After a day trip driving the Kitsap Peninsula to the West of Seattle, I was blown away by the scenery on the drive alone, not including the adorable little towns scattered throughout the area as well like Port Townsend and Poulsbo. Washington State truly has some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States and as we drove, I documented a bit of it on this video tour of the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State on a gorgeous sunny May day. Enjoy!
A couple weeks ago, we found out Nick would need to be in Seattle for a week for meetings at the beginning of May and after a solid few months at home (after having to cancel our Europe trip in March due to a family illness), I was itching to get back traveling. The Kitsap Peninsula has actually been on my list for a long time and we’ve just never had a chance to make it work so we decided to leave a day early and take Sunday for a road trip and we thoroughly enjoyed it!
The Kitsap Peninsula is basically the stretch of land that is across Pugent Sound from Seattle to the West. It’s a rural area with cute little towns scattered along the islands and stretches of peninsula there. Driving this area can be done as a day trip from Portland or Seattle. We started in Portland and ended in Seattle at the end of the day, but we easily could have done the same route and drove home to Portland that evening, so whatever works for your schedule!
I’ll be getting into each little town in posts to come, but first I wanted to show the route we took and why we stopped in each spot. There are so many places in this area of Washington State to see and they are all beautiful but we chose 3 main towns to stop and explore along the way for a lovely day out and about in a beautiful part of the State.
We started by driving up to the tip of the Kitsap Peninsula from Portland and drove straight from Portland to Port Townsend. The drive took us about 3 and a half hours nonstop and once we veered off of I-5 near Tacoma, our drive took us over inlets of water and lots of bridges, through farm country and little towns and it was a beautiful road trip. Eventually we ended at the top of the Peninsula at Port Townsend, a Victorian town that was once slated to become the largest city in this area. Spoiler alert, it didn’t… but it’s beautiful all the same!
After a couple hours in Port Townsend which I’ll get into a little more in posts to come, we drove about 30-40 minutes and arrived in Port Gamble, a tiny town of 1,000 people that looks exactly like a little town out of New England, white picket fences and all. Needless to say how much I love New England, this little town was perfect for me!
After some time in Port Gamble, we drove down to Poulsbo which is a big tourist spot in this area. Only about 20 minutes from Port Gamble, Poulsbo is a Norwegian town decked out in Viking logos and built to resemble a Norwegian city and is well worth a visit. Washington State also has Leavenworth which is a town made to mimic a Bavarian town, which I find is a little kich-ey but Poulsbo actually felt a lot more authentic if that’s what you’re looking for!
We wandered around Poulsbo for a bit and enjoyed some fantastic local pastries in Norwegian styles. If you can make it to Poulsbo on a nice day, it sits right on the water is really beautiful.
We ended our road trip in Poulsbo for the day and headed into Seattle to get ready for Nick’s work of meetings, but you could easily drive back to Portland if you wanted or needed to at the end of this lovely Washington State road trip!
More posts to come on each little town and what to see and do while there!
Continuing on with my new renovation series all about our 1925 Dutch Colonial in SE Portland, I’m revealing our renovation of the upstairs bathroom in this house. The house actually has 2 full bathrooms (which for an old house is pretty rare in this area) and the downstairs bathroom will need some updates eventually but we’re waiting to do it when we fully gut and renovate the kitchen in the next couple of years since it’s directly adjacent to the kitchen. But when we moved into the house in August last year, we knew the bathroom upstairs would need to be the first major renovation we’d do.
The Before:
The upstairs bathroom was straight out of the 80’s: bright blue tile floor, cedar wood built in vanity and a horrible wooden mirror. The whole thing was bad and needed an immediate update since this is our bathroom that we use every single day. In October of last year, we literally demolished the entire thing down to the studs and replaced every single surface in the space. It was a huge renovation learning experience and a long 4-5 week process. But in the end, it’s 100% better than it was and while there are things I probably would change if we did it again, it’s actually a really pretty space. We did marble mosaic tiles on the floor, extra long subway tiles on the wainscot and in the shower, changed out the toilet and the vanity, as well as resurfacing all the walls and moving the light fixture over a few inches to center it over the sink. We also have a weird space behind the shower that I salvaged old wood at a local salvage shop which was from a 1930’s barn, stained it and then hung shelves for our towels in the crevice. Now it feels like that was meant for that space and was such a worthwhile project.
