December...a look back

Well hello there!! I decided to pop back on today to share the photo collage I put together using the collect app on my iPhone for December 2015. I have been putting these together for several months and usually document it at the end of each month in my scrapbooks. It's a nice way to wrap up each month and I really love being able to look back at all the memories that were made. I am not 100% sure I will continue to scrap these in 2016, but I am likely to continue to put them together each month. It's pretty easy to just add a photo each day. Sometimes it's a favorite quote I read, but most of the time it's a photo from real life. Love the little reminders these bring up when I look back on them.

I hope your 2016 is off to a splendid start!! Thanks for stopping by!
deb

Hello 2016

I can't believe it's already 2016!!! I've got a few goals and big plans for this year. I'm going to get them down on paper and work on them throughout the next 366 days (hello leap year). Hope you had a very Happy New Year and are as excited about the fresh start the new year brings as I am!!

Thanks for stopping by!!
deb

BAR: New Haven

Hey everyone!! It's been a good two week break as I enjoyed some vacation time with family up north then returned back to FL and took some time to get back into the swing of things here. I am hoping to be back to a regular schedule though, or at least as regular as I can be. Thinking that once we get into July (next week...how did that happen), I'll likely just blog Monday through Friday and take weekends off. Thinking about topics and every day stuff combined with crafty stuff, and hopefully liven things up around here. Don't even know if I'm just blogging in space or if anyone is actually reading this stuff!!! Not too concerned about it, obviously!!

Wanted to stop in today to share a stop we made during my visit north!!! Every time my sister has visitors at her house, one place the guests are always taken for dinner is to a place called BAR. It's in New Haven, CT pretty much right across the street from Yale. No really...it is. The first time my sister and brother-in-law took me there we arrived before they opened, so we walked around part of the campus. It's also right across the street from a very popular cheeseburger place , but I've actually never eaten there!!

BAR is a brew pup that brews its own beer and serves really thin crust brick oven pizza. It really is pretty amazing stuff and I look forward to this dinner as soon as trip plans are made. It's that good!! Then have two different kids of pizza...red or white...then you pick your toppings from a HUGE list. There are 3 sizes...small, medium, and large. A medium is about the size of a large from most of the chains. A large is about three feet long and a foot wide. That sounds really big (and it is), but remember...it's really thin crust...like super thin!!! The cut the large down the middle then across the pie in thin strips. You can eat more than you think you can! When my whole family (of 7 or 8 depending on if my husband makes the trip north with me) can polish off three large pies and usually two or three pitchers of beer depending on who is drinking what.

One pizza that we always get is the large white with mashed potato and bacon. It's apparently really popular as it's a frequent picture on the BAR: New Haven location on Instagram!!! I highly recommend trying it if you're ever in that area of CT or if you ever find yourself near the Yale campus!!! You do need to like super thin crust pizza...but even if you don't the beer is totally worth it!! Next combination I want to try is a white pizza with buffalo chicken and blue cheese!!! Maybe next year as my hubby and I are thinking that will likely be our trip next year!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!
deb

Epcot's Flower & Garden Festival: Part II (The Topiary Creations)

Disney is known for it's amazing landscaping. Part of the draw of the Flower & Garden Festival is the amazing topiary creations. There are other features you can experience during the festival, like getting advice from professionals and such, but we usually go for the topairies!!! This is a photo heavy post and I am going to let the creations speak for them selves! I didn't take a photo of everything, just what I really loved!!!

 

 

Like I said before, if you ever have the opportunity to visit during the Flower & Garden Festival, I highly recommend it. We went on a Sunday and while it was busy, it wasn't too busy! Still a most enjoyable day spent with family! Thanks for stopping by!!
deb

Family

As I mentioned in my last post, this year was the year of family!! Both of our families were completely, 100% together, on one of the BIG holidays this year...and we managed to get pictures of them both to record for all time! His family was together on Christmas. My family was together on Thanksgiving!! That one is also knows as the BEST SURPRISE EVER!!!

