Mandy and Josh

Mandy takes on NYC

2012-02-06T17:22:00.005-05:00

I had the great pleasure of traveling to New York City last weekend to attend the 13th annual SCBWI winter conference. SCBWI is the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. It was a fantastic conference. I was able to meet with publishers, editors, agents, authors, and fellow illustrators. I made some awesome new friends and I learned a lot. I am relatively new to the children's book world, having spent the majority of my working career as a designer, so this was a perfect way to learn as much as I could about this world. It has taken me three years to develop my illustrative style, so and now I learned what I need to do to move forward. Hoping this year brings me happiness as children's book illustrator because life is too short not to do what you love.

Here are some photos of the event:

Really enjoyed meeting and talking with Chris Crutcher!

Enjoyed talking about illustration with Dan!

Gala on Saturday night

I couldn't eat much of the food at the Gala, but I did talk to some fantastic people!

Illustrators intensive

January Featured Artist

2012-01-24T13:03:00.002-05:00

I was excited to be the featured artist over at Pixar Times for the month of January. I worked on a piece while I was on vacation down in the keys and came up with this fun little illustration. (BTW, illustrating with the ocean out the window is like my new favorite thing.)

I also gave a little interview as well that you can read on the site, here.

We are GOOFY! A race recap of the Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge

2012-01-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

You definitely have to be goofy to want to run a half marathon on Saturday and turn right around and run a full marathon on Sunday. This is what Disney calls their Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge and it is run every year during Marathon Weekend here at Disney. It consists of running the WDW Half Marathon on Saturday and the WDW Full Marathon on Sunday--a total of 39.3 miles. Now we actually did what is unofficially called the "Dopey" which is to run the family 5K on Friday morning at Epcot (3.1 miles), run the half marathon on Saturday (13.1 miles), and then run the full on Sunday (26.2 miles). So it's actually a total of 42.4 miles. Pretty exciting, huh?

Well I don't want to give away the surprise, but we did it! A huge accomplishment for us, especially after having such a horrible marathon experience back in 2010 when the weather was 13 degrees F. But we had fantastic weather this weekend, we both ran unbelievably strong, and we had a blast. This may have just renewed our excitement for running, which has been lacking lately. Below is a blow by blow account of our weekend of races. I want to record it before I forget. Running the marathon this year I realized that I forgot a lot of the race from 2010. Hmmm, forgot may not be the best word--"intentionally blocked it from my mind" may be a better phrase.

Friday January 6: Family Fiesta 5K at Epcot

I did not sleep well the night before this race. We went to bed early, around 9, but I woke up at 1am thanks so some loud fireworks (I'm looking at you, Magic Kingdom). So I laid in bed until 4am. Watching the puppies while they sleep at night is too funny. Anyway, we got up, I was wide awake, so we headed to Epcot. The raced started at 6:30, but we needed to be there by 5. So we got there, ate our breakfast and relaxed in the car. Once we got out and headed to the corrals, we realized that is was a bit chilly. We both were pretty bundled up since we were planning on walking and not running the race. The race started and we had a grand old time just walking and taking our time as we traveled through Epcot. This race wasn't timed, so we just went slow and enjoyed the race. We wanted this to be a somewhat dress rehearsal for the two big races on Saturday and Sunday. It was fun just walking and talking. I have no idea what our time was, and it was the first race I have walked the whole thing. We walked backstage at Epcot and then walked around World Showcase and then crossed the finish line as the sun came up. Overall a fun, non-challenging race.

After the race, we went home, showered and Josh headed to work. I headed towards our bed with the pups and we took a 2 hour long nap. It was nice. Once I woke up and had some lunch, I walked down to get my spine alined at the chiropractor. Let me just say, he is amazing. A few short weeks ago I thought my running career was over because every time I would run I would get this incredible bruise-like pain in my lower back. But thanks to a suggestion by my aunt, I researched a local chiropractor in Celebration and found a fantastic one. Not only did he fix my back problem, but he made me feel so great everywhere else--I had no idea how much your spine affects other parts of your body and visa versa. I also love the fact that he emphasizes good nutrition as the foundation of a healthy body. He was super excited that I'm vegan, so that's always a plus. So getting a tune-up before the half marathon was a great idea.

That night we ate pasta, laid out our clothes, and went to bed early. I think both of us were very nervous and excited. The anticipation of running the Goofy was definitely on our minds as we closed our eyes that night.

Saturday January 7: WDW Half Marathon

We awoke at 3am and promptly dressed in our running gear (and layers because it was chilly!) and we loaded up the dogs in the car and headed towards my dad's house. We dropped the dogs off with Nala and Lilo for my sister to watch while we raced. Sammy was a great help this weekend. Once we said good bye to the pups, we headed towards Epcot. We were greeted by heavy traffic once we hit World Drive, but we were parked in the parking lot by 4am. We ate our breakfast, put on our leg braces and then headed towards the starting corrals at 4:45. It's a good 20 minute walk from the parking lot to the starting corrals and we needed to be there by 5am. It's always an exciting feeling walking to the starting corrals. We were in corral F, which was in the 5th wave. There were so many people in this race, a lot more than in previous years. We are usually in the 3rd corral, corral C, but Disney clearly added more people to the race this year, and I don't know if that was a good thing or not.

We used the porta-potties and I took a Cliff Shot while we stretched and waited for our turn to start. We watched the fireworks for each of the corrals to take their turn while we slowly moved closer to the starting line. When it was finally our turn, we were ready. When we started the course we felt very strong. We didn't really have a game plan for how we wanted to run this race, all we knew was that we needed to take it easy and not push ourselves too hard, because we need to save most of what we had for Sunday. It was very crowded to start off with, and we just decided to run as long as we could. We both felt so strong and we were running faster than we have ever run in any half marathon. So much for pacing ourselves and taking it easy. But it was hard not to run fast, we just felt so good! The weather was fantastic, our legs were strong, our bodies felt good, and we were running at a 12 minute per mile pace. We usually stick to a 14-15 mile pace if not slower. This past year I have been bumping up my speed and it was really showing in this race.

We sped through World Drive on our way to Magic Kingdom. I always love running through the parks because there are so many people cheering for you, it reminded me just how much I love running. After MK, we were on our way back to Epcot. We walked some of World Dr in hopes to slow down our pace so that we had some energy left for the marathon. We walked up the final exit ramp but then we decided to run the final stretch until we got into the park. Then we walked the up-and-back in Epcot and saw that we were on a PR pace and we ended up running the last half mile to the finish. We finished with a PR of 2:54:02. Josh beat his previous PR of 3:00:00 and mine of 2:56:50. It was a great race.

After we got our Donald medal (he was the mascot for the half) we sat down, ate some vegan protein bars and stretched. I couldn't believe how great we felt after the race. Usually something is hurting or something is tender and is uncomfortable. But nothing hurt! As we got into the car to head home, we both were unbelievably excited about our race and were eagerly looking forward to the next race, less than 24 hours away.

That afternoon we rested, iced, and used our compression socks to quicken our recovery time. That afternoon I went back to the chiropractor for a final tune-up before the big race. I wanted to make sure that everything was in tip top shape. He put me back in order and wished me the best of luck. At this point I started to get that nervous/excited feeling about the upcoming race.

Sammy came over for dinner and had spaghetti bake and watched a movie. After we ate, Sammy headed back home and we headed to bed. We watched some House Hunters on HGTV while we stretched and laid out our racing clothes. We ended up falling asleep by 7:30pm.

Sunday January 8: WDW Marathon

Marathon Day. Sammy came over around 2:45am and ended up staying at our house while she did laundry and watched the dogs while we headed to Epcot. We ran into a lot more traffic on our drive in but we still managed to get into the parking lot with enough time to eat, put on all our leg braces, and prepare for the race. Heading to the corrals was much more enjoyable than the last time we ran the marathon because we weren't freezing our butts off. Last time the temps were in the teens, where as the temps were in the high 50s that morning. So much more enjoyable!

