Sunday, May 31, 2015

Day 4: A Sunday in Cape Cod

Today was a chill day.
We had a rough nights sleep; my brothers slept outside and it started pouring at 4 am.
Their apartment though?
Wow.
sooooo adorable.
and their kids?
even cuter!


For church we thought we'd go to the Cambridge, MA church/ward.
The building was 3 stories, with 3 stories underneath for parking.
I find that incredible.
I love how far the church has come.
I love how much they've done outside of Utah.

Apparently like 7 years ago when my parents were last here there was a lot of tense relations between the LDS church and the other churches in Boston. But then the LDS church building burnt down, bad right? Yeah...BUT it was like there was a huge flip in feelings and a of a sudden all the churches allowed them to have services in their buildings and the malice towards one another was gone. So really it was a blessing how the church burned down, ironic, but it seems that the best way to unite one another and create loving atmospheres is to have something bad happen....

That was kind of random.



I feel like I wasn't supposed to take pictures--pretty sure you aren't, but these aren't like IN the church so we good.

While we were leaving the meeting (in the cultural hall) I went upstairs and there was a Spanish speaking ward, and then in the Relief Society room there was a Chinese speaking ward! 

After we left we went to CAPE COD!
YAYAYA




....so we thought.



apppparentlyyyy we chose the only 3 days that would be raining.

It was in the 80's before AND after.

Our luck is grrrrreat.

However, we did get about 2 hours in when we first got there where it was pretty warm!
I finished my whole book (yay!....but now I have nothing to read on the way home...)
I don't think I got tan though....

thank you Nauset beach for being good to us...

Soooo I just have crazy awesome(awful) farmer tanlines

We saw a seal though.

Yay nature.

Got out of the water to tan after that because shark attacks are from the sharks thinking people are seals. Seals attract sharks. I'm NOT about to get eaten by a shark. I already don't like sharks.

You know that part in Unbroken where the shark jumps out? 
Yeah I jumped SO high multiple times.


My mom also took this rad pics.
I think it was at this beach...all the beaches kinda get jumbled together



After we checked into our cute little motel haha first class right here.
And watched Frozen.
We are classy y'all.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Day 3: A Whaley Good Day

Sorry guys, puns are life.

so first we went to a candy store. not that important to me, here are two pics, next thing.






Can check another temple off my list!


Here come the WHALES!!!







our boattttttt!


protecting myself from sea sickness.
tried basically every different thing you could do.


the views were crazy pretty!

me trying to pull off a hat lol
look at my crazy hair
so humid. much humid.



This is the best photo I have as of now because of the lost camera situation...


On our whale watch trip we were on the water for like 2 HOURS without seeing a whale!
All the whale watching ships tell each other when they see whales so we can all see one on our trip, so by the time we saw a whale there were 3 boats all circling the whales. Poor whales....

We saw a mommy Humpback whale with her baby!

It was adorable.

The baby kept doing flips and that's the tail that we usually caught in pictures.

They were crazy big actually!

I mean that's obvious, but still...



My favorite part of the whale watching though wasn't looking for whales but standing at the front of the boat. I felt so powerful haha like if I was in the Percy Jackson, I'd want to be Percy's half sister because I LOVE water, but it's also so terrifying so I'd want to have power over it.

That was so weird, sorry but that was ALL I could think of for like an hour and a half!

After the boat ride we headed out to Boston!


As we drove into Boston we were hungry and wanted food and everyone was freaking out and it was crazy. My mom wanted me to look up reviews on like alllll the restaurants around to find a at least 4 star one but I finally convinced them to just pull over to a random pizza place. 
Best decision ever.
Sometimes you just have to do something unplanned!



Pretty okay start.
Can't go wrong with good pizza.

Friday, May 29, 2015

Day 2: Portland ---> Portsmouth

First off I'd like to say how happy the title of this post makes me.
They both start with port!

Okayyyyy let's just jump right in shall we??

No unnecessary text today!

