Weekend Update| December 5, 2011

Good morning everyone! Did you have a fabulous weekend? We sure did! My mom and step-dad came up for a visit and we had such a great time. The weather couldn't have been better for the activities we had planned, either. The mornings were really cool but by mid-day the sun was out and we were enjoying temperatures in the mid 70's!

They drove in Friday night and we enjoyed some dinner I had prepared. We played a couple rounds of rummy and I was destroyed at the last minute by David (step-dad). That hurt as I have been the reigning champ in our house lately. John was overjoyed at my loss. ;)

Saturday morning we got up and ran around the neighborhood together. We are all running a 5k in Melbourne (FL) in February, so it was fun to do a little training together. My family is fast! They've got quite a few years on me and still managed 12 minute miles! I discovered that I run much faster on land than on the "dreadmill", is that the same for you?

After the run we made breakfast and packed up a picnic for our day out. My parents just got a new D-SLR so we took them out to Lake Eola to practice shooting with it. They got some really great shots! Everyone and their brother was out at the lake, putting up Christmas decorations and running around the trail. Above is a picture John took of my mom and I. Below is a picture that my mom took of us. She's getting the hang of it!

 I think she really captured our love... :)

Our next stop was going to be Whole Foods for a little stocking up on the grain wall. (My parents don't have a Whole Foods in their town, so it's a ritual when they come up.) We made one last stop at the ice cream truck before we left the lake, but came away empty handed as the ice cream was way over-priced and wouldn't have done our tummies any good...we all have the same whole foods, mostly veg diet. Nonetheless, we were sad about our loss...

David had quite the smile though, he must have looked into the future to see what would happen when we went to Whole Foods. We came away with two ah-mazing smoothies! They got a PB&J fruit smoothie (almond milk, berries, peanut butter, bananas, etc.) and we got the Kalicious smoothie (kale, spinach, bananas, apple juice, lemons). Our smoothie was so good I drank it in 30 minutes. And just to give you a comparison, it usually takes me 3 hours to finish my smoothies in the morning.

I was in love!

We finished our evening with a trip to Bass Pro Outdoor World and then came home and chowed down on homemade butternut squash soup, red onion and tomato paninis, and an assortment of goodies picked up at the hot counter at Whole Foods.

I spent the evening stressing over a final group project for my online Strategies in Teaching ESOL class. Praise the Lord we finally got everything done (last minute) and were able to turn it in last night for a grade. I can't tell you how ready I was to be done with this class! I need a break!

Sunday we went to church and hung out around the house for a while playing with out pictures and teaching my mom and David to edit photos with Gimp 2. It was a nice, relaxing day before the craziness of this weeks started up again.

Something tells me this week will be a little more than I can handle.

Question of the Day:

What kinds of things do you do with your parents?



Anniversary Cruise Photos

Good morning, and happy Friday! Not to brag, but I've got the day off today. Three hoorays for being a government employee! I finally had some time this morning to round up my cruise photos to share. I hope you enjoy them (I know we did!) and that it brings some warmth into your day if you're dealing with those chilly temperatures...


Here's some of the photos from on the ship. We were on board the Disney Magic and the service was absolutely wonderful.

Anniversary Cake.

They tied our hands together and sung us a Happy Anniversary song!

A ghost towel for Halloween.

Pirate night. We didn't come prepared but John did find a bandana. :)

We stopped at two ports in the Eastern Caribbean- St. Maarten and Tortola. In St. Maarten we headed over to the French side to check out a fort, and then over to the dutch to visit a secluded beach and do some snorkeling. Tortola was just ok. We got off the boat for about 30 minutes and then headed back to relax by the pool and eat more food...

John at the overlook of the French side of the island.

On our trek up the hill to the French fort.

Gorgeous!

A cloudy day in Tortola. Steve Zissou impression.

Our final and most exciting stop was Castaway Cay, the Disney island. It has everything you could ever want in an island and we had a blast snorkeling and relaxing at the adult beach. We say little Dorie fish, striped angel fish, and even one huge gray fish with warts all over it. Isn't this location breath-taking?

Serene.

Bring me two Pina Coladas...

Fun in the sun!

I hope you enjoyed my trip photos! We had such a wonderful time spending every waking hour together. I guess we're one of those odd couples that never gets tired of one another. It was a much needed break from real life and the perfect way to celebrate a fantastic year of marriage and see a little more of this beautiful earth.

Question of the Day:

What's your favorite spot in the Caribbean?