Once we got to our corral, we used the bathroom, took our Cliff shots, and stretched. At this point I was super nervous. I know we have done this race before, but never after a half marathon the previous day. What if my body couldn't handle it? There were a lot of "ifs" running through my head as we moved closer to the start. But once it was our turn to go, I turned my music on and started running. Whoa was I sore. My knees were really talking to me but I just told them to shut up and I turned my music on louder. Josh was a few steps ahead of me, but we both agreed that we were going to run non-stop until we hit World Dr which was around mile 6. The first 5 miles wound around Epcot and through some of the countries and then back out onto World Center Dr. I was feeling good. We both were feeling good. When we reached World Dr we both agreed to try and keep up the pace (we were doing a solid 12 minute per mile pace) and try and run non-stop until we got out of Magic Kingdom, which would be mile 12. We put our heads down and kept running. By the time we hit MK my knees were hurting, but not hurting bad enough to walk. We ran through the park and continued running once we got back out onto the back road. It was at this point that I looked down and saw something red coming out of my shoe. I turned to Josh and was like, "Hey, I think my foot's bleeding." He had this worried look on his face but my foot was practically numb from the continued running, so I decided to deal with it once we hit the half way point and could get to a medical tent.

We reached the 13.1 marker at a time of 2:45, a new PR! We had beaten the record we had set the previous day and we were thrilled. I quickly stopped at the medical tent, took off my shoe to discover that I had a huge blister that had popped and bled a lot. But it didn't really hurt--or my foot was just that numb from all the constant movement--either way I decided to just put my sock back on and keep going. In retrospect, I should have even stopped because we wasted time. Oh well.

The next part of the course was on Bear Island Road--the road that connects from World Dr to backstage Animal Kingdom. Boy do I hate this road. It's long and you run by the waste treatment plant that smells literally like crap. My experience of this road during my first marathon was horrible. It was so cold and I hated every minute of it. But this year it wasn't that bad. At mile 15 I ate the best banana of my life, and before we knew it we were crossing Western Way and were in the backstage area of Animal Kingdom. At the back gate they gave us Cliff Mocha shots and they had a lot of animals out by the course. We didn't stop and pet them or anything, but it was cool to see them. We ran as much as we could through AK, but decided to walk a bit once we got back out into the parking lot. It was starting to get really hot and sunny. Once we hit mile 18 in the AK parking lot, we decided to kick it up a notch and start running again. Our next objective was to get through Osceola Parkway. Running on this stretch of road was my least favorite part of the course this year. It was long and right in the sun. But overall, I felt like it went quicker than my previous marathon experience. We continued a run/walk pattern until we hit the infamous mile up-and-back at mile 20. At this point my left knee was really hurting. Like sharp pain hurting. We were running at a pace to finish under 6 hours, but we decided not to hurt ourselves so we started to briskly walk from that point on. I think that was a great choice because we were so far ahead that we had plenty of time to enjoy the rest of the course and not worry about getting swept or not finishing in the alotted time for the Goofy medal. So we walked fast and talked. It was nice. When we hit backstage of Disney's Hollywood Studios, we were very happy to see that they had chocolate for us! If you read our race recap from the 2010 marathon, you will remember that because we were so far back in the race, by the time we reached backstage DHS they were all out of chocolate. But not this year! Our 12 minute runs earlier in the day paid off! We grabbed a handful of the dark chocolates (thats all we could eat) and we ate them happily as we walked through the park. Once we exited, we were on our way through the Boardwalk, Yacht Club, and Beach Club hotels. Then before we knew it, we were backstage of Epcot with only 1 mile left!

And whoa was that mile long. Like really long. The last mile consists of walking all the way around World Showcase. No big deal right? I mean we walk that all the time. But not after having run 38 miles in one weekend. We were both very tired and were moving kind of slow. But we kept up with the pace and we walked all the way through the park and across the finish line. We finished right behind the group of Goofy runners that stopped and got margaritas in Mexico. If I would have known how well we would run I would have brought my wallet! We finished with a marathon PR of 6:22:01, which totally shattered our previous marathon time of 6:56:48. But we still had an amazing moment crossing the finish line. We both were teary eyed as they placed the marathon medal around our heads. What an achievement. 39.3 miles in two days! I never thought I could do it! I was scared for the past 4 months just thinking about it! After we got our marathon medal we had to go to the special Goofy Tent to get our Goofy medal. One of the volunteers reminded us to go to the tent. Yeah, like we needed a reminder to go and get the medal that we had been dreaming about all weekend, haha. (but in all seriousness, the volunteers at these races are awesome, just awesome, and I am thankful for everything they do.)

As they placed the Goofy medal around our necks it was the most incredible feeling. We did. Whoa. Another thing to check off our bucket list. Wow. After that, we hobbled to our car and headed home. Sammy was there to take our pictures and she made us lunch! How nice! She brought us our lunch in bed with our ice packs and she headed back to school while we spent the rest of the afternoon resting in bed with 4 dogs. It was great.

What a fantastic weekend. Just fantastic. I was really getting bored with running. And I seriously was contemplating not doing this race because I hadn't trained due to my back hurting. But wow, get a good chiropractor and some good weather and now our love for running has returned! I can't wait to run another race--which is a good thing because I am running the Princess Half Marathon next month!

Here are some tips I learned from completing the Goofy Challenge:

1. When you see a porta-potty and you kind of have to go, just go and use it. You never know when there will be another one. There were several time during the marathon that I didn't heed my own advice on that one.
2. Run with your own water bottle and fill it up with 1/4 cranberry juice and the rest water. This was like my secret weapon this weekend. It was amazing, and my body seriously craved it while I was running. I would drink it and it would go right to my muscles. Seriously.
3. If there is blood coming out of your shoe, just ignore it. It's better to deal with it when you get home.
4. Legs hurting? Turn up your music. By the end of the race my music was super loud, but we finished with a PR time.
5. If you are going to use Cliff Shots, stop using the ones with caffeine in them at mile 10. I randomly forgot that there was caffeine in them and took them every 5 miles until the end. Yeah, that would explain why I was up at midnight Sunday night and completely wired when I should have been fast asleep.
6. Get a chiropractor. Getting a spine adjustment is quite possibly my favorite thing ever.
7. Have support. We have a great group of friends and family that supports us and our running. We are very lucky.

Holidays in the Keys

2012-01-06T14:17:00.001-05:00

Josh and I were lucky enough to spend the holidays in our favorite place...The Florida Keys. We rented a beautiful house with my dad and sister for the week of Christmas–New Years. We had an absolute fantastic time. We enjoyed jet skiing, kayaking, star-gazing, reading, yoga by the beach, meditation, and just plan relaxing.

All four dogs had a blast too because the house we rented had a huge fenced in yard right by the beach. The only mishap we had was when Kloe fell 10 feet off the deck and onto the gravel drive way thanks to a loose railing. But a trip to the Key West Animal Hospital and $400 later, Kloe is okay! It was a very scary afternoon, Kloe is one lucky dog.

If there is one thing that Josh and I learned this trip is that we LOVE the keys even more than before and we definitely want to have a vacation house down there in the future.

Here are some photos from our week long adventure in paradise, otherwise known as Sugarloaf Key.

Here is the house we rented:

And here are some photos from our kayaking adventures around the neighboring keys:

The name of the kayak was Kona!

Well we had an absolute blast! Already planning our next trip!

The Holiday Rush

2011-12-19T14:17:00.003-05:00

Phew, we have already had a busy holiday season and it isn't even Christmas yet! Sorry for lack of posts, but it has been quite the crazy month. Here is a review in some fun photos:

We redid our newly remodeled closet and turned it into a pantry (which we LOVE!):

Before:

After:

Flew up to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with Josh's family. We ran the 7 mile Turkey Trot run on TG morning, visited with his relatives during the weekend, and saw the Muppets. We didn't really enjoy the cold and rainy drive back to the airport, though.

We finally got around to finishing the screen room. We built a table, daybed, bought and stained some IKEA chairs and table, and I painted a new picture to hang on the wall. Kona is enjoying the daybed as you can see:

Decorated for the holidays:

Celebrated my official 1 year with Disney by getting my 1 year service pin for my name tag.

Enjoyed a few "Tater Tot Tuesdays" with our vegan friends.

Purchased our first investment artwork: Limited edition of 250, hand painted Bambi movie cell.

Finally met up with Josh during lunch and we ate at our dog Kona's hot dog shop. She makes some amazing vegan hot dogs! Loved the pineapple relish!

Saw our friend Charles at work at Disney's Hollywood Studios--he is one of the judges at The American Idol Experience. Then we all enjoyed walking through the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. This is my "twin" Isabel. We have so much in common that it is scary! Love how she is wearing a tank top and I'm in a hoodie :)

My dad and sister both got passes to Universal so of course I had to pop on over to Hogwarts with them one afternoon!

Well we have a busy week of work this week, so happy holidays to everyone if I'm not on here before then!

Skip the Turkey this year, and adopt one instead!

