Sea Suites Boat and Breakfast

I have to tell you about the place we stayed on our trip, because it was so stinkin' cool! I actually found it on Pinterest, so three cheers for Pinterest today!

We stayed at the Sea Suites Boat and Breakfast, which is one of only five "floating inns" in the United States.

The boat is located in Douglas, Michigan, right around the corner from Saugatuck, and it's in a corner of the marina that allows you to have great views of the water without sacrificing privacy and quiet rest.

There's a nice area to sit at the front of the boat (though the weather wasn't really conducive for it the weekend we were there) and another area at the back of the boat. And then the entire top is a deck with room for lounging in the sun (when such a thing exists) or under a canopy. There's also a grill/fridge/sink/TV up on that top deck. (Side note: their website shows pictures with a hot tub on the top deck, but that's not there anymore.)

I confess that as we walked up to the boat for the first time, I got a little bit nervous. I wasn't sure if it would rock very much in the windy waters, and I also was nervous about sharing such a small space with people I didn't know. I'm thrilled to report neither worry turned out to be an issue! The boat did NOT rock, even though we experienced a pretty significant storm early Sunday morning, and there were two other couples on the boat with us, and we rarely saw them and never heard them! Privacy was definitely high quality there, despite the small space!

Here's a quick tour of the boat. The sliding glass door to the right of this picture is the front door of the boat, and this is the spacious living area. Ryan and I sat out here Saturday night, while I worked on the blog, and watched TV for a little bit. We also enjoyed looking at the scrapbooks there on the coffee table, which told an interesting history of the boat!

 Here's a fuller picture of the living room, taken from the kitchen. Comfy couch that seats a bunch of people, lots of natural light, and not cramped at all! There are also two living room chairs on either side of that lamp in the middle!

 And here's the kitchen! It's a full kitchen with full sized everything and lots of storage. The island seats eight and can fit everyone on the boat even when all the rooms are full. The innkeepers, Pete and Sally, provide some space in the refrigerator for guests to keep food (leftovers from dinners, out, etc.) and have a cabinet full of tableware and silverware for guests to use as needed.

 This is the long hall that goes down the rest of the boat. The kitchen island is immediately to my left as I took this picture. There are four staterooms, and at the end, a door out to the back seating area.

And here is our room! We were in room three. :)  I took this picture standing in the doorway to the hall. The door you can barely see on the left goes into the bathroom. The bed is a queen size and SO comfortable. (The sheets are to-die-for!) There are nightstands on either side of the bed, and a ceiling fan overhead. The window looks right out on the water and into the marina. So relaxing!

 Across from the bed was our TV, and underneath that, the closet. (It had a different name, but I can't remember what it was.) It was really spacious! We kept about half our luggage in there. As you can see, there was also a chair for resting.

 Beside that, a luggage rack and the sink. You can see the door to the hall and the door to the bathroom over on the right.

 And here is the bathroom! Spacious shower, and a little table for storing your stuff. And of course, the toilet. (That is a whole learning curve in and of itself.)

I was SO impressed with the size of the room. It didn't seem cramped at all. We were completely comfortable in there, even with all our stuff. And it was really comfortable. We spent a good chunk of our time on the boat in our room, since the weather wasn't good enough to be outside, and we didn't feel claustrophobic at all.

A quick view out our window...

 Ryan took this picture of me on the back of the boat, overlooking the marina.

 A TERRIBLE photo, but I never went back up to the top deck to take a better one. This is a photo of the upper deck.

 Ryan on the back area of the boat. This would have been perfect for evening coffee, had there not been such cold, rainy evenings!

 I almost forgot to show you this! Every couple aboard had a welcome sign! (Sally apologized for getting my name wrong. Didn't bother me. I still got delicious breakfasts, so I was just fine!)

 This steam tugboat that sits next to the B&B. It has a pretty cool story. Pete told us part of it.

 Even had our own little lighthouse visible from our room! (Light was burned out currently, but it was still cute!)

