I’m about to share something that may not come as a shock to you. I’m not really much of a camper. When people ask me if I’m a happy camper, of course I will say yes, but that’s about as close as “happy” and “camper” get in my day-to-day life. I’ll be honest— I’m just a little bit too high maintenance for camping. I like to sleep on a real bed, wash my face at a real sink, and warm food in an instant with a real microwave. So when Glamping Hub approached me about partnering on a camping trip in North America, I was hesitant— but only for a split second! This is glamping, folks! This kind of adventuring was made for me!

As I checked out the types of glamping available through Glamping Hub’s website, I noticed there really is something for everyone! High maintenance folks like me can rent luxury cabins, treehouses, or even large farmhouses, while more adventurous campers can rent anything from a luxury tent, to a tipi, to an Airstream van. There’s also a nice selection of in-between venues too, if you’re moderately adventurous, like luxury yurts, mini cabins, and pod hotels. (Yes— POD HOTELS!!)

I’m really excited to be getting out of Dodge, as they say, this coming week to a treehouse I’ve selected from the Glamping Hub website. I’ll be staying with a few friends, decompressing, escaping, but with all the modern amenities. We’ll be embarking on a little road trip to get there, and I’ll be sharing bits of my getaway on Instagram. Follow along, if you’d like!

Two years ago, Phil and I created these amazing grayscale film noir costumes, and they were too good not to share here on my blog! If you’ve been around my blog even a little, you’ll know I’m pretty into classic movies and find them my biggest source of inspiration for style. So, of course Phil and I would find Halloween a great excuse to dress up like a gumshoe and his femme fatale, but with a fun twist— we’re desaturated just like in the movie Pleasantville.

I’ve gotta warn you, this was no easy costume, thanks to all the makeup that easily smudges as the night wears on. But if not touching your face and leaving black marks on the rims of your cup is the worst of it, I’d say it’s worth the struggle! (I did smuggle makeup for touch-ups in my purse.) Phil and I walked around a bit to take photos, and we were the hit of the town. It was so entertaining to see the shocked reactions of people who couldn’t believe their eyes for a second! It really brightened their day, and tickled us all. Such fun, really!

We found all the black, white, and gray clothing we needed in our closets, except for a jacket for Phil and tights for me. I was able to find his jacket at the first thrift store trip I made, and I grabbed the tights at Target. A quick stop at the costume shop for hairspray and makeup, and we were ready to transform ourselves.

I began by spraying my simple updo with black hairspray , and wiping away any that got on my face. Then came the makeup.

We blended black and white makeup from a pop-up Halloween store for the best coverage, and highlighted our eyes with a gray eyeshadow kit. I wore black lipstick, but Phil blended the black and white makeup to do his lips in a medium-gray.

By looking at the photos, you really would think it’s just Photoshop until you get up close and can see our eyes and mouth. My teeth have never looked more yellow! Ha!

It was really helpful to have comfortable gloves to wear, because layering makeup on your hands will just make a big mess. I also made sure my outfit had lots of coverage, so literally the only part of my skin that showed was my neck and face, making the application process much quicker. We did get makeup on our clothes, but it washed right out in the laundry without any special treatment, though I still have some gray smudges on the inside rim of my pillbox hat, but I haven’t tried to clean it off.

This was definitely my favorite Halloween costume we’ve done and was a big hit at the party we went to! We also enjoyed dressing up as the Flinstones, thanks to some quickly sewn fleece dresses and nude body suits for warmth! How cute was little Lucy as Pebbles? Aw man, now I’m feeling sappy. Such fun memories.

Check out my Wilma Flintstone hair tutorial here!

If you read this title and thought,  “Bumblebee train party? That’s a weird party theme!” Let me assure you— I thought the same thing! But when Lucy couldn’t decide if she wanted trains or bumblebees for her third birthday party, I thought, why pick just one? Sticking to a theme for a party is such a Pinterest pothole, right? Kids don’t care if they have train plates alongside bumblebee cups and a Hello Kitty cake. But us cookoo party planners like everything to be neat and tidy, I suppose. I’m the first to admit that I like a cohesive theme, even if it’s just for a toddler birthday party with family.

So for Lucy’s third birthday party I decided to go with a pretty picnic-inspired theme that encompassed a few of Lucy’s favorite things: flowers, bugs (particularly her beloved bumble bee), and trains— just like a picturesque episode of Thomas and Friends. (Yes— I still tried to keep it within one cohesive theme!) With a little help from my mom, I put everything together while the rest of the family was at church, and Lucy was surprised by our dining room’s transformation when she got home. Her favorite was the strawberry filled cake I made with love in the wee small hours of the morning the night before.