This bathroom was our first really big renovation project in the house and we learned a lot of lessons throughout the process but I’m so glad we did it and updated the bathroom to reflect our style but also to modernize the whole upstairs.
*I am linking to some of the decor and furniture items below for each room if you want to know where stuff is from, but none of them are affiliate links FYI.
The After:
The Decor : Ikea Vanity
Obviously you’ve probably noticed that our travel has slowed down a lot as of the last few months and while mostly that’s due to me launching a new business, it’s also due to the fact that we are knee deep in a lot of home renovations that are on-going. We bought a 1925 Dutch Colonial house in SE Portland last August and in 6 months of living here, we’ve already done a lot to renovate and update the house and we still have a long list of projects still to complete too! I post a lot of our renovation on my personal Instagram stories but thought I’d do a series of posts here on LOM to let you see what I’ve been up to for the past 6 months when I’m at home, hence the series will be called House of Marvels and I’ll share posts project by project so you can see what we’re up to!
So a little bit of back story first… this is our 3rd home we’ve owned but our first true house. Before this we’ve owned a one-bedroom condo and a townhouse and we felt ready for a real house to get to renovate when we bought this last August. I’ve always had a dream of buying an old house and fixing it up and while ours is actually in amazing structural shape for how old it is, the design needed updating on the interior and the exterior was kind of a mess. We took on the project knowing it would take a lot of hard work, time and money and I must say, I’m super excited with what we’ve done in 6 months. We’ve got a lot more we want to do in the years to come, but for now, it’s really coming along nicely! So here’s a little look into our house and two of my favorite rooms that I’m highlighting today!
*I am linking to some of the decor and furniture items below for each room if you want to know where stuff is from, but none of them are affiliate links FYI.
We didn’t need to do too much to the Living Room upon moving in as our furniture was perfect for the space and it was already painted white. I did repaint the brick fireplace, clean it out and fill it with battery operated candles. It’s a wood burning fire place and I personally hate the smell of wood burning, so we opted to leave it operational but we just won’t use it while we live here. Instead, the glow of the candles in the evenings is lovely. We did have to have some exterior work done to the chimney so that it didn’t leak, but other than that, the living room was pretty much just decor. I bought a new rug for the space when we moved in which adds so much color and warmth and gets so many compliments in person. My favorite part of this space is the built in bookshelf in the wall, reminding us how old this house is and how much character old houses have.
The Decor : West Elm Sofa similar (we bought ours years ago) | West Elm Armchair similar (we bought ours years ago) | Overstock.com Rug
The dining room didn’t need much when we moved in but the old hardwood floors were pretty beat up in here so first thing I did was order a colorful rug to go under the table to protect the floor and add some color. We have a gorgeous old built-in in this room and it’s in pretty good shape except for a couple paint chips here and there and it really brings that old house feel to the space. It also has a China plate rail in here which adds so much character to the room and it’s the molding where in the old days they used to display their China dishes up there. We did paint the walls in here with white on the top half and a dark gray on the bottom and it gives it such an elegant feel which matches the period of the house. The last thing we did to this space was replace the pendant light, adding a modern touch to the space and giving it a true dining room feel. I love this room of the house and since we entertain a lot, it gets used for all sorts of events and so far, it’s one of my favorite rooms in the house!
The Decor : West Elm Dining Table (bought years ago) | CB2 Chandelier | Overstock.com Rug
After taking a bit of a blogging break, I find myself being drawn back into this space as of late. I’m craving the space to write, which is why I started this space so long ago in the first place and it’s so refreshing to get back to just letting the words flow freely, without feeling the need to write about specific things, without feeling the pressure to post a certain amount of times per week. And I must say, I’m so glad I’ve finally found myself getting back to basics here on LOM and I’m so thankful to have you guys along for the ride!
