I love all of the great bargains that I can find for a dollar.  I was recently shopping in the store and I found some really cute fall decorations and other items to share with you.

I decided to make up a goodie care package for my daughter who is away at college.  I found some candy, small bags of chips, a cute fall door decoration, and chip clips to send to her.





I love the Pine Glo cleaner and I use this to clean our toilets.  I also like the air freshener in Cherry Blossom scent that I use on my closet shelf.












You can get some really great buys and I love saving money.   I also bought some birthday cards that were only two for a dollar.  You can't beat that!!

By the way, I also spied while waiting to pay for my items, down one of the isles they already had CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!   I shopped in DT two weeks ago!

If you follow me on Instagram @brklynhousewife you will see a photo I have posted of a Christmas tree display I saw at Costco.  Get ready everyone for early Christmas sightings!

Have you been to Dollar Tree or any dollar stores lately?

Thanks for stopping by!  I do hope that I have inspired you to check out Dollar Tree.  :)




Click HERE to see the great parties I will be linking up to!


Julie

Hello friends.  Welcome to Part Three of our Jersey Shore vacation.


If you missed Part One, you can read about that here.

If you missed Part Two, you can read about that here.



We had another great beach day.  It was a cloudy day but we didn't care and we all just enjoyed ourselves relaxing on the beach.





Every afternoon the seagulls would walk along the beach looking for food.  They love chips and sandwiches.  I have seen the gulls swoop down and grab a sandwich and other foods out of people's hands.







Another popular restaurant that is located on the bay side is called Tuckers Tavern.  We were all happy that we only had a ten-minute wait to eat dinner.





The room that we ate our dinner in was decorated with a British theme.  It had top hats and umbrellas hanging from the ceiling.  I thought it looked so cool and I had to get a shot of it.

Below the table, you can see suitcases decorated with the British flag.




I'm looking forward to going there again next year to eat as the food was so good.  I enjoyed eating risotto and scallops shown in the bottom photo.

Most of the restaurant on the island cater toward seafood, pizza, and burgers.  There are a lot of places to get ice cream to eat which is always fun.  :)




We all were too full to have dessert at the restaurant or stop for some ice cream.





We all enjoyed swimming in the pool after a long day at the beach.  The pool water felt refreshing and just perfect.





On our last night, we went to a shopping area that is very popular called Bay Village.  I go a shot of the girls with the pretty pastel houses in the background.  The three of us did a little bit of shopping for beach clothes and sweatshirts.







It is a tradition that we started last year to do a photo shoot on our last night in LBI by the bayside.

I love this dock and the pretty house below that is surrounded by the water.





That sums up our fun vacation and I can't wait to do it again next year.  Next year we are hoping to maybe rent a house for our vacation.






I hope you enjoyed looking at the photos of our vacation to the Jersey Shore.  Thank you to everyone who visited and left me comments on our beach vacation!

 Hope you all enjoy the rest of the week and weekend.




Click HERE to see the great parties I will be linking up to!


Julie

Hi everyone.  I'm back to share with you Part Two of our summer beach vacation to the Jersey Shore.  If you missed Part One then you can click here to read about it.

My daughter (who is on the right) and wearing a cute sun hat invited the same friend as last year to come away with us on vacation.

I think the two of them look so ready for some fun in the sun.  😎





This bench sits at the top of the dune that goes down to the beach.  My husband and I enjoyed sitting there in the evenings watching the stars and listening to the ocean waves.






Here is the path that goes to the beach.  We had a large beach wagon to lug all of our beach gear back and forth each day.






I couldn't resist taking a photo of my daughter and friends on the beach.  My daughter's other friend drove by herself to meet us and stay for a few days.  Ah to be young!  I remember doing the same thing laying on the beach with my friends when I was a teen.








One night we decided to have sushi for dinner and we took a short drive off the Island to a Japanese Restaurant called Makoto Japanese Steakhouse.

Everyone enjoyed the assortment of sushi.  I love the presentation of the food and it was served in a large wooden boat.





Below is another pretty Victorian house that I love.  It's decorated with large hanging baskets overflowing with colorful flowers.  I LOVE THAT PORCH!  I would love to sit outside on that porch and be reading a good book.




One night my husband and I went out to dinner without the girls and we decided to eat at Carmen's.



