Monthly Archives: June 2022

NJ Bucket List: Farmer’s Market & Outdoor Concert

Maddie here! Back for another summer bucket list post. This week I crossed two items off of my bucket list: visiting the Maplewood Farmer’s Market and attending an outdoor concert.

Maplewood Farmer’s Market: Since moving to the ‘burbs, I have been curious to check out the Maplewood Farmer’s Market because right across the street from my yoga studio. The market is only on Mondays and I had the day off for Juneteenth so we decided to make an afternoon of it! I rode our electric scooter and Alex rode his long board up the road to the farmers market. It wasn’t a huge farmer’s market, but there was a lot of variety with the vendors (farms, bakery, brewery, distillery, and some food cart type vendors) and it was fun to walk around. We had a few samples and picked up several items that we enjoyed on our porch after the ride home.

Cost: $40. We got cherries, a four pack of local beer from Montclair Brewery, a coffee cake, and an olive pocket. It was kinda pricey, but it always feels good to support local businesses!
Top Tip: What made this outing fun was doing something different for our transportation. Sometimes, getting somewhere is just as fun as the destination itself!

See an Outdoor Concert: When I originally included this in my summer bucket list, I kinda had in mind a Keith Urban concert at the PNC Bank Arts Center but when I looked at the tickets and inflation being what it is, I decided against it and made it my mission to find the most fabulous free summer concert I could. I definitely feel like I succeeded! My dear friend Chris and I attended the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra concert in Branch Brook Park with a firework show directly following the concert. It was a beautiful night and the symphony was fantastic as always! My favorite piece they did was a Sound of Music medley, which we were encouraged to sing along to. It was great to see so many community members out for the show and we had fun watching the kids in the audience loving the music and dancing along. The parking was free and facilitated by the police department which made it convenient and feel very safe.

Cost: $13- a bottle of pinot grigio sneakily enjoyed in water bottles throughout the concert.
Top Tip: When looking for summer concerts, start with local performing arts organizations to see what they have going on for community engagement. You can also start by googling nearby parks and seeing if they have concerts listed on their website.

2022 NJ Summer Bucket List:

Go to a baseball game
Have a pool day
Host a Summer BBQ
Explore a Delaware Gap town
Go to the beach
Visit the Maplewood Farmer’s Market
Play tennis
Win Broadway lottery tickets
See an outdoor concert
Celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a fun activity

NJ Bucket List: Go to the Beach

Maddie here! Starting off my summer bucket list recap with a quintessential summer activity: going to the beach! Despite living in NJ for 7.5 years, we have never officially gone “down the shore” which is kinda crazy. After having a great time with this activity, I will definitely be going back!

When researching shore towns for a visit, I came across The Wonder Bar which hosts a “Yappy Hour” for dogs on the weekend and a dog beach where dogs can go off leash. What else could I do with this information except plan our visit around it!?

Yappy Hour at The Wonder Bar: The dog beach opens for dogs at 6pm, so we loaded our dog, Winter, in the car at 3pm for the 60 minute drive down to Asbury Park. We found street parking close to The Wonder Bar which was great. We were hoping it would be free since it was Sunday but Asbury Park charges for parking 7 days a week so we paid for three hours on our Park Mobile app. The Yappy Hour had doggy bouncers who did a quick screen to make sure that Winter had her rabies shot and we paid the $20 cover charge which is donated to their local animal shelter. Then Winter was off to the races! She loved exploring the outdoor space and saying hello to dogs and people alike. The hubz and I got beers from the outdoor tiki bar and enjoyed watching her and the other dogs interact. After a few laps around the space, Winter settled down and was very happy to sit by our table in the shade and observe the action. The dogs were well behaved and the doggy bouncers did a great job of monitoring everyone. We had a second round of beers and chilled before heading over to the dog beach at 5:30pm.

8th Avenue Dog Beach: We did the quick walk down to 8th Avenue Beach on the Asbury Park boardwalk. We stopped at the public restroom on the way and it was the cleanest public restroom I have been to- v impressed. We arrived at the dog beach at 5:45pm and saw that several dogs were already off leash so we let Winter off too. It was her first time seeing the ocean and she LOVED it! She was apprehensive to go into the water but loved sitting and watching the ocean with us. She stayed very close the entire time but did greet several doggie friends. It was the 75 degrees, with a little bit of wind and that was the perfect temperature for her. We also made sure to pack her plenty of drinking water. The hubz and I stood in the ocean which was surprisingly warm and made me kinda regret not packing my swimsuit- I will definitely be swimming next time! We stayed for about 1.5 hours exploring the beach and watching the ocean and then headed back to our home with one happy dog. On the way back, we picked up BBQ (chicken and rib combo) near our house for dinner- yum!


We already can’t wait to return to Yappy Hour and the dog beach!

Costs: Cover Charge- $20, Beers/Tip- $25, Gas- $11, Parking- $9, BBQ- $25
Total: $90

Top Tip: For us the day trip was key! We will so often go into NYC which can take 1.5 hours each way but for some reason the shore has always seemed so far away. Knowing that there are clean bathrooms, a beautifully kept beach, and accessible parking will make returning for another day trip that much easier. Could we have done this trip cheaper without the Yappy Hour and packing our own food? Yes, but it was so much fun!

2022 NJ Summer Bucket List:

Go to a baseball game
Have a pool day
Host a Summer BBQ
Explore a Delaware Gap town
Go to the beach
Visit the Maplewood Farmer’s Market
Play tennis
Win Broadway lottery tickets
See an outdoor concert
Celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a fun activity

Emily’s OR Summer Bucket List

In the spirit of twinning and winning I was inspired by Maddie to make a summer bucket list too! I will also document when I have completed these and mine will be budget friendly too cause everyone trying to save that money! Also I’m giving myself until September 22 (First Day of Fall) to complete my bucket list.

