Dear Boardwalk Snow, you're pretty to look at, but we'll be happy to see you go. Love, The Jersey Shore

I know, I know…for a girl that says she HATES the cold, and a guy who dreams of living in San Diego, we sure seem to play in the snow a whole lot. Over the past few weeks it seems like we have spent a lot of time up to our knees in snow, on the coldest days, and in foolhardy locations such as the icy beach. There we are trudging through snow drifts and slipping on ice, always with a camera in hand. And as I said before…it's not as if we actually like being outdoors in these conditions…we just figure if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. We have been locked away in the house with the heat pumping (to insufficient result) for months, and our daily walks to the post office to ship out packages act as a sort of short term cure for our cabin fever. These small doses of the season at hand are good for the soul. 

Today happened to be sunny and almost all of the snow has melted. During this period what happens here on the shore is flooding. Lots of clogged catch basins and interminably soggy lawns. But heralding signs of Spring are upon us. We're waking up to birds we haven't heard in months. 

So I want to share these pics from a few days ago as a sort of farewell to the Winter. Hopefully these will be the last snowy pics you will see this season! 

Again, this little excursion occurred after we had shipped a bunch of boxes at the post office. It was super sunny and bright, but still very cold. As per usual, we had our camera and figured we'd walk up to the beach and boardwalk to capture a uniquely Jersey Shore experience on film. I love that the above pic of Scooters, which is the bumper cars, can appear to be white sand or snow, depending on how you look at it. 

The "Haunted Manor" is even more creepy all covered in snow. We were hoping for more icicles though.

To be honest, as I was taking this shot I was thinking about how I'm a grown woman sneaking up onto the closed boardwalk for pics. I mean, it's not like anyone would truly care that we were up there. But let's say there was some wayward overzealous security guard that I had to run from in my Napoleon Dynamite moon boots…I could only picture myself falling face first in Aaron's tracks. 

A typical Jersey Shore boardwalk mural, in that the sandcastle looks like its constructed of graffiti style letters that either spell out "Jersey" or "Sexy"…words that are somehow interchangeable in Jersey. It's hard to explain, but if you know what I mean…then you know what I mean. 

It was so clear up on the beach. Such a great view of New York from here…which never shows in photographs. This was further down the beach than our usual spot. I believe the fencing was put in to help protect the newly formed dunes that were installed after Hurricane Sandy. 

We had to stop to take a pic of these candy colored chippy pillars. So perfect!

Most boardwalks up and down the Jersey Shore open up for the year on Easter Sunday. We are hoping for some great weather this Easter (which rarely happens). I can almost smell the cotton candy and boardwalk fries! 

Hope you are seeing some signs of Spring wherever you are! 

Thanks bunches for popping in!

Love from the Jersey Shore.

xo Jenny…and Aaron says hi! 

Arctic adventures and sweet rewards at the Jersey Shore.

 We walk to the post office pretty much every day. It's a great way to break up the day, and it's also necessary being that we're packing and shipping orders all the time. Luckily, since it's fairly close we can endure the walk despite the frigid temps we've had all winter. And it feels like we get some kind of snow or slush falling from the sky every three days or so. You maybe wouldn't think so, but this is one of our favorite times to take a walk up onto our nearby beach. Actually, for both of us, our least favorite time of year to hit the beach would be during the red hot summer. We're burners, not tanners…I prefer long skirts to bikinis…Aaron likes jeans, not shorts. A snow covered beach is a treat for us. So right after our trip to the post office we took the short walk up to the beach to check it out and get some air. You might remember we did this another time not too long ago, and blogged about it here. 

The last time we were up on the beach it was way more cold and windy…like in the negative digits. Sure, this time was still cold and windy, but it was much more pleasant. It's peacefully desolate. We're always the only two living souls up there. The last time we went it was super windblown, and the wave were so cold that they were forming into slush balls when they hit the sand. This time we barely even got a glimpse of the sand. The snow covers the entire beach, from the dunes right down to the surf. And the snow is all encased in a thin layer of ice, making the entire surface just one giant glazed sculpture.

But being that the water temp was slightly warmer this time, the tide was coming in and grabbing huge chunks of the ice, pulling them off shore one by one. Aaron played up here as a little kid, and said he and his brothers and friends would try to hop rides on the ice chunks. My gosh I would kill my little boy for trying that!

Just to let you know…these are the true colors we saw up there. I didn't apply any post production tricks to the photos. Everything had a magical blue glow, unlike the eery grey tint from our previous visit.

It was just a little while before sunset, so there were lots of great shadows and highlights.

Greetings from three blocks from home! Do you think I can pass this off as a pic from an adventure in the great white north?

This was the extent of exposed sand, which is now probably getting covered again in the current snow/sleet storm that's passing through Jersey.

Here you can see that the snow isn't powdery at all. It's glazed with ice. And if you step very lightly you won't even break the surface.

Ok, so this is how Everyday is a Holiday finishes off an Arctic expedition. You'd think that the photos above of the icy tundra couldn't possibly have occurred within minutes of these bakery pics…but that's exactly how we roll. For us, these eclairs, and cream puffs, and strawberry shortcakes fit right in with a trip to the frozen seashore. You NEED a sweet reward!

These are just a few shots from our local bakery…just blocks from us and the beach. We marvel at classic bakeries like this. It's the whole reason why we paint cakes and cupcakes and other bakery inspired things. A real deal bakery embodies the whole spirit of Everyday is a Holiday. Because every single day these sweets are offered up. Countless varieties…amazing selection. And it isn't a holiday…it's simply Tuesday. But a bakery treats every day like a holiday…putting out displays of fantastical sweets and treats to brighten your day. 

We love St. Joseph Pastries! If you live in the NY/NJ area you grow up with Italian pastries. We actually never even considered that these pastries weren't available everywhere. You just grow up thinking that this is the way everyone does sweets. But if you travel the country you'll soon learn that this is not the case. And New York and Jersey are the homes of the Italian street festival…where you'll find even better stuff than this!

And yeah…there are Cookies. And cookies, and cookies, and cookies! Again, these are here every single day for you. You walk in there and you feel like it's almost sacrilege not to get an assorted dozen or two.

Can you guess what we chose? It was actually really really hard to decide. I'm never any good with food decisions. I'd almost rather you just surprise me. I take way way too long to decide. Aaron will keep turning to me saying "pick whatever."…and I just say it right back to him. But in the end we chose...

A couple of these mini strawberry tarts, which are amazing!

And these mini chocolate frosted eclairs! They're soooo cute!

We mainly eat healthy…but every once in a while we like to reboot the system. ha!

Ok, just wanted to give a little insight into our daily life over here. Hope you enjoyed!

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi!