About a month ago, I went camping in Canada. I stayed at the Green Point Campground on Long Beach in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. When I was researching various campgrounds near Tofino, it was really hard for me to get a sense of the best campground. I was torn between Green Point, Surf Junction, and Bella Pacifica. It definitely took me a couple hours of browsing and debating (and list making) to settle on Green Point and I’ll happily tell you why.
Easy Italian Pasta Salad
This is the salad. The salad I will make for every party this summer. There is NO chopping involved. You read that right. Pull out your sharpened kitchen shears and cut every single ingredient in this recipe. I even bought triple rinsed baby spinach so basically, I just snapped my fingers and there was a pasta salad sitting in front of me.
Mix up a light oil and vinegar based dressing while the pasta cooks and you’re practically done. Toss it and throw it in a favorite travel party bowl. What? Don’t you have one of those? Anyway, snap that lid on tight and refrigerate it overnight to really let the flavors meld. Check it in the morning to see if it needs a splash of dressing and you’re off! Prepare for the praise. Continue reading
Summer Books Round-up
Even with my bedside pile of books overflowing, at the start of summer I’m always on the hunt for a few good reads.
Check out these lists for a few of our favorites. We’re giving you a touch of everything from cookbooks and nature reads to actual beach reads for the kiddos.
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Find Sarah’s favorite nature reads here.
Find Katie’s favorite summer cookbooks here.
Check out some beach reads for kids here. That link includes a few of our favorite books by Chesapeake writers and illustrators. Really there’s nothing better than reading a book on vacation about the places and people you’re visiting!
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These are the books that we go back to again and again when summer arrives. But we’re always looking for more – what are your favorite summer reads?
Take a Stand
Guys, this has gone on long enough and we have to take a stand. We are heartbroken, frustrated, and unbelievably angry about the current practice of separating children from the parents at the border.
So much has already been written about this issue, and honestly we don’t have anything constructive to add to the conversation.
A couple of bloggers that we respect wrote great posts about the issue. Please read their words to learn more about what’s going on and what you can do to voice your outrage and encourage your representations to take action.
And you still want to blame this on previous administrations? Or use a false “history” of separation to justify current actions? Please get your facts straight.
… what else can we say? xo
24 Hours in Canyonlands
This past May we did a series of travel posts as both a kick-off to summer and as a bit of inspiration to get out there and explore. This month we’re continuing the travel theme, but with a focus on camping!
On our most recent road trip, we spent 24 hours in Canyonlands National Park. Here’s the summary in 24 photos! Continue reading
Large Scale Cross-Stitch
At the beginning of the year, I encouraged our readers to “make with me“. In that post I shared a few of the many benefits that you may get from picking up a hobby, and I gave you a few simple suggestions for how to turn your hobby into a regular habit (that’s good for you!).
If you follow our Instagram feed or have been a long-time reader, it’s no surprise that my primary hobby is knitting. I always have a project (or ten) in the works. While I don’t need the encouragement to knit more, I’m taking this resolution as a nudge to share more of my projects, in their many phases, on the blog. And if you’d like to find me on Ravelry, my username is winterfoliage.
If you like this project, you may want to check out our large-scale cross-stitched pillow.
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Have you ever tried cross-stitch? It’s a relatively simple embroidery technique where you make a picture by sewing a series of x-shaped stitches using colored thread. Today I’m improvising on that basic technique by making everything BIGGER (and bug-ier). Continue reading
Welcome June {2018}
Near the beginning of each month we like to pause and take a look at what’s going on in the world around us, with a particular focus on animal activity, farmers’ fields, and environmental holidays. You can find our archive of previous welcomes here .
Welcome June! It’s always with equal parts anticipation and apprehension that I welcome June each year. It’s the start of summer, but for some reason that always signals the beginning of the end type of feelings for me. This doesn’t happen with any other season and that’s how I know that summer is truly my number one.
I’m not prone to anxiety, but I really was feeling it this past week. I had just spent two awesome weekends camping, hiking, surfing, and exploring quaint little towns. Sounds awesome, right? But then my mind starting reeling, what am I going to do the rest of the summer? Will I have time for fun? I better plan it! I can’t waste it! These thought patterns are so unlike me that it caught me off guard. In order to stop the rumination, I sat down and figured my shit out. Continue reading
Camping on BLM Land
This May we’ve been doing a series of travel posts as both a kick-off to summer and as a bit of inspiration to get out there and explore. This June, we’re continuing the travel theme, but with a focus on camping!
Have you camped on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land? If you’re from the east coast (like us), you may have no clue what I’m talking about. If you’re from the west, this plethora of camping awesomeness may be nothing new to you. Continue reading
Seasoned View Vol. 31
Each month we share our Seasoned View. Snapshots of nature taken by the Seasoned sisters and shared with you for use as desktop or cellphone screen savers.
You can upload one or all of these photos to use as your desktop background or even as phone and tablet wallpapers. These images were all shot near the tiny coastal town of Tofino in British Columbia on Vancouver Island this past month. To use the images, simply right-click on the photo, save it, and set it as your background. Enjoy!
Two Bits
Happy Friday from the road! We’re both headed off on adventures today and I can tell by our exclamation laden texts that we’re feeling full, happy, and content with how our days are being spent lately.
Kate’s off to the Lake Tahoe area and I’m headed to Bend, Oregon for the first time. I’m amped to explore a new city, but also terrified of falling in love with yet another place. Oh the struggle.