Adventures of the Hesslers!

An Early Christmas Vacation

2012-01-29T17:19:00.003-05:00

At the beginning of December, we took an early holiday vacation to Oregon to visit my brother, sister-in-law and my mom flew out as well. The plan was to spend some time in Oregon together and then head up to Washington state to Leavenworth to enjoy the Bavarian town decked out in all of its Christmas glory.

We had a smooth flight out and were lucky to plan our arrival within a couple hours of mom's at the airport so we could just wait around for her plane to come in. My sister-in-law was sweet and met us there when our flight came in and took us for a nice lunch while we waited for mom.

I hadn't seen my sister-in-law in almost 5 years, and it had been just over 1 year to the date that we last saw my brother. My mom we last saw this past summer. It was so nice to all be together.

In Oregon, we really just hung out, did a little shopping, plenty of eating, and we enjoyed spending time with our "furry nephews" Porkchop & Applesauce - totaling about 30 pounds of furry kitty goodness!

We headed up to Leavenworth mid week so we'd be out by the weekend when all of the droves of tourists come in to town and you can't move anywhere. We had an easy drive up with clear weather and ice free roads - never even had to put the chains on the tires through the mountains. In fact, the weather was so perfect every day we were there. It was sunny, warm (if you consider 40s warm, I do), and dry. We were actually worried it was going to be too warm to do the sleigh ride my brother had planned for us, but they still ran the rides in the limited amount of snow they had on the ground.

The best part about Leavenworth, aside from the shopping, and the most WONDERFUL B&B we've ever stayed at, was the most delicious German food. Since we don't get ANY German food out here on the East Coast, it was such a treat to indulge in a multitude of schnitzel, spaetzle, cabbage, German beers, schweinshank and more!

Adam and I went 'rogue" as my brother called it, a few times to go to the shops we wanted to visit and check out the Nutcracker Museum. Now the Nutcracker museum here in Leavenworth is the same one that was highlighted on an old Conan O'Brien Show where the woman brought a Nutcracker they made just for Conan to the show for him - yeah she was working when we went to the museum - totally awesome!!

Once back in OR, we made sure we hit up Voodoo donuts before we left town, as it would most certainly be our last trip to OR before my brother and sister-in-law relocated. Now Voodoo donuts is the one you see on all of the crazy FoodNetwork shows and such - with the Captain' Crunch donuts, Bacon Maple, Tang, etc. Between the 5 of us I think we ended up with 2-3 dozen donuts and we ate them ALL over two days. The Captain' Crunch was by far the best doughnut I've eaten in my life - airy, light, the best vanilla frosting and of course, the Captain!. The bacon maple was good, but certainly not as good as some of the other ones. Adam had a Mango Tango doughnut that was really good as well - Mango chutney in the doughnut with an orange Tang powder on the frosting. DELICIOUS! And of course the traditional Voodoo doughnut was great as well!

It was so nice to celebrate an early holiday with my family and see some new parts of the country that we hadn't been to yet.

Pictures from the whole trip are below - ENJOY!

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Merry Birthday

2012-01-29T17:12:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful Birthmas in our house. We both got some great gifts, the birthday boy enjoyed his Rainier Cherry Pie (even after a minor fight ensued in the preparation for baking said pie) and it was just an overall low key and wonderful day!

The stockings were hung on the shelf above the couch with care, until we came home Christmas even and they were so full the shelf pulled out of the wall. Goodbye shelf!

Happy Birthday Birthday Boy! Enjoy your 2 weeks to the day of being older than me!

Damn' that's a mess - hope Santa's elves are going to come and clean this up!!

Even Santa made sure to fill stockings for the kitties!

An Anniversary Get Away - Day 4

2011-12-26T15:38:00.003-05:00

After an overnight in Buffalo, Adam and I checked out another DDD for breakfast, where I had quite possibly one of the best breakfasts of all time - ham with red eye gravy, great eggs and potatoes. Oh so good! After breakfast we then headed towards Niagara Falls. But we decided to check out the American side first for the park there. I know everyone bashes the American side, and I wouldn't stay there, but the park is certainly worth the visit. We thought we'd pop in and out of the park but we were there for a few hours walking around, taking photos, and enjoying the views of the rapids and the falls.

We did pop in the visitor center on the US side, and my first comment to Adam was "Why does the US side smell like curry?"

After finishing up at the park on the American side, we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge and headed to our hotel. We had a wonderful suite on the 30th floor with great views of the US falls and really misty/foggy views of the Canadian falls.

We did all of the traditional tourists things you're supposed to do there - thanks to the AAA Niagara pass. The behind the falls view was really cool and included some great views for photos. And of course Maid of the Mist was just so fun! We also visited the white water walk, which is a great walk along the rapids of the falls - it was so sunny and beautiful that day that it just made for beautiful photos. And we certainly picked the best time to go because we didn't have lines for ANYTHING!!

The last day we were in Niagara Falls, we had pretty much done everything one is supposed to do there, so we headed out to Ontario on the Lake and went to a few wineries that our hotel gave us free tasting coupons for. Well, we were so thankful we left the tourist areas to go to the wineries. It was so beautiful and of course, the wine was delicious - especially the Ice Wine. We fell so in love with ice wine, we came home with about 6 bottles!!

Overall, Niagara was wonderful, peaceful, fun to visit and although Adam had been as a child, I had never been and it was so fun to go and see the falls.

Photos from our trip to Niagara Falls - there's lots and they are unfortunately not in order!

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An Anniversary Get Away - Day 3

2011-12-25T19:07:00.002-05:00

Our next stop on our trip was to Cooperstown, NY so we could visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. Surprisingly, this was something I was more excited to do than Adam - but we both had a fantastic time!

We started the day strolling Main Street towards the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is an incredible brick building right in downtown. The metal work has baseball bats & balls and you can see each expansion the museum has made over the years since it opened.

We started on the 2nd floor with the history of baseball and the significance of Cooperstown and the building of the Hall of Fame. The museum was a great hall of winding rooms, honoring the history of the sport, the players & the leagues.

It was great to read about the introduction of the American League and how the teams were transferred from one city to the other so often. For instance, Boston used to have 2 teams, The Sox and the Braves. The Braves were then sent to Milwaukee and then Atlanta - I'll never look at the Braves the same again!

In the area with all of the lockers, which you'll see in the photos, Adam noticed that each team in the AL and NL had all retired #42 for Jackie Robinson - even the newer clubs all automatically retire #42 - how incredible!

It was so neat to see some of the old baseball cards too and we enjoyed the exhibits on Babe Ruth, Women in Baseball and Baseball in the movies.

The neatest part was all of the old jersey's, hats, balls, bats and cleats from the various teams. I also really enjoyed the area highlighting the various parks, including souvenirs, the music, the pieces from the parks in the museum. I mean who know they made Red Sox Cereal or that one of the pinwheels from Comiskey would be at the Hall of Fame?

Seeing the Hall of Fame was really neat as well. Adam liked finding the bronze faces with the best mustaches and I enjoyed finding the only woman in the Hall of Fame. The wooden statues you'll see in the photos below were so intricately and beautifully done, and even cooler, they were made in RI!

It was a great place to see and i'm so glad we finally went, even if it did take us 4 hours to cover the museum.

When we left the museum we had lunch downtown on the roof patio of a great restaurant and enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air. From there we headed over to Doubleday Field where we actually got to go in and see the field and the stands. There was also a creek that flows next to the stadium so you could hear the water rushing as you watched a game - that would be great!

After we finished up Cooperstown, we drove 4.5 hours to Buffalo to enjoy dinner at Grovers Bar & Grill - a Diner's Drive Ins and Dives Restaurant. They had the BEST wings I've ever eaten in my life. If you go, get the Parmesan Garlic Wings, they are to die for. They are perfectly fried and cooked, not greasy at all. And the Burgers - share one - they are HUGE and so perfectly done. Really, it was so fun to go enjoy one of the DDD places!

Some fun facts on the Hall of Fame:
* There's 1 Woman in the Hall of Fame
* 1 Civil War Vet in the Hall of Fame
* If you go, spend time reading about the history of the rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees, there's way more to it than I ever knew!
* The Hall of Fame and Commission chooses what hat the players will wear for their bronze statues in the Hall of Fame.
* There's one woman who had more at bases than Ty Cobb and MLB argued that it wasn't fair because men had to run 90 feet and women 74 feet.
* The shortest game was 51 minutes - for 9 innings.
* The size of the Championship Rings has increased significantly since the 1900 - they used to just get a pin.
*Only 1/3 of teams have an organ player anymore at the parks.

Enjoy some of the photos from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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An Anniversary Get Away - Days 1 & 2

2011-12-20T21:41:00.012-05:00

In October, Adam and I headed North West on a road trip that we've talked about taking for a few years now. We left RI on the Sunday morning of Columbus Day weekend and headed to upstate NY. It was a fairly easy road trip, no traffic, clear roads and weather, and the most beautiful colors we've ever seen with the foliage. When we left for this trip, we had yet to have any leaf color change in RI, we were all still green and lush. So it was so nice to go and see the lovely reds, golds, and even purples!

Our first stop was in Schenectady to see a good friend of the Hessler's - Ruth - whom has known Adam since he was a little guy. We spent the afternoon with Ruth catching up and filling her in on our life out in Rhode Island. It was the first time I'd ever gotten to meet Ruth, so it was a special treat for me, as Adam talks so fondly of her and has such wonderful memories of visiting her during his childhood.

After our visit with Ruth, we headed to Howe Caverns, NY so we could stay overnight and then explore the caverns the next morning. When we got in, the sun was still shining and the weather was beautiful, so we spent the afternoon walking around the site and just enjoying the fresh air, and eventually taking in the sunset.

That night we went down to a little German restaurant - Red Bull Inn - in the main town and had a fabulous meal. If you go you MUST get the potato pancakes and the spetzel. Next door was a little one screen theater, which was the ONLY thing to do in the town. Well, the line for the theater was out the door, around the block with I think everyone in town going in. Gosh I love small towns!! How awesome!

The next morning, we had breakfast at one of two places to eat in the main town - Cobbleskill Diner - a little local hole in the wall that was obviously the right choice as there were hardly any parking spots or tables! It was certainly delicious as well!

Once back at the Howe Caverns property, we bundled up and headed down 15 stories to the 52 degree caverns. We spent an hour + down there and walked a mile around the caverns. They were really quite impressive and I was really impressed at how designed they were for the average tourist with brick paths, railings, lighting, etc. There's nothing about this visit that was "spelunking", which is what I envisioned.

We hung at the back of the tour, which was the best decision, because we were able to get some really impressive photos this way. The stalactites and stalagmites were so huge and the water flowing through the whole cavern was something I didn't really expect. We even took an 1/8 of a mile gondola ride from the mid point to the end of the open portion of the caverns. And even cooler was that they even had a room in the caverns to age their own cheddar cheese!

I do recommend staying at the motel that's a part of the property - it's not the Ritz, but it's walking distance, clean, nice and there are some great combo packages you can buy when you stay at the motel. Our package include admission to the caverns, a bag of mining gems, where we found some pretty stones, fudge from their candy shop (which was out of this world!) and other fun perks.

From Howe Caverns we headed to Sharon Springs, but took the back roads the whole way. It was so great to see the little town where the Beekman Boys live and have their store. We did go in to the store and walked out with their book, their caramel sauce, and some other great products. Since we came home, I've made two orders from their online store and am pleased with the products.

From Sharon Springs, we continued on the back roads to Cooperstown and went to the Ommengang Brewery. We waited 45 minutes for the tour only to not get in to any of the buildings because they were cleaning. But we went to the tasting and that was worth it.

We checked in to the hotel and settled on BBQ for dinner at the little place up the street from the hotel, only to find out they were closed on Mondays. So we then headed to another restaurant that Rachel Ray had eaten at on $40 a Day and had great reviews - so we drove another 30 minutes there only to find it closed as well. Exhausted, hungry, and frustrated we then drove even farther out of the way to a huge 24 hour diner - The Neptune Diner - which was surprisingly delicious with big portions, great food, and great prices, and HUGE televisions showing the World Series!

Next Day, Cooperstown!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

2011-11-27T20:35:00.004-05:00

Christmas in the Hessler Household! And we don't even have our tree yet!!

Our Thomas Kinkade Nativity Tree, our beloved Peanuts Christmas Pageant, and the holiday carolers, passed down from my grandfather.

Our Charlie Brown Tree and bobble head and snow globe collection, on top of the best spot in the house - the bar!

Part 1 of my endless snowman collection!

Adam's Nutcracker Collection

My Holiday Village, Complete with a Lobster Shack!

Bashful is ready for the season - someone hates his Santa hat and is petrified of the mini tree!

I'm thankful I didn't end up with a flesh wound!

And this is my new winter wreath for the 2011/2012 winter season. Isn't it cute? I got the idea from Pintrest and just so happen to find the snowman head at Christmas Tree Shop for $1.69 back in October!

Fall Came, and is now Almost Past...

2011-11-27T20:33:00.004-05:00

And I'm just now getting around to posting the pretty fall wreath I had up on the door until today. The best part is this used ribbon that was kicking around my house from our wedding, in 2003! Yeah, I like to hold on to craft things, what's wrong with that?

Wakka Wakka Wakka Wakka and Oogie Boogie!

2011-11-27T18:29:00.004-05:00

A bit late I realize, especially since we put up our Christmas decorations today, but Happy Belated Halloween.

Bashful in his Halloween Collar

Sneezy, Capt. Jack Kitty Sparrow- we were less than pleased with this costume (especially when the Velcro got stuck to the cat perch)

Oogie Boogie (Steph's) & Pac Man Fever (Adam's)

What we did on our summer vacation, Part 4

2011-10-24T21:36:00.006-04:00

Our last big event in Indy was a visit to the State Fair - my first visit to any state fair!

The whole visit I had this in my head...

This also ran through my head quite a bit as we roamed the different barns!

Ahhh now I need to watch Charlotte's Web again!

We hit everything there we could except the Midway. We took Adam's family with us, and I think they bargained for a much shorter day, but Adam and I spent so long there. We went through every barn, every stand, you name it! We had the best time. We even had Chicken on a Stick, Gyros and foot long corn dogs (we shared it all!). And we ended the day some awesome ice cream from the Dairy Bar - there's nothing like fresh strawberry ice cream with farm fresh milk and fresh pieces of strawberry.

Seriously, nothing cuter than baby piggies!

I'm in love with this cow! Yes, I love a cow, get over it!

Indy Speedway in legos

Quack - Hello!

Yup, all cheese!

Just needs bread!

wow there really is prize winning corn at the state fair!

And we shall call you Mini Moo!

Adam was quite taken with the prize winning Hay. Now that's some nice hay!

So we thought we had to go to Morocco to see goats eating out of trees - WRONG, they do it at the Indy State Fairgrounds!

Well, you can't go to a fair and not have some naked corn!

Hmmm you have some freaky eyes buddy!

What we did on our summer vacation, Part 3

2011-10-24T21:21:00.005-04:00

Adam spent one day while we were in Indy with his family while I met up with my best girl friends from college and their kiddos to spend a day at the Children's Museum.

This was my first trip ever to the Children's Museum, and boy let me tell you, I can't believe I have never been. It's as much fun as an adult as it is for a kid!

It also helped I got to be adopted adult play friend for the day with the 4 kiddos - gosh what fun!

My favorite exhibit was by far the Barbie exhibit! But of course that would be my favorite considering I played with my Barbies until I was in Jr. High - don't judge! I continued to play with the little girls I would baby sit for in high school and college - not sure who had more fun - them or me. My money is on me! I know if I had a daughter now, I'd end up taking sick days just to stay at home and play Barbie. Again, don't judge!

I was also very fond of the Chihuly glass tower in the center of the museum and the giant Bumble bee Transformer in the entry - yes, Barbie lover enjoys Transformers - get over it!

After the museum, I was fortunate to spend time with my best good friend Laura and her lovely kiddos!

Such a fabulous day with good friends, incredible kids who never once had a melt down, and good times acting like a kid again!

Our wonderful group of four has grown by 4 - two little boys and two little girls!

Those are crystals with crystal shoes hanging from the chandelier. Can I order one of those please?

Yup, owned that - actually I owned a large percentage of the Barbie items in the exhibit area... sad, but oh so glorious!

What we did on our summer vacation, Part 2

2011-10-24T20:55:00.006-04:00

Back Home Again - In Indiana....

From Illinois, we drove to see Adam's family in Indiana. But we had to make a few stops along the way down to their house.

First, we had to stop to see the world's largest leg, which oddly enough is at a nudist colony.

Then we drove one more exit up the road and stopped at Fair Oaks Farm - new since our time in IN. We walked around outside, enjoyed the fresh air, and enjoyed some incredible farm fresh milk!

Then, we had to stop and get some lunch. I enjoyed biscuits and gravy (let me tell you there's nothing as delicious as farm fresh pork sausage!), while Adam ate what I think may be one of the largest pork tenderloin sandwiches on the face of the earth!!

Then we drove down towards Purdue. But along the way we passed MILES of wind turbines- again new since we've last made the drive along 65.

Next we finally arrived in West Lafayette to visit our old stomping ground and where we met and fell in love... awwwww.

Best License Plate EVER!

Adam's apartment from his senior year

My home for 3 years at Purdue

Adam finally learned to embrace the changes to the engineering fountain. Better late than never!

I will never grow tired of taking photos of the incredible architecture at Purdue! Such detail & beauty!

What we did on our summer vacation, Part 1

2011-10-24T20:45:00.003-04:00

Our summer vacation this year was a trip back home to the midwest to see our families.

We started with my family in Illinois. It was great to see my cousin and her kids, my mom, my brother, sister-in-law and nephews. And I finally got to see my best friend and her husband after 4 years of them living in Ireland! Such a treat!

The coolest thing was discovering Charming Charlie's when I was back home. Oh dear gosh how have I not been to one before - thank heavens there's one in MA that I can go to from now on!

The best part though hands down was spending time with two of the loves of my life - my nephews.

Words can not describe how much I love these two goofs!

The Adventures of an Ikea Lack

2011-10-02T18:16:00.007-04:00

So if you don't know, an Ikea Lack is a table - something like this.

Recently, we got rid of our old living room set, complete with the Ikea entertainment center and tables. But the new living room set up removed a piece of furniture from the front window area. The problem with this is that is where Sneezy would sit and look out for hours on end and wait for us to come home from our daily adventures.

Enter Solution - how to turn an Ikea Lack table in to a cat perch.

