And so we walked some more. Right before the very end (where it looked liked you couldn't walk any further due to a cliff), we turned around to make the return trek. Let me tell you, after walking that far in flip flops on a hard beach, my foot was beginning to hurt. We made it a little over two-thirds of the way back when we decided we wanted to see what was on the other side of the sand dunes. "Hey look, there's a road, let's follow it back."

Oh boy, at first we started doubting our choice, but we pushed on and ended up on the main drag, which was our goal. Along the way we over heard a couple having a fight in their jeep, walked past a cop (who we speculate drove passed us multiple times later in the night), stopped by a small market to pick up water, cheese, and crackers. It started to get dark on us pretty quickly, but we finally made it back to our room and just in time for the finale of Fringe!

This was our "walk":

(Jake's actually kissing my head as I'm trying to take this picture.)

Previously:

Wedding Crashers

Impromptu Vacation - Ogunquit, Me: Preface

Impromptu Vacation - Ogunquit, ME: Preface

Before I launch into the fun details about our weekend getaway, I wanted to share some background information. Not sure how pertinent it really is, but I want to capture it so that we don't forget this moment, oh let' say, 20 years down the road.

Every winter since we started dating, Jake and I escape the harsh New England winter. On our first trip, we visited Aruba. Last year we jetted to St. Lucia. This year there was no trip to be planned. You see, between the million and one weddings scattered across the country (world, as it turns out), I just didn't have enough vacation time. Money of course is also a factor. So we just sucked it up and agreed that a tropical vacation was not in the cards *giant sad face goes here*.

The last couple weeks (potentially months) have been rough at work for me. It got to the point where I almost inflicted pain on my boss not once, but multiple times in one day. I finally had enough and needed a break. Generally, I like to think that I handle stress fairly well. But in this case, it got pretty bad, so bad that anything wedding related exacerbated my stress levels. I couldn't bear to even look at a single wedding blog (and I follow approximately 20 of them). I took two days off at the last minute. My plan was to just get away, clear my head, and recharge my batteries. But I realized that WE needed to get away. WE needed a vacation together.

So at the last possible minute (we're talking the night before), I booked the only ocean view room left at Ogunquit. It must have been meant to be, because when I emailed the Beachmere Inn Wednesday morning, they didn't have any ocean front rooms available. When I called at 7pm there was an opening! Someone had called an canceled at 3:30pm! Ocean front room complete with private deck + 80 F weather, the stage was set.

(Personal Photo - we stayed in the victorian building in the middle.)

Previously:

Wedding Crashers

Wedding Crashers

Just kidding. While vacationing in Ogunquit, ME we stumbled across a wedding at the beach. I couldn't help but just sit from afar and take pictures of the event.

Wedding in progress. I love the lone pair of heels off to the right of the "aisle." It was a tad bit windy.

Clap, Clap, Clap!

Parting of the masses.

All Done.

Have you witnessed a random wedding?

Seriously, how much?!?

(Source)

This is a JIGster. Basically, it is a contraption that helps you create layered stationary. I'll be honest, I think it's a great idea. Heck, they beat me to it! I had the idea in my head months ago. But back to the JIGster, want to take a guess at how much this sucker is going for? $70 pre-tax, pre-shipping. Really? Seriously? I don't even know what it's made out of, but wow that seems absurd.

Thanks, but no thanks Envelopments, I'll just jimmy-rig my own for way less.

Video on how to use JIGster

Happy Mother's Day!

Any normal person would have just gone to the store and picked up a card......Team Hung-Perkowski is not normal. We, OK, I, decided to make cards this year. But Jake helped!

I found this time lapse video on how to make a pop up flower card:

We used it for the inside of our cards, but on a smaller scale. We utilized super small sheets of origami paper for the flowers spruced up the front of the cards a bit using scraps of cardstock, origami paper, scrapbook sheets, and precut alphabets.

The front:

The inside:

 

Those really look like poppies don't they? Check out the envelope liner! It's scrapbook paper that I found on sale at Michael's. 

We like to think of this as practice for our invitations.