I made a bumblebee train cake! It can be done! In fact, I think it’s my favorite cake I’ve ever made— even more than the teddy bear cake I made for her first birthday. Speaking of which— let me just say that it’s SO not worth putting that much effort into a first birthday party cake! Your kid doesn’t really care at that point, and it sets the bar way too high for following parties. Let’s be real— that was just my attempt at being super mom, plus I was really excited to finally get to plan birthday parties for my kid.

As far as decorations went, I stuck to inexpensive decorations like tissue paper flowers and paper bumblebees taped to the wall with a trailing electrical tape flight pattern. (Thanks, Dad, for bringing the electrical tape!) Mostly I kept with the theme by selecting basic party items that were either black, white, or yellow and had patterns like gingham and polka dots. While I considered getting solid colored balloons to keep it classy, I thought Lucy would much rather have a cute bumblebee balloon. I found this one on Etsy, and it was a big hit!

For on-theme snacks for guests to munch on as they arrived, I found butterfly crackers and made Babybel cheese ladybugs in about two minutes with a Sharpie, toothpicks, and blueberries. (We also had a veggie tray with carrot and cucumber slice butterflies that I didn’t get a photo of.) For our lunch I made pepperoni rolls with little cups of marinara sauce for easy eating, since there wasn’t room for everyone at the table. And for dessert, we obviously had cake! I made a white cake using this recipe (+ 1/3 of the recipe for two 12″ cakes) and filled it with strawberries in a gelatin and frosted it with this white frosting recipe (x3 for my 12″ cake).

The night before the party, at around 1 AM (so typical of me), I whipped together a bunch of bumble bee antenna headbands for guests to wear. I was surprised at how quick everyone was to don their antennas, and I must admit, it was pretty funny to see a room full of adults engaging in serious conversation as their antennae bobbed back and forth on their heads! Pretty gratifying for me, and Lucy got a kick out of it too.

For anyone who doesn’t follow my every move on Instagram, you should know that Lucy’s been weirdly obsessed with bumble bees all Summer, to the point where she calls people bumble bees (instead of how midwesterners usually call people “you guys,” or southerners would say, “ya’ll.”). When I ask her what she wants to do today, she gleefully yells, “Bumblebees!” What a silly kid. Needless to say, she loved her bumble bee party.

I got a sparkler for Lucy’s cake rather than candles, thinking it would be extra special. Turns out she was kind of nervous about it and in hindsight I know she would’ve rather blown out candles. Oh well! At least we didn’t all have to share her germs. But next year we’ll do candles.

As far as the train part of her birthday party went, you can see that I designed her cake to be a bumble bee speckled scenic background for a train that wrapped around it. The cake was part of her birthday gift, and quite a happy surprise for her, because you see, while Lucy has adored trains for about a year, she’s never actually had a train toy to play with. Instead, she’s imaginatively transformed every toy that she has into a train of sorts. I’ve even caught her lining up my necklaces, making the chains act as tracks and having the pendants move along them saying, “choo choo!” I thought maybe we should get the poor kid an actual toy train!

So I talked with her invitees (just her grandparents, my brother and his girlfriend, and Phil’s sister) about gifts and they were cool with me making an Amazon wishlist so we could all get together and combine our gift giving efforts towards getting Lucy a nice train set with train engines from Thomas and Friends— her favorite t.v. show. I was pretty nervous to ask for specific gifts (Is that tacky? Totally.), but I figured it would be the only way she’d ever get a nice train set, because we just couldn’t afford all the really cool pieces otherwise. And her guests were all family members, and you can totally do tacky stuff to your family, right? Anyway, everyone was awesome and showed up with something from the wish list to combine with our gift of the train tracks and a couple of bridges. Lucy wanted to stop opening gifts after each new train she unwrapped, because she just wanted to play, gosh darn it! Her dream of owning a train set had finally come true. She happily spent the rest of the day playing with the trains, and Phil and I unabashedly enjoyed setting up a pretty fancy train track all around our living room floor. We’ve left the train set up ever since her party, just rearranging it a bit to sweet around it. We were all really happy to see that she loved our combined gift giving efforts, instead of getting her a bunch of random things we might end up donating down the road.

We’re leaving the decorations up for a few days, then off they go into our plastic storage containers for another party or shower for our family or for a friend. We had loads of fun! But oh man, guys, I’m really glad she won’t have another birthday until next year.