This is what you'll need:

1 Ikea Lack table
foam cut larger than size of top of table
carpet remnant

wooden table legs - length based on height of your window

stain of your choice for table legs

brackets to screw legs in to - near the table legs at Lowes

staple gun

pliers

drill

hot glue gun with glue

What to do:

Adhere the foam to the top of the table - please note the original table legs are removed. You won't be using them. We attached it with hot glue and then used the staple gun to adhere it to the sides of the table all around. We had enough foam to round the edges out so it looked nicer.

Next... attach the leg brackets to the bottom of the table top using the screws included. Then lay the table top, foam side down, on your carpet remnant. Pull the carpet up around all sides of the table top to ensure you have enough to cover it all the way and staple it underneath. This was kind of the hard part because we had to determine how to leave the table leg brackets open to screw the legs in to them. We determined it was best to cut the square out of the carpet and attach around the brackets.

Once you are able to get the carpet pulled around the table top and stapled in place, it will look something like this.

In the meantime, you'll have your cat watching you like this...

While Adam was dealing with the table top, I was working on staining the legs - I used 3 coats to get the desired color to coordinate with our living room wooden furniture.

In the end, you'll have something that your little fuzzy ones will love... kinda like this!

Her other bed fits perfectly under the new perch and she loves it!

Doesn't even look like an Ikea Lack table anymore!

A New Use for Old Shirts

2011-09-11T18:40:00.002-04:00

Scarves!!

Again, on Pintrest, I found a post on how to turn t-shirts in to scarves. I wanted to get around to making one Labor Day weekend, and alas, I did not.

But the next morning, getting ready for work, my outfit just needed a little pop of color, but it just wasn't quite scarf weather yet. So I whipped out an old tank top from my drawer and just started cutting the strips to make the t-shirt scarf I'd seen on Pintrest. Then I did my magic and in 10 minutes I had a nice scarf/necklace to wear to work that day.

People were curious at work, how did I do that, what was it. It was a hit and everyone started brainstorming about what shirts they had at home to start cutting up.

The process is easy - here's a link. But it's as easy as cutting off a hem, and then cutting strips and tying them together. You can cut the ends of the knots short or keep them long to leave dangles hanging down, like I did here. In the end it makes a MASSIVE necklace circle (which the cats ADORE and think is a toy - NO!!!) and then you loop and loop and loop to the lengths you want to wear and how you want it to look. It does take some jooshing, but it is such a great little look.

Craft Happy

2011-09-11T18:32:00.003-04:00

I have a new love, it's called Pintrest. It's basically a giant virtual bulletin board to share and gather ideas from fashion, to cooking, to decorating, to crafting.

I mean seriously, this is the best thing to me since sliced bread! Or dare I even say, chocolate.

One of the first crafts I was motivated to make off of my Pintrest board was a ribbon wreath in our Purdue colors to hang on the door for football season. And who knows, maybe if we have a good run in basketball this winter it will come back out!

I wasn't too sure about this as I started putting the ribbon loops on, so I took them off and instead wrapped the whole foam wreath in black and gold ribbon. But then, it looked like a tiger's tail. So then I went back to making loops and then attached them, along with the Purdue P and then, you know what, it came together so nicely!

It looks great on our front door.

BOILER UP!!

The Closest We've Ever Been

2011-09-11T18:05:00.005-04:00

At a Red Sox Game - best seats ever to date. Best game ever to date (even if we had the start time wrong and arrived at the bottom of the 3rd, at least we made it for the Sox to make a comeback and win the game!!)

Half way through the game, I was thinking... Wow this is the most perfect game I've ever been to. You know, I've never seen someone run on a field at a game or streak before. And no word of a lie an inning later - BAM! Some drunk college kid jumped over the wall and ran across the field! It was AWESOME!

How we Survived Tropical Storm Irene

2011-09-11T17:51:00.002-04:00

Aside from being without power for 56 hours to the minute, managing our generator, cleaning up from downed trees/limbs... we survived with

a lot of reading

a lot of naps

cleaning out around the house

doing yard work

taking walks

listening to AM radio

watching movies on the travel dvd player

and...

Lots of Bananagrams and Mojits - complete with sugar cane!

Oops! I missed a city on our cruise!!

2011-07-31T16:24:00.006-04:00

Here I was, figuring I was done with blogging our awesome cruise and I realized I never wrote about our last stop, Valletta, Malta.

By the time we got to Malta, we were beat. But we pushed on to enjoy the final stop on our awesome tour.

What a beautiful and sunny day we had in Malta. Since we were so beat, we opted to stay in the area, walking around locally. We toured the lower gardens and saw some great views of the harbor, fort, bell tower and the many buildings built in to the hills. We walked to the city center and took in the great architecture, homes, doors, balconies and got some great photos as well.

In the city center we browsed around all of the shops as everyone was hustling about doing their Christmas Shopping - since we were here on December 22nd. The city was decorated for the holidays with trees, poinsettias, lights, you name in. It made it such a fun and festive last stop.

The main thing we did in the city was to visit the St. John The Baptiste Co-Cathedral. It's a Baroque style cathedral with ornate walls and paintings. The marble on the floor was all of the tombstones and they were so beautiful. The ceiling was oil paint on stone, unlike other cathedrals that did watercolor on the ceilings. The art on the ceiling depicted the years of John the Baptiste- all the way up to his beheading. Each little alcove was dedicated to one saint and the various Knights of Malta. The one thing that was really cool was there was a statue in the church that was only there because it couldn't fit in to the church it was actually meant to go in to! There were rooms throughout the church with all of the original choral books, each done in a different artistic style. It was interesting that the music was only written on a four line staff instead of a 5 line. There were also these beautiful hand woven tapestries as well depicting the patron saints, Mary and the life of Jesus Christ.

If you do go to Malta and get to go here, be prepared to spend 2-3 hours - it's worth the cost and it really is a nice thing to do in the city.

When we left the Church we had lunch at a little cafe where I enjoyed smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches and Adam tried rabbit for the first time. The weather was nice enough that we could sit out in the plaza to enjoy our lunches - so not something we'd be doing back home in December! After lunch we walked to the Poseidon Fountain - also known as the bus depot area. The fountain was HUGE and beautifully done. From here we went to the upper gardens and took some photos of the area.

We headed back to the ship, and waited outside on the balconies for the Christmas lights to come on, but they never went on before our boat headed out of port - which was disappointing. We really enjoyed the photos you could take arriving to Valletta - it looks so ancient and old with the stone buildings and stone work but when you get up close, it's so beautiful and way more than just stones and bricks.

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and More - cause I screwed up the first time

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I'm a Concert Going Freak!

2011-07-10T20:37:00.003-04:00

So just a day after I went to the NKOTBSB concert, my friend Jen and I went to see Michael Buble in concert. I have to say, it was great to finally see him in concert, he's got such a great voice, is so easy on the eyes, and who knew he was so funny! Like stand up comedy funny. Why he doesn't do a host and musical guest on SNL, I don't know!

My only pet peeve with the whole night was that because it was game six of the Stanley Cup, he bumped the concert time up an hour and then rushed through the show so he could go watch the game. The show later in the week in CT, he ended up cancelling so he could GO to game 7 in Canada. He's a HUGE hockey fan, and so most of the night was hockey jokes and giving people a hard time. The best part was he kept announcing the score of Game 6 and was so pissed the Bruins were beating his team.

Overall it was a good concert, but I have to say, The NKOTBSB one was a bit more my speed and kept me a lot more entertained. It was more of a concert experience than this was. This was kind of like a wham bam thanks for coming mam - Concert started at 7:40 (when he got on the stage), he was off the stage a few minutes before 9.

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I'm as Happy as a Little Girl!

2011-06-12T12:45:00.007-04:00

Last night I spent the evening with:

Jordan Knight

Jonathan Knight

Joey McIntyre

Donnie Wahlberg

Danny Wood

A.J. McClean

Nick Carter

Brian Litterell

Howie Dorough

And if you don't know who they are - Then you aren't a 30+ year old woman or ever had a screaming fanatic teenager of the New Kids on the Block or Back Street Boys.

Yes, at 31, I joined 3 of my friends and relived my youth to see the once in a lifetime tour of NKOTBSB.

WOW, HOLY CRAP, OH MY GOD, can't begin to summarize how incredible the show was. By far and away the best concert I've ever been to in my life - not just because of the bands, but just the dancing, the showmanship, the venue - fantastic! And a surprise visit from Naughty By Nature didn't hurt either!

First off, it was at Fenway Park in Boston, so that's one big perk going for it. Secondly, if you aren't aware, NKOTB are Boston boys - so um, yeah, that made it even cooler! And next, all you need to enjoy the sexy-goodness of these men is to add water and watch them run around Fenway half naked for 2+ hours.

It POURED most of the concert - thankfully our seats were in the grandstand and we were nice and dry. But nothing made the show more enjoyable than watching the 9 boys run around practically naked all over Fenway park - on the stage, in the aisles on the field, around the bases, on the Green Monstah - you name it.

The show was literally 2+ hours of screaming 30+ year old women going crazy for their childhood crushes, a few random dads with teens, many supportive husbands and boyfriends (let's be honest, hoping they would be lovingly rewarded for having to deal with this for the night), and a few 55+ year olds who you knew got in to those bands when their teeny-bopper daughters loved them in their youth.

We started our night at a local bar for some munchies, drinks, shots, and a ton of free NKOTB/BSB garb from Kiss FM doing their promo there. At the park, my friend Jen and I got matching NKOTB shirts, which I really didn't want to take off when I got home - but it was soaked so in the laundry it went!

From there we headed to the park and settled in for Jordan Sparks, the opening act (I really had no idea who she was since I don't do the whole American Idol thing). Then, the Mayor of Boston came out and declared June 11, 2011 NKOTBSB Day in Boston, welcoming back the hometown boys. Then, OH MY GOODNESS out comes Mark Wahlberg - yes Marky Mark himself - no funky bunch - (and brother to Donnie). I'm sorry but asking 30 year old women to contain themselves with two Wahlberg's in the house was not realistic!!! Mark introduced the "starting lineup" and the boys all ran out of the Red Sox dug out and on to the field in their Red Sox shirts. And thankfully our seats were right above the Red Sox dug out! KILLER!!!

NKOTB and BSB sang together, and separately and split the show up a few songs here and there between the groups, it really was the perfect arrangement for the evening.

Best part though, they ended the night singing on top of the Green Monster in their Celtics jerseys, after just changing out of their Bruins jerseys. DEAR GOD!!! the hometown boys payed homage to every Boston team and even to the Drop Kick Murphy's (a local Boston band who plays some killer Irish/Pub/Rock music).

I told the girls this was the best night of my life, even better than my wedding. And while Adam, I love you with all my heart and loved our wedding to bits and pieces, I do have to say, this night will live on in my life FOREVER!!! So beats me seeing them at 10 years old at Poplar Creek with my mom or at the Milwaukee Circus Parade when I was 9. But really, the only difference between this show and those - no parents and I could drink my fair share of liquor!!!

The boys on the green monstah singing at the finale

Why, Yes!, Donnie you can take your shirt off any time for us!

Joe, I knew you were singing directly to me, I saw our eyes meet - it's OK!

Jordan, you got hotter and hotter with age - the years have been good to you my friend!

(For you cousin Stacy!)

Um, Hello Marky Mark Goodness!

Can I get that banner to go please??

If you look closely you can see where they put the NKOTBSB on the scoreboard

My best good friend Jen & I at NKOTBSB

Lesa & Meredith ready to rock out with us at Fenway!

I've posted more photos and videos up on my Facebook page - you can get them here.

93 Years in the Making

2011-05-31T22:21:00.006-04:00

The last time the Chicago Cubs played the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park it was 1918. So when we were lucky enough to snag Cubs v. Sox tickets in the Red Sox lottery this year, the decision to go, was an easy one! I mean, come on, it's my original home team playing my new home team!

We had really good seats in the Grandstand and really, it was just the experience of being there that was awesome - even though it was a horrible loss by the Red Sox.

They did a lot of throwback things at the game to make it like the last time they played together at Fenway. Babe Ruth's daughter threw out the first pitch. They didn't use the scoreboards or PA systems in the 3rd and 4th innings and called out all of the game using megaphones. They only use Oregon music during the 3rd and4th innings as well. Both teams wore their throwback uniforms (which I guess someone said there's a stat somewhere that the Sox don't win when they wear those - this would continue to hold true!). There were people dressed in costumes from the period (like patrons, not staff), a proposal on the scoreboard, and TONS of midwesterners!!

We sat next to a great pair of friends from Chicago who came out for the whole series. We ran in to people who traveled from all over the country just to be at Fenway witnessing history in the making. And the park was FILLED with more Cubs fans than Sox fans I think! And with how bad the game was and how bitterly cold it was, most of the Sox fans left by the 5th inning - about the same time the park ran out of food and beer!

We had a wonderful time - and hope it won't be another 93 years before two of our favorite baseball teams play together again!

Interrupting our travel photos...

2011-05-31T22:03:00.007-04:00

For a little bit of Easter fun!

Adam and I had a quiet Easter at home but we dyed eggs, as we do every year. And every year we fail to hardboil enough eggs for how much fun we have dyeing the eggs, so we end up dyeing the raw eggs too.

What can I say, we're kids at heart!

Even Sneezy likes to get in on the fun of dyeing easter eggs each year.

Here's a little video of our Easter Fun as well!

This year though we skipped the Easter Baskets though at home and just did the Easter Baskets for the families at Ronald McDonald House and their kids at the local Children's Hospital.

Dec. 20 - Alexandria, Egypt

2011-05-22T17:49:00.004-04:00

Our 2nd day in Egypt we spent enjoying Alexandria, where the port was as well. Our first stop was a palace and the guest palace. The guest palace alone had 33 rooms and a servant house. The guest house is now a hotel and casino. The government owns the whole 350 acres of the palace grounds and rents out the buildings and land to businesses for hotels and restaurants. Originally, the whole site was supposed to be self sufficient and that is why the grounds and everything are so vast. We saw the main palace which is now a summer home for the President of Egypt.

We stopped at Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque for some quick photos and still people were pushing us to buy crap. We didn't go in the mosque but peeked in, it was pretty but not as impressive as the mosque in Morocco.

Our next stop was the Roman Amphitheater and the city the Roman city that was discovered here in the 1960s, which is still being excavated. The Romans had a large influence in Alexandria with Alexander the Great. They had a small exhibit here of artifacts and statues that they found under the water in the seas and bays there that were destroyed in the last great earthquake. They've been doing excavations at the site but are now stopping where they are in the process and are going to turn their attention to excavating the ruins under the water and making underwater tunnels and walkways to create a museum, rather than brining everything up to the surface.

From here we went to the Catacombs. These were built for 1 family but were later expanded to include additional burial chambers for other families. No cameras were allowed in the catacombs which sucked because they were quite impressive. We took a long spiral staircase to the main room which had a giant hole in the center where they'd lower the mummies ans sarcophagus down. The whole catacomb area was a mix of Egyptian and Roman burial styles. The main room for the primary family had 3 toms and a dining room area for guests to come and visit and rest. The tombs themselves were carved out of solid rock so robbers could not open them. Even the structure and artwork were very reminiscent of both cultures; Roman columns, serpents, Egyptian Gods, etc. The 2nd chamber area was flooded slightly, as are the lower chamber areas which we couldn't go in. These flood because of the change in the water table from when the catacombs were built to now - so they pump out th water every day so that the salt does not erode the stone. We walked on stones and wooded boards just to walk around the chamber. This area housed the tombs of the outside families and had lots of carved insets into the rock for people to be buried.

The 3rd chamber was the chamber of Nemisis - The god of Sport - and the only God to have an underground temple. The Egyptians and Romans who were massacred at a free horse race were all buried here in order to honor them. And all of the horses that won the races were buried here when they died as well. The massacre was the work of one of the former kings who thought that the citizens were mocking and joking about him. So he invited them to this free horse race and then massacred them all. The site of the catacombs was discovered by a donkey falling through a sandy hole in the ground - since the catacombs were buried after many earthquakes by the sand blowing over.

Our next stop was the Alexandria library. They have a great observation platform. The pillars are in the shape of a lotus flower, the windows are eyes to protect and watch over those inside, the holes in the walls were used to absorb the sound but also designed to be similar to how they used to store the scrolls in the original library. There are tons of art pieces and exhibits at the library along with the ancient scrolls and antiquities - which we didn't see. We did go to a map room though that had historic maps of Alexandria and pieces of artwork and photos. It was interesting to see in the photos that really up until the 1930s, people dressed in primarily European attire - dresses, suits, hats, etc. and then you could see the transition in to a more Muslim attire with the head scarves and long dresses. We picked up an Egyptian food cookbook though for us since we didn't get to eat any of the food in Egypt, we wanted to be able to make some at home.

From the library we drove back to the port and spent some time haggling with the many vendors who had stalls inside the port. Adam was in his element, let me tell you. It was a side of him I've never seen. He is an incredible haggler and got us some great deals on trinkets to bring back for people, a box for him, a dance skirt for me for Zumba classes and other fun things.

We were exhausted after 2 days in Egypt and it went so fast. We liked Egypt, Adam more so than me, and it was great to get to say we were there and saw the pyramids. But Turkey was still my favorite part of the trip, and Egypt was Adam's. And in case you were wondering, we were out of Egypt before all of the unrest began.

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Dec. 19 - Cairo, Egypt

2011-05-22T16:11:00.004-04:00

Well, here it is, the climax point of the trip - Egypt. We were so thankful the day before was an at sea day because we knew we'd be busy the next day in Cairo and we also were going to meet the tour guide at 6 am.

We had a long 3 hour drive to Cairo from Alexandria, with only one pit stop along the way. So note, if you too every travel to Egypt and you're asked if you need to use the halfway pit stop - say yes - no matter what. Because let me tell you the remaining hour and a half ride on a bumpy road with an accident that caused traffic to stop for a half hour and a security check point - um yea, let's say I have never been so happy to pee at a Mobil gas station in my life!

Our first stop (after Mobil) was Giza to see the Great Pyramid. We even climbed up on the pyramid. It's very big, very impressive and used approx. 250K blocks at about 2 ton each and was over 160 meters high. Our tour guide told us the purposes of the pyramid shape was so that there was a point pointing towards the sun. We then went to the overlook at Giza, after getting harassed to purchase camel rides and other trinkets. The overlook was really cool because you got to see all 5 pyramids at Giza together. The 5 pyramids represented the whole family buried there- the Grandfather, son, grand son, the favorite wife and temples, with a causeway connecting all of them. What was cool about Giza was that the son's pyramid was built at a different perspective so that it looked bigger than all of the other pyramids there.