In the break from blogging and travel in general these last few months due to a family illness and surgery, a canceled trip to Europe because of said family illness, emotional highs and lows, and the launch of a new business, I’m ready to get back to travel. And while it still won’t be as often or traveling as far away as I have been the last few years, my travel in the upcoming next few months is something I’m very much looking forward to. And in that few months time when there was no travel happening, I found myself thinking about what is next as far as travel for me. Our trips this year: Paris and Provence in July, Pacific Northwest local travel throughout the Summer, Vermont in October and Spain in November are ones that got planned somewhat hastily after we canceled our Spring Europe trip and used the miles and money we got back from that canceled trip to plan the rest of our year. And while I’m so excited for all of those trips, they will be repeat trips this year to some of our favorite spots around the world and not any new ones. Knowing that this year was a little different for us in terms of travel, I find myself now having the space and time to finally start reevaluating my travel list and piecing together what comes next in my travel journey.
I like to keep a running list of places that for one reason or another are of interest to me at any given time. It might be a photo that sparks something or an article I read. It could be from a movie or a tv show or a song that inspires me, but for me, picking places to travel is something of a gut feeling. And here at this juncture in my life, I find myself contemplating what’s left to see, where I should go next. A friend of mine asked me a few weeks back, “where is top on your list?” That’s a hard question for me because for one, it’s ever-evolving. But two, there are so many places I’ve loved that I would like to go back to as well. Travel for me never has been about checking something off a list and I’ve never been one to use the term bucket-list because so many places on our list are repeats, and places that evolve over time instead of a steady “bucket-list” of places to check off once I’ve seen them. But as I think about what my next chapter of travel will include, I know that I want to have a record of the places that I still have yet to get to, propelling me forward to see as many of them as I can in the next handful of years, some hopefully more than once.
I’ve been so fortunate to have seen so much of the world so far but there is still so much left to see. So as I move forward into this next chapter of travel, here are the places that are topping my travel list. Some of them are near, some of them are far away. Some of them I’ll make it to in the near future, others might take years. But all of them inspire me in one way or another and I know they will reveal something incredible in the process.
My (current) Travel List (in no particular order)
-Lake Como and surrounding Areas
-Switzerland
-Tallinn
-All of Norway
-Basque Country in Spain
-Roadtrip all around France
-Tulip fields in the Netherlands
-Return visit to Stockholm and exploring more of Sweden
-More of Iceland
-More of England
-Return visit to Vienna
-Prague
-Amalfi Coast in Italy
-More of Northern Coast in Italy
-Venice, Italy
-Petra, Jordan
-Oman
-Return visit to the UAE
-Egypt
-Return visit to see more of Morocco
-Istanbul and Cappadocia
-South Africa
-Safari
-Namibia
-Return visit to Saudi Arabia
-Return visit to Seoul, South Korea
-Guilin, China
-More of India + celebrate Hali
-Return visit to Bali
-Return visit to Cambodia
-Vietnam
-Uluru
-Brisbane
-Whitsunday Island, Queensland
-Return to Charleston, South Carolina
-Chicago
-Austin, Texas
-San Antonio, Texas
-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-Niagara Falls, New York
-Quebec, Canada
-Newfounland, Canada
-Banff, Canada
-Return to Sedona, Arizona
-Mexico City, Mexico
-Guadalajara, Mexico
-More of Alaska
-Death Valley, California
-The Wave, Utah
-The Florida Keys
-Caribbean Islands
-Return to Machu Picchu
-Brazil
-Buenos Aires
-Patagonia + Chile
-Colombia
-Cruise to Antarctica
Casey’s Birthday weekend in Paris
Like most of the world, I’ve been glued to the tv all day watching the devastating fire burning inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. And like most of you I’m sure, I’m entirely heartbroken watching such a monument burn, a place that is so well known and a place that has truly stood the test of time. But the truth is, Notre Dame for me isn’t just a monument, it’s not just a church. Nick and I stay across the street from Notre Dame every trip we take to Paris, we eat our croissants and Orangina from a local boulangerie in the back garden of the cathedral, we spend our evenings on the bridge of the Seine in front of the church watching the sunset and we eat breakfast at a little restaurant on the back corner of the church. Our visits to Paris always revolve around this area, around this landmark. And to see it burn, to know the loss this will yield to Paris and to France, it breaks my heart over and over again.
