Northern Michigan Trip--- July 2014: Parts 1 & 3

You may have noticed a bit of a lull in the blog action over here and that is because my husband and I went on a week long vacation, road tripping our way through parts of Northern Michigan.

Many of you may already know that the reason I started blogging was a creative outlet for me as my husband starts grad school this fall. This trip was probably the last "big" vacation that we will take until he is done with school. We had so much fun and saw some great sights! I would love to share a re-cap of our week with you!

**Here is a map of Michigan and I attempted to map out 

a little trail of where we traveled!

I decided to just to the first and last parts of our trip in this post and I will be doing a whole post later dedicated to our trip to Mackinac Island.

First we started out celebrating the 4th of July holiday weekend with my family camping in
Gladwin, MI. We floated out on the pond, had bonfires and fireworks, played card and lawn games, and even watched an outdoor movie.

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From there we spent three nights in Interlochen. This was a perfect location as we visited the Glen Arbor area (where Sleeping Bear Dunes is located), as well as, Leland, Northport, and Traverse City.

Leland, MI (Lake Leelanau): One of my favorite places of the trip!!!

Northport Harbor area.

Traverse City: Wine & Spirits Tasting.

We then traveled to Pellston, MI where stayed for two nights. On our way there we stopped at one of my favorite breweries, Short's Brewing Company. We also stopped in Petoskey which is located along Lake Michigan. They had a super cute downtown area!

Short's.

Petoskey.

Our last part of the trip was spent in Charlevoix. We again enjoyed Lake Michigan as well as Lake Charlevoix. They were having an event so we got to see many cool boats come in and out of the harbor area.

Charlevoix.

Have you taken any vacations this summer!?!? 

If so, where to!??

Thanks for checking out our vacation!

I loved our time away!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

xoxo

Punta Cana 2014: Vacation in Review

You may have noticed a recent blogging hiatus from me, and that is because Tyler and I went to the Dominican for a week with some friends!! :) I am back and refreshed and wanted to share a recap of our trip with you!

We went to the resort Majestic Colonial in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The all-inclusive where we stayed was only about a 20-25 minute drive from the airport. The resort was beautiful and the beaches... oh those beaches... they were amazing!! I could have sat in a beach chair and stared at that water all day, it was so blue and so great! While we were there we also enjoyed a catamaran trip one day complete with swimming with nurse sharks and sting rays as well as snorkeling.

Pros to the trip: 

• Like I mentioned above, the greenery, resort and beaches were awesome!
• We got to go a lot of relaxing, sitting by the ocean, sitting by the beach, swimming, etc.--- we really enjoyed our time that we got to spend with our friends!
• I finished a book!!
• All of our flights were on time and event-less! Good flying!!
• We loved our catamaran/nurse sharks and sting rays/snorkel trip! Totally worth it!!

Cons to the trip:

• The drinks were just "alright", I definitely think they were better the times that I have traveled to Mexico
• Along with the drinks, I would say the same about the food. I thought the food was pretty decent but my husband's stomach was upset almost the whole trip because of either the food or the drink and on the last day mine was too! :( The time we traveled to Mexico we really didn't get sick.
• The service at the resort was not as friendly and outgoing as we have experienced on previous trips.
• This time around we had a lot of people trying to get us to buy something or trying to "hustle" us out of our money. Every day there was constantly people walking the beach trying to sell you something and people trying to get you to buy more excursions from them.
• The airport in Punta Cana was SUPER frustrating: no organization, chaos, and this lady was yelling over the loudspeaker the whole hour and half that we had to sit and wait for our flight. Also, when we got there the lady checking your passports was on her Facebook and talking with others. I don't even think she looked at the information on my passport! On the way out, 7 different people kept looking at it that it got to be annoying. (It did not feel extra safe that they checked it that many times, just a nuisance). 

**Just a few tips for those traveling to Punta Cana: 

• When you arrive, you need to pay a "tourist fee" which is $10 per person (cash, so make sure you have that on hand!!)
• If you plan on doing a lot of excursions and stuff off the resort, bring cash. Everyone wanted your cash and not a card transaction. This was different from previous times we traveled and we don't like to bring a lot of cash so we were having to use their ATM which gave us Dominican pesos!
• Make sure you let your bank and credit card carriers know you will be traveling out of the country so that you will not be denied transactions if you need to gain access to money!

All in all, we had a great trip. It was very relaxing and we loved the time we got to spend with our close friends. We had a lot of fun with them! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Sorry about the hiatus, I am going to try to get back in the swing of things 

now that we are back from vacation! 

If you have any questions about traveling to the Dominican (Punta Cana) and would like to ask me, email me or leave a comment below! I would love to try to help!!

**As always, I try my hardest to respond to your comments via email! 

I love hearing from you!!!! :)