So here's the bottom line. We loved our stay at the Sea Suites. Pete and Sally were a lot of fun, they made us so comfortable, and they are GREAT cooks. We loved every part of our stay there, and like I said earlier, it was so private, despite having other people on the boat.

I do think it would be fun to go back with a group of people I knew, so we could all hang out together in the living room without awkwardness. :)

But if you're going to this area, stay here! Worth it! :) Thanks, Pete and Sally, for a great stay!

A Honeymoon Saturday

Want to hear something embarrassing??

I accidentally never blogged the last day of our honeymoon.

I discovered this a couple of weeks ago when I was directing someone to the "Our Love Story" tab on the old blogaroo and discovered we apparently never came home. Apparently we DID though, because we've been doing a lot of work at our jobs and at our home.

So, without further ado...the last day of the honeymoon. And thank you for indulging my OCD in completing this story.

In case you don't remember from the time I started this story back in December or January or whenever it was...we spent that last night out in a B&B down in Georgia called The Overlook Inn.

We awakened to a magnificently FOGGY morning on Saturday. We made our way out to the dining area, and while the B&B folks cooked breakfast, we sat at this massive picture window and peeked at the mountains as they disappeared into ever-thickening fog. 

It's an interesting combo to have fall foliage, Christmas decor, and short sleeves all in the same day!

Ryan took advantage of the binoculars...perhaps to see the fog better?

A sampling of our breakfast...a bit of fruit in these tiny glasses. Breakfast was scrumptious and so much food.

Why on earth I think it's a good idea to post a pre-getting-ready picture is beyond me. But we're in love and I didn't care.

Across the street from the B&B was an overlook {hence the name} and even though you could not see a single thing...we felt it was important to have photos there, because, well, it's what we do.

It was the honeymoon. There has to be a kissing picture. {Who are we kidding? Today would be no different!!}

More photo opps around the grounds, before we had to take off for our last leg of the journey. Shorts in December. Sweet corn.

Photo opp on rock, is what I have titled this one.

We started out in Georgia and ended up in Indiana, all in one day. We were bound to get loopy along the way. Like here...when we found the Payless Homes. Is that like Payless Shoes? Just curious.

And the Classic Cleaners - which also doubles as a garage sale - or perhaps sells the clothing of customers who fail to return for it?

Ryan kept asking me if I saw the sign for the Old Fart Porkway. {Old Fort Parkway.} He wasn't trying to say it wrong...it was just one of those things that got twisted up the first time he said it and then he couldn't get it to come out right no matter how hard he tried. Good laughs over that one.

Passing the time by playing games...which included some car karaoke!!

I WOULD WALK FIVE HUNDRED MILES....

We were desperate. Seriously, seriously desperate.

SUCCESS at last!!!! {Taken after our visit to the Starbucks where I may or may not have used the men's restroom.}

After what felt like forever....

The honeymoon was over. We were exceedingly sad about that part, but so excited to be home and ready to start our everyday life together!

A Honeymoon Friday

Friday morning, we had to face...going home. Sigh.

We'd packed up the car the night before so we could maximize our morning...one last trip to the beach. Our wonderful, precious beach, where we were married.

One last walk through the sand where I became Mrs. Shaffer...

One more look down the shore line...one more morning coffee while the sun came up....

We also had one last breakfast from the food cart guy who fed us so well all week! And then Ryan really had to say goodbye to the sweet little bike. We had to return her.

Then we crawled in our car and prepared to drive north.

I tried to cheer us up by pulling out another round of travel games. First up? Movie trivia! Ryan answered questions about How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and I answered questions about You've Got Mail. We won't talk about who won. {Cause it wasn't me.}

I entertained myself by writing our Christmas letter. {I'd ordered the cards poolside earlier in the week.}

And then...oh be still my beating heart...S.O.N.I.C.

Even Ryan was impressed with the strawberry cream slush. How he ever lived a full 33 years without having one is truly beyond me and mine.

Ryan's demonstration of my car dancing.

We stopped for our first Starbucks as a married couple. A moment that deserved no less than full documentation.