At the overlook there were people everywhere hawking crap and pushing you to take camel rides - something we had no interest in. Adam paused for a moment and turned around to stop me and in his hand was a little Pandora box with a travel charm for my bracelet - he purchased it back home and carried it with him all the way just to give to me on our trip - now that's romance!

Once we left the overlook, we hopped back in our minibus and headed to the Sphinx. This, by far was the most impressive thing and it combined a great view of the pyramids as well. Now, as cool as the pyramids were for Adam to see - to me it was just a pile of stones - the Sphinx was INCREDIBLE to me and I found it so much more impressive. At the Sphinx we picked up some cheap $2 post cards and marveled at the use of red granite on the areas leading to the Sphinx.

We then got back in our minibus and headed to Saqqara to see the Step Pyramid of Zoser. Before we entered the area to see the pyramid, we went to the Imotep Museum where we got to see a mummy and many artifacts from the site. The artifacts had the most detailed etchings in hieroglyphics and the pottery pieces were huge! Once we left the museum, we headed over to the entry to the pyramid. They were still excavating at the site but it was still pretty interesting. The whole area is surrounded by a great wall and then the first area you walked through was the area with great pillars and then you keep going through all of these hallway areas before you reach the open area where the pyramid is. The pillars were huge and were once attached to the walls to keep them upright.

Our next stop for adventure in Cairo was to see the Museum at Memphis to see the other sphinx and then the massive statue of Ramses II. This thing was huge and was even missing it's legs - the building around this thing was insanely huge just to enclose it. At this museum there were also statues of baboons, because the Egyptians thought the ah ah ah sound they made sounded like Ra Ra Ra (as in the God Ra).

Next on our journey was Dashur where we saw the Red Pyramid made of pink limestone and the black pyramid - which was black because the mud they used to make it was there and not the limestone casing that yo saw on the other pyramids. This site is really known as the trial pyramid area - the shapes are off because the calculations were wrong and the mud used to seal the pyramid wasn't as strong as the limestone. Adam went in side the red pyramid and said it was really great - he had to walk in going down backwards through a hatch on the side of the pyramid. From there he entered a room with 30-40 foot ceilings that went up to a point. There were two rooms connected by a passage and in the 2nd there was a staircase that went up to a 3rd room. He was in with 20 other people and said he was impressed that it didn't smell but it was incredibly hot and hard to breathe. He said the climb back out was fast and was but he was really warm afterwards. I however, opted not to go in the pyramid, since I already had a horrible chest cold and trouble breathing I stayed outside and sat on the edge of the pyramid with another tour guide and we chatted about Egypt and the US and Barack Obama. I really enjoyed just sitting on the pyramid and watching the sun set in the mild 60 degree temps as it had been so hot all day long.

We left the last pyramids and headed toward the city of Cairo to go to the Papyrus Institute which is really just a big store where they show you how they make papyrus. We did pick out a pretty papyrus for ourselves and cartouches with our names on them, and then hopped back in the mini bus for the 3 hour drive back to Alexandria in the dark.

Some of the things that we really thought were interesting about Cairo were:

* The drivers are insane, there are 3 lane roads which become 5 lane roads and then they have carriages and donkey carts in the mix. They have a very sophisticated system of horn honking and light blinking for communicating with other drivers on the road. From what we gathered, 1 honk = watch out I'm passing you. 2 honks = ok fine, you can come in or move over. The light flash = move over I'm coming through. There's constant honking and light blinking day and night on the roads. There are also hardly any lights and the ones they have at intersections don't even work. But the main highway is under construction to become an interstate so that will be helpful for all of the tour buses I'm sure.

* some of the small towns we drove through had miserable conditions, trash everywhere on the roads, horrible dirt roads and people walking all over so you have to try and avoid hitting pedestrians.

* There are police check points everywhere in addition to the tourism police - all for the safety of the tourists so they know what vans and buses are where.

We got back to the boat about 9:15 pm in Alexandria and enjoyed a Mexican dinner feast. We were so hungry, since we didn't eat in Egypt aside from the power bars we brought with us and soggy pb&j sandwiches from the boat. We were thankful we didn't eat or drink in Egypt because so many people were so sick from already visiting Egypt when we got on the boat. We didn't want to have to deal with that at the end of our trip!

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Dec. 17 - Izmir & Ephesus, Turkey

2011-04-17T20:48:00.004-04:00

First off - welcome back - sorry for the hiatus - we've been super busy. But there's not that many more pictures from our trip - but it's all the big cool stuff now!

We had a great tour guide in Turkey, Birsun, who took us to Ephesus or as Adam calls it the City that was made 6K years ago so cats could enjoy it today.

From the port in Izmir, we drove an hour to Epehesus and after paying $1.50 to use the facilities, we entered the gates to Ephesus. At first it just seemed like it was a giant pile of ruins when you walked in settled between the valley of 2 mountains. I was worried it would be a let down, but the farther you wind back on the paths and roads, the more incredible the ruins became and then you just could not help but be amazed by the vastness of this ancient city. We saw the Roman Baths, houses, the marble way where they held parades, the 3rd largest library, shops, ancient bathrooms, forums and the Grand Theater that can seat 24K people. One of the highlights of the city was the Terrace houses, which are still being excavated and it's incredible to see the mosaics, columns, archways and winding halls of the houses.

The whole site was incredible, but the Terrace Houses were probably the neatest thing we saw the whole trip to date. They are under excavation by the Austrian Government and they are restoring the houses to perfection. They've only been open to the public for 5 years and have glass walkways throughout so you can see the mosaics underneath as you walk. The house was built in to a hillside and is just a winding way of rooms filled with beautiful frescoes and mosaics.

One thing, aside from the incredible carvings and architecture that is everywhere that you notice are the immeasurable number of cats everywhere. It's so great they are just hanging out on the columns and ruins everywhere you turn.

Our guide gave us so much information about Ephesus that there was no way we could retain it all - but here are some fun tasty tidbits of knowledge!

* The site is really Ephesus 3. 1 and 2 were on the surrounding mountains.

* Used to be a coastal city

* When the Library in Alexandria burnt down, Cleopatra's fiance took the works from this library to give to her as a wedding present.

* It cost more to go to the public baths than it did to buy figs and barley!

* There are ruins on top of ruins at the site because after earthquakes, they'd just rebuild on top of the ruins that fell.

* The gate to the main part of the city was made narrow so that chariots couldn't enter and ruin the marble paths.

* The person who founded the city was told by an oracle he'd find a city between the fish and the boar. While he was cooking fish over a fire, a boar came in and they chased it and killed it, and this area is where the city was founded.

* The theater there used to host modern concerts like Elton John and Sting, but then it was deemed unsafe.

* The Roman Baths were at the front of the city so you could cleanse before you came in and remove any germs and diseases.

* The myth of the first advertisement is in an etching on the stone along the paths. Myth has it that if your heart is broken and you like this girl, follow your left foot to her and if you don't have money you can pay on credit - there's a picture of this in the slide show.

* The poured lead in to the walls and columns so they would stand stronger.

After Ephesus, we had lunch at a great local restaurant where we ate meatballs, olives, bread, and the most incredible eggplant salad / spread and barley boiled in a tomato water. We also tried a traditional dessert for Ramadan which is a porridge mix of barley, rice, beans, chickpeas, lemon rind, cinnamon and pomegranate, it was interesting but really good as well. We hadn't planned on eating the food here, but our guide assured us this was a safe and healthy place to eat and she did not let us down. Since this awesome meal, we've been replicating things at home - check out the version of the eggplant salad I made on our cooking blog.

Next up we went to the Temple of Artemis - who was thought to be the mother goddess to the Ephesians, but only one column remains here at the site that you can see. Birsun told us this was one of her favorite spots because all religions can be seen here. The Temple of Artemis represents the mythological religions, then there's an old castle that you can see in the distance, a mosque and the Basilica of John the Apostle where he's buried. It's Muslim, Christian and Pagan all in 1 place!

We then headed up to this small town of Sirence in the mountains. This used to be an old Greek village but now it's population is primarily Turkish since the population exchange in the 1920s where the Greeks were basically forced out of Turkey and back to Greece. Sirence has wonderful winding roads and white stone buildings all weaving up the mountainside. Mixed in between the houses are restaurants, shops and little artisan stands where they sell great crafts, soaps and wines. At the top of the area is John the Baptiste Church which was not preserved as well as areas like the Terrace House. Until the past 30 years or so people would just come in and chip off parts of the frescoes and mosaics to take home or destroy because it wasn't their religion. Now there are laws in place to preserve historic sites. We went to a great little wine shop in Sirence that makes their own delicious fruit wines, and we even took the chance and bought a bottle to bring home of this wonderful blueberry wine. So good!

After Sirence, we headed back to the port where we picked up some small gifts and trinkets and some Turkish Delight (so good!!!).

I was the most nervous to go to Turkey on our trip, primarily because no one I know had been there and I knew nothing about the area. But Birsun was so kind and informative that I immediately felt at ease, and people were so nice and NOT pushy at all. There's such a great mix in Turkey of Muslims and Christians and a lot more tolerance that I feel there is in other areas. I also didn't realize that part of Turkey was in Asia (the part we were in) and that it is really only the Istanbul area that is part of Europe. So it was cool to say we also went to Asia!! In the end, Turkey ended up being one of the favorite places the whole trip (Egypt was Adam's favorite, Turkey was mine). The ruins were even more incredible than the ruins in Rome and Athens (I've seen those already in high school) and there was just so much more history here. I recommend you visit Turkey - I know I want to go back as soon as possible!!!

Warning - there's a TON of photos here!!

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Dec. 16, Irakilon, Crete

2011-03-13T18:06:00.002-04:00

We were supposed to be going to Athens for our stop in Greece, but due to protests and strikes in Athens, we were re-routed to Crete - Irakilon to be exact - or as Adam like to call it, Irakistan.

We got off the boat, prepped for 50 degree weather and showers, but it was in the mid 60s and we were certainly over dressed.

We walked to the bus terminal and took the #2 bus to Knossos. The bus was absolutely packed and it was so fun to listen to everyone speaking so quickly in Greek.

Knossos was a giant open air pile of old and historic rocks - seriously we have so many photos of rocks it is incredible! Since this was really an unexpected stop for us, we really didn't know much of anything to do in Irakilon or even what Knossos was all about, but the piano player we befriended on the boat told us to go there, and it seemed like the ONLY thing to do - so we were game. If it weren't for piano player Adam, we wouldn't have even known it was an ancient village wiped out by a tidal wave. We did get some great pictures and spent the day avoiding the NCL tours!

Remember that warm weather and the way we over dressed. Not once we reached the mountains at Knossos - it was cool, rainy - OK pouring is more like it! We just kind of ran through the first portion of the site until we found some coverage and hung out for quite some time waiting for the rain to subside. Finally the rains stopped and the sun came out and it was just beautiful with some great views of the mountains.

We headed on the bus back to the main part of the city and spent the rest of the day walking around the downtown area, through the market places, in and out of little markets and shops and taking everything in. We bought some wonderful spices, wines, candies, oils and other fun things.

We both agree the best part about Irakilon was our lunch at this great little cafe filled with locals. We sat down and were handed a paper menu and pencil to mark what we wanted to eat. We selected stuffed grape leaves, beef patties, courgette and feta cheese fritters, and had the tiniest olives and most delicious bread. We truly enjoyed everything and it was by far one of the best meals we had the entire trip! We spent the rest of the meal dropping crumbs to the tabby cat that was hanging out around us.

We continued to walk around but by 2:30, everything began to shut down and we had really done everything we wanted to do so we headed back to the boat with plenty of time to spare.

Crete was really pretty, but we do wish we were better prepared for our visit there. We probably should have seen where some of the NCL diversions went to research some of those areas well so we could be a little more prepared. But for winging it, we had a really lovely time and would love to go back to Crete to explore other areas!

Enjoy some photos from Crete. There were SO many photos of rocks, I made sure to really edit it down for you! I mean, who really wants to look at rocks? I didn't even want to look at them once I started going through the photos!!

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Dec. 14, Rome, Italy

2011-02-27T20:58:00.007-05:00

We had one day in Rome, and an 1+ hour train ride in to the city from Civitavecchia each way - so this really limited our time in the city - thankfully we'd both been to Rome before and seen many of the sites so we were really able to do an abbreviated tour on our own.

I was sick as a dog the day we were in Rome with a horrible cold, but we pushed through. We met two great young couples on the train ride from our boat, one couple from Canada and one from Florida currently living in England. Spending time talking to them made the train ride go much faster. We also got to share our standing room only vestibule area with a string quartet - go figure.

We finally made it in to Rome and got off at our stop and took the metro to Circus Maximus. We were delayed trying to get to the Colosseum because of a protest group, but once they passed we made our way to the Colosseum. We were all excited to take a tour of the bottom of the ruins, just like the Today Show said we could - however, that's a lie! Not open to the public, special reservations only and only 100 people a day. Oh well, we'll carry on.

I've only ever seen the Colosseum from the outside, Adam had gone in years ago when he was in Rome. It was truly captivating and huge. I could completely envision people in there cheering and shouting for the gladiators. We spent quite some time browsing around the two levels and taking some great photos of the ruins.

After the Colosseum, we headed across the way to the Forum. I remember when I went to Rome years ago there wasn't much excavated here at the Forum, so we didn't even bother going in - actually I don't really recall if it was a park yet to really go in and walk around - but we looked through the metal bars to see the columns. So this was really a neat chance for us both to go inside and spend some time wandering among the ruins. It was so expansive. We saw Agustus's house, the palace sites, theater and more. There was still a lot of excavation going on while we were there and it was a little challenging to get around. We ended our time there seeing Arc de Tito (Arc of Titus).

Once we left the Forum, we realized we had no time to do the whole Path of the Illuminati tour we had planned out ourselves and still make it back on the train in time to get to the boat. So we chose instead to go to Trevi Fountain. We'd both been here before, but decided it would be romantic to see it and be there together.

We had to use the Metro instead of walking because there were so many demonstrators all over the city and protests going on everywhere. The Prime Minister was receiving a vote of No-Confidence that day so it made the city quite a lively place with protests, closed streets, helicopters circling overhead. Quite lively!

Trevi Fountain was just like we both remembered it. We made our wishes while tossing our Euro in to the fountain - and for the .10 E we tossed in each, those wishes better come true!!

We stopped for a quick lunch at a little gelateria - but it was much too cold to enjoy gelato while in the city - 45 degrees actually - we were bundled up in our winter jackets, gloves and ear muffs! But we had some great paninis and then headed back towards the train station to head back to the boat. By the time we got to the Metro, it was 2:3o and the shops were starting to close - which also meant the protests were ending! People were rolling up their banners and packing up their blow horns and going home - so funny - they even break their protests mid-day!

We got on the metro and then the train and headed back to port.

We had some time to kill once back in the city so we walked around a bit and popped in to a pharmacy to find some medicine for me. Trying to tell a pharmacist you need Sudafed in English when she only speaks Italian is quite hysterical. Finally between pantomiming my symptoms and showing her an empty American box of medicine I brought with me, we were able to get across what I needed - Pseudaphederina!! Go figure - so similar to English!

We got back on the boat and rested before dinner and then enjoyed our evening once again at the Piano Bar with Adam James. When we got back to the room that night, we found out we would not be porting in Athens next because of protests and closures around the city - Crete was to be our new Greek Destination.

I was disappointed. I had been to Athens and wanted Adam to see the city, but the idea of going to Crete was really exciting to have a new place for us both to visit for the first time.

I'm trying a new site for the photos now - I'm almost out of space on Picasa and needed to start finding something new I could use.

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Dec. 12, Barcelona, Spain

2011-02-13T12:46:00.002-05:00

On Dec. 12 we arrived for our 3rd day in Barcelona. This was the transition day on the ship - people who were only on for the first 9 days left the boat and people who were on for 14 days arrived. And those of us who were on for the full 21 days, well we came and went as we pleased.

We met up with Adam's cousin Mark at Park Guelle in Barcelona. His cousin was nice enough to take an early bus ride from Andora in to Barcelona so we could spend the day together. Such a nice treat! We had a nice lunch at the park and spent some time catching up, as it has been almost 7 years since we'd last seen Mark. We spent the day walking around the park together, taking photos, enjoying the entertainers and catching up on life. We loved hearing about all of Mark's adventures in Andora.

The journey to get to the park was interesting. We had to walk up a ton of steep hills and take escalators up the hills to get to what ended up being the wrong entry to the park. So then we walked back down most of the hills to get to the entry of the park to meet Adam's cousin.

Park Guelle was quite pretty, although not what we expected, and we are glad we left it until our last day in Barcelona and saw the other incredible things we did on our first two days in the city. The park had paths everywhere mixed in with a beautiful array of plants - lush greens and pretty florals. The park was full of great stonework and mosaics. The angles of the stonework made for some great photos!

We left the park and headed to Las Ramblas and browsed around, picking up some great inexpensive wines to take back on the boat, Clementines and had an early dinner of Gyros and Spanikopita with Mark. (Yeah, I know, Greek food in Spain.)

We had perfect weather for the day and were so thrilled to get to see Mark - and we can't thank him enough for making the 3 hour bus ride down and 3 hours back on a Sunday.

We headed back to the boat and relaxed before enjoying our favorite first night dinner of braised short ribs and vanilla souffles! DELISH!

Photos from Park Guelle and other random shots from around downtown Barcelona

Dec. 12, Barcelona, Spain

Dec. 10 - Malaga, Spain

2011-02-01T21:42:00.002-05:00

Adam and I worked diligently before our trip to plan out our days in the cities we did not have tours booked. This way we were totally ready to go when we got off the boat. Today was no exception, and we had planned an incredibly busy day!

We took the city bus from the port to the Castillo de Gibralfaro and walked around the castle to see the great views and unique stonework throughout the site. From the castle you could walk down this very steep hill (better down then up!!!) to the Alcazaba Fortress. The walk down was steep, and at many points it really was just best to run/jog down. But there were some great stops along the route down for views of the city - including a killer view of the bull fighting ring. Man the dirt in the ring is so bright and yellowish!

Once we arrived at the Alcazaba Fortress, the first thing we saw was the Roman Amphitheater. It was really quite beautiful and is still being excavated. It was first found in the 1950s and they've done a great job preserving the site.

The fortress was certainly a mix of Spanish and Middle Eastern influence, seen by it's many detailed arches and bright colors. The waterfalls, gardens, orange trees, archways and stonework were just incredible. This is certainly a site not to miss if you make it to Malaga.

After the fortress we made our way to the Picass Museum after a pit stop at the Malaga Cathedral.

We stopped for lunch at las Papas for Patatas Asadas - HOLY COW what a delicious meal!! it is the best baked potato you could imagine... they steam it - and then the flesh gets all creamy like a mashed potato but with no added fat. Then they fill the potato with ANYTHING you can imagine: ham, corn, cheese, olives, lettuce, tomato, sour cream, ketchup, beans, carrots, hard boiled egg, beets - again you name it, they have it. We still need to replicate this meal at home - I imagine making the potatoes at home will be hard because they had special steamers/broilers for this purpose.

After lunch we stopped at the Picasso Birthplace Museum. It was interesting to see, and had a nice guided audio tour, but it as small, cost a bit much for what you got, and really was uneventful. Then we walked across the main part of town to the Picasso Museum (FYI if you go to Malaga, the Papas Potato place is in the area right near the museum). Again, the museum was cool, had some great pieces, but was quite pricey for what it was and every other exhibit was an extra fee. So I guess our word to the wise is, unless you are a die hard Picasso person, there's lots of other great stuff to see in Malaga besides these two places.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along some shopping areas and relaxing in a nice little park in the downtown area. The park had some beautiful flowers and smelled so wonderful from all of the orange trees. We were so tempted to have one but we weren't sure if we'd get arrested for taking an orange off a tree in a public park.

One other thing not to miss in Malaga are the arm salty nuts in paper cones. Literally, that's what they call them, warm salty nuts. And some of the vendors would speak in English with their Spanish accent "Try my warm salty nuts" (chuckle - yes, we're 12!). But really try them, they are so good!

We headed back to the boat and then spent the rest of the night at the piano bar relaxing.

Overall we really loved Malaga, but one day was good to accomplish the things right in the downtown area that we wanted to see. It was very pretty and I'd go back again if another cruise went there but don't have to make a 2nd trip there just to see it again.

Pictures of Malaga

Dec. 10 - Malaga, Spain

Dec. 8 - Funchal, Madeira

2011-01-22T19:11:00.002-05:00

We arrived in Funchal just at lunch time at hired a cab driver to take us to Camara de Lobos - a little fishing village with great views of the sea. This is the area where Winston Churchill visited and was inspired to paint. There were colorful boats, crashing waves, quaint brick roads throughout the town and a quaint little church. Once we finished here, our cab driver (whose car was a Mercedes) took us to the first overlook at Cabo Girao.

At the first overlook there was a beautiful farm all the way down on the seashore and they had their own private cable car to come up and down the mountain. To make it up to the top of Cabo Girao, we were on these incredibly narrow and steep roads with cars parked along the sides. Our taxi driver navigated the roads like a pro all the way up to the tallest point of Cabo Girao - 1900 feet up!

The area smelled so wonderful with the aroma of fresh bay leaves from all of the trees (YES Bay Leaf Trees!!). The views were incredible up at 1900 feet - even with tons of fog. When the cab took us don the mountain we could see the washed out hillsides from their heavy rains and all of the water rushing down the mountainsides.

Once back in the downtown area, we took a cable car ride to the center of the island. We took this to the top to enjoy some of the other great views. The homes are all built in to the hillsides with carved out winding and narrow roads. The houses are so brightly colored - yellows, pinks, whites - with red tile roofs - it made for a beautiful ride up the mountain.

At the top we saw the Monte Church and walked around the grounds and some of the garden areas. We were planning to take the basket ride down for 2 kilometers of the mountain, but the lines were way too long and we would have spent the rest of the day waiting and missed the rest of the island, so we opted to take the cable car back down to the city.

The city of Funchal was a mix of American and European shops, but by 3pm many of the stores were closed in the city.

We walked around the main downtown area and saw the Se Cathedral from the outside, Santa selling balloons and one of the most beautiful banks I've ever seen. Again the walkway was made of beautiful stone and mosaic work and I again fell in love with the mosaics in the Mediterranean. While walking around we even ran in to our room steward and stopped to chat with him a bit.

Our last stop of the day was to Santa Catarina Park - an area with huge, expansive green space, ponds, fountains and a view of the water - right in the center of the downtown area. We stopped for some ice cream comes as we walked around the park and took in the scenery.

On our way back to the boat we walked along the water to look at the marinas and see some of the little vendors. We came across a little stand that made traditional Madeira bread with chorizo - for 2 Euro!! So of course we had to try it! It was a piece of bread that looked like a little spinach pie (yes, a RI thing), but was a really soft fluffy dough. They cut the dough in half, smear it with garlic butter and warm it on a hot griddle. And then the pieces of chorizo are layered in with the dough. Oh dear GOD where has this bread been all of our lives?!?! Hands down the best thing we had eaten on the cruise so far. We enjoyed our tasty bread while we walked back to the ship.

We spent the rest of the evening back on the boat eating sushi for dinner with the same sushi chef that was on our first cruise with NCL a year ago! We finally made it to the piano lounge and enjoyed the music of an incredibly talented Brit named Adam James - and he plays and sings like Jamie Cullum and Elton John!

Pictures of Funchal

Dec. 8 - Funchal, Madeira

Interrupting our Vacation for some Birthday Fun!

2011-01-18T19:55:00.006-05:00

So, when we got home (and actually as we were driving home from Newark Airport in NJ - long

story, don't ask!), we got to celebrate Adam's 31st Birthday - and 2 weeks later, we got to celebrate mine!

Even though we had just been home for hours, we made sure to celebrate Adam's 31st in style with a ham dinner, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and his favorite Cherry Berry Pie. Yes, I thought enough ahead - by about a month - to purchase all of the ingredients for this birthday dinner and even had our neighbor take the ham out of our freezer the week we came home.

Adam got some fun shirts for his birthday, a Wii game and all of the accessories for our Kitchen Aid mixer to make homemade sausages, and a sausage making cookbook. The only thing missing was the smoker - which he gets to pick out himself.

Two weeks later it was my turn to turn 31. I opted for a nice quiet dinner in with some great comfort food - I was still way too tired of eating out from the cruise. We had a Arti Party Birthday Dinner (meaning, I made a whole episode of her meals for our dinner) and a chocolate cream pie - and yes I did all the cooking, which I don't mind doing on my birthday because Adam graciously did all of the dishes - that's a major win in my book!!

Adam surprised me with beautiful roses and a Hello Kitty themed birthday dessert with pink and purple streamers and balloons, plates, a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser, pink birthday shots (yummy!!) and then one of the best gifts ever. Aside from a great bundle of new piano music for me to play, Adam stuck with a very musical birthday theme and purchased me my very own acoustic guitar. He has heard me comment for 2-3 years now how I really wanted to take guitar lessons and learn to play and so he has lovingly made that happen - a great guitar, a first lesson, some picks and a how to play guitar DVD. These things made my day so incredibly special, and I can honestly say this is the BEST he has ever done at my birthday.

So here we are - Adam about 4 weeks older, me 2 weeks - we're 31. We're no longer 30, but IN our 30s. Everyone still calls us babies, that's we are still so young. However, 31 is certainly not making us feel young anymore... le sigh...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

Happy Birthday Adam! Look at that loot!

Make a wish! Did you wish for something good?

wow, you look so happy to be turning 31!

I like birthdays too, says Sneezy!

Sweet! Let's hope I am somewhat talented at this guitar thing. Poor Adam doesn't know what he's gotten himself in to!

I LIKE PIE!

He knows me so well - pink and purple.

Dec. 7, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (aka Canary Islands)

2011-01-17T20:26:00.003-05:00

So, we always wondered what the Canary Islands were like - were they like Hawaii or Tahiti or some other exotic place? Kind of like Hawaii - a mix of natural beauty, tourism, businesses and beaches.

We arrived to port in Las Palmas at 12 pm and headed to the city of Arucas to see the Black Cathedral. Now, it's called the Black Cathedral because the type of mud that is used in the stone making process dries black/grey - hence the name! The stonework of the grey/black set next to the stark white walls and vibrant stained glass windows made for an incredibly beautiful church.

From the church, we headed to the Municipal Gardens and walked around there and the downtown area. From there we walked on a very non-pedestrian friendly road - where Adam got cut by an aloe bush (if you get cut by an aloe bush, does it heal faster? The answer is yes!) - to the Jardin de la Marquesa. This garden has the largest collection of tropical species of plants, some even rare to find now. We saw beautiful cacti, poinsettia plants that were as tall as buildings, hibiscus flowers, butterflies, banana and avocado trees and a ton of peacocks. The garden was so beautiful and we easily spent a few hours there roaming around. The people there were so nice too and happily called us a cab to take us back to Las Palmas since the garden is really in the middle of nowhere!

Back in Las Palmas we went to Santa Ana Square and Cathedral. We took the elevator up to the top spire of the church and walked around up top to see some of the most beautiful views of the city and the water. The square was busy and full of little cafes and tons of people and dog statues. The dog statues are in honor of the dogs that were on the island when the first settlers came to the island. We enjoyed delicious ice cream and CocaCola Light in a little cafe and then headed on with the rest of the day.

We stopped at Casa de Colon - the house where Christopher Columbus stayed at when he was here having work done on the Nina. There was a great museum with artifacts of what came over on voyages and some artwork. And the best part - it was free!!

We walked along all of the little streets and alleys, taking in the colorful buildings and enjoying the stonework and plaster work and the intricately carved wooden doors and balconies.

We stumbled upon this great street with a mix of European and American shops, entertainers and tons of Christmas Decorations. We stopped at a little candy store and picked up some unique local candies - include Cadbury mini eggs which they sell year round in Europe!

The island is very popular for tourists, and we decided we were very out of touch with our inability to speak Spanish here. Even with so many tourists, hardly any English is spoken and our French did us no good at all.

We made it back to the boat and enjoyed a sunset dinner on the back balcony so we could enjoy the trip out of port. We enjoyed the night people watching and then taking a dip in the hot tub despite the rain. We had a great night just relaxing and people watching - we even saw a couple in matching outfits - no word of a lie husband and wife in brown courds, white turtlenecks and red v-neck sweaters. Wish I had our camera!!

Enjoy some pictures from Arucas and Las Palmas - they repeat a bit between mine and Adam's.

Dec. 7, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (aka Canary Islands)

Dec. 6 - Agadir, Morocco

2011-01-17T18:03:00.003-05:00

We arrived in Agadir to the sounds of crashing waves and rough seas. The small fishing boats in the water were trashing all over the place with the rough waters.

We met our tour guide, Abdou, and set off for the town of Tourdant, Morocco - hometown of our tourguide.

The 1 1/2 hour drive there was so beautiful - flat plains, tons of farms, little towns, tons of orange groves, goats eating and climbing Argan Trees and a camel eating from the Argan tree as well. The mountains in the distance even had snow on the peaks. Who would ever have thought there would be snow in Africa!

Our guide Abdou was a wealth of information, spoke incredible English and had a love of all things American. He wanted to come back to the states so e could eat Thanksgiving turkey and decorate a Christmas tree. He loves American movies, tv shows, enjoys American comics on YouTube and truly, if he lived here, would probably never leave. So interesting all of the things we take for granted in the US he adores and the things that pester us - like putting up the holiday decorations and taking them down - he can't wait to do.

Once in Tourdant, we visited the town center and headed to the local souk and central souk. The Arabic souk had tons of jewelry, clothing, shoe and purse vendors, while the central souk smelled fantastic with all of the herbs and spices. It was such a colorful array in the central souk with such an array of goodies!

We then visited Riad Argan to see how they make Argan oils and creams. Argan Trees are native to Morocco and produce a very hard nut that contains small seeds that contain a highly sought after oil. Argan trees were all over the countryside on our drive to Tourdant. The trees are now farmed for the purpose of making oils, but typically the seed served as food for goats and camels. We even saw goats climbing the Argan trees to get to the seeds on one field and a camel grazing as well. There is a law that it is illegal for goats to eat Argan - but again, how can you control goats and where they eat?? The process was interesting, and while we did see them crushing the argan by hand, we do think it is probably a highly mechanized process behind the scenes. We bought some hand lotion and cooking oil there. The hand lotion is runny but smells so great and makes your hands so soft. The cooking oil is like an olive oil and is a very healthy oil to eat. It has a slightly nutty and toasted taste and aroma. Very good on sauteed veggies I've found! Apparently the beauty cream is a fantastic wrinkle reverser - perhaps as I'm aging I should have purchased some!

We headed back to the main square and saw a snake charmer. It was so cool!! I wish we would have gotten a picture of it but it was way too crowded to dig through my purse for my camera - that and I was sort of stuck in place due to the number of snakes - they certainly stopped me in my tracks.

When we were headed to Morocco, I told Adam I wanted to see 3 things - goats in a tree, camels and a snake charmer - CHECK, CHECK, and CHECK! I hit the trifecta within an hour!

The whole city of Tourdant is surrounded by a large great wall. Back in the 80s and 90s they used to close the gates at midnight and if you weren't in the city you were locked out until morning (seemed like Aboud knew that from experience!). The walls are now open all of the time and the city is now expanding out of the walls.

While in Tourdant and Agadir, we got to Rock the Kasbah as well - two of them actually. The first one was Palais Salam. Once a Kasbah for 1 ruler, the property is now a hotel. The building pink buildings and mosaic work and painting detail are beautiful and the gardens in the courtyard are beautiful.

Once back in Agadir, we took a drive up a mountain to another Kasbah, and this one was once a Portuguese Castle - Apparently the Portuguese once held control of Morocco and so did the British Empire. This Kasbah was huge and really high up at the top of the mountain with the most breathtaking panoramic views of Agadir and the beaches. Once up there they try to hit you up to take camel rides and pet goats - our first real experience with being hit up and harassed on the trip. Abdou said he liked to think of these camels as "Camels with a Career!"

The city of Agadir itself is very modern. In the 1960s on 2/29 at 11:40 am they had a devastating earthquake which killed 1/3 of the population of the city because it hit when most people were home in bed. Since then they have been rebuilding the city and are still doing tons of construction - so hence the very modern buildings.

Agadir itself is a very popular tourist destination for Europeans because of its expansive beaches and blue waters - although the waters were murky when we were there because they just came off of a week of heavy rains that closed and washed out roads and brides.

I asked Abdou about the Muslim culture in Morocco, as I saw many women not in traditional Muslim attire. Abdou said because Morocco tends to be more liberal than other Muslim areas, people tend really wear whatever they want and that not all women cover their heads. He said it really tends to be more of a modesty thing for women than a religious thing in the area. We also saw students walking around the town roads at odd hours - so I had to ask what was going on. Apparently in Agadir, Tourdant and the other small towns students only go to school for 4 hours at a time - 8 am - 12 pm and then 2 pm - 6 pm.

Farming is their primary industry in Morocco - obvious to us by the incredible numbers of citrus farms and processing plants. Their other industries are minerals - gold, silver and stones - and then tourism.

We really loved this part of Morocco - very different than Casablanca. The mixture between the small towns and the farms and countryside were a beautiful setting - add to that the pretty waters of Agadir and we could totally understand why this area of Morocco is popular for tourists. We highly recommend going to Agadir or even better Tourdant - what a great day we had.

Photos of our day!! Enjoy!

Dec.6 Agadir & Tourdant, Morocco

Dec. 5, Casablanca, Morocco

2011-01-12T10:47:00.005-05:00

On December 5 we were headed in to Casablanca. Once the boat was finally cleared at the port we headed out and took a bus to the center of the downtown area. From there, we hopped a cab to the Mosque Hassan II. We had some time to kill before our tour started so we spent about an hour walking around the grounds and taking some great photos of the Mosque.

Mosque Hassan as built by a Frenchman and is one of the 3 largest Mosques in the world - the other two are in Saudi Arabia. The money to fund the building of the Mosque came from Hassan the II (1/3 of it) and the rest from donations. The Mosque was simply stunning, and still one of the best places we visited on the trip. The detailed carvings, metal work, mosaics, and marble work were incredible throughout the whole Mosque - inside and out. It was truly one of the most beautiful places I can say I've ever visited.

The exterior doors were made of ornate titanium. All of the materials used to build the mosque were local from Morocco except for the chandeliers which came from Italy and the marble where the Imam leads prayer, that was from Italy as well.

The King of Morocco has his own Royal Entrance at the mosque that runs down the center of the building and when he's there visiting in Casablanca, he prays with all of the other citizens that are there.

The mosque sits right on the ocean and has some spectacular views.

There are separate areas in the Mosque, the omen pray in the balcony areas and the men on the main floor. And at any one time, 25,000 individuals can pray at the Mosque - that's HUGE!! The balconies can host up to 5,000 women and the main floor 20,000 men. However, our guide told us that on average only about 600 people pray there daily, except for Fridays when it's full for the holy day.

The roof of the Mosque is retractable and made of 1,000 combined tons of cedar. This allows them to cool the Mosque in the heat of summer with the cool breeze from the ocean.

The lower level of the Mosque houses these beautiful fountains that are actually used for bathing and cleansing before prayer - and again, there's an area for men and one for women. This was added because many people come straight from work and need to clean off before they enter the main area with the Imam for prayer. A separate area of the Mosque has a traditional Turkish bath, but it's not a religious thing, it's more used as a social area for the Mosque. The interesting thing is that this pool has yet to open - they keep delaying it a year here, a year there - and it still hasn't opened since It's been completed.

Our guide at the Mosque was incredible and taught us our new favorite phrase "Yalla Yalla Yalla". If you say Yalla once, it means "let's go". But when you say it 3 times, it means "hurry up!" Apparently this is a phrase that is used quite a bit by Muslin parents!

After the Mosque we rejoined our cab driver who took us around more parts of the city. We saw the coastal area that was full of restaurants and resorts and popular for tourists. We saw the English Church and Spanish Churches in the area. We went to a racing track (surprisingly quite beautiful and in the wealthy area of the city), the Mohammed V square and fountain, the Royal Palace for the President (which was right next to the home of regular citizens).

We visited a little bazaar and bought ourselves a really pretty hand tapped silver etched platter.

Overall, the city was crowded, dirty, modern yet still had major areas of poverty. While it did have many wealthy areas there were far more examples of poverty than wealth in the city. It kind of reminded us of a larger mid-sized US city that just doesn't get kept up well.

We came back to the boat to relax in the sun and pool and then took a salsa dancing lesson that night - and that husband of mine actually has quite the moves and is a good dancer - I don't know why he doesn't like dancing!

