martha and her vineyard

once upon a time i had a dream of attending "illumination night" in martha's vineyard. 

there is a cute town called oak bluffs that is full of the best looking cottages and once a year they pull out paper lanterns (some are even 100 years old!) and light them all up at once. they keep them on for a magical few hours and then turn them off and put them away for another year. 

guys. this is a big deal. 

lanterns. cottages. once a year. magic. 

so this was pretty much number one on my summer bucket list and i looked forward to it for months. sadly even up to the day before i didn't think i was going to be able to go because no one could get off work and you have to drive two hours to get to the ferry (which would have been difficult since i'm a public transportation girl) BUT at the last second maren pulled through and got off work so she could embark on this magical day with me.  

wednesday morning (i would like to interject here and say that i think the locals really like to keep this to themselves because who does something like this on a wednesday?) we woke up bright and early (then went back to sleep for an hour because it wasn't all that bright but really was much too early) and drove the two hours down south to the ferry. well. to the parking lot of the shuttle that takes you to the ferry. and thennn we were off!

 the forecast was a little worrisome but we tried to look at the scary clouds as photo opp rather than freak out about them. (maren is a little photog too! so if you see me in a picture it probably came from her camera)

 i thought this scene was so inspiring. not only did it look awesome but it felt so symbolic to me of coming out of a hard time (whatever it may be) and just turning away from darkness and heading towards light. definitely not trying to get all sister missionary on ya'll but i just loved it and felt like sharing in the case that you might find it inspiring too.

then i looked over and i think i caught maren having lots of thoughts too

and then i had to put the camera away because it started raining REALLY hard and the wind was crazy and kept ruining my umbrella. i really wish i had pictures of maren and i out there by ourselves - even the captain man commented on how funny it was to see just the two of us in the storm while everyone else went inside. the storm was so awesome and i didn't even care that half my body was soaked by the time we got to the island. 

 about thirty minutes after we arrived the rain stopped and the sun came back out and it was like it never happened! 

so we tucked our umbrellas away and walked across this pretty beach/harbor with the best sand, perfect temperature water, and great houses. 

 then we went to martha's bike shop so i could rent a bike from the nicest man in the world and then were off on our adventure!! 

 i felt SO happy to be biking on an island again. the humid air, bike basket, pretty everything, and a companion/girl biking alongside me felt all too familiar. i just kept having mission/taiwan memories flood my mind all day and it was wonderful.

 after taking the scenic route to oak bluffs (thanks for that tip nicest bike shop man) we finally arrived and died over every last house in that place. 

it was just all so cute and i was beyond thrilled that my bucket list dream was coming true! 

 as we biked around we made the nicest friends 

(since this is real life and everyone was just sitting on their porches chatting the entire day)

this woman was just biking all day and i loved her

and then if the houses weren't cute enough the lanterns started to come out!!!

 and we got to witness this random wedding in the park 

(with the dog as the ring bearer)

(and i almost wrote pallbearer and then thought better of it - too bad brother in law scott doesn't read this or he could add that to his list of moon-isms!)

 are you dying yet? did you even know such a place existed? 

this cutest lady stood in front of one of the houses for hours and drew the entire thing. 

this is where everyone comes for the community sing-a-long before the lanterns are lit

(if that isn't the cutest thing you've ever heard i don't know what is)

and of course they had a little lemonade stand 

(just sipping lemonade with that bride and groom!)

there are like five hundred more pictures of those houses on my computer if you are interested in seeing more. they are seriously the best. 

since there were still a few hours before the festivities began we decided to take some self-timed photos and rest at this quaint oceanside park for a bit

and we were way happy when we realized we were on ocean avenue. 

who doesn't love some yellowcard lyrics and high school flashbacks on the vineyard?!

next up we decided to go exploring and found this great little bike trail.

 and found all the best sites with the greatest greens on our right and the nicest blue ocean (not pictured) on our left. i stared at the scene above for so long. for some reason everything about it reminded me so much of taiwan and i just felt so homesick for that place.

after exploring we ate dinner and then got ice cream at this cute place

and then we rushed on over to the festivities and felt really confused when all the lanterns that had been put up earlier were taken down. we kept biking and looking around and just didn't understand what was going on. we ran into one of our porch friends and it turns out they decided to postpone everything till the next day because they were worried it might start raining again like it had that morning. 

guys. I WAS DEVASTATED. they even said it hadn't been postponed in like 100 years - don't really know if that was supposed to make me feel better but it definitely made it worse. i felt so so sad because now that i was there and had a small taste of it i KNEW it was going to be the best thing probably ever. 