In my years of traveling, I’ve had a handful of experiences that I’ve seen and done that I always think to myself, thank goodness I’m here doing this now, seeing this now, because we don’t know how long anything might last. I’ve walked on glaciers that probably won’t be around in a handful of years because of climate change, I’ve walked through the ruins of Machu Picchu thinking to myself that those ruins might not stand the test of time and tourism in not so long and yet, in all my years of visiting Paris, my favorite city in the world, I never once thought walking those cobblestone streets and enjoying a croissant behind Notre Dame that I might not see it again, that it would never be again what it was the last time I saw it with my own eyes. And that perhaps is why this tragedy is so devastating to me and millions of other people, because the last time we saw Notre Dame, whenever that was, was the last time we’d ever see it the same way as it had stood for centuries.
As a traveler, as someone who adores Paris and gets there as often as I can, I am mourning this loss and it’s completely devastating. But as we look forward, I think it’s also important to note that the time for travel is now. I hear all the time people saying, I’ll wait to travel when I’m older or when I have more money or when my kids are grown. And here’s the thing, monuments like Notre Dame might not be there then. You might not get the chance to witness with your own eyes all these places that might not be around in 10 or 20 or 30 years. Go now. See it now. Witness it now. See this planet now. We aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, we aren’t sure what will happen in our own lives or in the world in the future. Today is all we have.
So as we mourn for Paris today, remember that while we might never lay eyes on the same church again, visiting it and witnessing it is still important. It’s still important to go and stand on the Seine and witness what remains of Notre Dame, it’s still important to support the local businesses that will for sure be devastated by this tragedy. And above all, it’s still important to go to Paris and every other place you want to visit. Go and witness the world, take it all in and then remember in your heart what it felt like to stand there and see it. I’ll never forget the last time I saw the landmark of Notre Dame, it was late evening in October as the sun was beginning to set. We ate dinner at our favorite restaurant near by and then wandered back to our hotel, the sky darkening and everyone out and enjoying the unseasonably warm evening with this famous church as the background. That memory will forever be etched into my mind now and when I return later this year, I’ll see the remains of whatever will be left and at least be glad I saw it standing all those times, that I was able to be a part of this landmark’s immense history. So today we mourn, tomorrow we travel.
When I announced I’d be cutting back on Land of Marvels travel posts, a few of you asked that I still touch in and offer some personal life updates along the way to keep you informed of everything going on behind the scenes around here. Well here I am doing that! After a chaotic March where my grandma had to undergo surgery and my parents were in town for several weeks, I’m back to a fairly normal schedule so I thought it was perfect time to start these update posts that I’ll try to do every so often to update you guys where I am and what’s going on! So here we go!
I just launched my online macaron bakery, Le Reve Artisan Macarons, yesterday and I’m super excited to have that up and running! Honestly, it’s taken up most of my time as of late and it’s so amazing to have it launched and ready for orders. So if you’re in the Portland area, I’d love for you to order macarons from me when you need a sweet treat! My website is all up and running and orders are available to be placed as of yesterday. This has been a lifelong dream of mine and I’m so excited to get going!
While we had to cancel our trip to Europe in March because of my Grandma undergoing surgery, we ended up scheduling it into 2 smaller trips: one to Paris and Provence in July and the other to Spain in November. Needless to say I’m super excited for both. But in the meantime, to help cure me of my wanderlust I’m hoping to explore some Pacific NW spots close to us in Portland over a couple weekends in the next couple months. Some spots I’m hoping to get to include the Painted Hills in Central Oregon and the Olympic Peninsula up in Washington, as well as hopefully a visit to Diablo Lake sometime as well. I’ve always believed travel doesn’t have to take you far away and I’m using that as my inspiration in the few months until our trip to France in July!