Enjoy some photos from Casablanca!

Dec. 5, Casablanca, Morocco

Dec. 3, Barcelona, Spain

2011-01-01T23:32:00.003-05:00

Well after about 5 hours of sleep or so we got up and had a very over-priced breakfast at our hotel and headed out in search of a market so we could get some munchies to take on the boat. We also were in search of bread and peanut butter so we could make sandwiches to eat in Morocco and Egypt.

We ended up stumbling upon this fantastic open stall market where we roamed all of the stalls and took in the sights of all of the fresh fish, meats, cheeses, produce, olives, dried fruits/nuts and pastries. It was such a site. This was the 2nd type of market in Barcelona we'd been in like this and they really both had the same things. In all we didn't find munchies or what we needed, but we bought some dried sausages, clementines and a bottle of wine to take to the boat.

Back at the hotel, we grabbed our bags and checked out and headed to the port to check in for the cruise on the Jade. Upon check in, we popped on board, did some email and then headed back out in to Barcelona since we had until 6 pm - why spend the day on the boat?

We took a cab up to Montjuic - this is a beautiful area on top of a hill that has museums, homes, parks and most importantly venues that were used for the Barcelona Olympics.

We stopped at the Olympic stadium where they had the track and field events, we saw the pool, park, the art museum and some cool statues and structures. The art museum that is here was so elaborate we thought it had to be some type of cathedral or something else really important.

We then took the Teleferic De Montjuic (skylift) up to the castle at the top of Montjuic. Castle Montjuic had these massive stone walls, great views of the city and the port, a really unique water cistern and some great walking paths.

Up at the castle, we paused for a lunch of Meat Munchkin's (these little sausage nibblers we got at the market that may be one of God's greatest food creations!), Clementines (the best and most flavorful we've ever eaten in our lives), meat stick (another sausage thing we bought) and some almonds. While we were "snacking" at 3:30 pm, the students who were on field trips at the site were just starting their lunches for the day.

We took the lift back to the bottom of the hill and then a cab back to the port.

Once back on the ship we made it to our room and unpacked for our 21+ days on board - trying to fit all of the stuff we brought was quite an effort, but we managed in the end. Even though it was 40 degrees out, we decided to go for a soak in the hot tub and soak while we left port at about 8 pm. Well apparently, Europeans find 40 degrees at night too cold to be outside, so we had the whole pool deck to ourselves and by the time we were done and the boat had left port, we were prunes.

We enjoyed our favorite first night dinner on the boat (it was the same as our last cruise) of braised short ribs with pasta and vanilla bean souffle (we each ate 2!!). Ahhh it was so nice not to cook and to know we had someone doing all of the work for us for the next 3 weeks!

Below are some photos of our day on Montjuic - both taken by Adam & Stephany. Enjoy - and remember, many more days of blogging and photos to come!

Dec. 3. Barcelona, Spain

Dec. 2, Barcelona, Spain

2011-01-01T20:01:00.008-05:00

Well here we are, we've finally arrived in Barcelona. After a day full of delays getting out of airports in the states, an incredibly rough flight, and a night of no sleep on the plane, we arrived over-tired and worn out - and it was only 12 pm!!

After going through the easiest customs check ever, we headed to our hotel for the night, Hotel Barceno. We were excited because after we booked on hotwire it said it was a 4 star hotel. Not quite sure what systems they use in Spain for rating hotels, but 4 stars was certainly 2 stars too many for this hotel. But it was just for a night and it worked.

After we got checked in and situated in our room, we cleaned up and headed out to explore Barcelona in an attempt to stay awake so we could get ourselves on the right time schedule.

We visited Cathedral De Barcelona which was right in the downtown area near our hotel. This is a Gothic Church that was undergoing a lot of construction, but you could still get inside and it was worth it. We walked around the exterior courtyard where we saw the most beautiful grottos with such elaborate shrines to the saints. There was the most beautiful nativity scene as well in the center courtyard. The courtyard also had this beautiful pond with white geese and a very nice fountain. The stone work walls and floors were so interesting to see, as there were details and intricate carvings everywhere. The interior of the cathedral was very pretty. It was great to see the altars and the beautiful choir area detailing the coat of arms throughout each chair/area.

From here we took the subway over to Sagrada Familia. This church was started in 1882, and after the original architect died, Gaudi took over the design of the church - which he did until his death in 1926. From then other architects oversaw the building of the church. But the church screams Gaudi from top to bottom, inside and out. It's a very modern church, from the detailing of the Passion and Nativity facades on the exterior to the incredibly elaborate ceiling, columns, stained glass and cut out windows that create the most spectacular shadows with the days fading sunlight.

We must have spent 2.5 hours at Sagrada Familia; there was just so much to see. The crucifix hung above the altar literally hung from the ceiling and depicted the crucifix with an offering of handblown glass grape clusters. The stained glass was so bright and colorful and there was the most incredible detailing on the ceiling as well.

We took the elevator to the top spires and had the most spectacular views of the church and the city. Adam was brave and walked all the way down, I opted for the elevator.

We walked from Sagrada Familia down some small streets and found a little Tapas/Middle Eastern restaurant to enjoy dinner at - lamb, falafel, and the most delicious Christmas melon with ham.

Once back at the hotel (by 8 pm!) we were so exhausted and just wanted to sleep - however, the street our hotel was on was so loud that we were up until about 2:30 am just trying to fall asleep. Those Barcelonians really like to stay up late and party!

Enjoy some pictures from our first day in Barcelona! Just click on the image below to see the whole album from this day in Barcelona. Remember, the's more to come from all of the other places we've visited over the course of the 21 days - so don't think this is it!

Dec. 2, Barcelona, Spain

*I'm trying Picasa out for the photos for our trip instead of Slide which I normally use. There is a slideshow function in Picasa.*

Oh Where or Where have the Hesslers been?

2010-12-27T15:10:00.003-05:00

Or, the better question is, where haven't we been?

Since December 1st, we've been traveling our little heart's out.

We took a 21 Day Mediterranean Cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines The Jade.

We visited 3 continents - Europe, Africa and Asia.

We visited Spain, Morocco, The Canary Islands, Madeira, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Malta (if you're wondering now where Asia comes in - we were in the Asiatic portion of Turkey).

We saw lots of old and historic things and had the best time in the world. We couldn't have dreamed of a better way to end a very busy and stressful year and it was great to take a year off of Christmas and all of its stresses.

So over the coming weeks (months??) we'll be blogging our adventures, sharing photos and more. So check back often for updates!

Happy Holidays & A Happy New Year to you all!

In the meantime a little taste of what's to come!! Giza!

Plymouth, MA

2010-11-25T17:13:00.003-05:00

Strike another thing off the "To Do While Living Out East" list. We took Adam's parents up to Plymouth, MA in October. It was grey, cold and damp, but it wast still a nice day. As Adam and I would say, we saw lots of old and historic things. I've nicknamed Plymouth as "Plymouth and its anticlimactic rock".

We took a tour on the recreated Mayflower II, saw the anticlimactic rock, had lunch at a great little restaurant, did some shopping, took in the cemetery, saw the oldest church, you name it.

One of my favorite things we saw was the cemetery and the memorial to our forefathers - but I adore cemeteries. The coolest headstone was the set of three I have below. It was a wife that died, then about 20 years later her husband died. The next tombstone was that of his 2nd wife. Interesting. Not something I would have expected to see necessarily. The monument was so intricate and detailed, you couldn't help but stare at it for ever and notice all of the detail!

A Trip to Battleship Cove

2010-11-25T16:58:00.003-05:00

When Adam's parents were in back in October, we took a trip to Fall River, MA to Battleship Cove. Adam had been here before one weekend when I was working shortly after we moved to RI. This was my first trip here - and I'm so glad Adam was willing to go back. I love Naval and Air Force Museums, Air and Space Centers, you name it!

It was really cool to walk around and see this huge collection of Naval ships.

We roamed around through the levels of all of the boats, and I did well on all of them until we got to the submarine - that was a little too claustrophobic for me. If you're in the area, you should certainly check it out!

A Tour of RI Lighthouses

2010-11-25T16:18:00.002-05:00

First off, wow, it's been a long time since we posted. And I can't really blame that on laziness. We just haven't been up to all that much.

But let's take a trip back to October 2nd. Adam and I went on a Lighthouse Tour that Save The Bay offers. We left early in the morning and then set out on the boat for a day long cruise. Despite being chilly (and me hungover from the Gala at work the night before), it was a marvelous day.

We learned a lot about the history of the lighthouses in Narragansett Bay and even took some time on Rose Island for a tour and lunch overlooking the water.

Another Vineyard off the list!

2010-07-18T12:09:00.002-04:00

Back in June, Adam and I took a day field trip to a part of the state I've never been to - Tiverton. I had to go scout out a cleanup site for work in Portsmouth, and since we were in the vicinity, I planned a whole day for the two of us on the Eastern part of the state!

We started out going to the last RI vineyard on our list to visit - Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton. We enjoyed some great wines and then spent some time walking around their beautiful grounds. We decided it's another great place to take a day trip too with a picnic lunch, some good books and enjoy a bottle of their wine while outside in the fresh air.

After that, we drove around the area and stopped for lunch at this great seaside restaurant where we enjoyed lobster and crab rolls with an ocean view.

Our final stop was a little find called the Milk & Honey Bazaar - what a fantastic shop. We spent an hour there sampling cheeses and talking with the owner. Turns out she used to be in catering and hated the hours away from her family. So she was passionate about good cheese and opened this little shop. You have to check out their website. We left with quite the sampling of delicious cheeses and even started a card there with our favorites we can refer to when we go back - which we WILL be going back!

It was great to finally get to this area of the state and what a wonderful day we had!

Cold but Fun!

2010-05-31T13:24:00.004-04:00

Adam and I went to another Sox game a few weeks ago - and it was bitterly cold - the coldest spring temperatures we'd had in a very long time in RI. We layered up and pushed through - I mean we did have great seats and it was a really good game so we weren't going to leave.

But in order to stay warm, we did have to forgo the hot dogs and go for Chowda at the game. Seriously, there is nothing better than hot clam chowda at a baseball game!

I really do have the best job and boss!

2010-05-11T12:31:00.001-04:00

I really truly do love what I do, where I work and who I work for.

Case and point.

End of April was our volunteer appreciation party at work on Saturday. Nice support from the staff for the volunteer program... our ED had wonderful things to say about me and I got the most beautiful bouquet of flowers from

my boss and our ED.

It was so nice to feel appreciated. And those beautiful flowers lasted for two beautiful weeks and smelled so wonderful in the house.

Thank you to my wonderful job for making me feel so appreciated and special!

How Bad Is It?

2010-04-01T15:03:00.011-04:00

What do you think???

That's what we've been hearing a lot of lately.

Incase you live under a rock... We've been dealing with some severe flooding here in RI. Like think total destruction and loss in some areas.

I'm snagging some pictures from other sources and things like that to go along with this post - since quite frankly, I'm not dumb enough to go venture out to take picture. Either that or I'm spending all of my time simply commuting!!

For us personally, our house is fine - safe, dry, no problems. Thanks be to God! Our biggest issue - well not even for Adam - is commuting. You see, the river with the major flooding you're hearing and seeing, the Pawtuxet River, crested at 21 feet high. That extra water took over any parking lots, roads, businesses and even our major highway - Route 95 - in total destruction. A 15 minute commute has turned in to 2 hour commutes for me, moving all the way north before I can get to work and home again. Adam's commute is fine, he's going south and there's no problems or closures there.

For our friends - not so lucky - may of our friends have been evacuated, suffered severe water dammage and more.

So let's break it down for you:

This is the Pawtuxet River Bridge - Look how pretty and picturesque!
The water now hits below the top of the bridge.

This is Warwick Mall - the 2nd largest mall in the state. About 5 minutes from our house. The Pawtuxet River is not far from this mall - that's how far it flooded. Thank you to Consumerist.com for this picture.

This is the intersection near my friend's house. She hasn't been at work since Monday. I miss her and hope they are doing OK pumping their basement
Photo Credit: Bob Niederberger and WPRI.com

This came to us from Yahoo. That highway is Interstate 95. Those are office parks on the left hand side. That's the Pawtuext River now. Hence the highway has been closed.

My friend who lives in the southern part of the state took this photo near her house. Look how high the water is that it is almost covering the orange barrel.

This storm produced the amount of rain we're supposed to receive in 2 months time in Rhode Island... that's some crazy shit!

This is the grovery store I typically pass on my way to work every day - that is the Pawtuxet river in the parking log. Guess I won't be getting my Easter ham there! Thank you to Brandon A. from Facebook for this picture of the Fan Page "The Flood of March 2010". Side note- a co-worker owns a dance studio in the next shopping center over from this and she got in and took some video and it's just fast rushing water there.

This is Colonoy Ford that is off of I95 - where we take our vans for work - and it is now under water. I passed this on the 2 hour drive home from work yesterday - fascinating! Thank you to Renata G. from Facebook for this picture of the Fan Page "The Flood of March 2010".

The news is now flood central. Where you can buy sump pumps and flood supplies is the top headline. How to get your FEMA money, tax extensions for those in RI, sewage issues, contaimation issues, school and road closings, all of these are now things we here daily and it's crazy!

But the National Guard, Police and Fire Departments have been great, blocking roads, directing traffic, playing cleanup, rescuing people. And they are going to be taxed for a long time with how much dammage there is from the flooding.

So yes, it is as bad as it looks on the TV where you live.

Trivia Junkies...

2010-03-03T12:11:00.002-05:00

So Adam and I have become Pub Quiz junkies. Seriously, it's an addiction that I think I may need to join a 12 step program for.

For instance, we're not going tonight, our friends have to work late, Adam has to work late, and I'm having the shakes of withdrawl!!!

We have started going with our friends weekly to pub quiz at a local restaurant. Every week we have tied for 2nd or 1st and then LOST in the tie breaker question for 1st place.

But we're learning a ton of fun and interesting things, it's incredible how much we all know and can contribute in different areas - arts, entertainment, geography, current events, music, etc.

It's gotten to the point now that we are out to be Team Chuck Norris which has won for like 14 straight weeks - it's VERY competitive between us.

I've started a list of random things I'd like to learn/know that could be helpful and am finding answers as I go along. As well, the quest for knowlege makes me watch the news, read the paper, and listen to the radio differently - I now seek to figure out how that can be turned in to a trivia question.

If you have a pub/restaurant in your area that does pub quiz, GO! Get your smartest friends (ok they can be your average smart friends too!) and go. You will have such a great time!

Pictures from my 30th

2010-01-17T20:05:00.003-05:00

Look what I found! Pictures on my camera from my 30th!

I really didn't even remember we took these - I was so miserable with a cold on my birthday and from a grueling day at work that it all just seems like a blur.

I got these beautiful cupcake flowers sent to me at work from my loving brother, sister in law and nephews. It was a great way to start my day! Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen?? Seriously - Flowers for cupcakes- frigging adorable!

My good friend brought me a cupcake to work and I indulged in that on my birthday night!

Low key - quite - perfect for the sick birthday girl!

Welcome to the 3rd Decade

2010-01-10T12:48:00.002-05:00

Well it's for real now - Adam and I are both now in our 3rd Decade. Pretty exciting stuff, eh?

I've learned over the past 11 years Adam and I have been together that it's really fun having someone to "share a birthday with". Our birthdays are exactly two weeks apart, so it's nice to have someone right there with you to celebrate the big birthdays, the scary birthdays and the ones we'll just re-live for a few more years :)

So far 30 is good to both of us - we're both very happy to be out of the 20s.

The 20s are so strange. Early 20s the only milestone you have is 21. And 20-22/23 you're in college, partying, having fun - I mean studying - Studying hard and finding jobs.

Then once college is over, the 20s are just kind of you trying to figure this real life thing out - it's OK but still ya know it's a period of discovery and let's face it, some screwing up.

But then the late 20s arrive - maybe you are married, having kids, have a job. You get life a bit more, but you're still in your 20s so it's OK if you F-Up.

But 30 - ahhh 30 - you're a for real adult now - you're on your own - any F-ups are yours and yours alone to deal with. You have a mortgage, job, family, it's a whole new ball game.

But you know what- I couldn't wait to get out of the 20s, I was ready for 30 - I fully embrace it and am happy it's here.

And I'm so glad I have Adam to go through with it!

Shhh.... It's a Surprise

2010-01-02T19:30:00.003-05:00

At the start of December... I was up to something sneaky - very sneaky!

I spent weeks planning, stressing, shopping and prepping.

I spent the day of at work, decorating, planning, setting up.

And then Adam and I went to our friend's house for the night. But on the way there I had to stop at my office for an emergency for the group renting for the night.

I thought it would be a very good idea for Adam to join me inside incase it took a while or I needed his help with the projector.

But no... he thought it was best to just stay in the car and wait

But I'm a persistent bugger... So he joined me in the building.

And then scratched his head when all of his friends yelled surprise.

Adam enjoyed a night with his poker buddies and other guys. They played poker, roulette, blackjack and Wii for the night. It was great for me to meet the guys finally and then I got to enjoy a night out with the wives!

Happy 30th Adam.... I love you!!

Our Last Day... A Sad One...

2009-12-12T16:56:00.004-05:00

Well, the weather was bad again so we unfortunately didn't get to visit the private island in the Bahamas. Which I guess for us was a life saver since we were both already toasty red! OK Lobster Red!!

We were bummed, because we had put off doing our Christmas picture to do at the Bahamas and now we were not going to get it done and trying to find fun tropical shots on the boat was just not happening when the only thing for miles is sky and water. We also had brought an underwater camera with us so we could do some snorkeling, but le sigh we didn't get to do it.

We spent most of the morning being lazy in our room watching movies (seriously the movies 24/7 is the BEST!!!) We headed out to the pool deck for lunch time when the crew was doing the BBQ that we didn't get to have on the island. We spent the rest of the day walking around the ship getting some pictures for our Christmas Card (bleh!). We took some time too to hit some golf balls at the driving cage and then we relaxed and enjoyed the cool 70 degree weather.

We popped in to the Spinnaker Lounge again in the afternoon as well to check out Sharkbait do an impromptu Q&A. The two guys met when they were clowns with Ringling Brothers and then started this act together and have been on the cruise ships for 6 years.

We really just spent the day relaxing and then headed to eat another sushi dinner again - so fun again to have all you can eat sushi and try new things! We went to the last show of the cruise that night which was comedian David Naster and Sharkbait. It was so funny and just great entertainment - standing room only in the theater. We ended the night back at the piano bar again for the last night to say goodbye to those we met (including another RI couple).