after biking through the small little roads of this town in disbelief we saw some lights in the distance and found ourselves at this cottage. bless these sweet people's hearts they kept theirs up and turned them on for a little bit. tons of people just like myself (who wouldn't be able to stay to see it the next day) stood outside and thanked them for turning them on because for us - this was all we were going to see. isn't it beautiful?

sigh. 

i still feel so sad but i'm grateful we went early and got to see people putting them up and got a small glimpse of what the illumination night would be like. i felt sad for the people who showed up right at seven and didn't get to see anything but this house. 

we decided we might as well get on an earlier ferry back so we didn't get back to boston too late so we biked the few miles back to where the ferry would be leaving from in silence. as i looked around i had even more flashbacks of my mission and again, it felt all too familiar - the late night bike ride back with my companion, defeated after trying so hard to make something happen that day that didn't because it was out of our control. it was a really nice, dramatic moment for me haha. 

we had a few minutes to spare so we went back to walk in that nicest sand/water again and just reflected on what a lovely day we had - despite the reason we came being ruined. 

no one cared to go back on the 8:30 ferry so to make the most of our change of plans we had an iphone pandora dance party with ourselves, enjoyed reenacting titanic along the side, and liked staring at the ocean while discussing how absolutely creepy it is in the dark.  

and basically i just loved spending time with this girl who never once got upset when i would stop and take a picture (heck, she would just take a picture too!), loved/appreciated everything as much as i did, and sacrificed a day off/of work (without pay) to help fulfill my martha's vineyard dream. she just moved back to utah so i'm grateful i got to spend this whole day with her before she left!

 just so you all know - i will definitely be going back and i will see that grand illumination night - i don't know when or how but it will happen!

and on this very special martha's vineyard day the sweetest baby stella jane was born! 

i love her and i'm so excited to meet that little gal 

(and i still need to meet lyndsey, whom i also love, so rob and steph get her out here!)
(and it was also niece mickayla's 18th birthday - so it was kind of a big day for everyone)

and that, my friends, is the wonderful and terrible (bust still wonderful) story of martha and her vineyard.

el fin. 

i guess either smoke signal or email me

august began with finally snapping a picture of the cutest old man who sits and watches the cars go by each day by work and getting my very first manicure. so glad nat had a birthday so she could get a free one and then not want it (because she does that shellac stuff) and give it to meeeee.   

i was so inspired by how girly my nails were that i french braided my hair for the first time (or anyone's hair for the first time actually hahah)! i've always been really bad at most girl things so i'm just becoming more of a girl all over the place! next on my becoming a better girl list is to get my haircut more than once a year and buy more high heels and start being an avid pinterest user. kidding. 

shakespeare in the park was really great until we remembered it was shakespeare.  

booooooooooooring 

so twenty minutes into it we left and walked over to chinatown and bnotd found this taiwan cafe!! 

i was in asian heaven with my ginormous bowl of soup and pot stickers. 

(and loved being with my favorite maren and mccall)

sometimes the rain ruins our plans for days on end but that is okay because lots of rain means lots of puddles! so maren and i had a great time jumping around in them while it just poured and poured. 

and one time gravity had a fight with my face and won. 

not pictured would be my post puddle jumping run which was actually really nice 

..until mascara rain water burned my eyes off. 

the next day we headed to six flags which is about 2 hours away from boston. we were about thirty minutes ahead of the group so i whipped out my phone to see what we could see in springfield, ma since we had some time to kill. 

AND LOOK WHAT I FOUND!

who even knew there was a dr. seuss national memorial?!? 

i sure didn't and i was so happy when i realized we were only two miles away from it. 

photo proof of how much i loved this place:

yes, i made maren take a picture of me with everything and yes i felt five years old and yes it was probably my favorite part of the day. spontaneous hang out with dr. seuss was the best.

six flags was nice. i mainly appreciated our time in the waterpark when it rained really hard so we sat outside in our bathing suits and just waited patiently for it to stop.

 so many people ran to places that were covered so they wouldn't get rained on and i wanted to yell WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT? YOU ARE ALREADY WET YOU SILLY PEOPLE!

I went to berklee's school of music to see my friend's senior show and felt so happy to have noticed this sign below:

and also to take a picture of these lamp posts that i love. such pretty pink flowers hanging from all of them all over the city. 

drummer friend just drumming his life away.
 such a good show with so many talented musicians! it was nice to be at one again, just weird to see jordan (drummer friend) play and not have ryan up there too (they were in a band together once upon a time). i kept thinking about how we met two years ago in provo at their band practice and now i was at his senior show in boston two years later..funny/random how life works out sometimes.

next i would have told you about martha's vineyard but it will definitely need it's own post (or five) so get pumped for THAT