2011-11-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts! It has been very busy around here. Josh has been traveling non-stop for the past 4 weeks and I'm glad to have him home until January. (Fingers crossed he stays home that long!) Getting ready for the holidays is in full swing here in the Floridian France household. We are planning on putting up the holiday tree this weekend and then we head up to Ohio for Thanksgiving next week.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we started a new family tradition this year: Adopting a turkey for Thanksgiving. We "adopted" a turkey named Skip that will live on a farm sanctuary and not be slaughtered for human consumption. Here is our turkey this year:

So when preparing Thanksgiving dinner, "Skip" the turkey! Go Veg!

It's Fall in Florida

2011-10-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

50 degree weather and golden trees. Well, the trees in Celebration look like fall, when you drive out on 192 there are plenty of palm trees to remind you that you are in Florida. Either way it looks and feels like fall down here and we are enjoying it. We have been pretty busy though and Josh has been traveling a lot, so I'm finally able to post an update.

This past weekend we went to Central Florida VegFest. We went with our vegan friends and we had an absolute blast! There were vegan food booths and information booths along with cooking demos and vegan lectures. We filled our stomachs and listened to the fantastic speakers they had. One lecture we went to introduced us to the concept of eating vegan for $4 per day! It seemed really do-able, so I went and bought the book and we have been cooking from it this week. We had such a great time, we wished it would have lasted all weekend.

The rest of the weekend Josh was volunteering at the Children's Miracle Network Golf Classic while I tried to catch up on cleaning. Luckily on Sunday we had some time to work outside. We have several bushes that died this summer and it was about time that we took them out. Our backyard is so much brighter now that there aren't dead bushes everywhere. Yay for yard work! Our goal is to have our back yard all trimmed and cleaned up so that we can set up our fire pit next week.

Looks like we will have some firewood for our new fire pit!

Our backyard is bigger and brighter without the dead bushes. We also realize just how close we are to Chuck and Barb's house, lol.

Kona thinks the new firewood pile is her own personal stick collector.

Yard sale, 13.1 miles, and the flu.

2011-10-05T11:50:00.001-04:00

This weekend started off great with our annual Celebration Yard Sale. We actually had quite the party at our house for the sale which started at 6am Saturday morning. My grandparents, aunt, and sister came to sell stuff while our new friends Isabelle and Gabriel came and sold as well. It was nice having all the company! We ended up making around $200! Not as much as last year but I'll take it!

The sale ended around noon, so we bid farewell to everyone and went to rest and relax before the Wine and Dine half marathon that was that night. I slept for about 2 hours, but when I awoke I didn't feel good. I had a head ache and was just feeling off. I went downstairs, we ate some food and rested on the couch. Then when it was time to head out, I took some medicine in hopes that it would clear up before the race.

Ha. I was wrong.

We had to park at Epcot and took a shuttle over to ESPN Wide World of Sports to wait for 2 hours before the race started at 10pm. Luckily we met up with Jess and Tristan and had some company while we waited. I stretched and longed to be in my bed with some NyQuil. Once it was time to go to our corrals, I really didn't feel good, but I was really looking forward to this race.

Once the race started my adrenaline took over. I sprinted the first 3 miles. And if you know me I am more of a slow and steady runner, lol, but I really booked it. I wanted to run as fast as I could before I knew I wouldn't feel good. Well that came at mile 3. Let me remind you that the race is 13.1 miles. Yeah, still had 10 miles to go and I was ready to be done. But I kept with it. I wasn't sprinting but we were running faster than usual. We didn't start walking until we got past the relay station at mile 5. I ate a snack, which usually boosts my energy--but didn't do anything then because I was so out of it. We pushed it and we started doing a walking pattern to get through the next several miles.

Once we reached Disney's Hollywood Studios, it was midnight and it was officially our anniversary--yay for 2 years! Then we just decided to walk. Which was the best decision the whole night. We walked and talked and had a great time. I still wasn't feeling good, but walking forced me to save my energy and not kill myself. We ended up finishing the race hand in hand at 3 hours and 1 minute. If we hadn't walked, we would have set a PR with under 2:30. Oh well. Better to have pulled up than run too hard and risk getting injured for the women's half I'm running in November and the Goofy in January.

Overall it was a fun race but I was sick. I looked back at all the photos they took of me during the race and I look sicker and sicker as the race progressed. Usually we breeze through half marathons, so much so that we usually don't train--even though we did train for this. So I have decided that no matter how hard you train (or don't train) it all comes down to how you are feeling on race day. This one will definitely go down in my history as my worst half marathon.

We decided to skip the after party and headed home. It was cold--yes finally chilly here in Florida! And all I wanted to do was go to bed. After showers and some NyQuil, I was out. We didn't wake up until 11am the next day. We were supposed to go to our friend My Lihn's birthday celebration at Epcot's food and wine festival but there was no way I could go. I had a 103 fever and I felt like I was dying. So Josh went and had a great time sampling food and mostly drink in the fabulous fall weather around Epcot. I would say I was jealous, but I was passed out much of the day. I woke up only to moan. When Josh got home I had such a high fever that he called our doctor. He suggested some meds and luckily those kept my fever in check for the night. But on a lighter note, I was so sick I didn't feel sore from the race!

So I ended up staying home from work on Monday and went to the doctors. I'm feeling better now and slowing am starting to feel like myself again. I can't help but wonder why I seem to be getting sick more often. My theory (and so far it has proven true) is that when I do get sick, it always happens about a week after I visit a Disney park. I think it's from all the hand rails I touch, etc. I need to make sure I bring anti-bacteria hand sanatizer with me and use it liberally when I am at the parks.

Well we have another busy weekend coming up this week, so hoping I feel like myself by then! I seem to always get sick at the most inopportune times.

Peru Trip Report

2011-09-15T18:16:00.009-04:00

Hope you're comfy, because this blog post is a recap of our recent trip to Peru and our trekking adventure through the Andes Mountains.

DAY 1: Cusco, Peru

Day 1 actually started the day before when my dad dropped us off at the airport and we started our journey south via Taca airlines. We flew from Orlando to San Salvador and then to Lima, Peru. In Lima we had a 9 hour over-night layover, so we opted to book a room in the hotel Ramada so that we didn't have to sleep on the floor. Totally worth it. We were able to get a few hours of shut eye, shower, and not have to listen to airport announcements all night long.

Our flight left Lima bound for Cusco at 5:40 am. It was only an hour flight which was nice. We landed in Cusco and were hit immediately with cold, thin air. We went from sea level to 11,000 ft in an hour. Once we got our bags (I was so worried they wouldn't make it and we wouldn't have our trekking equipment and would be forced to trek in gym shoes and a light jacket. Glad that didn't happen!) we headed outside and met our Mountain Madness guide, Julio. He took us to our hotel and we were able to sleep for a few hours before lunch. During that time we drank A LOT of water and some coca tea to help acclimatize. Then at lunch time we met with Julio again and we were introduced to the second couple that would be joining us on our trek, Rob and Luda. They were from West Palm Beach! Haha, small world that two sets of Floridians would be trekking in Peru together. But we had a nice lunch (all of the meals had already been paid for with our package). Then we headed out to see the sights of Cusco. It was so great having a guide to show us and teach us about everything that we saw. We went a bit higher and were checking out an Inca temple when Josh started to feel ill and ended up having to use some bottled oxygen. But after that he felt fine. It was neat seeing and touching Inca stone after having learned about it extensively in college and growing up. It's not like you see Inca stone anywhere else in the world.

After we explored the city and some Inca sites, we had dinner together at a small restaurant near our hotel. One thing that we had to get used to was the times that Peruvians liked to eat. They preferred a late lunch and a late dinner--a very Spanish trait. Josh and I usually eat lunch between 11-12 am and dinner between 5-6pm. In Peru you eat lunch around 2-3 and dinner between 8-9. Just a bit late for us, but we adjusted. We had fantastic vegan meals, so no complaints! And it helped very much that our guide was a local and spoke spanish. Our high school Spanish did help a lot, but neither of us are fluent.

After dinner we packed and went to bed because we were headed to a new hotel and the Sacred Valley the next day.

Cusco

Spanish Cathedral in main plaza

Peru flag and Inca flag

Painting illustrating how the Incas believed that everything was connected by lines.