The next day we were leaving- it was so sad to be leaving - we really did have a nice time. We think the Bermuda cruise from Boston though may be more up to our liking next time- where you get 3 days in one port of call.

We never felt like we had enough time at each port of call, so again a different cruise may be a better option. But really we LOVED Norwegian. Between the flexibility with the dining, the dressing - it was SO very worth it for us. We also thought the ship was very nice and clean and the staff were great. We were quite impressed with the sanitation on the ship - hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere and they have someone squirt you down with hand sanitizer before you go to any restaurant too. The entertainment was incredible, the food was wonderful, we would certainly book a Norwegian cruise again!

Some pictures of our last day on the boat...

On The High Seas....

2009-12-12T16:50:00.005-05:00

On Thursday of our cruise we were at sea all day. We slept in and then hit the sun deck to lounge for the day. Unfortunately, we both got fried- but Adam much more so than me. We finally had to spend the rest of the day in the shade resting and then in the room trying to cool down and hydrate from our burns.

One of the best parts of the cruise was our Capt. Lars... his nice Sweedish accent and humor was the best. He really just liked to hear himself speak over the PA system. While we were all outside in the sun, he announced that it was really hot and sunny out and that we should all be using protection - all you saw were a sea of heads look up towards the speakers. Capt. Lars then quickly said, Oh I mean sun protection - but you should use protection in all walks of life too!

God I miss Capt. Lars.

We had a nice evening on the boat too, despite the burns. We had a wonderful dinner at the 2nd main dining room - Indigo - a little less formal and more trendy than the main formal dinging room. We played some shuffle board and then took in Broadway Show Tune Sing Along in the Piano Bar with Jimmy and our new piano bar friends. We then had to devise a great plan to be in 2 places at once. I hit the chocolate buffet and filled a couple of plates for us while Adam made his way to the Spinnaker Lounge for the Liars Club Game Show and The Quest Game.

The Liars Club features comedians from the different acts on the ship and you had to guess who was telling the lie. The Quest was a game show hosted by our favorite act Sharkbait. It was an in room scavenger hunt that you teamed up to do - you had to do things like run up with false teeth, a bra on your head, a man in women's shoes, etc. It was a riot - we did play along with another couple but there were some other GUNG HO groups that there was no way we could ever beat them!

The next day we were going to be in the Bahamas at the beach all day at Norwegian's private Island - too bad we were already fried!!!

Oh Tortola, How we miss you!!!

2009-12-12T16:11:00.003-05:00

Our early wake up was well worth it - Tortola, BVI was the BEST stop on the cruise and we wish we could have just moved our bags off the ship and stayed there for good - but we would have sent for Sneezy and Bashful though!

We started our day by going over to the botanical gardens in Tortola. We wanted to go there so we could see some of the local flora and fauna - and because we both love gardens. Even though it was so incredibly hot that day, we had the best time!

The gardens were so beautiful, green, lush, the aroma was wonderful, such colorful flowers, we spent a good couple of hours there just roaming and taking pictures. And again, more free roaming chickens! God I miss having chickens just roaming randomly every place we go!

From the gardens, we walked downtown to the local Caribee Spice Shop we wanted to visit. It smelled so wonderful in there and we picked up some nice local spices to take home with us and a beautiful wooden fish platter to hang in our kitchen.

After the shopping we still had some time to kill and wanted to see as much of the island as we could before we had to be back on the boat for 2 pm. We made our way to a local taxi stand and asked if someone would take us on a tour of the island for about an hour or so. We had a wonderful cab driver - Albert Norris - Like Fat Albert and Chuck Norris he joked.

Albert seriously made our time in Tortola so wonderful! He was funny, incredibly informative, and was so happy to take us to all of these wonderful places! We were the most impressed with Tortola. The island has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the Virgin Islands - aside from tourism the highest rates of employment are for the government and education. We loved the great winding roads with the views of the water. Albert told us the roads were initially designed for donkeys and carts, and never widened, so when you go around bends and turns you have to honk your horn to let other cars know you're coming.

Albert pointed out everything to us and made sure we saw the best and most beautiful places of the island in an hour and a half. He took us up to this overlook area where you could see the whole island and the surrounding islands as well.. There were the most beautiful views from this overlook and we're so thankful he took us here.

He showed us some of the most beautiful beaches as well and made sure to stop when he saw local vegetation that we don't have in the states to show us - including some unique fruits and almonds in their natural/raw state. WAY COOL.

We were so thankful we met up with Albert - his tour of the island was well worth the $40 we paid him. He made our time in Tortola so wonderful. And he got us back to the ship just in time for the heavens to open up and start pouring.

Back on the boat we relaxed and had some lunch and watched some movies before dinner for the night.

We saw the BEST show this night of the cruise as well - Sharkbait - a juggling act. They were hysterically funny and talented beyond belief. By far the best show on the cruise. After the show we enjoyed a Tepyanaki dinner and then a little bit of piano bar time before we took in the Burlesque show at the lounge.

This day was by far the best day and night of the cruise. It was the first day neither of us were sea sick and the first destination we really truly loved and would go back to again.

Pictures of Tortola for you to enjoy - notice the wonderful hills and houses on the hillside - oh gosh we want to move there! TONS of pictures! You can tell we liked it best!

Welcome to St. Thomas

2009-12-12T15:55:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday of our cruise we were in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

We wish we would have had more than 8 hours there, we felt that while we did a lot we missed a lot too.

We started the morning with a visit to Coral World, the aquarium in St. Thomas. We wanted to take in this aquarium because they have an exhibit that is an underwater tank where the actual fish from the ocean are the aquarium. Way cool.

At Coral World, Adam fed some sting rays, we watched a sea lion enrichment, tried to avoid stepping on iguanas everywhere we went, and just watched the waves crash on the rocks for a long time.

Next to Coral World is Coki Beach - so we changed to our swim garb and headed to the beach for some sun and surf. It is a small beach but a nice one - great white sand and clear blue waters. We both enjoyed floating around in the water and lounging under a nice palm tree for a couple of hours. Even though we live on the Atlantic here in Rhode Island, it was NOTHING like the Atlantic we got to swim in here. So warm, clean, nice and relaxing. Adam found some great corals for us as well.

After our time at the beach we headed to the downtown area to check out some shopping, but it was just jewelry shop after jewelry shop and got a little old. We did go to a wonderful linen shop and bought a beautiful lace runner for our dining room table and some other nice gifts. Other than that we were fairly disappointed with the downtown shopping area.

We wish we would have spent more time either relaxing at the beach or exploring the rest of the island instead of rushing to get back to the downtown area.

One of the things we LOVED about St. Thomas were the iguanas and lizards everywhere. There was a sign at the aquarium that said please don't feed the iguanas - and there was one sitting on a rock wall right next to it- so we assumed it was that ONE iguana, but we turned a corner and they were just crawling everywhere - even in the downtown area, lizards and iguanas would just walk past you - as well as the few random chickens.

We even made up a song about all of the chickens that were roaming everywhere on the trip - Chickens in the Park, Chickens in the Park - that's all we have...

Once back on the ship, we relaxed a bit and settled in for our evening of fun again. We once again were back at the piano bar and started to meet some of the other couples we saw there every night. We had a pretty low key evening with dinner and piano music and hit the sack - we were scheduled to arrive in Tortola the next morning at 7 am to start getting off the ship - quite early for vacation!

Overall we did like St. Thomas, it was green, lush, the waters at the beach were so blue and beautiful. And we had wonderful weather! Again, if you don't care about buying jewelry, knock off bags or liquor, skip the downtown shopping area and either spend more time at the beaches or exploring the island. We did think it was funny to be driving back to the downtown area and pass Kmart, McDonalds, Subway and other places we have around our area - but again, it is a US Territory.

Some picture of St. Thomas for you to enjoy!

Welcome to the Dominican

2009-12-12T15:49:00.002-05:00

Our first day that we docked was in Samana, Dominican Republic. We've heard this wasn't going to be the best port of call - and we were prepared for that so we went ahead and booked an excursion for our day in Samana.

We got in to Samana on time, after Capt. Lars made up a ton of speed and distance after the rough weather and the delay waiting for the Coast Guard. There are no docks in Samana so we had to go over to the main land by tender.

We met our tour guide on the main land- the 4x4 Safari Excursion. The tour was supposed to take us to a farm to sample local produce, a hike to a waterfall and a beach. So we drove through the city, such poverty and very dirty - now we know why people gave this portion of the cruise such horrible reviews. We did enjoy the lush green scenery and vegetation though.

There were beautiful mountains, palm trees, fruit trees and vegetation everywhere. There were also just tons of livestock roaming everywhere - cows, chickens, donkeys, dogs, pigs, etc. No paved roads, no running water. They were building a water treatment plant so they'd have running water in the future. But the locals have to go to the center of town when the boats come in and try to get bottled water. I even had a lizard land on me in the 4x4 - it didn't bother me at all, but the woman behind me freaked out that there was a lizard on me. Pretty funny!

We finally made it to the road that we were supposed to take in to the rain forest to go to the waterfall, but because of the severe rains, the road was completely flooded and the river was over its banks. There were even 4x4s stuck in the river that had tourists in them! So we couldn't get to the waterfall, and then we couldn't get to the farm, so instead we turned around and headed back to a beach.

Hmmmm this isn't what we paid for at all. But the beach was nice and there was a resort there so we were able to have a nice lunch with local foods. But it was so packed because every tour group that couldn't do what they were supposed to do was at the resort. We finally got back in the 4x4 and headed to the downtown area which was just junk shop after junk shop. The straw market there too was just junkie little stuff and every booth had the same thing.

We were so disappointed we just headed back to the ship - we were tired of the kids chasing us down to buy shells and begging for money. "Dollar friend, dollar". There was even one kid that was so good he just followed us crying! HA!

Once back on the boat we headed to the pool for the afternoon and then rested up for the evening. The main dining room menus were duds that night so we went for sushi instead (all you can eat sushi for $40 bucks is SO worth it!!!) and then we took in the showgirl revue in the big theater and of course, our piano man Jimmy!

Overall Samana was interesting and we really did enjoy seeing the countryside. For Adam and I it was really the first time either of us had been to a third world country. It's not a great port of call - maybe in 10 years it will be built up and it will be, but for now, if you book a cruise that goes to Samana, don't go there! Find another cruise!

Some photos from Samana for you!

First Day at Sea

2009-12-12T12:27:00.004-05:00

Sunday on the cruise was our first full day at sea. Because of how rough it was, I didn't sleep all night and I was not feeling well at all. The weather was horrible, wind, rain, storms, so the decks were closed so we were relegated to the inside of the ship all day.

We decided to kill some time in the Spinnaker Lounge on the boat but then shortly after saw Bingo was starting there. OOO Bingo - I love bingo - so we thought we'd play - however, it was upwards of 50 bucks just to play bingo. So instead, we just laughed at the herds of people dropping hundreds of dollars to play bingo and 'win big'.

Since the lounge had filled, we made our way to the bowling alley - yes our boat had a bowling alley. Just a word of advice, it's VERY hard to bowl when the boat is rocking every which way. Adam did awesome, scoring a 99 (low for him, but high on the rough seas!). We took in the Art Auction on board, and were disappointed when we saw that the piece we liked was $4300!!! But it was really fun to watch the auction and learn about some of the artists.

Sunday was so rough, even the crew members were having a hard time walking straight. We spent most of the afternoon and early evening in our room watching movies and napping. We finally made it out of our room for dinner, and we went to the main dining room again. The one thing we loved about the Norwegian line of boats is that you could eat in the main dining rooms or the many other on board restaurants. And you didn't ever have to eat with anyone else - even in the main dining rooms. So it was wonderful to be together and not sitting with strangers every night. We also chose Norwegian because it's a more casual line - never had to get dressed up for a meal more than a nice skirt or pair of slacks. No formal nights, no black ties. LOVE IT!

Sunday night we spent in the piano bar again - We really were digging the piano guy Jimmy - doesn't play with any music, just by ear and fake books... knows the most obscure songs and lyrics as well. Hell, any piano player that can play Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano is pretty insane!!

We're Crusin'

2009-12-12T12:08:00.003-05:00

So in November, Adam and I finally took our first vacation of the year (I know it was November OK!). We took a week long cruise on the Norwegian Pearl to the Dominican Republic and the US and British Virgin Islands.

It was our first cruise, and we still haven't decided if we love it or not, but we had a really nice time just being away and reconnecting together with how busy we'd been the past year.

We left from Miami, but arrived down there a day early to enjoy the city and not deal with late flights or anything. Miami was certainly dirtier than we thought, and we didn't really have the time or energy to head over to South Beach, but we did go to Bayside Marketplace on Friday night to walk along the water and have dinner.

The next day we headed off to the Port of Miami to meet the boat, and had to basically sign our medical life away saying we haven't had swine flu, don't currently have swine flu, nor do we know anyone or been in contact with people with swine flu.

When we got on the boat, we were greeted with our free glass of champagne and then hit the deck to kill some time before our cabin was ready. It was SO incredibly windy just sitting in port, and once we started departing, it got so choppy. But it was fun to see the departure, people in cars taking pictures of our boat leaving, music, dancing, drinks.

Turns out, we were hitting the tail end of the hurricane that was in the Gulf of Mexico, but the system around the storm was just as bad and stretching over Florida to the Miami side. It was so rocky and windy that the water was just waving right out of the pools.

While walking around the ship later, we heard a call on the PA for the stretcher team to go to the pool deck. Later, Captain Lars came on to tell us that there was an injured passenger (now this is like 3-4 hours after we left port) and that we were still close enough for the coast guard to come and air lift them off the boat. So Capt. Lars just had us spinning circles in the Atlantic until the coast guard could get to the ship to air lift the injured passenger off the boat. The spinning, plus the rocking and waves made for one incredibly sea sick evening.

That first night on the boat we had a wonderful dinner in the main dining room with an awesome waitress who brought us double soufflé - so yummy! After dinner we spent the evening in the piano lounge - where we spent most of our nights actually - and we were both so nauseated that we could just sit still and sip ginger ale.

Here are some pictures from our departure from Miami.

What are you watching??

2009-10-26T13:54:00.003-04:00

What are you watching this fall on TV? I like to know what I'm missing! We did give up on some shows already - NCIS: LA, The Forgotten, and some are already cancelled - which is OK because we didn't love them.

We still have our old favorites that we are watching - Big Bang, How I Met your Mother, Grey's, Private Practice, Office, Project Runway, Psych (loosing interest fast though), Biggest Looser (thank god for the DVR - I just like to see who gets eliminated, I don't need to watch people work out!), Bones, and our TLC Shows.

We really picked up the ABC Comedies this year - Cougartown, Modern Family and The Middle are ALL great and we're enjoying those so much. Also - I just recorded White Collar on USA and can't wait to watch that - My mom insists it's great and we'll love it. Also, totally digging Glee this year - just for me! It's so teeny bopper stupid sinful but I love it!

So what new shows should we be watching that we're missing?

We have yard!

2009-10-13T19:15:00.003-04:00

Well shortly after the house went on the market, we were getting comments about there not being enough back yard, that was cleared at least.

So we ripped out 3 huge pine trees, ripped out our garden, and spent two miserably hot

weekends ripping crap out and laying sod. This is how it looked right after we put it down, now it's blended in much more to the rest of the grass.

Not bad for a $150 project!! It doubled our cleared back yard space.

No more comments that there's not enough yard - but still no offers - le sigh!

Down By The Bay...

2009-09-07T13:11:00.003-04:00

I had a cleanup on Friday morning (which was supposed to be my day off, but whatever) with a group for work. I got there early, since I wasn't quite sure where the area was.

It really is a pretty area in Narragansett - Camp Cronin Fishing Area. It had a great view of Point Judith Light House, some nice rocky coastline and some nice sandy beach.

I love getting to cleanup sites early so I can take a few pictures and read my book before the group comes - and this morning the weather was just perfect to enjoy the peace and quiet prior to their arrival.

Give it up for Boston...

2009-08-30T20:06:00.003-04:00

Thursday night Adam and I went to our 2nd Red Sox game this season. It was a split game for me as the Red Sox took on the Chicago White Sox. Adam assured me if I wore white socks with my tennis shoes and my Red Sox shirt, I'd be supporting either team in a win.

Unfortunately the sox of the red color lost - stupid Tazawa on the mound - two games this season, he was up to pitch at both of them and he SUCKS! How's he's pitching in the majors is beyond us. The rookie they brought in near the end was much better! Final score 9-5.

It really was a great game, but what made it even more fun was the opening antics -
The National Anthem was sung by - (brace yourself mom) Shaun Cassidy. Oh yeah, seriously - CUTE! Still!!! Great voice... the women were going crazy!!! The rest of the night I had "I Think I Love You" stuck in my head - over, and over and over - until the bottom of the 7th and we sang Sweet Caroline.

And 3 first pitches all at the same time, 2 people, I don't know who the heck they were, but the best first pitch was by Boston's own Dennis Leary!

All in all, a great night out at the ball park!
We're so lucky that it's so easy for us to get up to Boston for the games!

Dennis Leary is in the blue hat, right above the guy with the huge head who walked in to my picture.

Dennis Leary, far left on the green outside the pitchers mound.

Shaun Cassidy - oh God Bless The Partridge Family!

Chillin' at the game post too many Fenway Franks!

How many people does it take to wet the dirt at Fenway?? 6, the answer is 6. Um yeah... sure.

Meet the newest member of our family....

2009-08-30T20:01:00.003-04:00

We call her Welch's the Cat...

Surprisingly, she looks a lot like Sneezy ;-)

We picked her out today at Sam's Club.

Tee-Hee!!!

2009-08-29T17:27:00.002-04:00

I took a group of my volunteers from work and staff to the Paw Sox game the other week as an appreciation night.

This sign struck Adam and I as quite humorous at a baseball field!

Lazy in the Sunshine

2009-08-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

Is it worth it to even travel anymore??

2009-08-27T09:37:00.002-04:00

I just read this story on CNN about how US Air is increasing their baggage fees by another $5.

OK $5 - that's my breakfast at Dunkin' when I splurge once in a great while on a medium iced tea and a egg white turkey sausage flat bread - no biggie.

But earlier this year, American increased their baggage fees too.

Couple that on top of the rising cost of the tickets - it's a near impossibility to travel for Adam and I - two people - let alone a whole family - I don't know how they do it?

Case in point - my mom wants to come to RI for Thanksgiving - that plan has now been scrapped because for 4 months now we haven't been able to find anything under $400+ bucks for her for 3 days - not worth it what so ever.

