Hello all! My humblest apologies for being missing so long on here. My husband and I bought a house in an adorable town in southeastern New Hampshire and have been crazy people unpacking and setting up and doing work on the house and yard. Every time I thought about sitting down to blog, I almost felt guilty because I knew there were like, ten other things I should have been doing. Anyone else out there ever feel like that?

Anyway, our house is a small split level, two bedrooms upstairs but a third one will end up in the finished lower level when we need it. Its on a great piece of land, almost 2 acres, that we are in the process of fencing ourselves for our little pup Mizpah. It also has a huge three car garage which is amazing for us because between hiking, biking, camping, kayaking, and fishing, we have a lot of gear to store!

Top left is one of our rock walls! I love the rock walls left behind from colonial farm boundaries in New England. We have one to the front of our house, in the back , and to the right as boundaries between us and neighbor lots. Bottom left is our very own graveyard!! The graveyard is for a family that dates back to 1788 and then into the mid 1800s. On the right is a pic from some trails at the end of our road. Yes…we have off leash trails to run on with Mizpah just down the street! High five!

We are off a main road in a very country setting, but many stores and restaurants are just 5 minutes away. Above are some pics from my lovely rural neighborhood 🙂  There is a horse farm just across the street that I have to check out for riding and we are close to some nice rowing clubs which I might check out for next summer.

There is a lot to do- we are ripping up carpets to do hardwoods, finishing the lower level and adding a bathroom down there, painting walls- the list is never-ending. The town we are in is great and we are just a half hour from Portsmouth NH, Kittery ME, and the beaches in Hampton/Rye NH. We are also much closer to some of the mountains that we love so much, so hopefully we will get out there to hike as some of the bigger projects finish up.

My sister came up to visit for a couple days last week and we went out into Portsmouth and Kittery. It felt like a jailbreak after being in doing house stuff for so long. Both places are along the Piscataqua River which opens up to the Atlantic. So beautiful. We hit up Portsmouth Brewery for a little snack and a drink and then made our way down to Lazy Jacks to check out the beautiful waterscape on the decks, and then grabbed something sweet at Izzy’s on our way out. I got a cappuccino shake with chocolate syrup- so good.

The lobster roll on the right with those amazing curly fries is from Rudder’s in Kittery Foreside. Kittery ME has amazing outlets- all the ones you normally think of, but definitely try When Pigs Fly. There are restaurants right there amidst the outlets, but we wanted to get out of the crowded areas and go somewhere new. That is the small lobster roll and it was mostly claw meat which is my favorite, and the dressing was light and flavorful. So good. It was a smaller place, and the staff was awesome. Watching Gevvie Stone kill her semifinal in Rio was nice too that afternoon! Who has been bingewatching the Olympics!? Rowing, equestrian, swimming, gymnastics….so many exciting finishes and competition!!