Cusco hillside

Luda and our guide Julio

Cusco rooftops

DAY 2: The Sacred Valley

We left our hotel rather early the following day to head an hour outside Cusco to the Inca's Sacred Valley. Here in the Sacred Valley we stopped at an animal sanctuary (I got to TOUCH a condor!), we hiked up some ruins at Pisac, and spent some money in the local market. I bought a cool silver lizard necklace for 35 soles (roughly $12 US) and Josh bought a journal. We bought a few other small things, everything was so much cheaper than in the US and we were able to bargain, so it was quite exciting. After our adventures through the market, we headed to a neat little buffet outside of town. They had some interesting and yummy food. Peru does have a lot of meat dishes, but they also have plenty of fruit, veggie, pasta, and potato dishes to keep vegans happy.

After lunch we headed to another Inca site on the side of a mountain, Urabumba. There were quite a lot of stairs, but it was still fun, and very windy! We walked through the small town at the bottom of the mountain where people still live, and we saw what I would call a "guinea pig farm". It was basically 50 or so guinea pigs living on the floor of a house because they eat them in Peru.

After our tours, we headed to a new and beautiful hotel in the mountain valley. On the drive up to the hotel however, we passed a lot of poverty. Poverty that you don't see here in the US. It was quite eye opening. Then we passed the poverty streets and headed to a gated hotel. It just really made you think. The hotel was nice, and it had amazing views of the mountains and surrounding river valley. Once we got to our room we had to pack our separate bags for the trek the following day. Then we headed down to dinner, which was an adventure in itself because the wait staff didn't know that our meal was supposed to be included and none of us knew the Spanish words for that statement. Oh and they were out of chocolate pie, so that was disheartening, lol.

We went to bed early that night in preparation for our trek the next day.

The Sacred Valley

Pisac

Rob, Luda, Me, and Josh

Guinea pig farm!

Our city guide, Julio

DAY 3: Inca Trail to Huayllabamba

We met our local guide for the trek at our hotel over a nice early breakfast. His name was Mario and he had been on the Inca Trail over 400 times! He would prove to be a fantastic guide and teacher throughout our trekking adventure. We had to drive about an hour away to the trail head in a small town by the river. There we met our porters and had to officially check into the trail. We had to present our passports (I got a stamp for the Inca Trail!) and make sure our permits were secure. Then we crossed a small bridge and were on our way!

The trail was very easy at this stage. It was relatively flat and had a gradual incline. we followed the river as it wound in and out of the mountains. The scenery was beautiful and the company was great. We stopped and had lunch around 2pm on the side of a mountain in the valley. Now in our trekking group we had the 4 of us, our guide Mario, a chef, a head porter, and 7 other porters that carried our main bags, tents, and other gear. So they would run ahead of us on the trail and set up a tent and a cooking tent for lunch and for our over night camps. I was surprised at the type of service we were presented with when we had our first lunch stop. They had water our for us to wash our hands. and they had a tent set up with a table and chairs for us to relax and enjoy our lunch. And enjoy it we did! We would come to get used to our chefs amazing 4 course meals at every stop. To my amazement and satisfaction, they prepared complete vegan meals for us. It was amazing. No wonder I didn't lose any weight on this trip, we had great food and a lot of it!

After lunch we hit the trail for a few more hours of hiking. It was super easy hiking and before we knew it, we were at our camp site for the night. We camped in very small little village and near some farms. It was great having the tents all set up when we arrived. We hopped in and changed our clothes and set up our mattresses and sleeping bags for the night. Then it was tea time. We talked, enjoyed some light snacks, and then prepared for dinner--which was really good. We finished off the evening with some tea and we all went to bed around 8pm. I was hoping to get in some star gazing while on this trip because there wouldn't be any light pollution because well, we were in the Andes. But with my luck it was a full moon on this trip, so every night all we saw was moonlight. Maybe next time I book a trekking trip I need to look at the moon cycles before I pick the dates!

Being dropped off by the van

The bridge is the start of the Inca Trail

Dog on the trail

Lunch on the trail!

First camp!

DAY 4: Inca Trail to Warmiwanusga Pass

After a huge breakfast (and I mean huge!) we headed upwards on the trail. No more easy flat and gentle incline paths. No. We had 5 hours of stairs ahead of us. I'm starting to think this was the reason why we had such a big breakfast. We clearly needed the fuel to climb up 4,000 ft of elevation. The day before I had listened to some music on my iphone. It was classical and pan flute. But for climbing up the stairs I had to switch it to some Coldplay and some Queen. Classical arrangements just weren't going to cut it. I'm not going to lie, the first 5 hours of that day was crazy hard. It just kept going up. But finally, after almost 5 hours of walking up stairs, we hit the top of the Warmiwanusga Pass/Dead Woman Pass which is 13,000 ft above sea level. This was the part of the trek that I was most worried about. I had never been that high before, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle the altitude. Altitude ability has nothing to do with your fitness level, it has to do with your genes and how well your body can adapt. Well, I am happy to say that I handled it fine! We sat up top, I ate a snack, and took some photos without even as headache or being out of breath.

But reaching the top of the pass wasn't the end of our trek for the day. We then had to head down another 1,000 ft of elevation to reach our lunch and campsite for the night. I felt great going down and lead the way. It took us about an hour to reach the camp. Josh struggled a bit, but he felt much better once we got to camp. I think everyone's knees were sore that night! I seriously felt like I had run a marathon. So hopefully that was good training!

We had lunch right when we reached the campsite. Again, it was a great meal. Then we had a few hours of free time which was spent reading and sleeping. I used that time to use some icy hot on my knees and put on my compression socks. Then we ate dinner and even had a bit of wine! I had tried to avoid alcohol most of the trip because it has the opposite effect on your body when you are trying acclimatize--it's a blood thinner and you are trying to thicken your blood when you are this high. But it was some local Peruvian Blanca Blanc wine and it was good. Not sure if it was the wine that helped me sleep or the fact that we had completed 5,000 ft of elevation change over the course of that day.

Rob on the trail

The pass is the top!

Halfway up the climb

Stairs.

Andian treeline

Water break!

Top of the pass!

Snack break at the top

We made it!

Camp!

DAY 5: Inca Trail to WinayWayna

This morning started out much the same way as the previous one. We had a filling breakfast and then headed upwards. We climbed to almost 12,000 ft at the second pass of the trail before heading down another endless trail of stairs. These stairs heading down were my most troublesome ones. The whole entire 45 minutes that it took us to climb down them was a struggle for me. My knees hurt and I kept slipping on the rocks. These are original stones that the Incas had laid, so the stones were uneven and I just couldn't get a good landing spot for my feet on each step. Every time I took a step down I kept getting that feeling where you catch yourself form falling. It wasn't fun. When we reached the bottom, Mario, Rob, and Luda climbed up to an Inca site that was built on top of a mountain. Josh and I actually decided to skip that site and continue on the trail and meet up with the rest of the group for lunch.

After the stairs heading down, it was quite the enjoyable trail. It was mostly up and down gradations, but they were a bit more gradual. We walked through some caves and rock over hangs that were really neat. The trail was crowded most of the time during our 4 day trek. But for the almost 2 hours that Josh and I were moving along we felt like we were the only ones there. It was neat. We met up with the rest of our group at our lunch campsite which happened to be at the 3rd pass at almost 12,000 ft. It was a beautiful lunch site on the top of a mountain. Amazing food again!

After lunch we headed down. And continued to head down. Passes some Inca sites, but kept climbing down stairs. Finally the trail started to level out and we passes some beautiful Inca terraces. We explored them and took some photos. We saw some llamas and marveled at how far we had climbed down from the mountain above us. The sun started to set and we headed towards camp. We rolled in to the site, changed, and sat down to a very delicious dinner. This was actually our last dinner together on the trail. We enjoyed some wine (we were heading down in elevation now, so no point in avoiding alcohol!) and we had the opportunity to personally thank (and tip) all the porters and chef. It is just amazing what these porters can do and it saddened us greatly by how much poverty they live with. Josh and I are getting together some clothes to send to them later on this fall.

After the dinner festivities, we had to get to bed early. We had a 3:40 wake up time the following day so that we could get to Machu Picchu to see the sun rise.

Survey marker. Josh was excited.

Our camp from the previous night.

Making my way up to the second pass.

Down into the cave!

Amazing lunch! And did I mention it was always vegan?

Lunch tent

Our group

All of us with our chef, porters, and guide

Machu Picchu is actually on the other side of that mountain! But still quite a long way away.

Stairs. A lot of stairs going down.

Mario teaching us some Inca facts

Llama walking on the ruins

Made it to camp

My personal porter blew up my mattress. Hmmm, I think I forgot to tip him...

DAY 6: Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

I awoke around 12am with the sound of heavy rain hitting the tent. This lasted until about 3am. We all woke up and were out of our tents and eating breakfast at 4am. We had to get a move on not only to catch the sunrise (we still had a 2 hours trek ahead of us) but the porters were heading down to the village to catch the train, and we didn't want them to miss it.