Travelogue: Fez, Morocco

Bab boujloud

Hello, connoisseurs! Today is a day I've been looking forward to for some time now. The chance to finally share the pictures and experiences so close to my heart from our honeymoon to Spain and Morocco. Fez is a magical city, and you can't help being drawn in by it! Fez is the cultural capital of Morocco and consists of miles and miles of alleys burrowing through the bustling medina enclosed by huge walls and accessible only through any of the twelve city gates. No cars are allowed in this city, only pedestrians and donkey carts.

Overlook of Fez.

It has been said that to walk every alley of the city would take all of three months to do. They vary from broad to almost impossible to walk through...and one is left to wonder how these buidlings were even build up so close to one another. You look above you to see two buildings leaning on one another and wonder if their ancient stone might crumble on top of you at any moment.

John and I were privileged to spend two full days here. One we spent exploring on our own and the other we spent buying up souvenirs, going on a guided tour, and drinking as much Moroccan tea as is humanly possible.

I know people are anti-guided tour, and usually I am too, but because Fez is so huge, so confusing, so busy, and every single alley looks the same, a guided tour will help get you to the best sights in town that you probably wouldn't be able to find on your own. The only downside to these tours is that they are designed to get you to spend money (and too much of it at that!) so be polite, say thank you, maybe even tip people for their presentation, but don't feel obligated to buy.

One of our stops on our guided tour was to a hand woven fabric store. As you can see they make beautiful scarves, blankets, and even duvets. Any guided tour will take you here, guaranteed. I did purchase here. The prices weren't that bad for what they were (hand dyed and woven). No bartering here...the price is the price.



At the tanneries


Another stop is the tannery. There are many in Fez, but this is the most famous. The prices are VERY steep here, I would buy in another city if you plan on traveling around Morocco a bit more to avoid the Fez mark-up. The tanneries are the largest in the world and smell absolutely disgusting. Part of the tanning process is to soak the skins in fermented pigeon poop, and it smells absolutely rancid. They leave sprigs of fresh mint around the railing to hold to your nose...this feels a bit snobby (in a "I'm so wealthy and can't stand the stench of those lesser" kind of way) but it can't be avoided, the smell will cue your gag reflex.





Many other stops were made, but one of my favorites were to the many mosques in Fez. Fez is known as the "Mecca of the West." As I mentioned, it is the cultural captial of Morocco, but what makes it so is that it is the spiritual center of the country. Here you will find the oldest mosques in the country, and some of the most grandiose.  We were allowed in, Morocco only allows Muslims into their mosques, but you can stand at the front and take a look inside.

As you speak with the locals you find that the people of Fez are very proud to be so. Their attitude is that of a Texan or a Saudi...they believe whole-heartedly that they are from the best place in the world! When you ask people in other Moroccan cities where they are from they might hold their chin high, their hand to their heart and proclaim, ever so loudly and proudly, that they are from "the beautiful city of Fez, the spiritual capital!!"

When you're not touring I recommend walking up and down the streets. There are two main "roads," the Talaa Kebira and Talaa Seghira. There is more than enough to see on these two roads and if you want to venture far off the beaten path just make sure you know those two street names so that people can point you back to them.

When bartering for souvenirs take it slow, build a relationship, and get to know the storekeeper. Stop for mint tea and some schwarma. One of my favorite memories was stopping in a (literal) hole in the wall where an old man was grilling up questionable meat. We decided it looked like an adventurous place to eat and squeazed in the five foot by five foot hole to sit at a wooden table with an absolutely ancient old Moroccan couple already eating their lunch. We sat down and made small talk. Very, very small talk in broken Moroccan Arabic and bits of French. The chef brought us mint tea served in glasses that I swear haven't seen soap in years and we sipped happily away. The old couple slid over their plate of meat and bread and insited we share with them until our food was ready. There we were, with people we had never met, sharing a meal and having a good laugh over...well, I'm not really sure...the inability to communicate, I suppose.

Question of the Day:

When you travel do you do guided tours?

What's your favorite "with the people" memory?



Photo on Pointe

Photo Credit: John Malone

If I'm shooting straight with you, I don't really feel like blogging today. I need a day off, a day more disconnected. And that's exactly what I plan on having! But I didn't want to leave you completely hanging, instead I came to share a beautiful photo my husband took yesterday.