First, food:

*fun fact, humans need food to function properly.

I make sure that I can function and take full advantage of food. Especially free food.

I also take pictures of like everything I eat.
Because, I mean, FOOD.




TODAY WAS SUCH A GOOD DAY

Lemme tell ya why.

I have an unhealthy obsession with new foods/weird foods/LOBSTERS

I love lobsterssssssss

super unrelated but i think i found my halloween costume this year!


lol i have no life.

but seriously, lobsters are so interesting!

Did you know that they were once considered pauper's food and were fed to prisoners?? 

and i'm pretty sure i remember reading about how New England originally had so many lobsters that they were like chickens (don't ask. i can't remember where i got this info. i always remember odd things like this but can't remember any of my sources.....)

i think they also used to be a lot bigger too.

but i don't think they were ever as big as the largest lobster
which was caught in Nova Scotia on the bottom of the ocean by a net and was 44 pounds....
(i do know that all of that was fact btw)

ANYWAYSSS.

started out in south portland.
guess what we were doing. just guess.



(dramatic space for effect)




LOBSTERING!!!

so we got on this cute little lobstering boat named.....crap i can't remember.
(it will probably be in a picture....)



not gonna lie. kinda actually liked (loved) wearing those aprons.
if i marry someone from maine i will not mind going on lobstering excursions.

*side note. is lobstering a verb??? because it keeps underlining it in red!





gotta include this ridiculously overpriced picture my family bought.....

also we all look super asian besides my mom. 

and the lobster kinda looked small. but that is the normal size, the guy who's boat we were on showed us the measuring thing that they are required to use according to someone with power over lobsters (lol i totally don't even know....department of agriculture, under lobster. << that was a joke i still have no clue.) 


sometimes we pulled in star fish...

***ALSO random thought. I totally look like this one girl I work with in this picture!
So weird.
Once someone thought I was her...***


or sea cucumbers....
or hermit crabs.
or crabs!


I was going to put pictures of all that stuff....but we left one of our cameras at the airport....
hopefully we recover it but for now this is all I got.

Luckily I took lots of pictures and we got lots on the other camera.



okay so here comes the super text-y part.
feel free to skip if you are just looking at pics, but i want to record all the details about how to lobster (just pretend like that was a verb...? I'M REALLY TIRED RIGHT NOW OKAY?!)

okay so first they were trying to be superrrrr careful and boarded us by having us carefully sit on the edge of the boat and slowly swing our legs over. i thought that was amusing. totally not necessary haha. there were two people running the boat. the boat driver and main guy actually pulling in the traps, and a girl who was acted as a sort of tour guide telling us facts, etc. she was more kid friendly so that was good for my brothers. this tour was super hands on, which was great! so glad we went with this lobster boat instead of the others which were typically more full and where you just watched. as we were driving...maneuvering out...? holy cow i just had a brain fart. what do boats do because they don't "drive" do they...?

anyways he was telling about how he had a friend in college who lobstered and took him out two different summers and he kind of got hooked on in. he's been lobstering for about 14 years, and makes all his money on giving tours because you can't really make that much money on lobsters with the current market price (he said he would only make a 50 cent profit) and his license only allows a certain amount of lobsters to be caught daily. however we were allowed to buy a lobster that we caught at the end of the tour for $8 and i really wanted to but then we realized we didn't want to boil it in the hotel and the little place next to the wharf wasn't all that great so we passed on buying one. 

he said that for him to have tours his boat had to be recognized by the coast guard. for the first few years it wasn't approved yet so he could only have a max of 6 people! which sucks....but now he can have like 20 or something. i read a little about different types of permits. some allow 6 traps, others 30, i think he had a 18 trap one because i think we went to 3 buoys and each had 2 traps and i think he took 3 different groups out a day. 