As many of you know, we bought a 1925 Dutch Colonial house in SE Portland last August and we’ve been in the process of renovating much of it over the past several months. It’s been a life long dream of mine to have an old house and fix it up so this really has been so much fun. We took a little break from renovations at the beginning of the year but we’re now back at it and have a ton of project upcoming. Some of the things we’re working on currently are building a custom window box seat in our bedroom so that it looks original to the house, replacing the tile on the fireplace hearth in the living room, completely renovating the front, side and back garden as well as creating an outdoor entertaining area out back that we can enjoy as the weather gets warmer. Needless to say, we’ve got a lot going on with the house and if you’re curious to follow along on our journey, my personal Instagram (cmart1015) is the best place for that!
After my announcement about my bakery (I’m so excited for this venture!), some of you might be wondering what will be happening to Land of Marvels in light of a new venture that I’m hoping will keep me busy this next year. And while yes, Land of Marvels might have to take a backseat for the time being, I’m not ready to give up this space here on the internet. It’s too much a part of me to say goodbye, so I’m not saying goodbye but as loyal and (many of you) long-time readers, I also feel a responsibility to let you know how I intend to continue on with the future of Land of Marvels.
For many years now, I’ve traveled fairly constantly so that I have always had a wealth of content from my adventures around the world. However, due to some personal and family circumstances happening at the moment, as well as the launch of Le Reve, I won’t be traveling as much as usual. I also had a trip to Europe planned this month which I had to postpone until July due to some family issues going on, so for the time being, I’ll be in Portland launching my macaron business and won’t have as much travel to write about. So while you’ve come to expect 3 posts a week here on Land of Marvels, my commitment to you going forward is this: I won’t be posting 3 times a week, but when I do have content or something to say, I’ll continue to post. So in the coming months, whenever I travel, I’ll still post, it just won’t be as scheduled as it has been until this point.
I’m going to look at this space as more of a journal going forward, which brings it full circle in a way, as that’s how blogging used to be before it became a business for so many people. I want this space to be a reflection of where I am in my life and to follow my story as it always has, so in that respect, my posting will probably become less regular as we go forward this year with so many changes in my personal and professional life. With that said though, I’m not going away and I hope to keep somewhat regular content on these pages as we go forward and when I do travel, my reviews and thoughts and photos will still be added to LOM.
As a little preview of what’s to come in terms of travel in the coming year, we’ll be heading to Paris and Provence in July, Vermont in October and Spain in November. In between, we’ll have some local travel and weekend trips here and there that I hope to share as much as I can from. Content isn’t stopping, it’s just going to be a little more irregular here on LOM this year.
I’ve found so much love and fulfillment from this space over the years and I know going forward will be no different. So if you’re a long time reader or just started following along, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of my story and as we go forward, I look forward to sharing my journey with you.
Land of Marvels is a huge part of me and my life and if I’m a little quiet for a while, head over to Instagram to see what I’ve been up to. And after my travels this year, I’ll be back sharing all about them. Here’s to embracing change and growing in new experiences ahead!
The title of today’s posts might surprise you but if you know me personally or have seen subtle hints over the last several months on Instagram, this is a long time coming! It’s true, I’m opening a bakery! More specifically, I’m officially opening a French Macaron bakery online on April 1st, a business that will see me baking fresh authentically French macarons for order and delivery in the Portland area.
The backstory to this is a long one and long story short, this is a dream of mine that I’ve had for years. Baking has been a passion of mine for several years now and specifically, French macarons have sort of become “my thing.” I first started making them after coming home from our honeymoon in Paris almost ten years ago and over the years they have become a requested item that I make for dinner parties and for friends and family.
So when the Art Institute of Portland closed in December, the college where I had spent almost 4 years teaching Interior Design students part time and on the side of my day job as an Interior Designer, I felt like the universe was pushing me in the direction of something new and different. After a decade as a designer, I decided that the time was right to pursue a dream I’d had for years and as such, Le Reve Artisan Macarons was born.
My new bakery will be an online ordering service, offering customers the ability to order fresh macarons (made within 24 hours of your event or delivery) delivered straight to your door. With a large variety of flavors to choose from, my new venture will see me pursuing one of my greatest passions and offering that passion to people who can greatly enjoy my delicate creations.
There is something truly incredible about finding your passion in life, when you find that thing that just satisfies you like nothing else quite does. For me, I have realized in the last handful of years, that is baking. I hope that as I move forward with this venture, I’m able to show other people what baking can bring to your life and that through my baking, we can learn more about other cultures and ways of life as well.
