Girls Only Getaway to Florida

Last night my girlfriend Jessica and I got back from a MUCH needed beach vacation in Florida! We headed out Monday afternoon and soaked up the rays all week. We stayed in a super nice condo right on the beach and had groceries delivered so that we could eat all our meals in.

Every flight there and back was packed! No worries of Covid shenanigans--we are both fully vaccinated and wore our N95 on the plane.

The condo had a full kitchen, dining room, living room, 2 queen beds, and a balcony with an AMAZING ocean view!! Check out that scenery....

Our first day there, we put on our beach dresses and checked out the pool area and beach to see where everything was. Then we did a costume change and put on our suits to hit the sand! Our room came with several beach umbrellas and chairs to keep us happy.

The waves were pretty good our first few days there, and very calm our last day there. It made for a good variety. We enjoyed getting warm in the sun and cooling off in the water!

We brought with us a good variety of spirits....and we put together several great meals that we enjoyed on the balcony each day.

We discovered a city-run shuttle that serviced the area we were (Hollywood Beach) and for only $1/person fare we headed to the Hollywood Boardwalk for an afternoon of food, shopping, beach time, and people watching!

We brought books and journals to keep us occupied while soaking up the rays...

Our last evening there we got to watch some thunderstorms roll through after dinner. It brought a "cold" front that dropped the temp pretty nicely!

Our flight home had a layover in Nashville so we enjoyed some lunch and drinks there.

And of course I had to get a souvenir for my rockstar hubby!

We both had a great time getting away from reality for a bit and enjoying ourselves. The quiet time was a nice reprieve! However I missed my boys and it's always nice to be back home to sleep in your own bed.

Until next time!

From Winter Into Spring

Here at the Pierce household, we are slowly crawling out of our winter cave and soaking up the elusive sun while we watch the snow melt!!!! We love winter, but we also love spring so we are all looking forward to it's arrival soon.

For Valentine's day the boys gave me handmade cards ♥️

We manually removed some extra large icicles from the roof!

Cuddles turned 16 years old, and is not impressed with any of it.

I got another trim and am officially 1 year into growing out my natural hair color! (Another post on that soon...)

Nick and I are resurrecting my vintage Scrabble game!

Bonding with his first child.

The crazy boys!

Happy to dig the bikes out of hibernation.

And homemade donuts for a sweet treat!!

Thank you for reading ♥️

Sledding Fun!

Last week we finally got enough snow to go sledding! This winter has been very delayed in delivering our expected snow...but now that it's here it hasn't let up!

It was about 10 degrees so we bundled up and hit the sledding hill at the town park.

The boys had tons of fun, and we all got a good workout! I may or may not have injured my tailbone going down the hill from the hard packed snow and ice....Ouch! Getting too old for these shenanigans.

The boys are out of school for break all these week, but nothing fun is happening besides hanging out in PJs all day and watching movies. Fun times!

Hiking NY 2021: Letchworth in the Winter (Trail #1 and 5)

Week before last we finally got some decent snow in central NY, so I took that opportunity to try out my new winter hiking boots! I went to one of my favorite local places to hike, Letchworth State Park.

It is free to enter during the off season, but several entrances and roads are closed for the winter so you definitely have to read their website and plan accordingly.

We parked at Lower Falls and hiked the gorge trail (#1) past Lower Falls, Middle Falls, and Upper Falls to where the trail is closed at the stairs by the train bridge.

There was about 6" of snow on the ground with more falling softly. The temp was 15 degrees with a windchill of 3! Very chilly, but I warmed up as I hiked.

I hiked with a new friend I met online in other hiking groups. His name is Ken and is great company.

He showed me how to put on my microspikes (also my first time using them!) and they worked great. They are Unigear brand. My new boots are XPETI brand from Amazon, and I was very happy with them as well. Despite the frigid cold, my feet stayed toasty warm!

Letchworth was beautiful as always! I'm happy I got to see the gorge and falls in the winter with snow for my first time.

After hiking 5 miles on trail #1, Ken and I decided to try out a new trial that was close by we had never been on. It is trail #5 and goes from the lower falls parking lot down to the water. Evidently it is where you can take a kayak/raft down to the river. We hiked an additional 2 miles out and back on that one.