so all the different fisher peeps had different colored/designed buoys that were specific to them. when we got to one of them, he would grab the buoy and pull it into the boat. he would wrap the rope around a little pulley thing-y (note my glorious vocabulary...sorry Mrs. Kurtz...you really are a fabulous teacher regardless!) and it would pull the traps up. he would pull both traps up and set them up on the edge of the boat. a lot of the times there would be kelp in it and other critters besides lobsters. one time we pulled up 15 crabs! 


okay i'm going to try to explain this. 
( the bait bag obviously lures in the lobsters, starfish, cucumbers, crabs, eels, ...etc. )so first there's the entrance, it is really hard for lobsters to get out of it once they have dropped in because the sides are slanted, but it is possible. once it gets in it can progress to the other side of the trap where it will crawl through a net and drop to the bottom where it will be caught for good. the escape vent is meant to filter out the too small lobsters, craps, etc.

hopefully that made a little bit of sense....

so when we pulled up the traps we would open the tops and take out all the stuff we didn't want and throw it back into the water. this included emptying the bait bag which we would replace with 5 brand new herrings (stinky oily fish that will lure predators). seagulls are used to this ritual and will gather around as we throw out all the "extras" (can't think of words, #sorrynotsorry) one of them caught a crab in its mouth, but for the most part they just eat the herrings. 

as members of this crew we all got a chance to grab the dead slimy herring and fill bags with them. when we caught lobsters we would take a metal measuring thing and make sure the back of it was at least 3.25 inches long, if not we would throw it back in because it would be ready mid-July/August after it had molted and grown a bigger shell. if the back was longer than 5 inches then we would have to throw it in because that insures that there is always a mating population of lobsters in Maine. the ones that fit in the margin we rubber banded and stored in a glass water tank. 

there was a couple who was one the boat with us and they noticed that my dad had a BYU (capitalized because it has utmost importance), and asked if we are mormon. i actually really like how at least one person in my family is wearing BYU gear because we meet soooo many more mormons, it's so cool! like what are the odds that we would meet other mormons in portland, MAINE, on the same lobster boat?? they were from idaho but currently live in nashville, have two kids, etc etc. don't want to be too creepy. 

this brings me into my next part though, they recommended a cute little local restaurant called docks in new hampshire.

who tells you to go visit something in a different state...?
oh yeah.
anyone from the east coast because all the states are so dang close!

i think the restaurant was like 15 minutes away max. crazyyyyy.

our philosophy with eating out as a family is either everyone get their own thing (aka micky-d's or something), or everyone get cool stuff and share (aka i end up eating everything because my brothers are all picky. this one is obviously my favorite because i can try lots of new stuff).

this was a "sharing" place.
yeahhhh baby.


heaven.

we got two full lobsters, a lobster roll (you basically get a lobster roll at every place so we wanted to compare at each different place), fried shrimp, and fries.


never have to worry about whether or not it's fresh!


*inner thought: i have no idea what i'm doing but i'm going to pretend like i doooooo\


aftermath hahahaha


you havveeee to go to the best beaches, right?

so we went to ogunquit and wells. 

they were soooo empty. 
i mean they are probably more busy in the heat of summer, but still. if you are daring enough to brave the cold water of early june, do it!



this would be the dream house location.....
 all this talk makes me hungry.
just kidding, that was just my awful transition.
i never was good at writing those transitional sentences in essays....

for dinner we went to a greek place.
my favvvvv

i love gyros. 
i didn't get one though, but anyways....
also. they are pronounced like heoro (kinda like hero) and i really wish they were pronounced how they are spellt. it's more interesting.

 i ordered a pasta with greek sausage (i did not like.) and fried calamari to share with my mom


s'cuteeeeee
imma eat ya now.



so yeah. don't know what else there is!
that's it.
here's a selfie i took in our new hampshire hotel.
hope it brightens your day.
love you mikaylie.
(and any other baes reading this)




Thursday, May 28, 2015

Day 1: Portland, Maine

This trip starts faaaar beyond Thursday May 28. 
This trip starts about mid-January when my mother started planning like crazy.
No joke. I think every day I came home she would be on the computer looking up things to do.