We bid farewell to our new porter friends and hit the trail with our headlamps on. Unfortunately we had to wait in line at the checkpoint until 5:30 am for them to clear us to move forward in the trail. That was annoying, but that's the process. We moved pretty quickly on the trail to the Sun Gate. It was very narrow and now that I look back on it, it was really dangerous because on the right side of the trail was a cliff. I think the scariest part of that mornings hike was climbing up the "Monkey Stairs" because we actually had to climb using our hand and legs. It wasn't that hard, it was a little bit frightening because it was so crowded and hand and fingers were getting stepped on and some people didn't know what they were doing. We sped up and passed as many people as we could.

We arrived at the Sun Gate with about 6 minutes to spare before sun rise. We sat down and watched as the sun slowly crept over the mountains and hit Machu Picchu below us. I'm sure seeing Machu Picchu after a 3 hour train ride is amazing. But seeing the sun rise on the ancient ruin after a 4 day trek is beyond describable words. So we took pictures!

After enjoying the peaceful moment, we still had another hour hike to the site. Once we reached the ruin, we took some photos. Even my flat Simba that I brought with me from my Disney Leadership Class made an appearance! It was great. Our hard work had paid off! We made it! What a great feeling. Then we used the bathrooms (real bathrooms with toilets! All we saw on the trail were holes in the ground and spots for your feet. I appreciate seats.) and we had a snack. We locked up our backpacks and then Mario gave us a 4 hour extensive tour of the ruins. I thought I knew a lot of the Incas and Machu Picchu before, but Mario taught us so much. It was great.

After our tour it started to get really crowded and hot, so we bit farewell to Machu Picchu and hit the local lodge for some lunch. It was a buffet and man did we eat a lot. Having trekked since 4am creates quite the hungry stomach by noon. And they had water--clean water! I was so sick of buying bottles and bottles of water. I think I got up like 10 times just to get more water. It was great.

After lunch, we headed on the bus down to the train station to catch our train back to Cusco. While we waited for our train we shopped in a local market and picked up some Christmas presents. Once our train arrived we sat down and enjoyed the ride. Absolutely beautiful. It had large windows and windows on the ceiling so that you could look at the valley scenery. They even provided us with some native dances and native customs on the way back. Very cool. PeruRail was neat!

Once we got back, we took a wild ride through the Sacred Valley and finally reached Cusco. We took showers (having not showed for 4 days, this was a welcome relief!) and went to bed. I have never slept so hard like I did that night. We both totally passed out.

Almost sunrise...

Sunrise!

We made it!

Flat Simba!

DAY 7: Puerto Maldonado

We awoke early the next morning to pack for our trip to the Amazon rainforest. Then we enjoyed a nice breakfast in the hotel dining room on the top floor of our hotel. Julio picked us up after breakfast and we headed to the airport. We took a short 30 minute flight for Cusco to Puerto Maldonado. Wow, was this a remote airport. It had 2 gates, and no walls. Definitely the most remote place I have been. Our hotel picked us up and we headed to the river. We rode a small boat for 45 minutes down a muddy river until we reached our rainforest lodge, InkaTerra.

We got to our room (which we ended up changing rooms because our first room was by the resort generator). We ended up in a nice river view room. All food was included in the package of this resort, and we had amazing meals here. For lunch we enjoyed some nice veggie cuisine. After lunch we were given a guided hike in the rainforest, which was neat. Well I thought it was neat before they warned us about all the deadly snakes that were around. I was most scare of the BushMaster snake. It bites you until it knows you are dead. No thanks! Once I heard about that snake I stopped enjoying the scenery and just kept an eye on the trail path hoping no snakes crossed it.

After our trail hike, we rested a bit in our room in the hammocks. Then we headed to our night river cruise. We saw some caymans (small albino crocodiles) and a family of Capyburras. Once our cruise was over, we headed to dinner and bought a bottle of wine. Great meal. We headed back to our room, tucked the mosquito netting into our mattress and fell asleep before they even blew out the light on our outside lantern.

Rainforest airport

This is the boat we road in to the lodge

The road behind me connects Peru and Brazil.

Found these guys all over the lodge

DAY 8: Rainforest Canopy

We woke up early, ate breakfast and had the opportunity to walk on top of the rainforest canopy. Something that I was really excited to do. We had to climb up to the top of a high tower, but once we got to the top we saw that they had connected bridges that went from tree to tree. It was really cool. We saw a lot of birds when we were on the canopy walkway. Once we got back down to the bottom, we saw 6-7 saddle back tamarin monkeys! That was really neat to see them in the wild like that.

After our walking tour, we headed back to our room to shower and relax in the hammocks. We both read our books and then headed to lunch. After lunch Josh and I both enjoyed a 2 hour long Amazon spa treatment. It was fantastic and very relaxing. It started to rain and it was very peaceful to listen to a thunderstorm in the rainforest.

After our spa treatment, we enjoyed a happy hour at the bar in the main lodge. Apparently 2 pisco sours (no egg) is our limit. We also had to finish the bottle of wine at dinner. Hopefully Rob and Luda didn't mind us talking too much at dinner that night!

Canopy bridges

Our private room

DAY 9: Cusco again

We had an early flight back to Cusco and ended up leaving the rainforest lodge around 9am. It was an interesting ride back to the airport. Again, more poverty. Once we got on our plane, it was a smooth ride back to Cusco. Julio picked us up from the airport, we got settled into our hotel (with an amazing room with a balcony!) and he took us out to eat an a really good organic restaurant called "Greens". They had amazing food there and AMAZING juices. I had a banana, peach, and strawberry juice--freshly made. oh it was delicious.

After lunch it started to rain, so we headed back to our hotel to crash. We had an amazing room, so we laid on the bed, looked out at the rain, and read our books. It was very nice. Then we headed up to the hotel bar for happy hour. We drank eggless pisco sours and played some chess. For dinner we ate in the hotel restaurant where they gave us way too much food. We must have still been tired from the trek because we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow that night.

Foggy river

DAY 10: Last day in Cusco

We enjoyed a nice morning breakfast overlooking Cusco before we headed out to explore the city by foot. This was a free day and nothing was planned until dinner at 8pm that night. So we walked around, bought some last minute coffee and tea to bring back, and ate lunch at Greens again. The juice was too good not to eat there again! Then it rained the rest of the afternoon. We ended up laying in bed and watched some HBO while it rained. We packed our bags and got everything ready for or departure the next day. Then we met up with Rob and Luda at the bar and chatted and drank with them. Then we all headed to dinner.

The company was good and we all thanked Julio for a great job of guiding us around the city. Mario guided us on the trail and Julio guided us in the city, we had two wonderful guides.

After dinner we headed back to our hotel and got ready for our trip home the following day.

Overall we had an amazing trip. I still think about the fact that we were in South America! We hiked where the Incas used to walk and we had 4 course meals on the side of a mountain. Just an amazing trip. Mountain Madness did such an amazing job and it wasn't that expensive at all. I would recommend this trip to anyone that is looking for an educational adventure trip. Yes, it did require a good amount of physical fitness, but with a few months of training it's definitely attainable. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

Here are a few things that I learned this trip:

1. Consult a moon phase calendar before booking our next trip. I seriously wanted to see the Milky Way but all it was was bright moonlight. Our next trip to someplace remote will definitely be during a new moon cycle.
2. Ask about the bathroom situation on the trail. I made do, but I wish I would have bought the Porto John. It's basically a portable toilet seat. I had to be a bit creative with the hole in the ground situation when it came to bathroom time. It's worth $30 to be comfortable.
3. Don't bring snacks. I was so worried that we wouldn't have food to eat on this trip because we are vegan. How wrong I was. All the snacks I took with me I brought back. What a waste. Mountain Madness does a great job with meals and snacks, so there is never a need to bring any, it's just extra weight in your pack.
4. More underwear. I clearly didn't bring enough.
5. Never wash clothes in the rainforest and expect them to dry.

On our way to PERU!

2011-09-02T14:33:00.002-04:00

Josh and I are off to Peru to trek over the Andes Mountains from Cusco to Machu Picchu. So it will be a bit quiet here on the blog! I will be posting twitter and facebook updates while we are on the Inca Trail via our satellite phone.

See you when we get back!

Bathroom? DONE.

2011-08-28T21:39:00.003-04:00

With just a week before we head to Peru, we were able to check off another room from our summer to-do list. And this one was quite a big and expensive project. But it's done! No more gross water backups on the sink, and no more biscuit color in the bathroom!