John has been trying to learn more about the art of digital photography and, in an effort to improve his shots, has started doing the weekly photograph challenge over at the Digital Photography School. This week's challenge is "shoes" so I dusted off my old pointe shoes and let him work his magic. I thought this one turned out lovely, and looks almost like a water color painting with all the yellow and blue hues in it.

What do you think of this picture?



P.S. It's amazing the difference 20 pounds makes when supporting your entire body on your toes. My ballerina days are clearly over... 

Weekend Update| August 8, 2011

Lake Eola

 Another weekend came and went and it's Monday again. I guess you can't be sad about the weekend ending if you had a great time, and we did! Friday night we headed out to Lake Eola in downtown Orlando to take pictures. John has been reading a bunch of photography blogs to try and improve his form, and I can tell he's really learned a lot. Isn't the picture of the city so beautiful? I love silvery it looks, it captures the way it looked with the storm moving in perfectly!

He's really been wanting to improve his portraits, so he used me as a model and I think he got some really great shots. See how the background is blurry and I am so in focus and the lines around me are crisp? The secret there is in the zoom lens. Portraits are best taken from afar, and zoomed in to get a crisp image with a blurry background so the person is the focus of the picture.

I took the next one...because it's my favorite part of the park...

After some fun with the camera we ran a few errands and then went out for some sushi...something I haven't done in ages since John doesn't like it. To make me happy he agreed to go out and try some to see if his taste buds have changed. We went to Bikuri Sushi and I ordered a lava roll. He wasn't a huge fan, but he didn't gag or anything, so that's something. :)

Saturday morning we woke up early (7am!) so that John could hit the beach and go surfing with some friends. I had plans to go to a crafting birthday party for my beautiful friend Shana. I spent the morning making a homemade gift of Rosemary Honey Butter (which I found on Fresh Out of Lemons.)  It was so much fun to make and I had everything on hand.

You basically boil a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary in honey and let it steep for a while. You bring a couple sticks of butter to room temperature and then blend it in a food processor with the rosemary-infused honey. Put them in jars and they will firm back up when refrigerated. Go here for the full recipe.

I made Shana an extra big jar of it and decorated it up for her birthday...

And I made a little jar for myself to serve with this homemade bread...

Once my butter was made, I packed up my craft and headed to my friends' house. It was great to be back with Kate and Kayla in the house I called a home for a year prior to my marriage. We had some great times in that house, and Saturday morning kept the memory-making going! Shana spent some time making her very first quilt, Kayla was making a ruffled skirt out of t-shirts, Kate was altering some clothes, and my friend Becky was working on a project for her 1st grade classroom.

Shana quilting

All my friends are very crafty. They sew and knit and crochet and scrap book and all those fun things. I've never been much of a crafter, but if cooking counts...

Thanks to Kayla, I did learn how to knit and have been working on a blanket for the past two years...ok, so I'm not a quick knitter.

My knitted blanket

Saturday night John and I went out for ice cream with our friends Hooman and Viyan. They are the Iranian couple I mentioned two Friday Replays-ago who had the baby shower. Their little girl, Vanda, is turning into quite the little charmer. She's getting so big, and is so well-behaved. She loves looking around and taking in her surroundings. She's such a curious little girl. Isn't she precious?

We enjoyed catching up on life. It had been a few months since we last got together and there was so much to talk about. We really enjoy their company and have so much fun doing nothing at all, just sipping on a shake and walking around town. At the end of the night we found ourselves at Target, and little Vanda who had had a little nap, woke up happy and ready to cuddle!

Sunday we went to church and then came home and cooked. And when I say "cooked" I mean "COOKED!" I may have mentioned before that I usually spend a lot of my Sundays cooking up food for the week so I don't have to worry about it during the week. Yesterday I baked pumpkin muffins for breakfast all week, a chocolate chip bundt cake, homemade bread, a quinoa vegetable salad for lunches, chopped up a cantaloupe, and made a wheat berry vegetable stir fry to go along with baked fish for the first half of the week. By the end I was exhausted and my feet were tired! But it was well worth it being surrounded by fresh foods that are healthy and that contain no unnecessary chemicals and preservatives!

Question of the Day: 

Are you crafty? What kinds of things do you make?

Travelogue: Rabat, Morocco

Kasbah des Oudaias

As mentioned in this post, John and I honeymooned in Spain and Morocco. Our few days in Rabat were some of our favorites out of the whole two weeks. Rabat just has something. There's an electricity about the city, the people's smiles are contagious and their surroundings are picturesque. I love Rabat because even though it's a big city (the capital of Morocco) it still has a small town feel and you can really relax and enjoy the culture there.