The long term dream would be to eventually turn Le Reve into an actual brick and mortar bakery, but for now I’ll be up and running April 1st, ready for orders! If you’re in the Portland metro area, I’d love to help you with events you might have and you can take a look at my website for more information on ordering. You can also follow me on Instagram to see what we’re up to over at Le Reve.
Oh and by the way, Le Reve means “the dream” in French and I don’t think I could’ve picked more appropriate name for this venture as I move forward!
*Update – Le Reve has closed its doors.
I’ve canceled a few small trips here and there over the years, but I’ve never canceled an entire 10 day International trip until a few weeks ago. Long story short, due to a family member finding out they have to have a large surgery related to an illness, where the surgery would fall directly in the middle of the time we were due to be in Spain, France and Italy next week, we decided to cancel the trip and postpone it in order to be home and help with family stuff. When I began canceling everything, we didn’t have a plan of when we would postpone the trip to and I started just canceling everything: flights, hotels, car rentals, etc. And in the midst of doing the work to cancel a trip I had planned months in advance, I realized that there are some tips I learned while going through it that would be helpful to share!
In the end, we did decide to break up what would have been a 10 day trip into two smaller trips later in the year. The first we’ll take is a week in Paris and Provence in July and the second will be over the week of Thanksgiving in the South of Spain. I also had booked almost all the flights on Alaska Air mileage for our original trip (most of which would have been in Business class seats so I used a lot of points!), and was able to reuse those miles for our two future trips without having to pay extra. In the end, it worked out, but it did take some work to get the whole thing canceled and rebooked and here’s my best tips for how to do that. Here’s everything you need to know about canceling an entire international trip and rescheduling it.
I found it helpful to start canceling the bigger stuff first like the international long haul flights. Luckily I had booked both ways on my Alaska Air miles and because I’m MVP Gold with Alaska, I was able to cancel our long haul mileage flights online without any fees. The miles were put right back in my account and I was able to use the amount I had used for this trip for 3 future trips instead.
If you aren’t able to do it online or you didn’t book on miles, most airlines will still allow you to cancel or at least get a credit due to family illness or emergency, so be sure to mention that.
I did hotels next… more on that below! And then moved on to car rentals and transport intra-Europe to cancel.
If you can cancel items online, do it. I did 80% of my cancelations online through Alaska Airlines, Orbitz and Chase Sapphire travel awards. The other 20% were a pain to cancel because I had to call airlines and hotels and sit on hold forever and talk to five million people before my items were able to be canceled. Do as much as you can online – it will save you so much time!
I have always made it a habit over the years to book free cancelation reservations on hotels.com whenever possible, even if I have to pay more. And it’s really paid off for me over the years – this trip being no different. I was able to cancel every hotel except one without any cancelation fees and I could do it all on the hotels.com website. Whatever I had paid was credited right back to my credit card.
The one hotel I wasn’t able to cancel was due to a weird cancelation policy and I’m working with them now via email to get them to refund me. They, unlike the others, needed a letter from the doctor involved in the surgery, before they will refund me. This one is ongoing, so we’ll see what happens!
I kept a list of the items that I had canceled and what was still left to do and who I needed to contact to cancel them. Once they were fully canceled and refunded, I crossed it off the list. This helped me stay really organized while going through the cancelation process.
I also kept a list of how much I was being refunded per item I canceled which helped me know how much money I had to rebook items later.
I have been in touch with the doctor who will be performing my family member’s surgery and she has graciously helped me with a letter discussing the situation that I can send to the one hotel and one airline that is requiring it in order to cancel those portions of my trip. I found that 80% of the cancelations didn’t require a letter, but a few did, so it’s good to know in advance and keep in touch with your medical staff if that is needed.
When we decided to cancel our trip, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed. And could we have still gone on the trip, yes, other family will be here to help. But would I enjoy the trip knowing that someone I love was going through something? No. We decided to cancel to be here to help but also to know that we’ll enjoy the trip more later in the year after we are here to help with whatever is ahead for my loved ones. Do what feels right for you and canceling was the right thing for us to do for us.