Here is the BEFORE:

And AFTER:

And here are some other fun photos:

Painting the bathroom made quite the mess in every other room!

I saw a statue of Kona while I was at HomeGoods!

My first cement job!

Kloe was our general contractor for the weekend project.

Good bye old brass 90's light fixture!

We worked pretty hard to get this bathroom painted and updated to something that didn't look like it was straight out of the 90s. A big thanks goes out to my dad for helping us demo the old sink, install the new sink, and install the light fixture. It was great having him around to help with the plumbing and making sure we had everything set for the new fixture. We are still rather new to this whole "home owner" thing, so we learned quite a bit about vanity plumbing.

Also a thank you goes out to my inlaws because I bought the shelves with my birthday gift card from Home Depot. So thanks Rick and Karen, my French parents.

Here is a breakdown of costs. This room was by far the most expensive.

$370 sink, vanity

$60 light fixture

$30 mirror

$150 decor (rug, waste basket, decorative items, candles, etc)

$25 paint (we ran out half way through painting this room!)

____

$635 TOTAL

So yeah, a bit more expensive than the laundry room, closet, and front porch put together! But in the long run this will add value to our house and we are excited about that. And now it is quite the enjoyable experience to use the downstairs bathroom!

It's a dog. No. It's a BEAR!

2011-08-15T13:12:00.000-04:00

This past weekend my dad, sister, Josh, and I flew up to Pigeon Forge, TN to attend a wedding of a close family friend. While we were up there we enjoyed good company, partied quite a bit, and saw a bear.

Asking about that last one? Well Josh and I had some free time on Friday before dinner, so we decided to hit the Smokey Mountain National park for a hike. We hiked about 4 miles in total, so it was good training for our upcoming Peru trip. However, as we were about 100 yards from the bottom of the trail, we hear rustling on the hillside above us. I look up and it looked like a small black dog. Then I looked a little harder and realized that it wasn't a dog--it was a black bear cub. And with two cubs visible about 15 yards from us, the mother must have been close. Josh kept his cool while I seriously wanted to book it down the rest of the trail. But I learned that you never run from a bear. (tell that to my shaking knees!) Luckily we made enough noise to scare them off and they continued on their foraging trip around the forest. I tried to snap a photo of the 2 cubs and mom, but I was so full of adrenaline and my knees were shaking so bad that the end result was a horrible photograph. You can't even see the bears. They were walking up the hillside when I took this:

After our bear sighting, we enjoyed a nice dinner with the wedding party and then partied the night away. We all stayed in a big lodge together (there was about 50 people) which had a 15 person hot tub, a movie theatre room, game room, dance area, and plenty of balconies. It was neat. Our close family friend was Andy, the groom, who is practically our cousin. So it was nice to celebrate with them this weekend.

Here are a few photos from this weekend:

Laundry Room? DONE.

2011-08-08T11:37:00.001-04:00

Wow, what a productive and busy weekend we had. We finished the laundry room, organized the garage (will have to do a future post about that once I get all my boxes from my dad's house), running/training, worked out at the gym, cleaned our entire downstairs (except for the pantry--that's a nightmare for another weekend), shopped all over town, and saved $40 in coupons at the grocery store! It was a great weekend, and for once not a lazy one!

Our big project this weekend was the laundry room. We are slowly checking things off our summer to-do list!

Here is the BEFORE:

And the AFTER!

Here are some of the IN PROGRESS shots:

Total cost for everything was roughly $75 dollars! Mostly thanks to that purple gallon of paint that we are still using from the other rooms, and the $3 hardware we scored on the clearance table at Anthropology!

New Celebration Resident

2011-07-31T16:29:00.000-04:00

This weekend my dad made the big move down here to Celebration! He is now only 2 miles away from us--hopefully that will come in handy when we need a babysitter! lol. But we are really excited to have him close to us. My sister will be living in his apartment over the garage. So it's very cool everyone will be so close.

We spent the weekend helping my dad unload the truck (Thank you Jill and Tan!) and unpacking boxes. My dad still has a few things left in Cincy he has to go up and get (my sister and the dogs among other things) so he will officially be down here in two weeks with them. Hopefully that trip down goes smoothly!

On a fun note, yesterday at the Celebration Town Tavern, they had like a reality TV star thing--we don't really watch reality TV except for Expedition Impossible. Well they had one of the teams there to sign autographs! It was cool. I got a quick snap shot before we headed to the Irish Pub for dinner.

Weekend Adventure: Savannah, GA

2011-07-26T09:37:00.000-04:00

This past weekend the four of us (Josh, the puppies, and I) went up to Savannah, GA for a nice get away at a quant bed and breakfast right in the middle of town. We had a blast. It was a dog-friendly bed and breakfast and it happened to be the oldest one in town. Very neat to be staying in a building that was built before the Civil War. We had a nice room with a great little private courtyard that the dogs enjoyed.

During our stay we enjoyed (fantastic vegan) breakfasts, snacks, and free wine while we were there. Since we were within walking distance to everything, we took advantage and explored the city by foot (and paw). We walked to a nice dog park, explored the river bank, and walked by my old grad school, SCAD. It was really hot though, so during the afternoon we enjoyed spending time relaxing in our room, out of the sun and heat. We took naps (the puppies did most of the napping), read, enjoyed the courtyard, and I painted. Then when the heat died down, we explored the city some more.

It was a nice trip and it was close enough that we enjoyed the weekend. We had a great time, and now its back to another busy work week!

Here are some pics from our trip:

Closet...DONE!

2011-07-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

We can check another project off our summer to-do list. Closet? Check.

Here is a BEFORE:

DURING:

and AFTER!

Finally, a place we can keep all of our running stuff--so we aren't looking for it a night before the race!

So basically, we painted over the horrible biscuit color and added a roll-away closet hanging system and drawers so that we can get into the closet under the stairs where our holiday tree lives.

The total for this room came in a little under $100. And we bought a gallon of this purple paint that will also cover the bathroom and the laundry room when we get to those in a few weeks.

It's so nice to have that closet organized!

An Emotional Weekend of Clean Up

2011-07-13T11:04:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I flew up to Cincinnati to help my dad clean up and pack up the house. I wish I was able to spend more time up there because there were so many boxes to go through. I did manage to go through everything that I owned and downsized, donated, and prepared toys to sell in an upcoming garage sale. I can easily say that between my dad, sister, and I, we went though at least 65-70 boxes containing anything from stuffed animals and beanie babies, to books and Jurassic Park toys. Out of all of those boxes, I condensed all of my belongings and toys that I want to keep for our future kid down to just 15 boxes.

Here is a break down of what I decided to keep:

1 box of figurines (misc. toys such as weebles, disney toys, etc.)
2 boxes of My Little Ponies (either to sell of decorate my office, maybe both)
1 box of Precious Places (to sell on Ebay or our next garage sale)
2 boxes of Breyer Horses (waiting to see if our kid likes horses, if not, will sell them most likely)
3 boxes of WDW toys (including 2 monorails, Spaceship Earth, and some of the resorts)
1 box of stuffed animals (all with tags on them and are brand new looking)
2 boxes of beanie babies
2 boxes of books (kids books)
1 box of old photos, yearbooks, etc.
-----
15 boxes total

On the bright side, I did get a chance to visit with some great friends this weekend and had a good time. Thanks everyone for making my emotional trip to Cincy a fun one!

Front Porch: Done!

2011-07-05T13:49:00.000-04:00

Alright, well these past few weeks we have been working towards getting some things checked off our summer to-do list. What should have only taken a weekend to do, turned out to be several weeks due to travel and sickness.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Here is a breakdown of what we did:

1. Bought new doormat
2. Re-painted door (same color)
3. Installed new door knocker
4. Painted flower pots
5. Planted Flowers

Excluding our labor costs (Josh and I have a pretty high hourly rate, lol) we came in around $200 for everything from start to finish.

So nice to come home to flowers on the front porch! Let's hope we can keep them alive--unlike our failed herb garden.

Quarter of a Century Old

2011-06-26T19:11:00.000-04:00

That's right, I turned 25 this past week. I think Josh gave me the best present of all--his cold! Oh well, I knew I was going to catch it sometime. Hooray for z-packs and vitamin C tablets!

Anyways, I had a great birthday week. My boss took me out to Disney at lunch on my birthday, I spent time with Josh's parents, and finished up the birthday festivities with dinner at Ohana's with my friends on Friday night. It was a good time.