I mean this is a good thing, but also a bad thing. 
Good because our trips are usually great and we try lots of new things.
Bad because there is no room for flexibility or trying new things we find here and my mom is always stressed and busy over planning everything.

Like I'm not kidding. She spent MONTHS planning.
She printed out about 50 different restaurant menus and started deciding what she was going to order.
That's a little excessive right...?

I don't know, I guess I just like a little bit more of the relaxing part of a vacation. There's like that perfect mix of fun, relaxing, and learning that I like.

So anyways.

Makenna came over Wednesday night and brought ice cream (HALLELUJAH) and whales (hard pass), so that we could get a good nights rest. .....as in stay up super late because that seems like a really good idea when your flights at 4 am. 

We were both already sleep deprived, but she was at the "going crazy" stage and I don't even know what I was at I was just so confused and emotional haha (no I was not on my period).

I remember at one point she realized that the whales only had eyes on one side and started crying.
Like actual tears.
HAHAHA we were a mess.

My mom finally told us to shut up. 
Jk my mom would never tell us that (I feel like when I'm a mom I will probably do that though lol) but we still had to go to bad. Bummer right?

So then we woke up the next morning.
Drove there.
Boarded the plane.
Flew to Baltimore.
Then landed in Portland.


Maine is my main homie.
that doesn't make sense but i keep thinking it so i'm just going to add it anyways.
also repeat with me "teva's are love, teva's are life"


i just realized this is a lot of text....oh well

We went to Burger King.

no idea why it won't turn! cryyinggg
my food was crackalackin' though.

all food groups included (important ones anyways)

1. veggies
2. fruit (lemonade lol that's a joke because lemonade is like 6% real juice!)
3. fats mmmmmm
4. SUGAR



Okay. Rant time.
(I feel like this is really common...."a rant a day keeps me sane" <<that should be my motto or something. Also I feel like that rhymes but I really can't tell because I'm kinda really tired....oh well.)

anyways.
Burger King rant:

when i go to new places i want to try new things. a chain restaurant is not anything new or unique.
ALSO kinda unrelated but actually kinda related, i hate how my brothers are on their phones like half of the time. WE ARE SOMEWHERE NEW AND COOL. get off your phone! it's not even like they are texting friends, they are playing stupid games!!

okay I'm done.

however my parents did let me get pie at BK.
i felt special.
wow crap now i seem like the spoiled child....

After we went to Cape Elizabeth to visit the Portland Head Light.
Unfortunately we didn't go into the museum because we were all anxious to get down to the water, but this light house was constructed at the will of George Washington! It is the oldest lighthouse in Maine (although when it was built it was still part of Massachusetts) and the most photographed light house in the world! 
Pretty famoussssss.

It you walk on the trails around  you can get to scenic overlooks and the beach and stuff:



teva's are love. teva's are life.

 
natureeeeeee


adrenaline junkie over here.





We stay at Marriots a lot because my dad gets lots of free nights because he stays at them a lot, so we were extra happy when we got to stay on the concierge floor. 
It's not even that fancy but it made me feel super cool because you had to have a special key just to get to our floor hahaha 

In the concierge lounge they had fruit.
I don't know what kind of evil fruit this is, but it was terrifying because I thought the seeds were edible but I don't think they are and I was so confused on how to consume this devilish fruit. 
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT WAS
I just realized that I trusted the hotel people a lot.
What if it was actually a poisonous fruit??

*also i don't know why but all my pictures are loading turned now! so strange. and they won't turn back! also, blogger why do you still not have an image rotation tool to use while constructing a post??? come one, it's 2015 now.

When I got back in the room, I think my family started a movie.
I don't even know.
I was a little bit tired from getting no sleep....
So I fell asleep at 7 aka 6 pm KC time.