Yesterday, I priced airfare for Adam and I for a jaunt to Vegas - the one city you can find a cheap hotel room in, (because we're in desperate need of some down time together away from computers, emails, phones and the house), over $400 on southwest. SOUTHWEST - the supposedly cheap airline is charging $400 - last year we could get that flight from Providence for 2 something.

Adam and I have used up 2 of our 3 weeks of vacation already - both times opting to stay home and work on the house because we can't afford to fly anywhere and can't get our act together far enough out to plan a driving trip somewhere.

So my question is to you with families out there? How do you even afford to take your 1+ children to Disney any more for a trip, the trip every true American family wants to make with their children at some point in the duration of their innocent childhood - the airfare, the hotels, the park fees, the food. It's insane?!?

I know people on the news are tauting that you can find awesome deals right now - but where are they please? Because anytime I search I find NO DEALS. Sorry if that deal is in the middle of bumble-fuck Mississippi, eh I'm not interested.

I'm starting to feel that the airlines and travel industry are returning to the days when travel was a luxury for the wealthy - because let's face it you have to be pulling in 6 figures to fly your family on a vacation or rack up a pretty hefty Visa bill!!

Last Weekend

2009-08-20T12:42:00.002-04:00

Well most of our weekends are pretty uneventful - cleaning house, laundry, errands, etc.

But this past weekend I can say was swamped!

Saturday was the Annual Save The Bay Swim for my work, and Adam as always was a trooper to join me at 5:30 am in Jamestown to help. He's a great schlepper, helper and is a mean parking patrol person!

I spend most of my time at the event in and out of the water so we rarely see one another.

But he's the best at always making it to the after party in time before they clean up to grab me a Del's Lemonade and a hot dog!!

We rushed home from the event to get cleaned up because we had to leave for a showing on the house.

So lunch and the market it was.

Saturday night we were so exhausted I dont' even think we did anything.

Sunday we were supposed to leave free to see houses with our agent, but we got everything in we wanted to see on Friday night so we had a day to chill - a rarity in the summer for us.

We went down to Galilee and got some great goodies at the farmers market, including two bottles of our favorite local honey.

Then we headed to the docks for lobsters and picked out our dinner! A little lunch on the beach - steamers and fries, some ice cream (dripping down adam's arms!), pick up some clams to have with the lobsters for dinner - what a great and perfect day! So glad we FINALLY made it down during lobster season!

And MMMM DELISH the lobsters were wonderful! Even the kitties enjoyed their pieces - yes we give the cats lobster - we love them and they are spoiled brats.

However the night ended quickly for me as I came down with some heat stroke. I guess little liquid over two days in the hot sun all day with only a diet pepsi and half a bottle of wine with dinner that night will do that to a girl - not smart - but oh well!

WOW that really is boring now that I re-read all of that!
Sorry!
We have nothing eventful in our lives other than work.

Movie Review

2009-08-10T21:43:00.001-04:00

We decided to take some time off on sunday and just spend the day together. We haven't really done much of anything fun this summer so far except for our trip to Boston. Our weekends are filled with housework and house hunting.

So we went to lunch sunday and to see The Hangover.

Dear Lord I Haven't laughed that hard in the longest time, by far one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long while.

It's a bit crude and vulgar so if you aren't in to that skip it - but if you've got a sick sense of humor like us - You'll love it!!!

Oh I forgot - what's taking up our time...

2009-08-04T22:03:00.001-04:00

We've recently both become highly addicted to Restaurant city on Facebook. Holy Crap! If you're on facebook and not playing it - start - and if you aren't our friend on facebook -shame on you - Adam needs more friends to be playing - he's a bit jealous of my 41 friends I get to play this game with.

Check it out!

Wow...

2009-08-04T21:53:00.002-04:00

So sorry - It's been an age since I've blogged.

Not that I know how many people actually READ this blog. Maybe it's because when you don't have a kid and all you do is work you really have nothing interesting to blog about - hmmm is that a reason to have a kid - so I can blog - oh magic 8 ball - all signs point to NO!

Anywho - we've been up to no good but though I'd at least let you know that. Yes we are alive out here in RI!

We've had a rainy start to the summer, we all complained. We've had a miserably hot and humid end of July and start to August - and we'reall complaining.

We're both super busy at work - and working on the house. Big news is we're looking to move.
We're staying in RI (after a very hard decision) and we are now looking for a house with more land, more space and NOT in the city!! We dont' want to see our neighbors! But we'll see what we end up with - wish us luck.

It's incredible how nice the house looks now - note to self- no knick knacks or family pictures go up in the new house!!

Let's see what else - Adam finally made it fishing this season with his friend Tim. I've met up with the girls a few times for dinners out and such.

That's it! No trips, no travels - almost out of vacation time (saving the last of it for either a trip in the fall or for when we move in to a new house).

Cats are good, not liking all of the changes in the house and how all of their toys and beds are now packed away.

Hope you're all well - maybe we'll have more exciting things to blog about in the near future - that is if you like reading about work!!

Once in a lifetime 4th of July

2009-07-05T21:11:00.003-04:00

Adam and I had the most wonderful 4th of July.

For 6 years we've been in RI we've talked about going to Boston for the 5th - I know crazy.

Well Adam snagged us Red Sox tickets for the 4th and so we decided in January we'd make a long holiday weekend of the game.

We arrived in Boston on Friday - no traffic - easy ride up. Great hotel which we both swear we stayed at on our first trip in to Boston 6 years ago.

Friday we decided to walk over to the Hatch Shell to see about getting in to see the Pops practice concert that night- FUNNY! I think peole had to be lined up at like 9 am to get in to the Hatch Shell. We quickly decided it was so NOT worth it to wait in line and not see the show. So we walked around the Esplanade and tried to come up with a game plan for the 4th. We strolled around Newbury street too - and I finally got to go to Lill - I had so much fun trying to decide what purse to make, but Adam was quickly bored and we left - now I have an excuse to go to my friend's party in the coming weeks!

After a quick trip back to the hotel we decided we'd take the T over to the North End for dinner - since that is our favorite part of the city. We found a great Italian place and had the most wonderful dinner - great salads and awesome woodfired pizzas. The Sangria wasn't half bad either!

We spent the evening strolling around the city, Feuniel Hall, watching the street performers and enjoying the wonderful weather on our walk back to the hotel.

For the 4th, we initially thought we'd get up at 8 and go to the hatch shell to get wrist bands to go back in after the game, but after the insanity that was the practice concert - we decided getting there at 8 wasn't going to cut it and that arriving after the game we'd still probably be without a spot. So we slept in and took our time strolling the city to get over to Fenway.

The game - despite the loss - was a great game! We had excellent seats, delicious Fenway Franks and ice cream helmet treats and were so thrilled to be in the Grandstand under the balcony and out of the hot sun.

The game was Veterans and ALS Day and Curt Schilling came out to read Lou Gherigs's Greatest Man Alive Speech before the game started - that was so awesome to see Schilling - he's one of my favorite players.

After the game, we headed back to the hotel to cool off and decided we'd give going to the Esplanade our best shot.

So glad we gave it a shot instead of just going over to MIT. We had a great spot on the lawn in direct view of the barge.

We had MANY hours to wait though, and chatted with those around us and enjoyed the people watching. We saw some beautiful dogs that had on red white and blue bandanas and little patriotic top hats - doggie size - kid you not - it was awesome! We watched the boats on the water - and even watch a small sail boat loose two of it's three sailors and have to swim to another boat. That boat seriously had some issues!

We snacked on over priced vendor food and hung out waiting for the concert to start at 8:30 and be piped in to the Esplanade. The cocnert was great, even if we couldn't see it. We sang along to Neil Diamond and the All American Sing Along. Then it was time for the reason we were there.

The fireworks were WONDERFUL! Seriously some of the best fireworks we've seen. It was so worth it. We were so close actually we both got ash on us and paper from the firework shells... yeah nothing says you had a good fourth unless you're covered in shrapnel when you leave!

After the fireworks we strolled back to the hotel and called it a night.

It was by far one of the best Fourth of Julys I've ever had in my life. Very cool - I've always wanted to go to Boston for the 4th - and now that I've done it, not sure I need to do it again - but maybe a few years from now who knows.

Pictures of the weekend are below - Enjoy! I'll try posting a video clip too!

More Movie Reviews

2009-06-30T12:25:00.002-04:00

Saw a TON of movies while home with mom.

Reign Over Me: interesting, thought provoking, dont' need to see it again though but great acting by Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Good rental though.

Lucky You: Interesting, deep, exciting if you like poker and vegas - Drew Barrymore was great and so was Eric Bana - a good rental.

No Reservations: LOVED IT! Major Chick Flick. Oh I can't stop thinking about how wonderfully loving, fun, and romantic this movie was - made me majorly crave spaghetti though so we had to go out for pasta after we watched it. CUTE MOVIE!!

Enchanted: Oh my mom was right, it's so a Stephany Movie - girly, fun, princessy, all me wrapped up in a ball of fun. And who doesn't like to watch McDreamy?!?!

So Funny I Thought I'd Pee my Pants!

2009-06-30T12:24:00.003-04:00

I took mom to see the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee musical while I was home.

Seriously, could have peed my pants. If you can catch it at a local theater or even in NYC or something - do - it's so funny!

I'm a huge fan of the National Spelling Bee and this certainly picks up on some of the quirks of the spellers and such.

Hysterically funny!!!

Well that wasn't how it was supposed to end!!

2009-06-30T12:22:00.002-04:00

I just got back from Chicago from visiting mom and we took in My Sister's Keeper while I was in.

I went in with low expectations - since movies based on books I've read and loved often disappoint me. The only movie I've enjoyed as much or more than a book was The Notebook.

The start of the movie kept the same tone as the book, so I was thinking, well this could work.

Then then ending came and in the middle of the theater I leaned over to my mom and said "Um that's not how the book ends at ALL!!!" other ladies were commenting at the same time. VERY DISAPPOINTING.

If you read My Sister's Keeper and loved it - skip the movie -you'll be so angry you saw it based on how incredible that book is!

Nom Nom Nom 4 Fud

2009-05-20T21:04:00.002-04:00

Adam found this new game online and we have been playing it for a good portion of the night.

If you're a cat lover you're going to really enjoy this!

Nom Nom Nom 4 Fud

Bashy gets a pizza strip!

2009-05-17T16:29:00.002-04:00

So, if you're a RIer or have been here to see us we may have introduced you to Pizza Strips.

These have quickly become a favorite in our house and we try and pick up a tray over long weekends so we can enjoy them.

Essentially they are pizza dough with sauce baked on and that's it. You can get white strips, which have cheese, but we prefer the ones with just sauce.

Well I brought somehome from work the other day and Adam and I had one while we were cooking supper (they are small squares people so it's not like eating a piece of pizza before dinner).

Well Bashful got to be Mr. Jealousy over this so we decided to let him sniff it out to see if he liked one - since it was the last one, we let him take a stab at it.

Well not only did his nose go insane, he went CRAZY and had to have it. It was seriously like he was going "Oh Pizza Strip, get in my belly!"

Here he is licking it to death and trying to bite the cheese and dough.

We couldn't stop laughing.

Sunny Kitties!

2009-05-17T14:55:00.004-04:00

It's the best time of year where we can keep the storm door open and the cats and sit and sun themselves.

They fight over the rays of sunshine pouring in the door and eventually they both get over-heated and fight over the shady spots as well.

The sun makes Sneezy very tired and does the opposite for Bashful - it makes him Crazy!!! Like fierce you don't know what came over him crazy!

Bashful has disturbed Sneezy
Bashful loves to roll in the sun!

What Mama??

I so tired... Sun makes Sneezy Sleepy!!

Can you seek her tongue hanging out because she's so overheated??

A Little Old but...

2009-05-17T14:30:00.004-04:00

I just came across these pictures from Easter.

We had a quiet Easter at home just the two of us - Adam got me this beautiful lilly for our 1,000th day of marriage - and we colored eggs and had a ball!

We had so much fun coloring our dozen eggs that we broke out the raw eggs and colored those as well - not recommended for children!

We found these new Pas Q-tip dye sticks that you break and the dye goes to the cotton tip. They are concentrated dye, so they stain really well. But you can do some pretty cool patterns with them. 99 cents at Walgreens, look for them next year.

Finished Eggs, Dots, Humpty, all sorts of fun!

We even got baskets from the Easter Bunny!

Crack Here! This was a raw one, so I did crack there!

Adam was very proud of his Humpty Dumpty

Even Miss Sneezy got in on the action. She was a big fan of the Pas dye sticks, probably has something to do with her love of actual Q-tips to carry around the house and bap around. Was a chore to keep her away from these!

My beatiful lilly from Adam - I love how he remembers the little things I never remember or know about. Who knows when their 1,000 day of marraige is?? My husband does!!

Staycation

2009-05-16T18:27:00.002-04:00

Adam and I had planned to take thispast week off of work and go away. We were between NYC, a cruise, a low cost trip to Vegas or Disney.

However, we decided to save the $ at the last minute and just take the time off and be home.

We had a workcation/staycation.

It was the most beautiful week to take off as well - such perfect weather.

We spent Saturday and Sunday doing gardening. The veggies are in, the annuals are in, and we planted a new tree in our yard as well - a crabapple that has just the most beautiful flowers. Adam even helped me out by digging a whole new flower bed near our mailbox - the area that never grows grass.

We got everything in the ground and mulched as well.

We spent monday closing out our storage unit that we had for almost 3 years - it was full of stuff that was in the basement that we had to store when we completed the basement a while back. We took stuff to salvation army, tossed a lot of stuff, and well, the rest is sitting in the basement waiting to find a home and go through it.

Tuesday we had planned on heading up to boston, but decided we'd scratch that trip since we'll be up there for the 4th. Instead we spent the day relaxing a bit, and then headed up to Federal Hill for lunch and shopping and then a stroll through the zoo - unfortuantely we only had an hour before the zoo closed for the day.

Wednesday we went down to Wakefield, which we've never been to before and saw some cute shops. We also went to see Kenyon's Grist Mill down in South County and saw how they grind the corn. No tours or anything but it was still a pretty place to see. We also went to Crazy Burger in Narragansett for lunch that day since I've always wanted to try it. We ended the day with Pub Quiz with our good friends and got our asses handed to us - stupid cheaters using I phones!

Thursday we relaxed headed to the wineries in CT and checked out Jonathan Edwards and Stonington Vineyards- we had some great wine tastings and bought a few nice bottles as well. We ended the day at Foxwoods - and we did great not gambling! We walked around and enjoyed the shops and dinner.

Friday we relaxed around the house all day and it was a wonderful treat to just be lazy at home.

Today we got to meet some new neighbors and do laundry and grocery shopping - oh so exciting I know. And tomorrow we'll relax before going back to work.

It was a nice staycation. A good way to save money, eat out at some new places in our area, and just relax and take a much needed break from work for both of us.

I highly recommend staycation - it's a great way to explore your own area! I feel more versed in things RI now because of our time we spent exploring our own little state.

Sneezy has a new trick!

2009-04-04T14:14:00.003-04:00

Not one we're encouraging by ANY means... but it just happened and well it was too funny not to take a few pictures of.
Greg and Sandy this one is particularly for you!!
And yes, don't worry, the shelf was cleaned when she got out!
While unloading the dishwasher the other week, we had the door open to where we put the dishes and the shelf was empty, so we turn around and find this!

Some Particularly Photogenic Cats

2009-04-04T14:07:00.003-04:00

We've gotten some cute cat pictures lately! Don't know what's going on with them but they are hanging out with us more and a little more social lately. Which proves for some fun pictures!

Look, I'm Darling!

Sleeping Please, don't disturb the Bashy!

Look, we sleep cuddle again!

Ok, enough St. Patty's Day fun! Get this off of me!

Mommy's new favorite picture, sleeping Sneezy and Sunning Bashy!

A Very Productive Weekend

2009-03-09T12:19:00.002-04:00

What a nice weekend we had. The weather was too beautiful to pass up so we spent the days just driving around, running silly errands and being out - it was so nice!

Saturday we did a couple of quick errands and had lunch out at Ted's - our favorite burger spot! Mmmm bison burgers! We had every intention of going for a nice walk when we got home but by the time we got home the skies clouded over and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees - so instead we ran laundry and watched tv together and cleaned up the house.

Sunday we helped the economy! We feel really good about it!
I got some new spring clothes with my Christmas money - why not everything was 30% off your total purchase. Then we went to DSW and got new tennis shoes for adam. But he takes so long to find shoes, in the mean time I found two pairs on clearance I liked - one pair was 80% off, one was 70% off - how could I pass those up?!

We even not a microphone that is supposed to work with the wii so we can play guitar hero with the singer as well - we'll see if it works.

When we got hom Sunday, we finished up laundry, watched some tv, made a lasagna - my first ever lasagna thank you very much, and watched a movie.

MOVIE REVIEW

We watched Employee of the Month that was on the DVR. It was one of those stupid funny movies about two employees at a Super Club - aka CostCo - who fight it out for Employee of the Month and the affection of the new sexy female cashier.

Very quirky and funny!
Ceratinly a good one to watch if you catch it again on Comedy Central.

Nice weekend... wish we had more like it!
But alas, now I am in to my busy season at work - buh bye weekends - I bid you farewell - until November!

Movie Reviews

2009-03-02T20:19:00.003-05:00

We've seen quite a few movies lately - so I'm going to put them all in to one post.

Sweeney Todd - eh so so - gory of course. The sound was pretty bad, it was really hard to understand what they were saying a large portion of the time. Interesting movie - not the story, just how the movie was done.

Gridiron Gang - This was on our blockbuster list to see but we caughtit on tv first. SO SO SO SO good, rent it catch it on FX, whatever, just watch it. The Rock was great in it - I like him in these feel good types of roles. The story is wonderful, inspiring, heartwarming. Would so watch this again.

Mama Mia - I watched this today on my day out of work - yes I had a snow day. Anywho I knew Adam would have NO interest in this movie so I got this to watch alone and it was so fun and good - especially if you're a huge ABBA fan like I am. The cast was great, the movie was so fun, I just wanted to get up and dance! Will be buying this one for sure!

Bashful loves the piano too!!

2009-03-02T19:57:00.002-05:00

So I'm addicted to my piano - hence the lack of blog updates lately.

But the cats are really enjoying the piano as well. I'm sure it's not the music, I think it's more the fact that it guarentees me sitting in one spot for an extended period of time.