2022 OR Summer Bucket List
Visit 2 (new to us) parks
Visit the Aviation Museum
Go to Local Lavender Farm
Picnic at a Park
Visit Grandparents Grave with Flowers From My Garden
Attend Library Story Time
Make the Perfect Afternoon Drink for Sipping Outside
Paint day with Pal
Take a Trip (day trip or overnight)

Maddie’s NJ Summer Bucket List

It is summer time! Woop! I don’t know about you, but the summer always seems to fly by for us in New Jersey. The hubz and I have decided to make a summer bucket list to make sure we do all the fun summery things that we are dreaming of this summer and I will be documenting it on the blog!

The list packs in a lot of activities, so I will not only be sharing the experience, but also what we did to keep it budget friendly. In addition to the list below, we have savings goal this summer that is also top of mind. Follow along- it should be a great summer!

2022 NJ Summer Bucket List:

Go to a baseball game
Have a pool day
Host a Summer BBQ
Explore a Delaware Gap town
Go to the beach
Visit the Maplewood Farmer’s Market
Play tennis
Win Broadway lottery tickets
See an outdoor concert
Celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a fun activity

Travelogue: Two Days in London

Maddie here! The hubz and I recently got back from a trip to the UK for my best friend (other than Emily duh!)’s wedding. It was all around an incredible trip and her wedding was a dream! While the wedding events mostly took place in the countryside, we had two days in London for sightseeing which I thought would be fun to recap here.

Lodging: We spent three nights at this cute airbnb which was centrally located in London. It ended up being $200 per night, which we thought was a great price for the flat. The bed was comfortable and it had a fridge to store our favorite UK eclairs, fruit juices, and ciders which we promptly stocked up on upon arrival.

Day 1:
8:00am Grabbed some coffee and avo toast at Harris + Hoole.

I needed a big coffee this day!

8:30am Our luggage was lost, so after coffee we walked to H&M in Oxford Circus to get some shirts and underwear- what fun! In the pic below I’m wearing the outfit that my best friend got me for her bachelorette the day before. We landed 1.5 hours late into Heathrow and I literally sprinted to her bachelorette which included a beautiful Thames lunch river cruise and an afternoon at the spa! While the outfit is super cute, I learned a valuable lesson to always pack a change of clothes in your carry on! (especially if you are flying Aer Lingus…)

This jacket is about to make many more appearances in this post.

10:00am-2:00pm Donning our new H&M clothes, we walked around Central London and saw the sites! We stopped into Fortnum & Mason to look at their fun Platinum Jubilee decorations and picked up a loose leaf tea infuser as a souvenir. We tried to get a peak of Buckingham Palace but it was all closed off in preparation for the Platinum Jubilee. We also walked through Soho and Borough Market where I had a few cheese samples…yum. After Borough Market, we ate lunch at a pub along the river: The Old Thameside Inn.

2:00-3:30pm Next up, we said a quick hello to my old work stomping grounds at Shakespeare’s Globe and enjoyed wandering around the Tate Modern for some culture. Gotta love those free London museums!

3:30-7:00pm We made our way to Hummingbird Bakery in Notting Hill- my fav! They were about to close and out of red velvet cupcakes by the time we arrived so I ended up getting a slice of red velvet cake instead. Hubz’s favorite black bottom cupcake is shown below. We then made a trip to our old neighborhood in Shepherd’s Bush where we lived in London 8 years ago to see how it changed. The neighborhood was much trendier, but our flat looked pretty much the same! We had dinner at one of the nicer pubs that we couldn’t afford when we were broke grad students which was tasty and fun. After that we made our way back to our airbnb and watched a program on the BBC about the Queen- v British.

Day 2:

7:30am-12:00pm We grabbed coffee and some pastries at Attendant Coffee Roasters and then spent the morning wandering around Regent’s Park in London. We enjoyed Queen Mary’s rose garden the best! We also enjoyed walking around the lake and even saw a swan.

12:30-2:30pm Since arriving in London in between all of our glam sightseeing, we had been waiting to hear when our bags would be delivered. We finally got the notification that they would be delivered between 12:30-1:30pm- YAY. I was able to rebook an afternoon tea that we had planned to be an hour later and everything would work out perfectly- or so we thought… We grabbed sandwiches at the Pret across the street from our flat and watched for two hours before the bags arrived! We missed our afternoon tea booking and couldn’t find anywhere to rebook in such short notice. So our afternoon tea ended up being an earl grey from Pret and a chocolate bar, but we were very glad to finally have our bags back.

We were so hopeful here.. little did we know we would be in the same spot 2 hours later…

2:30-9:00pm After getting our luggage back, we chilled for a bit and then grabbed an early dinner at Arcade Food Hall. We were able to try a bunch of different cuisines from around the world which was amazing and something we wouldn’t have been able to do if we went to afternoon tea. Then it was time for our big event: the Punchdrunk production of The Burnt City! I have been following this theater company since we first saw them in London in 2014 and was very excited when I realized that we would be in town for this production. The Burnt City is an immersive experience where you are encouraged to find your own way and experience, so the hubz and I split up, but we did we see each other on our way to the bar mid way through (lol) and it was fun to catch up on the tube ride home (on the brand new Elizabeth line!) about our individual experiences and feelings about the production.

Overall, we had a great time in London visiting some of our old favorite spots and trying a few new ones. I’m not sure when we will be back to the city, but until then we have great memories from this trip to look back on! The next day we headed to the beautiful countryside for three incredible days of wedding activities. Below are two bonus wedding pics- cheers!