It’s finally here- I am spilling all the details about our recent trip to Salt Lake City, Utah! I am so excited to be sharing everything that we experienced when we were there and hope this is helpful for those of you planning a trip!

I decided to break this down by day, as it was easier for me to remember what exactly we did HAHA!

• Our final day of the trip, we decided to drive out to see the Salt Flats! This was something I really wanted to do, but didn't realized it was about a 2 hour drive to pretty much Nevada! I am happy we did this though because the drive was beautiful! Definitely suggest checking the most recent post on Instagram to see if the salt flats are dry before going!
• Since we were so close to Nevada, we decided to visit a casino while there, and found Montego Bay! If you can't stand the smell of cigarettes, I'd suggest skipping this lol! It wasn't awful, but the smell was engrained in the carpet from back when it was legal to smoke inside! Blake and I both like to gamble so we had a blast and met some cool people while there also! Blake won about $100, and I broke even.
• On the way back to meet our friends for dinner, we stopped at a local cidery, Mountain West. A very small, quaint place, but the cider was delicious!
• For dinner, we tried Grid City! I wish they would open one in Charleston I loved it so much! They served a delicious rose seltzer, which was totally different from any seltzer I had ever tried before. Also, the restaurant is vegan and gluten friendly! They had dairy free cheese on the menu! I was amazed lol. Unfortunately, this was our last stop in Salt Lake City before leaving the next morning to go back home. It was a great way to end our trip visiting my best friend Nicole, and her boyfriend Drew. 

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This was a vacation I will never forget! Of course I will forever remember being proposed to at St. Regis Deer Valley, but it was also the most beautiful place I have ever been to! We loved our vacation, and are already planning to visit Salt Lake City in the summer! Highly recommend visiting! 

It had been 17 years since I had been back to Bald Head Island, and I couldn't wait to get there. My parents invited Blake and I to join in on the family vacation along with 2 of my younger sisters, 3 younger brothers, and my niece. While we were sad my twin brother Matthew, and step sister Mary Catherine could not make it, we still had a great time! 

We got lucky to visit Bald Head Island this summer because most of the beach houses were booked months in advance, but last minute a house opened up that fit us all pretty comfortably. The house is three stories with 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a big front porch. The first floor housed the boys in 2 separate rooms, one queen sized bed, and 2 twins and a bathroom. The second floor was for the girls, same layout as the first floor, and the third floor is one giant master bedroom and bathroom. While we were thankful to find a place to stay, we personally will not book the same house again. There were not nearly enough towels provided, the house could have been cleaned a *little* bit better, and the water pressure was little to none. None the less, we still enjoyed the trip, and didn't let those minor things mess up our trip. I'll link the house here if you'd like to check it out for yourself! 

I think my favorite part about the island has to be the transportation! You have to take a ferry over to the island and you drive a golf cart during your stay. The only vehicles you'll see are for construction. Riding around in a golf cart, while on a barrier island has some sort of freeing feeling I can't explain, it's awesome! We rented one 4 person golf cart, and the house we stayed at provided a 6 person golf cart for us to use as well. 

We purchased a Shoals club membership to have access to the pool while we were on the island. Unfortunately, COVID rules still require a reservation to be at the pool, but that didn't mess up our plans at all. We mainly stayed at the beach, but the little ones preferred the pool some days! The beach is very shelly compared to Charleston beaches. We found so many cool shells that have now made for beautiful decoration in our guest bathroom that is beach themed! I loved that everyone spread out a lot on the beach, so you never felt like you were on top of other visitors. 

As for places to eat on the island, there are only a few options. We wanted to eat at the club restaurant which requires reservations, and is more of a white table cloth dinner, but unfortunately they were fully booked. We went out to dinner twice and ate at Jules both times. Bald Head Island’s only waterfront dining experience located in the heart of the Bald Head Island Marina. It was delicious! I had scallops the first time, and the steamed seafood bowl the second time, The seafood bowl had just about everything you can think of for $45 and my dad and I split it!  Blake and I ventured over to the Maritime Market Cafe located in the grocery for breakfast one morning. They serve simple breakfast items for CHEAP! I got a chicken biscuit which was just a tender on a biscuit but it was perfect for me! We grabbed coffee every morning from Sand Piper Ice Cream and Coffee. Get the iced tan with oat milk! SO good!  Blake and I stayed a little later than my family did on our last day, so we grabbed lunch from the restaurant right next to Jules. They only serve pizza, and it comes in a to go box. It wasn't the best we've had, but it didn't suck. 