I really appreciate so many things about Ryan and the way he loves me. And one thing he does so well is that he always does everything he can to make me feel loved. He wanted the trip home to be special, so he surprised me with reservations at a B&B out in the middle of nowhere in Georgia. We arrived kind of late (8ish)....

...and checked into the most darling room...little gas stove in the corner...big comfy bed...

...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! A hot tub!!!!!!!!!!!!!! {I love these so so much.}

And he even ordered dinner to be served in our room so we could relax and eat. We added the sparkling grape juice his parents gave us for our honeymoon...

...and I said if we had to come home...this was a pretty perfect last stop to our trip. That's for sure!!!

It's a Tuesday Kind of Honeymoon

Before I hit another honeymoon post...want to pause to wish my niece, Cassie, a very happy birthday!!! :)

Okay. Tuesday. We were VERY BUSY on the Tuesday of our honeymoon!!!

Started out by going to another local joint for breakfast. It was called Dutch Valley. You know. The place where they put the germ-x next to the ketchup:

 Hard to see me in this picture, but Ryan took it from inside the restaurant while I was standing out on the sidewalk talking on the phone to Lynne...on the air. Yep, I'm the one who called in to Mid-Morning from my honeymoon to talk about the wedding!!

 After breakfast, we got ready for a little adventure. Here were my thoughts as we were en route....

 Because I was about to get in one of THESE for the first time in my life.

 That's right. My sweet husband talked me into kayaking. It was on our bucket list. (We have a collective bucket list that we each contribute to. Guess who suggested this one??) I was most nervous about flipping the kayak and losing my camera.

The kayak place was so nice - gave us this nice map to get us around the little island.

 And off we went. He worked hard to row. (Do you row a kayak? Whatever.) I worked hard taking pictures. And I rocked it, I don't mind saying. (The picture taking. NOT the kayak.)

 Part of the way through our little tour, we stopped on a beach to see the coastline from another view.

 There he is! My handsome husband!!

 Trying out our new tripod. All that messed up sand in front of us was from our frantic climbing to get up the tiny dune before our 10 second timer went off!!

 Back in the kayak and we um...hit some shallow water. Yep. Pretty much got STUCK.

 I was freaking out but Ryan stayed perfectly calm, got out of the boat, and pushed us back into the water. He's a genius.

 The kayaking really was fun. We were out for a couple of hours and the day was really nice for it. Not windy, mostly sunny - and a great time together. And don't tell him I said so, but I really enjoyed doing something new that was out of my comfort zone.

We came back to our hotel and got cleaned up in time for sunset. We got some lawn chairs and coffee from the hotel office and headed to the beach to watch the sun go down.

 And do sand art. :)

 Not disappointed!!

 And since we were there...some beach weed pics.

 One of our wedding guests was my college roommate, and she lives right there near where we were married. She texted us some suggestions of places to visit, and one of them was this restaurant.

 The Old Salty Dog was featured on Man vs. Food and she said it was good! So we tried it out! It was dark out but such a lovely evening that we asked to eat outside again. Ryan wanted to try the same thing the guy on Man vs. Food ate: the foot long beer battered hot dog loaded with multiple kinds of cheese, mushrooms, onions, and many other things.

 I went for the "dog bites" version. Just beer battered hot dog. "JUST" - because that is lower in calories. LOL!!

 After dinner, we drove to St. Armands Circle and walked around looking at the shops and restaurants there.

 Funny story from there...as we tried to drive through the roundabout that makes the circle, we encountered a car parked in the road, and the driver was out talking to people parked in the angle-parking off the road. We were trying to squeeze through and the driver of the car in the road waved us on, saying we had "plenty of room." She went on to say, "Oh we're just exchanging toys." Once we got through, I said to Ryan, "Is this some rule of Florida roadways? It's okay to block a road if you're exchanging toys AND you explain that to those trying to get through?"

After we walked off dinner, we had dessert at Big Olaf's. We shared a waffle cup....

 Which was MOST yummy.

 We were STUFFED, so we left and went back to the resort, where we took this little photo-into-the-future.

And once done, we saw the sign that said to stay off the shuffleboard...

WOOPSIE!!!