OK, I’ve gotten a few comments on not wanting to see the Christmas bun anymore. I was thinking about leaving that as the top post until July (and renaming the post “Christmas bun in july”), but I’ve decided to do the even more self-indulgent thing and bore you to death with vacation pictures! yay!
My Europe travel on the road scrapbook album is still in progress. Turns out, when you’re walking 10 miles a day, there’s not any energy left to record the entire day at night. Oh well, I am finishing it up as we speak!
We had a pretty awesome flight from Raleigh to Heathrow, directly! We had a 24 hour layover, so we basically passed out on the plane (of course, we woke up for shady airplane food), and arrived in London jet lagged and ready to go.
Oak had already been to London, so I didn’t really want to spend the day hitting all the tourist sites… Tourist sites when you’re tired, not fun. We went to a few neighborhoods instead, like Camden Road where we saw the locks working (pretty cool), Notting hill (I think we missed where Julia Roberts lived.. I was not impressed with anything I saw there), and even crossed Abbey Road for my mom (an anti-climatic experience.. sorry! haha). We even got a picture with William and Kate! I refrained from buying a $15 William and Kate coffee mug… but oh, it was so tacky-licious!
The picture of the random dude is in camden road.. there is this shop that makes nitrogen ice cream. He basically takes an ice cream base in a kitchen aid and blasts it with liquid nitrogen. It was very tasty! We had lychee rose ice cream with blueberry sauce and caramel pretzels (their recommended combination).
For dinner, we went to a pub, and I had some really yummy indian food. London knows curries, I tell you. Nom nom. I drank some ciders, namely “Scrumpy” as Oak recommended it. Haha. I think the name says it all.
A hotel by the tube AND airport was key – made it all super easy. Looking forward to a longer visit someday!!!
Well, you’ve already seen the photos from our cruise earlier this year, but I thought I’d share the mini book I made as well. I finally decided to fill up one of the projects I made at CKC a few years ago (think this one is from 2009)– this cruise seemed to be a perfect fit for the SEI clear mini album. Since it was semi-made already, it made the project super fast – only a few hours! The thing I am liking about mini albums is how easy it is to include random postcards, your room keys, etc. in the book – just punch a hole in it with your crop-a-dile and stick it in the ring binding! (Is Oak the only one that is convinced the crop-a-dile is a castration device masked as a scrapbooking tool?). Putting these items right in the binding is so much easier than trying to get them to look right on a scrapbook page. The clear aspect of it does present a challenge because you have to think about how the backs of the pages are going to look. This was a little tricky for me, even with the pre-done aspect of the album. I definitely would only want to do a super small clear album, or maybe mix the clear pages in with regular ones in the future.
Here’s the cover to give you an idea:
See the rest of the album here.
OK, I realize that our trip to the Midwest for Belinda’s wedding was oh, 2 years ago. But hey, I was kinda missing my entire scrapbooking set-up after the trip, so whatevs. 
This is presented in no particular order…
Well, here are the photos from the whole reason we went to Chicago – the wedding! I didn’t get a ton of great pictures but enough to tell the story. Oak even caught a photo at the exact moment when I was about to run over the groom’s sister during the Electric Slide. Good thing that situation got intercepted, because I’m pretty sure I outweigh her by about 50 pounds, ha ha.
Good thing the wedding was first, cause I’m not sure I would have fit into my dress after this crazy trip. I know we were trying to eat the “local specialties” — do real midwesterners eat this much cheese? Geez louise. But it’s so tasty. Here’s my first Chicago deep dish pizza experience. I recommend doing it at least once. I have to say this was one of the richest meals I’ve ever experienced, considering the fact that it consists of exactly 1 item. The small pizza, about 4 hours of walking in the cold later, and Oak and I STILL weren’t hungry! Unbelievable!
Then, we continued on a tour around the midwest to experience more cheese. Well, in Wisconsin you’ll come across cheese just about anywhere, even if you’re not looking for it. This trip, we went to Madison and the Wisconsin Dells, and hit every cheese outlet in between. I noticed a special theme with the cheese outlets, apparently they aren’t afraid that the giant mice they have as mascots will eat all the cheese inside their stores….
I promise to return soon with more layouts… I was testing out my camera location and lighting situation for photographing the layouts — I think these came out pretty good so next time I’m home with natural light (which, somewhat rare with the crazy Daylight savings-ness causing it to be dark at 5pm..), I’ll get right on it!
The baths were probably my favorite site that we saw on the trip. Getting there is a little complex because they are on a separate island from where the cruise ship docks – so you have to find a ferry or other transport from Tortola to Virgin Gorda. However, we had this friendly fellow named Egbert approach us about his service on a private boat that he runs to the island. So, we went along with that.
I think these photos pretty much speak for themselves. It is a beautiful national park. You walk down a path through boulders to a pristine beach. We went snorkeling, and i didn’t want to leave the camera on the beach, so I put it in a (supposedly) waterproof bag. When I opened the bag later, it had an inch of water and a dead camera inside! Boo!
Oh, and let me tell you.. that Egbert is evil with the rum punch he feeds you on the boat ride back. It tastes like koolaid but is extremely lethal! Consider yourself warned if you ever come across him in your travels! lol.
Usually on cruises, we don’t get all that attached to any specific venue. We like to check it all out. Well, this time was different because the Star Bar on the Dawn had buy one get one free martinis every night! It was kind of funny because we’d end up seeing the same people there every night we went, in particular two colorful Canadian ladies (eh!).