Overlooking the Atlantic from Oudaias

Rabat is a coastal city bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It has been the country's capital since 1912 when it was moved from Fez. The city is broken up into two worlds- the new city and the old medina. The newer side of the city has nice hotels, bus and train stations, and lots of places to shop. The streets are impeccable (compared to other Moroccan cities, and other parts of Rabat) and are lined with tall palm trees.

John and I walked through the new city, but spent most of our time in the medina and surrounding areas. Our hotel was inside the medina walls in a beautiful old dar (house) owned by a French woman. If you make your way to Rabat I highly recommend the Dar Zouhour and it's central location. See my review here. 

Overlooking part of the city

John and I spent much of our time checking out the major sights and exploring tiny alleys.The oudaias is a great place to do this. Just inside the kasbah walls is a beautiful neighborhood. The whole place is painted in stark white and vibrant blue. On a sunny day the color is almost too much to handle, it just pours happiness into your heart. This is a must see, and on your way out you can take a walk through the tranquil kasbah gardens.

Warning: Men stand at the entrance to the oudaias telling you that you aren't allowed in because prayers just finished up. That's a lie. Blow right past them as politely as possible, anyone is welcome in the city and you can walk in, prayers or no prayers, as long as you stay out of the mosques (generally speaking Morocco does not allow any non-Muslim to enter the mosque, but in some cases you can stand just outside to peak in at a particularly historic one.)

Oudaias

Typical Moroccan doorway. Beautiful!

Another great sight to see is the medina and market (souk) at night. After dark, around 8 or 9pm head over to the souk and get lost in  the crowd. Moroccans love to be where the people are. If they go to the souk and it's not crowded they will go home until later when it's packed out. It is the place to be and it is full of new sights, sounds and smells. If you miss this, then you will have missed Morocco entirely.  Keep some cash in your front pocket for street food and hole in the wall restaurants. There's lots of great shopping around here, but bargain hard.

John and I at Le Tour Hassan

Lastly, but certainly not least-ly, make sure you take a walk over to Le Tour Hassan and the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V. The Tour (tower) is an unfinished minaret built by Almohad sultan Yacoub al-Mansour in 1195. It was intended to reach 60m (the tallest in the Muslim world), but only made it to 44. Even at it's current height, the tower impresses.

The beautiful mausoleum (not pictured) is the burial site of the late King Mohammed V, much loved by the country and visited by many throughout the year. It's a solemn place to visit, and it is great to see all the care put into the design work inside.

To the right of the mausoleum is a large and beautifully decorated mosque. Go visit this area near the time for one of the prayers so that you can stand in the square between Le Tour Hassan, the mausoleum, and the mosque when they sing the call to prayer from the loud speakers. We enjoyed watching the locals flock to the area and leave soon after prayers were finished-  culture happened right before our eyes!

Rabat holds a special place in our hearts and we talk about going back all the time. Even though we visited many beautiful cities in the country, Rabat stood out among them all!

Question of the Day:

What's your favorite sight that I saw?

Virginia Trip, Part Two: Washington D.C

The Capital Building

Washington, D.C. It's one of the most beautiful American cities I've seen in terms of architecture. Being there, it was hard to believe that the buildings were real. I've only seen them in print these 24 years and seeing them in person was a bit surreal at first. I love that feeling. It always fills me with a sense of privilege. I've seen history with my own eyes. Do you know how many people in the world will never leave their village? I really do thank God for all that I've been blessed to see in this world!

My favorite building was the Smithsonian Castle (so Harry Potter-like!). My imagination was really able to run wild looking at that building. Unfortunately I couldn't snag a good picture of it, maybe next time. As far as all the political-y buildings, my favorite was the capital...hands down. We had a tour of its rooms and all the paintings and statues were exciting to see.

I wanted to share with you some of the best pics of the day...enjoy!

The front of the capital, flanked by the House and Senate

John and I with our nephew Zeb leaving the Thomas Jefferson Library

The Supreme Court Building

The Back of the White House (sadly, no Obama...)

Our zoom lens captured a sniper in bullet proof vest!

The Washington Monument

The Vietnam Memorial Wall

Me and honest Abe!

What is your favorite building in D.C.? Why?

P.S. None of you told me how flippin' spread out everything is there!! I think I walked about 1,000 miles in that one day. I'm still sore from it! It's ok though, I forgive you. ;)