On the bright side, I can now rent a car without any penalty fees. On the not-so-bright side, I'm halfway to 50.

Quiet Weekend

2011-06-20T09:32:00.000-04:00

Not much to report this weekend. Josh came back from Canada with a sinus infection so all we did was lay around the house and relax. Actually, now that I think about it, not a bad weekend...lol

Weekend Adventure: Calgary and Banff

2011-06-14T16:25:00.001-04:00

Let me just say, I had a fabulous time in Canada. I really want to be an ex-pat. I just adore other countries. So much culture, so much history. Anyways, this past weekend I flew up to Calgary to visit Josh since he is up in Canada for two weeks for work. I flew up Thursday after work and got in at midnight (2am EST). We stayed in the hotel that was attached to the airport, and boy was that nice. We just walked over once I got off my plane.

The next morning we enjoyed a free breakfast, then we got our rental car and headed out to Banff National Park, which was about an hour and a half drive. It was so refreshing seeing actual non-Disney mountains! We couldn't check into our hotel until 4pm, so we ate lunch at a cool sandwich place in the little downtown area. Then we decided to hit the trails. We saw that you could hike up Mt. Sulfer, which is 7459 ft tall. From the elevation we currently were at, it was about a 2000 ft climb. You could take a 5 minute gondela ride to the top for 30 dollars, but why? We chose to take the 2 1/2 hour hike up the mountain for free! And it proved to be good training for our upcoming Peru trip!

We had a great time hiking, talking, and seeing breathtaking views. We even saw a frozen waterfall. So cool! Once we go to the top it was rather chilly, so we didn't stay up there for too long. It took us a little over an hour to hike back down. That's when we realized that we both have bum knees thanks to running, so we now know that we need to wear our leg and knee braces for our Peru trip. So glad we found that out then instead of in the middle of the Andes.

By the time we got down, we were more than exhausted. I honestly felt like I just ran a half marathon. We headed to our hotel, showered, and walked into town for dinner at a yummy vegan restaurant. We shared some roasted red pepper soup and a vegan shepherds pie, washed down by local beer and hard cider. Then we headed to the British pub that had a patio on the roof. We enjoyed some dessert and drinks while watching the sun set behind the mountains. What a view. It was neat because we were so far north, that by the time we walked back to our hotel around 10pm, it looked like it was only 7pm. Not something you typically see living in Florida.

The next morning we enjoyed a nice breakfast in our hotel then headed out to see Lake Louise. We weren't planning on doing another strenious hike since both our knees were a little bit tender. We saw that there was a trail to a tea house that was about 3km, or 1.5ish miles. Well, what we didn't fully realize is that the trail was up a mountain. No big deal, right? Well we took our time and we finally made it up to the tea house. Then it started to rain. And then we realized that the tea house only took cash. Well all we had was our venture card and my wallet full of cash was in the car in my suitcase. Live and learn I guess. Since it was raining we really booked it coming down. We made it down in roughly 30 mins! I didn't have any rain pants on, so that was enough incentive to hurry down the mountain. And who wants to walk through cold rain in the middle of June? Not this girl!

Once we got to the bottom we sat below a tree and I was able to do some water color painting. It was nice and relaxing. Then we got back in the car and headed towards Calgary. Once we got downtown we were very excited to try this vegetarian place. Well we got there, it started to rain, and we found out that it was at least an hour wait. Yeah, we were way too hungry and tired to wait an hour. So we headed towards our hotel at the airport and ordered room service. We ate dinner in our pajamas and enjoyed dessert while we watched Top Chef Canada. It was awesome. I love traveling with Josh. We just have way too much fun together, even if it is watching TV and eating room service food.

My plane left early the next morning and I got back into Orlando around 6:30pm Sunday evening. And back to work Monday. What a whirlwind weekend! Below are some photos from our trip. Josh was the photographer this trip, so most of the pictures are of me, lol.

Pots Painted, Flowers Potted.

2011-06-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

I decided to jump head first into our to-do list. With Josh traveling a lot this summer, I figured the to-do list should keep me occupied enough to not realize that the guy who folds my laundry and does the dishes isn't here. Plus I would much rather paint and plant flowers than wash dishes. Just sayin'.

So this weekend I painted all the pots and planted all the flowers. Next week I will paint the front door and install the door knocker. My goal now is to just make sure these plants stay alive long enough to at least take an "after" photo of our front porch. Josh and I have the opposite of a green thumb, that is for sure. Fingers crossed that these guys make it!

Summer Projects

2011-05-31T10:08:00.001-04:00

Wow, Memorial day is over and in my mind, it is officially summer. And when you are a home owner, that means that it is time to get out that to-do list that has been building up all year and finally get some work done. I thought I would share our To-Do list with you so you can see what we will be spending our money on this summer.

1. Front Porch
Repaint front door
New door mat
Add door knocker
Paint flower pots
Plant flowers in pots on stairs

2. Garage
Add utility sink
Organize all our storage in the garage attic

3. Downstairs Closet
Paint closet walls
Add new closet organizer
Organize everything in closet
New door knob

4. Laundry Room
Paint walls
Paint wood cabinets
Add new hardware
Remove shelf above washer/dryer
Add colorful tile backsplash
Organize items in cabinets
New door knob

5. Downstairs Bathroom
Paint walls
Install new vanity
Install new sink
Install new mirror
Add storage above the toilet
Add more artwork to walls
New door knob

6. Screen Room
Build day-bed
Add new table and chairs
Add window treatments
Add artwork to walls
Add accessories

7. Backyard
Take out dead bushes
Plant new fruit trees: Cumquat tree and Grapefruit tree
Plant palm tree
Re-stain carport
Power-wash fence and carport columns

Well those are our 7 big projects for this summer. So friends, if we don't have money to spend at Disney every weekend, this is why. lol.

A visit to Hogwarts

2011-05-16T09:30:00.000-04:00

Well, a visit to the one here in Florida! We finally took the time to go and visit the Harry Potter "land" in Universals Islands of Adventure. We also took the plunge and bought annual passes for the two Universal Parks for the year. We are pretty excited. Not so say that we are getting bored with going to Disney, but we need other things to do than just go to Disney every weekend. And let me tell you, we had so much fun! We rode just about all the Harry Potter rides and we even stopped to buy a butterbeer! So good! Josh and I are looking forward to summer nights where we go and spend a couple of hours at Universal and buy butterbeers every now and again :)

A weekend of Scavenger Hunts

2011-05-09T09:49:00.000-04:00

This past week Josh and I have been quite busy. On Thursday we competed in a cast member scavenger hunt at Disney's Hollywood Studios. This was our first time doing this scavenger hunt, and we had a great time. We were on a team with our friends Chris and Karianne. We all went to UC so we decided to be Team Bearcat. It was a lot of fun. Although we didn't win (or come close because we couldn't find one of the clues and lost a good 40 minutes searching for it, but I digress...) but we did score really high on the trivia (finally all that useless Disney knowledge that I have had stored in my brain finally came in handy)!
But we had a lot of fun and hopefully we can do it again next year--and we will have a better idea of what to do then, lol.

Another scavenger hunt that we did this weekend was the Expedition Everest Challenge at Disney's Animal Kingdom. This was a 5K race and a scavenger hunt all in one. A LOT of fun! Josh and I ran a record 5K (at least for me) with a time of 29:52 for the race, and 38:32 for the scavenger hunt. So we finished the whole hunt and race in under an hour, placing us 105th out of 2000 teams. Pretty awesome if you ask me!

Check out my new blog

2011-04-27T15:46:00.001-04:00

Well, add another blog to your bookmarks! I am in the process of switching over my portfolio site into a blog and design site. It is called "Designer Mandy". I try to update it 3 times a week with projects that I am working and other design stuff. Just a fun site that I like to keep up with that is different than my adventures with Josh. Check it out when you get a chance!

http://www.designermandy.com/

My Mom's Obituary

2011-04-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

I wrote my Mom's obituary last month, and it was published up in Cincinnati last week. Check it out if you have a chance. I really miss her.

https://cincinnati.gannettproduction.com/pdfs/CE-1001633312-01.pdf

Two shaved pups

2011-04-17T15:14:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks we have been watching my dad's dogs, Nala and Lilo while he is up in Cincinnati. They are golden retriever mixes and I can tell that they have been pretty uncomfortable lately in this heat. So on Friday we had the mobile pet grooming van pull up in front of our house and two hours later we had two shaved pups! Now they look, act, and feel like puppies again!

BEFORE

and AFTER

Win!