There is one grocery store on the island which has all of the basics and some. My biggest suggestion if you visit the Island is to pack all of your dried goods because the grocery store is expensive. Bring snacks in a storage container, bring your alcohol, and save the cold stuff for the island grocery store. 

There are numerous gift shops on the island, and we visited each one numerous times. My favorite one was definitely Island Passage. It was basically a boutique selling all of my favorite brands! Visit the Bald Head Island website for a full list of shops! 

Besides the beach and the pool, the only other activity we decided to do was paddle boarding! While the current was extremely hard to paddle against, we still had a blast! I'd recommend renting kayaks or paddle boards for a change of pace one day. We didn't go up inside the lighthouse this trip, but we did it 17 years ago, and I remember we loved the view! We had too many people to try to coordinate that this trip. 

I hope this helps you plan out your trip to Bald Head Island if you decide to visit. It really is one of my favorite beaches to vacation! The beach holds so many childhood memories for me when my parents used to take just my sister, bother and I before the other kiddos were born. I can't wait to go back! 

We recently took a trip to Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina with Blake's family, and it was a wonderful time spent with family and friends! We were so excited to be on vacation since we haven't really slowed down since our move to Charleston. Luckily for us, Blakes mom took care of planning the entire trip! I took some notes and wanted to write up a review on our vacation in case you decide the visit Ocean Isle Beach! 

We stayed at a newly renovated beach house within walking distance to the beach. We opted out of a golf cart rental and instead took advantage of a beach wagon and it was all hands on deck to get all of our gear down to the beach. The walk only took about 5 minutes. We had 11 people on vacation, and the house fit all of very comfortably. The house offers a huge sectional couch, and 4 bedrooms with 6 beds and 4 bathrooms. The kitchen in a decent size and provides everything you would need to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. It truly felt like home for the week! The room we stayed in had a queen sized bed, double dinks in the bathroom, a walk in closet, and a desk, which was a perfect place for me to get some work done, and do my makeup! 

Since I am from the beach, I tend to be picky about beaches. I look to see how clean a beach is, how updated the shops are, how many restaurants are around town, etc. While I really enjoyed the actual beach because it was very clean, we had one issue. The new beach tents, Shibumi Shade, are prohibited from the beach! Apparently it has something to do with the beach umbrella rentals. Rumor has it, the founder of the Shibumi Shade spoke with town council, but they haven't budged yet. SO, that was honestly pretty frustrating because we were spending hours at the beach and really wished we could've used the tent for shade. 

We decided to eat in most nights due to the amount of people we had, but we did venture out one night to Beck's Restaurant. It was delicious! Blake and I split the 'Captains Platter' which was filled with oysters, scallops, clams, deviled crab, shrimp, and French fries. you can't make a reservation, but you can call ahead to let them know you are coming, and they will put you on the list once you get there. A friend of mine who is often at the beach also recommended Oyster Rock and Boundary House. We waited about 45 minutes for our table at Beck's, which was perfect because it gave us time to venture across the street to a HUGE store called Callahan's of Calabash. 

This adorable gift shop had everything you could possibly image. We had no problem spending 45 minutes waiting for our table to be ready. It was a mix of cheesy beach nicknacks, beautiful house decor, clothing and shoes, cards and more! St. Nick Nacs is a year round Christmas shop attached to Callahan's. The store displays thousands of Christmas tree ornament and other Christmas decor. I buy an ornament on every vacation Blake and I go to with the hopes I can have a Christmas tree one day with just our destination decorations on it! 

One tradition I grew up doing on beach vacations is ghost crab hunting, and everyone wanted to do it! We had so much fun running around the beach in the dark with a few flashlights. We caught a lot of crabs too! Don't worry, we let them all go once we were done. 

Lastly, I want to share a coffee shop we stopped by on our way to the beach and on our way out. OIB Surf & Java serves delicious coffee while also offering a surf shop to shop in. The staff greeted us with smiles when we walked in, and made a delicious cup of Joe! I love supporting local coffee shops, and always try to find one while on vacation. 

I know this isn't a ton of information, but it is everything we did since we spent most of our time at the beach. Isn't that what you're supposed to do on a beach vacation? Have you been to Ocean Isle beach? Let me know what you liked about the beach in the comments!