We got to try a variety of martinis, but I do think the lemontinis were my absolute favorites. Then again, as Daniela can attest, I am a fan of any lemon-flavored beverage (Beware of getting us anywhere near limoncello and prosecco.. omg tasty!)
And, because the bartender was like,our best buddy (OK not really, but let’s pretend), he even offered to take our picture for us! This shot came out better than any of the other professional shots that we managed to get.. then again, who really looks attractive while sunburnt and standing next to a giant stuffed parrot?
Thanks to Oak for tolerating a large amount of girlie beverages… then again, cruise ships almost never have a decent beer selection, so I think this was his next best option. 
Our first stop on the cruise was in Samana, in the Dominican Republic. This island is largely undeveloped, and many people on the boat we talked to took a cruise excursion to a private island for the day (which, fyi, we got the impression that everyone felt they were ripped off).
We had booked a tour online before we left with this guy Terry, an American expat who has settled in Samana. He took us to his family’s property and showed us some interesting plants, including coffee beans growing:
Oak on the family property. It had the most amazing view of the ocean from the top of the mountain.
We stopped for lunch and some beach time. We took a walk down to some interesting bolders. Of course Oak has to off-road:
For lunch, we had an island medley cooked up by an old Samanan (?) woman. It was all tasty – fresh veggie salad, rice and beans, plantain and root vegetable,chicken and fish.
We stopped a shop that had this crazy “island moonshine” but really it was more like a mulled wine. It had a bunch of different spices and flowers inside the bottle. We tried a sample but it wasn’t too tasty.. haha
And, we spotted some island chickens. How could I resist?
Oh, our new camera came this week. So, I will be back with more house photos eventually!
In my previous post, I mentioned that we stayed at a fancy-ish boutique hotel in Miami. The Chesterfield seemed to be recently renovated in a tres Ikea-ish style.
Our room was back in a courtyard from the hotel – you couldn’t actually get to the room through the lobby. That was kind of interesting – it was actually kind of in an alleyway between two buildings.
We had the Albany area code room. Yes, I still remember the old RPI area code. Hah.
The room was made up with classic white linens. Oak noticed that the headboard wasn’t actually a headboard, it was laminate flooring mounted on the wall. How interesting! LOL.
This little seating area was to the left of the entry. Have I seen this furniture at Ikea? I’m pretty sure…
Then, right off this area there was a completely other little sitting room type thing with this lounger dealie-o. I have no idea what the purpose of this area is supposed to be… maybe space for your passed-out drunk guests that you invite to your room after clubbin’?? Maybe someone can explain to me.. it was still cool nonetheless..
The bathroom was also in a bunch of different areas.. the tub was in another little off-room, next to the desk..
But the shower was in another room! With a completely un-functional shower enclosure that made the entire room fill up with water after the shower.. haha
A touch of art deco past was on the bathroom door. Glad they kept this neat little detail…
Yet another “bathroom area”" – the external vanity:
We also noticed that all the moldings weren’t actually molding, but flat pieces of wood – even the “crown molding” at the top of the room. Ah, the things renovation does to your mind..
Overall, we enjoyed our stay at this quirky hotel. If only Priceline hotel bidding would get me such good luck every time! haha.
To reward/motivate ourselves to get the upstairs painted and carpeted, we planned a vacation to use up the remainder of our awesome NCL cruise points. Oh Worldpoints Rewards, you just are not the same as the Compass Rewards! Sighs. Apparently the days of almost-free cruises are over. We did enjoy our final trip..
We stayed in Miami just 1 night before our cruise – basically the night before. We didn’t really get out or do anything too exciting because we were pretty tired from driving all day, but we did manage to win a hotel right on Collins Ave. in the heart of the Art Deco district of South Beach. Don’t ask me how that happened.. I had about every region of Miami selected when I was bidding on Priceline. (EXCEPT Florida City.. we made that mistake one other cruise! It’s so far away!! LOL)
The Chesterfield hotel was our home for the evening. I will have to write another post with some pictures of our room – it was very interesting! In our past experience these art deco hotels in South beach look really nice on the outside, but not so nice on the inside, being like, old and all. This one was recently renovated and very “boutiquey” or, something! The lobby turned into a club at night. haha. Aren’t we fancy?
Anyway, we never printed our cruise documents so we went in search of a Kinko’s to do so, and I took some pictures of the architecture on the walk:
We concluded our walk with a tasty breakfast at the 11th Street Diner before our journey to the boat:
Just added the photos from our memorial day weekend in Atlanta.
Not much else to report. We actually went to Hooters last night because they were having a special on boneless wings and beer. I think I was one of like 3 female patrons in the entire place. Reminded me of my RPI days!! haha.
I’ve finally uploaded our pictures from our trip to the Midwest last March. I know my galleries have come in many formats and flavors, but I still feel like keeping all of ‘em on my site is much more centralized than trying to post them on limited space storage sites like Picasa or flickr. Besides, I’m not going to pay for those when I already have unlimited space here. So there! How do you like my new “collage” format? I’m giving it a try – I’m realizing when I look at other people’s photos, I really just want the highlights, not every photo they took. So, let me know if you like ‘em!
Another totally random gallery addition is of our visit to the Raleigh children’s museum last January. We had a tad too much fun there… probably more fun than most of the kiddies! haha.
More photo updates will be coming soon… though, I might wait on uploading my Project 365 (though, at the rate I forget to take pictures, it might be more like Project 300) until the end of the year. We’ll see