It all started back in 2012 when last minute (talking late October here) I sent me sister an email to find out if that was the year her family would spend Thanksgiving with our parents. If so, I would get plane tickets and fly up to surprise them. It was, however, the year they would spend with her in-laws. So no surprise in 2012. I put it on the back burner as an idea for 2013. Then flash forward to March (2013) when my sister sent me an email about whether or not Mike and I would make a trip north to see them, and if so did we have an idea of when (she was trying to plan summer camps for the kids). My reply on March 4th started the PLAN SURPRISE 2013. In this message I told her that we wanted to fly up the weekend before Thanksgiving, spend a few days with them, then ride with them to my parent's house the day before Thanksgiving to all spend the holiday together. Because of my work schedule, we would have to fly home on Thanksgiving day, but because my parent's were already planning week vacation here, the short amount of time we spent there would be ok. We also knew that my niece would have school early that week and my sister would likely be working, so instead of asking anyone to take time off, we planned a day trip via train into NYC (blog post coming soon on this)!! My sister thought this was a great idea and so the plan was hatched.

Plans didn't start to get finalized until the summer when I was officially able to take vacation and get our plane tickets. But they did get put together and we did get to have our whole family together for Thanksgiving!! Such fun to have pulled this off!!
 

It's upstate NY...so there was a good chance we would get to see snow!! I watched the weather all week before we left and kept my fingers crossed!! Haven't seen snow in a number of years!! As luck would have it...it snowed!! Was snowing so much that my parent's told my sister that if it got really bad out they didn't have to come! She knew that wasn't an option, but humored my parents anyway about it! We got to play in the snow on Thanksgiving day while the feast cooked! Snowballs were thrown and angels were made!! Loved it!!

 
I got video of each of my parents seeing us and those were awesome moments!

Dad was up first as he came outside to help bring in stuff...

Mom was up next once we got inside the house...

I love how she didn't even really notice us when she walked in the room!! This is certainly a memory I am glad to have captured!! Thanks to my friends for suggesting I get their reactions on film!!

The new year is almost upon us and I have been doing some reflection about the year we are about to close the door on. It's been a great year and I'll be back tomorrow to share some of my reflections and those moments I'll carry with me into 2014! I'm trying to get a running start with being a better blogger in 2014!! Until then, thanks for stopping by!
deb

Christmas 2013

This Christmas has been so different from the last several years!!! I work in retail and between Thanksgiving and New Year, I have been married to my job. I've always tried to enjoy the holidays as much as possible, but working 6 days a week made it very difficult! This year was different. My company changed it's direction on how it would work its employees during the holidays and I really feel like I was able to reclaim much of the holiday spirit I had lost over the last several years. There is a reason Christmas moved to my second favorite holiday and St. Patrick's Day moved to the top many years ago!! This year may have changed that...but the jury is still out because I don't know if the changes made this year will be perminent and in effect next year!! Fingers crossed!!

Christmas this year for us was pretty low key. My hubby and I don't have any kids, just fur babies. We slept in a bit until he got out of bed around 7:30a (yes, that's sleeping in for us now). When I didn't get up right away, he came running in and jumped on the bed like a little kid would do, begging me to get up so he could open a gift neither of us could figure out! By 8:30a our gifts were unwrapped and our traditional cinnamon bun breakfast was in the oven. We ate breakfast while watching Mickey's Christmas Carol (a favorite of mine as a child) followed by the Disney Parks Parade. Right after the parade we headed over to his parents house, which is a short drive away. His entire family was there including all of out nieces and nephews...13 people to be exact.

While at his parents house, he wanted to try to get a photo of his entire family. We had gotten one of mine when we surprised my parents for Thanksgiving (I'll share that story another day) so it was great to be able to capture his family at Christmas. IHis grandfather used to take a family photo every Christmas and we hadn't gotten one in a LONG time since he passed several years ago. I took my Canon and tripod over to their house to be able to get everyone in the photo.

Of course, we couldn't just do a good, everyone smiling, photo...we also had to do a funny face photo!!  Love both and it was great to get the memory captured this year...especially since it's our youngest niece's first Christmas. Honestly, it was great to get both of our full families captured this year...mine on Thanksgiving and his on Christmas!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to ringing in the New Year! Thanks for stopping by!
deb