This is Bashful at the piano with me, he likes to sit next to me. However Sneezy sits behind me on the dining room table and usually smells my hair the whole time until she settles in.

Dear Rhode Island....

2009-02-21T10:25:00.002-05:00

Dearest Rhode Island,

I've lived here for 6 years now - not all of them wonderful - but we've done fun things, seen great places and met kind folks. But I have to ask - are you making me stupid and mean??

I ask for a few simple reasons. I'm not sure if it's in my "old age" that I'm growing dumber and meaner, but really I can't think that's possibly it. Sure, I may not be able to tolerate "stupid people" much as well as I used to - but I mean I really just feel DUMB!

Sure there are those moment when I'm teaching workshops or working with training NFP program groups or contributing to work or boards I'm on that I say something and I go - WOW that made me sound really smart! But then I hit the every day mundane things and it's like - D'OH I don't know how to do basic math, spelling, grammar anymore - what happened? Could the lack of intelligent residents be rubbing off on me?

I know I've picked up some of the RI vernacular - but I did that when I lived in CA, IL, and IN - so I know that's just something I'm prone to. But really, the fact that I feel like I have too many "blonde moments" is starting to take it's toll on me!

And can living in a place make you too mean? I ask because it's been brought to my attention that I'm not as nice as I used to be - I'm more "rough around the edges and tough". I always thought is was me finding my own and standing up for myself that made me this way - but apparently that issue is up for debate.

I know I"m still a compassionate and giving person, and caring as well. I'm good to friends and loved ones and care about the community at large. But yesterday at lunch this topic came up and we all got to laughing and we joked that so in so is this and so in so is that and well I'm just a bitch - and we laughed -and I did to. I dont know if it's the fact that New Englanders just aren't as warm and open as Midwesterners, but I am certainly more guarded and cautious and protective - does that make me mean?

Oh Rhode Island - please don't let me get any meaner or dumber! What will happen when we leave RI and move elsewhere - will my brains and kindess come back??

Hockey Time

2009-02-07T16:58:00.003-05:00

For my birthday in January, Adam got me tickets to the Providence Bruins hockey game. I really do enjoy hockey - especially where there are some good fights - which you see way more of in the local leagues than the NHL.

We went last night and were shocked at how packed the arena was! Must be the thing to do in RI on a Friday night with your kids and friends.

We had excellent seats - although next time we'd invest in the next section down, and high price range up (ooo a whole $7 bucks more!) because there were a lot less kids in those sections and people sat during the game instead of getting up and down.

The Bruins played the Manitoba Moose - come on you know I'd want to go see a Canadian team play - I love my Canadians!

The distinction in how the two teams played was incredible too - when our players didn't have control of the puck, they just kind of stood still on the ice, the Moose were always on the move, with or without puck - which made it a lot easier for them to pick up speed and get going when they got the puck passed to them.

The game was exciting. Tied at the end of 3 periods of play - 5 minute sudden death overtime - still tied - so then into a slapshot contest - and the Bruins pulled it out and won the game.

Two awesome fights on the ice - one was a 17 minute ejection from the game per player. Broken stick, lost helmet. Great fun!

Best part though, in between periods before the Zamboni machines came out, they bring out different RI youth hockey teams to play 5 minute scrimmage games. Oh my gosh the first set was really tiny kids who would skate and just spontaneously fall on the ice. They were friggin the most adorable thing I've ever seen in all of their pads out there on the ice chasing the light weight puck around. The second scrimmage game was two teams that had older kids and they certainly had a little more control on the ice and with the puck. Both scrimmage games had no score but oh my gosh it was seriously the cutest 10 minutes of my life I've ever seen!

We'll certainly be going back for more games. What a great inexpensive evening out!

Sneezy Snuggles In

2009-01-25T20:03:00.002-05:00

Well, I wanted to show you all how much Sneezy loves the Snuggly that Sandy made me for my birthday. I had it over my shoulders and she jumped right up on the couch to settle in on it and she slept there for a good few hours.

Steph Also Turned the big 2-9

2009-01-25T17:21:00.003-05:00

The thing I love about being married to Adam is neither one of us can forget the other's birthday - ever. He's on Christmas, I'm exactly 2 weeks later on Jan. 8th. Which is also Elvis' Birthday! Maybe that explains my affinity for shaking my hips, peanut butter, bananas and fluff.

I had a very low key birthday this year - everyone asks if you do anything special for your birthday and it's like - um no I'm working. Although I did get to go to the chiropractor and that was a great birthday treat!

We ate at home - always a crockpot meal for my birthday. And I was blessed with my friend Kara from work brining me in a cupcake from Gregg's - SO GOOD!!!

It was one of the best birthdays I've ever had. Truly. So many people remembered - maybe Facebook reminding all 144 of my closest friends had something to do with that! I got lots of phone calls, emails, messages, and cards.

I even had a really special gift sent from Katie in Ireland! Such a pretty necklace and earring set!

Sandy sent me the coziest Simpson's Snuggly to wear around the house - that she made herself - and Sandy - I LOVE IT! It stays on the couch downtairs to put on at night and if I'm not wearing it - sneezy is sleeping on it!

Adam got me tickets to a Providence Bruins Hockey Game and Guitar Hero for Wii.

It was such a great day - thank you to everyone!!

It was a very Amazon Birthday!

My Simpson's Snuggly from Sandy - LOVE IT!

Sleeping Cat, Chocolate Cupacake with a pound of icing, and cozy pjs - Now that's a birthday!

Back off Adam - no one comes between a birthday girl and her chocolate cupcake - I am prepared to take you down for this!!

Hi From the Kids!

2009-01-25T16:55:00.003-05:00

The furry kids that is! - Sneezy sits pretty, and rolls around on her purr pads and Bashful - well he just spends 22 hours a day sleeping!

Happy Belated Birthday to Adam

2009-01-25T16:02:00.005-05:00

So... We celebrated Christmas just the two of us this year and that meant Adam's birthday as well! How I love my Christmas Baby!

It was a wonderful, quiet, peaceful, and relaxing holiday the two of us!

Wanted to share some pictures with you of our little make shift holiday - we didn't decorate, we didn't do the big hullaballoo of gifts - we were very low key and it was so nice!

Our little Charlie Brown Tree and some small presents

Bashful isn't so sure of his new toys

It was so warm on Christmas the cats spent much of the day in the open windows watching the snow melt.

Christmas/Birthday Dinner - duck, rice, salad, zucchini

Adam's Birthday Celebration - Movie Theme

Rice Krispy Tower for the Birthday Boy!

My Family

2009-01-22T10:08:00.001-05:00

From Pyzam.com

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

Movie Review

2009-01-15T13:57:00.002-05:00

Mall Cop

We were fortunate to receive a free pass to go see the sneak peak of Mall Cop on Monday Night. We'd seen the previews for this movie and both thought it looked pretty funny, but certainly not paying 10 bucks of our hard earned money to go see.

On a side note: Why can't screenwriters, directors and producers and even actors realize that - can that not be the standard for making a movie? Is this let me drop $10 of my hard earned paycheck worthy?? Is this really $20 worthy for someone to bring a family member or date? It it $50 worth to take 2 people and get popcorn, candy and a soda. If not - don't make it - save the millions of dollars and move on to something more worthwhile!

Seriously? Because most movies are not even $10 worthy in my world! Hence most movie viewing in our house happens on rental or television.

Back to my review - rant over.

Stupid Funny. Kevin James was hysterical. Pretty predictable movie - but cute none-the-less.
Certainly worth the rental.

Worst part about the movie - which I don't think any of you will have to experience...

The smelly (kid you're too old to not wear deoderant!), hacking up a lung (seriously is that smokers cough - you're like 12!), text messaging (dude you're texting to the person one seat over from you - can't you talk to her in like 90 minutes?!?) ridiculing (um it's a movie, you don't have to tease the actor for being a - what did you call it 'fat stupid ass') brat!

I leaned over to Adam before the movie started that all of the kids sitting to my left were the reason I have NO desire to have a child! Shutting down ovaries and all maternal instincts NOW!

Movie Review

2009-01-15T13:56:00.001-05:00

Stepbrothers.

One of those really stupid funny, bathroom, vulgar humor movies and completely worth the rental.

If your mind goes those crazy places ours do - you'll love it!

Nuf' said!

Some people post videos of their kids...

2008-12-21T20:29:00.006-05:00

We post pictures of the cats

This is the time of year when the cats get cuddly again. It seems they ONLY snuggle in the winter time when the house is a little cooler.

But then cuddles turn in to massive fights - I have great video of it but stupid blogger won't let me post it.

It's a shortcut Christmas

2008-12-06T22:32:00.002-05:00

Adam and I decided to take the easy route this year for the holidays. We have opted for no tree- this way we have no decorating and more importantly no taking down the tree. We are going to put up our mini charlie brown tree courtesy of our friend Karl years ago. Adam wants us to put it on the piano so that the piano is the technically under the tree - Touche Mr. Hessler, smart thinking.

We will still put up stockings because we did do stockings for one another. And Adam wants me to put up my village for us to enjoy as well for the winter.

But that's it - no tree, no lights, no ornaments, no snowman collection, no bobbleheads, nothing this year.

WHY?? Well 1. it's easier. 2. we already have our gifts and our enjoying them - my piano his computer 3. christmas falls so funny this year on the thursday it's like there's no time to enjoy it all and finally 4. I have to work 3 out of 4 weekends in January - so it's likely things wouldn't get taken down for a LONG time or Adam would have to do it himself, and he wasn't quite keen on that.

At first it was hard to come to terms with this short cut christmas - but conisdering how much it becomes a drag to get all of the stuff out and up and then back each year - i'm kind of looking forward to a year off!

TV Movie Review

2008-12-03T10:00:00.002-05:00

A few weeks back I recorded Accidental Friendship on the Hallmark Channel.

First off I adore Hallmark movies. They are always good, quality movies and not cheezy like Lifetime movies sometimes can be - unless it's their holiday movies.

I knew Adam would have zero interest in seeing this so I watched it myself and it was so incredibly good from start to finish.

Chandra Wilson - who plays Dr. Bailey on Grey's was absolutely incredible in this role - I mean she totally deserves an award nomination for it - she was wonderful!

It's a true story about the friendship that develops between a homeless woman and a police officer - and even though I didn't have to break out the Kleenex, there were a lot of cute moments, moments that break your heart, and moments that tug at your heart strings.

It's still running on cable so if you can record it or catch it - do so!

Movie Review

2008-12-03T09:58:00.003-05:00

What Happens In Vegas

Ok it was one I wanted to see - not so much Adam. But we rented it and watched it. Cute, but not a necessity to see. It's totally predictable from start to finish. There were some funny moments but near the end it started lagging.

Unless you're a die hard Ashton or Cameron fan, you could skip it.

Movie Review

2008-12-03T09:56:00.001-05:00

We got Vantage Point from our Blockbuster list and watched that this past weekend and WOW talk about an incredible movie.

It's seriously one that if I didn't wait to see it on rental, I would have had NO Problem paying 10 bucks to see it in the theater.

It's thrilling from start to finish and keeps you thinking - no yawning or dozing during this movie - it was such a good watch!

We highly recommend this one!

Movie Review

2008-12-03T09:55:00.003-05:00

We finally finished Season 2 of Dexter on DVD the other weekend and holy cow just as good if not better than Season 1.

This show never bores us - it's excitement from episode one to episode 12 (or 13). It's the one show I would actually ponder adding Showtime to my cable for!

If you haven't gotten the Dexter bug yet at your house - do rent it - start with season 1 you need to watch them all to get what's going on - it's fabulous - you will not be disappointed!

I Love a P-I-A-N-O

2008-11-30T12:16:00.003-05:00

Well, for those of you who haven't heard yet, I got a Piano! Yes a for real console piano.

I've been wanting one for a LONG time but new pianos are so flippin expensive. Finally I decided to see what was up on Craig's List and found a TON of pianos for sale. We looked at a few and settled on this one - It's a Kimball Console - and Kimball is what I grew up playing.
It needed some work when we got it and I knew that would be OK because we were both in love with it as a piecec of furniture - it was in beautiful condition.

We stumbled upon a great local piano mover who also has 27 years experience tuning pianos by ear and piano restoration.

So good old Paul has been hard at work on my new baby. Hewas here on Friday and took the WHOLE piano apart in our little dining room - he fixed the action - so all of the keys play again and play well, he took out some of the rining, he took everything apart and gave the piano a good cleaning and then he took out all of the keys so I could clean them.

I've never ever seen in my life the whole inners of a piano - I mean sure you see the inside with the hammers and strings, but I mean how it all comes apart and goes back together is incredible!!!

Adam and I dilligently cleaned all of the keys by hand one by one. He's taken a few of the pieces back to his shop to fix - adding felt, screws that were missing, etc. And he's coming back next weekend to put it back together and do the last tuning - surprisingly it was only a half step out of tune.

I'm in love - I mean absolute love. Sure it makes the dining room a little small - but it's the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for or want. I said to my best friend that I feel like I've been missing something not having a piano or playing music. Something was missing in my life and I feel whole again. And Happy. It's incredible how music affects me.

And we'll have this for years to come which is great!

Hers' the inners of the piano for you to see - just imagine all of the hammers, keys, and what not on my dining room table and you'll get the excitement I feel.

100 Things Every Man Should Know How To Do

2008-11-17T15:03:00.003-05:00

So Popular Mechanics published this list of 100 things every man should know how to do. So I asked Adam to identify those things he could do with an A next to it - then I thought, hmmm... I wonder what things on this list I could do.

So here is the list with who can do what from it for our family.

Automotive
1. Handle a blowout A
2. Drive in snow A/S
3. Check trouble codes A
4. Replace fan belt
5. Wax a car S
6. Conquer an off-road obstacle
7. Use a stick welder
8. Hitch up a trailer A
9. Jump-start a car A

Emergencies
10. Perform the Heimlich A/S
11. Reverse hypothermia
12. Perform hands-only CPR A
13. Escape a sinking car A (I would Hope I could do this!) S

Home
14. Carve a turkey A/ S
15. Use a sewing machine A/ S
16. Put out a fire A/ S
17. Home-brew beer
18. Remove bloodstains from fabric S
19. Move heavy stuff A/ S
20. Grow food A/ S
21. Read an electric meter A
22. Shovel the right way A/ S
23. Solder wire A
24. Tape drywall A
25. Split firewood A
26. Replace a faucet washer A
27. Mix concrete A
28. Paint a straight line A
29. Use a French knife
30. Prune bushes and small trees A
31. Iron a shirt A/ S
32. Fix a toilet tank flapper A
33. Change a single-pole switch A
34. Fell a tree A
35. Replace a broken windowpane
36. Set up a ladder, safely A
37. Fix a faucet cartridge A
38. Sweat copper tubing
39. Change a diaper S (um, honey, this frightens me that you didn't put an A by this one!)
40. Grill with charcoal A
41. Sew a button on a shirt A
42. Fold a flag

Medical
43. Treat frostbite
44. Treat a burn A/ S
45. Help a seizure victim S
46. Treat a snakebite
47. Remove a tick

Military Know-How
48. Shine shoes A/ S
49. Make a drum-tight bed
50. Drop and give the perfect pushup

Outdoors
51. Run rapids in a canoe
52. Hang food in the wild
53. Skipper a boat A
54. Shoot straight A
55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike
56. Escape a rip current

Survival
57. Build a fire in the wilderness A
58. Build a shelter A
59. Find potable water A

Surviving Extremes
60. Floods
61. Tornados A/ S
62. Cold A/ S
63. Heat A/ S
64. Lightning A

Teach Your Kids
65. Cast a line A
66. Lend a hand A/ S
67. Change a tire A
68. Throw a spiral
69. Fly a stunt kite
70. Drive a stick shift
71. Parallel park A
72. Tie a bowline
73. Tie a necktie A
74. Whittle A
75. Ride a bike A/ S

Technology
76. Install a graphics card A
77. Take the perfect portrait A
78. Calibrate HDTV settings A
79. Shoot a home movie A/ S
80. Ditch your hard drive A

Master These Key Workshop Tools
81. Drill driver A
82. Grease gun
83. Coolant hydrometer
84. Socket wrench A
85. Test light A
86. Brick trowel
87. Framing hammer A
88. Wood chisel A
89. Spade bit A
90. Circular saw A
91. Sledge hammer A
92. Hacksaw A
93. Torque wrench
94. Air wrench
95. Infrared thermometer A
96. Sand blaster
97. Crosscut saw A
98. Hand plane A
99. Multimeter A
100. Feeler gauges

Election Day has Come and Gone

2008-11-11T08:57:00.002-05:00

And I've been slack in posting.

Election day was exciting in RI - even though our state was already blue before any of us voted.

I decided since it was a historic election I'd sign up to work the polls that day. I had the training and got to the school at 6 am on Election day and got to work.

It was really a great experience and something I'd do again, particularly for a presidential election.

I saw so many neighbors, met some incredible people, and nothing was neater than seeing all of the first time voters - not even just 18 year olds but people in their 30s and 40s who were coming out and voting for the first time in their life.

It was a really long day but totally worht it. By the time I got home too all of the East coast was already called and within 30 minutes of being home Obama was the President Elect - so that was nice I didn't have to sit infront of the TV all night, it happened within minutes of me being home.

I would recommend working your local polls anytime to anyone... contact your local board of canvassers or board fo electors.

Homecoming in Indiana

2008-11-03T13:59:00.003-05:00

Adam and I planned a trip to Indiana to head back to Purdue to visit with friends and family. We met up with 10 people for the game and tailgating fun. It was a great visit with all of our friends back to our old stomping ground.

We arrived to Indy on Thursday with Adam's family.

Friday we picked up our friend Ryan from the airport and headed to campus where we met up with Jon and Pat. The guys had a great time together catching up.

Saturday I got to meet up with my girls from school - Laura, Blythe and Beth - and it was so great for the 4 of us to be together again. We have such a fun bond and are all outgoing and quirky and fun and together we are just a dynamic group. We also met up with our friend Jeremy and his wife for dinner after the game.

Even though we lost horribly, it was still fun to be all together and see how campus has changed.

Sunday, Pat, Ryan, Adam, Jon and i toured around campus to let the boys see their old class rooms, and all of the other new things around campus. It sure has changed and it felt a little strange being back.

We spent the rest of the time with Adam's family - adam going through boxes of stuff from his old room, visiting with family friends, and relaxing.

We're very glad to be home though - it was a long trip and it's nice to get backc into the daily routine again.

Some pictures for your enjoyment.