Wellllllll that kinda screwed me over because then I woke up at 11 and couldn't fall asleep until 3!
So thanks again Makenna for staying up until 2 to text me because my wifi wasn't connecting and my phone's internet connection in Maine was not superb, let me tell ya.
I had lots of fun playing Mario on my brother's DS. Ya know, lots of mature intelligent fun. Spent lots of time waiting for things to load and for my Candy Crush lives to be replenished.....

ALSO my dad snores SUPER loud.
It was super hard to sleep.
Which is why I didn't really....
At one point I took all the pillows off my brothers bed and made a nest on the floor and used a robe I found in the closet as a blanket. Yep. But that didn't last long because it was chilly on the ground. 

That was random. Oh well.
I needed to write this all down before I forgot it all, because whenever people ask what I did I don't ever remember/don't want to actually think, so now I don't have to!

Yayayaya, I'm so smart.

The End 
(of day uno)

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

What's New?

It's been almost a week and a half since I posted last.

Why do I not post every day now?

Oh yeah. School ended and we turned in our computers. 
(and my life isn't that interesting)

1. Most important.
Food.
free food

jk just the farthest back
our chick-fil-a is the best and gives free food a lot
obviously i'm going to take advantage of that!

2. Graduation

Guess what?! I finally graduated!!!!!!

.....11th grade....

yay. i'm a senior now. 

unfortunately i was diagnosed with senioritis 8 months ago
buttttt i did get a 4.0

*high fives self*

now my cumulative is a 3.94...? 
upset that i was stupid last year and got B's 

WHICH IS A STUPID THING TO MATTER BECAUSE ONCE I'M IN COLLEGE IT WON'T EVEN MATTER. 

ugh. there's my mini rant.



what the heck am i going to do.
and then savannah graduates in december....
andddd those are like the only friends i have here lol
lolololololololololol
i have no friendssssssssssss
fun.

(HALEY WE NEED TO HANG OUT SO STOP PRETENDING TO BE SICK AND TEXT ME BACK)

3. It's tornado season.



aka fun sleep overs in basements

(that was sarcastic, this was the worst night ever because everyone was freaking out when there obviously wasn't a tornado coming, there were 7 people sleeping on the couch, and i had to stay up early and leave early the next morning, okayyy it wasn't that bad but i like complaining so there.)

4. Savannnnnnah brought me QT.
yesssss thanks bae.


5. Straightened my hair

kinda getting to the pointless stuff now haha

but i mean this was IMPORTANT!
i hardly ever straighten my hair.
anddddd i'm a little mad that i didn't even get any good pictures with my hair straight.....oh well here's this crappy one for ya.


6. Best day of my life.
The day I only ate junk food.

Cheesecake ice cream at BR
Mini pizookies

I.AM.OBSESSED.WITH.PIZOOKIES.NOW.



7. Just Dance.

I will save myself the embarassment of photos and not ever video or photograph myself or any friends because we are horribly embarassing.

I'm amazing at JD though, so someone come challenge me.

8. tanned outside naked

long story.....family was out of town. 

party by myself haha

go ahead judge me.

it was so scary.

9. LOT'S OF CHOCOLATE CHIP PANCAKES

10. lots of work
(lowercase for a reason)

11. birds.
birds everywhere.
i feel like i should write an elegy for this sad bird that hit my window and died....

ONE JUST HIT THE WINDOW AGAIN WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS

Geese hit our windows all the time but they don't die....

poor bird....

I scooped him up (in a napkin) and threw him into my neighbors yard lol



12. ............
OH.
bought like 6 shirts and some pants from Savers for only $20 
killing it i'm good

13. FINISHED GG

crying because gossip girl is lifeeeeeee

So depressed. It's so cute.
Kinda super bad message but adorable.
I feel so empty now..........

their weddings were perffffff



made them extra large for ya because S & B are perfect.
i worship them.
jk.

but....

i'm chuck bass

okay okay i'll stop.

you know you love me.
xoxo Gossip Girl
(Dan Humphrey SPOILER ALERT)


wow my life is so boring.

butttttt leaving for maine in 31 hours though so i will try to post every day