On each table was a cute candle decorated with sand and beach shells.  We had never eaten here before and we both loved the restaurant.



We both shared an appetizer of mango and prosciutto with figs and cheese with honey.  Oh, that tasted so good!

My dish was eggplant, tomatoes and arugula salad which tasted delicious.  My husband had fish, mashed potatoes, and vegetables.  We were both happy with our dinner and we would definitely go there again next year.




That is the second part of our Jersey Shore vacation.  Thanks for stopping by and stayed tuned for Part Three coming soon.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the week and weekend.





Click HERE to see the great parties I will be linking up to!


Julie

Hello everyone.  I love the beach.  When I was younger I grew up living a minute walk to the beach.  Every day during the summer I would be there with my siblings, friends, or cousins swimming and having fun just trying to get the best tan.

Each year after I had my daughter we would take our family vacation to the Jersey Shore and stay on Long Beach Island.  We stopped taking our vacations there when Hurricane Sandy hit back in 2012.  The house we used to rent for the week was damaged and destroyed by the hurricane.

Over the many years, we have stayed in different motels and rented different houses on the Island.  We've stayed on the bayside and on the oceanside.  When you have a house or motel on the ocean you can just walk a short distance and be on the beach.

I really missed the beach vacations we used to take and we finally decided to start them up again last year.

Last year we stayed at a cute motel called the Sea Horse Motel that is located in Beach Haven, New Jersey.

Sea Horse Motel

The motel was nice and clean but we had to walk across a big highway to get to the beach each day.  I tried to book us into a motel located right on the ocean but the motels were all booked up.  I had waited too long and late in the season as you need to start booking a reservation in the winter.  I was happy when this motel was available and it was our first time we ever stayed there.  We had to take a short drive to get to restaurants, stores, and other attractions.

We still enjoyed ourselves and had a great time going to the beach each day, swimming in the pool, and going out to eat at different restaurants each night.





This year I made sure to call and make a reservation in May (which is kind of late too).  The three motels that are located right on the ocean side are the Sea Shell Motel, the Engleside Inn, and the Coral Seas Motel where we stayed this year.  They are all located in Beach Haven, New Jersey and in the heart of all the main local attractions.

I tried getting us into the Sea Shell Motel or the Engleside Inn but they were booked up.  I tried the Coral Seas Motel and we lucked out as they had two rooms available the week we wanted.

The Coral Seas Motel was lucky and not damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.  It's a cute motel that is located right on the beach.  It's clean and the decor reminded me of the 80's with yellow, white, and brown colors on the outside of the motel and the beach chairs by the pool.  The owner and staff were also very nice and pleasant.

We were lucky and they had two rooms right next to each other on the first floor that overlooked the pool.  The pool water was so nice and warm to swim in after we spent our long days on the beach.

We were gifted with a huge basket filled to the brim with goodies for our beach vacation from my daughter's friend who came on the vacation with us.  Her mom made the beautiful basket shown below for everyone to enjoy.

It was filled with so many awesome things such as a kite, sun hat, sarong, chips, chocolates, cookies, and other various snacks and goodies!!  We loved everything and enjoyed eating the snacks.




I couldn't wait to take a quick walk to see the beach and this was my view.  When I saw the beach and water I just knew we would all have a great vacation.





The motel is in a great location as it's a short walk to stores and restaurants.  On one of our walks, I saw this pretty sunflower.  They are one of my favorite flowers and they always remind me of August.





Long Beach Island is known for big old houses like the one below.  I love this house with all of the rocking chairs lined up on the porch.





There was even an old wishing well on the side of the property filled with pretty flowers.



Below is The Gables which is a famous Victorian Inn and fancy restaurant located on the Island.



This restaurant gets very crowded and it's sometimes hard to get a reservation for dinner.  We did not go there this year but we hope to try again next year.




It's a tradition for us to eat at a tavern called Buckalew's Tavern.  This restaurant is so popular and there is always a long wait to eat there.  We had to wait at least a half an hour which wasn't too bad.  To pass some time I visited some cute stores selling everything beach themed such as beach clothes, bathing suits, suntan lotion, beach chairs, and toys, etc.

This large restaurant has a fun atmosphere with live bands, a large bar area, and it also has a variety of different foods to eat.




I'm sorry I didn't take any photos of the food as we were all too hungry to eat dinner!  LOL!