2011-04-13T09:25:00.001-04:00

Josh and I play in a co-ed rec softball team on tuesday nights that is designated for Disney Cast Members. We play on a team with all our friends. We like to call it our "drinking team with a softball problem" haha. We play just for fun, so needless to say, we haven't won many. Actually, up until last night, we hadn't won any, lol. But that all changed last night! I got a bloody knee diving for a ball at short stop and we had a walk off win. We had amazing teamwork and we had a great time!

Adjusting

2011-04-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

It's been a little over a month since my mom passed, and not gonna lie, it has been hard. But I have had a great group of friends and family that have helped me get through this. This past month has mostly been a month of adjusting, and accepting change. Life is short, so live in the present.

I have no words.

2011-03-15T23:44:00.003-04:00

Last Wednesday morning, I was awoken by a call from my dad at 4:30am. I found out that my mom had lost her battle with cancer (leiomyosarcoma) and had past away.

I just have no words to describe what I felt and what I am feeling now. An overwhelming sense of grief, of sadness, of frustration. My mom was only 58. She is supposed to be around until I am at least 58--isn't that how it works? Apparently not. Life isn't fair, we can agree on that. But my mom was the most selfless person I knew and she was like that all the way until the end. She didn't want to put anyone out and didn't want to bother anyone. What an amazing woman, I hope that I am half the women she was. I can only sit back and say I am proud that she is my mom.

It has been a hard couple of days, but we have chosen to celebrate her life instead of morn. She would be mad at us if we cried or were sad. She was in a lot of pain in her final days and I think we all can take comfort in the fact that she is no longer suffering. Wherever my mom is now I hope she is happy, laughing, and at peace. I'm not religious at all, but I know I will see my mom again--in this life, in the next, in heaven, in nirvana, whatever. We will be together again.

I just miss her a lot. I can't help but think about how she will miss out on holding her grandchildren, retiring from work, living out her dream in Florida, and growing old with my dad. She left a large group of people that truly care about her and miss her including my dad (they were married 38 years), my sister (18) and myself. But she's with us still. In spirit. She is in the energy all around us. I hope she is smiling now.

Life is all about adjusting now. The only thing constant is change. It's going to be hard not to pick up the phone and call my mom and see if she watched Top Chef, or talk to her about Ancient Aliens.

If you are thinking about sending us gifts or flowers, please donate to the Clermont County Humane Society in honor of my mom instead. She was very passionate about animal welfare. That is the animal shelter where my parents adopted Nala and Lilo. They were with her until just about the end, and I can tell they miss her greatly.

So let's not be sad. Let's celebrate her, her life, and how she touched so many people. She will never be forgotten.

I miss you Mommy.

This is my favorite photo of my mom.

I hope wherever you are now, Mom, you are smiling.

Diana Lee Sparks

7/18/1952 – 3/9/2011

5th Half Marathon? Check!

2011-03-03T11:34:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I completed my 5th half marathon/3rd Princess Half Marathon at Disney. This is usually a race that I run with my friend Katie, but she couldn't come down to FL until later this March. So it was just me! This was the first long race that I have run by myself, so I was a bit nervous. I was also nervous, because yet again, I didn't have time to train.

But overall it was a great race, despite my setback at mile 4. (I'm not going to go into detail, but something really not cool happened at mile 4). Anyways, I ran really strong. My knee that I hurt during the marathon last year bothered me around mile 8, but it soon went away, or I just ignored it. Not sure.

Since I was running by myself, I never really started a run/walk pattern like I usually do during long races when I run with people. Instead I just decided to run the entire thing. Not the smartest thing to do when you haven't trained, but I thought what the hell, might as well run the long boring parts as well as the fun ones since I don't have anyone to talk to. Well, I had Cody--my ipod shuffle, but all he does is talk and sing, he doesn't really listen to me.

It was around mile 11 when I looked at the race clock and realized that I was going at record speed (okay, MY record speed) and I actually saw myself getting a PR for this race. So I decided to book it the last two miles, and luckily a lot of that was running through Epcot which pumps your adrenaline up so that you can finish the race.

I ran strong in the park and ended up crossing the finish line at 2:53:47! A new PR for me! My previous PR was at the Flying Pig Half Marathon in May '09 with a time of 3:00:07. So I beat my previous time by 7 minutes! So exciting!

Well needless to say that the running bug has totally bitten me again. Like hard this time. We have a few small races coming up: ESPN 5K next weekend with our friends, Everest challenge in May, and we both decided for sure that we are doing the Goofy's race and a half challenge next January. SO PUMPED.

Here are some photos I took during the race:

Weekend Adventures: Key West

2011-02-22T22:55:00.000-05:00

A benefit of living in Florida is that it's a rather short drive down to the Florida Keys for a fun and relaxing weekend. We had an absolute blast visiting the keys. In fact I would go as far as saying that we fell in love with them. I totally see us owning a vacation home there someday. I said someday, lol. Key West was fun, but very crowded, junky, and touristy. Since we live in a heavily touristed area (Disney, hello) we want to go someplace that isn't full of sunburnt tourists with fanny packs. We would definitely visit Key West again, but I am much more keen on visiting some of the other islands that are less populated and more peaceful.

Kloe thought about jumping into the water to chase some pelicans. Then she remembered that she is scared of water.

Beach area of our (clothing optional) resort.

Taking a walk along the beach.

We found a great dog park that we went to a few times over the course of the weekend. The dogs loved it!

Like I said, we went to the dog park quite a bit.

Had a great meal out at a dog friendly place right on the beach. Key West sunsets are exactly what you would expect: awesome.

Breakfast along with waterway.

Spent much of the afternoon being lazy by the water at our resort. Hey we work all week, this was totally needed.

Awake.

Kinda awake.

Out.

One the way home we stopped at Long Key and hiked through the state park.

We saw a portuguese man o war in the water!

Long Key was really peaceful despite hearing rt 1 in the background, lol.

Sleepy puppies on the drive home.

Weekend Adventures: Animal Kingdom

2011-02-06T22:56:00.000-05:00

I find it hard to call going to the Disney Parks a weekend adventure, but the weather was fantastic Saturday and after a long walk with the dogs we thought we would drive over and walk some of the nature trails there and see some animals.

See that mountain in the background? My goal is to climb the real Everest. Maybe not tomorrow, but the next time I have 2 months off and $60K that I don't know what to do with.

It's Strawberry Season!

2011-01-31T20:33:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we drove over to visit my parents in Tampa. On our way over there we stopped at the famous Parksdale Farms farmers market. Why is this fruit stand so famous? It's larger than life, cheaper than ever, strawberry shortcake! But that's not even the most awesomest part--they have a vegan, unsweetened strawberry shortcake! For just $2.79! Totally worth getting off at the wrong exit and using the GPS to find this place. Just amazing!

Number nine is the vegan, no sugar option! Yeah for non-dairy toppings!

We don't have puppies. We have piggies.

Lined all the way out to the street. That's how you know it's good.

Happy.

Mandy sung by the man himself

2011-01-27T15:43:00.001-05:00

January 21 finally came! I was able to get my Christmas present of seeing Barry Manilow play live at the Amway Center in downtown Orlando. What a great night. When we got there our seats were upgraded, we were given a glowstick, and we saw an amazing concert. Just awesome.

Veggie Meet Up

2011-01-24T12:58:00.001-05:00

Since going raw at the beginning of this year, we also had a new years resolution to meet more vegetarian/vegan friends. We love our friends, but we are tired of being the only ones of the group that seem to care about what we put into our bodies. So we joined a group called Central Florida Vegetarians. They have weekly meet ups, pot lucks, socials, etc. Last week we went to a meet up at a local vegan restaurant where we not only met some fantastic people, but had some amazing food! Josh and I loved the "pork" roll ups and the sweet and sour "chicken". So good! This week we are going to a vegan book club meeting. Very excited and hopefully we can find more people that are like us.

In a Magazine

2011-01-24T12:48:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I worked on a project with my fellow friend and photographer, Kirsten Wheeler for a magazine shoot. I wasn't able to post any of the photos until the magazine was released this past December. It was for an article about green design in the wedding industry. I designed the invitations using soy ink on recycled paper, and didn't use any animal products through the design process. So they are completely vegan. These were featured in the winter issue of Central Florida Bride Magazine.

Brown Haired Mandy

2011-01-13T20:08:00.000-05:00

With our new raw lifestyle, I figured it was time to stop putting harsh chemicals on my head once a month. As much as I loved being a blonde, it's time to embrace my natural color.

PS. If being a raw vegan, PETA Member, and avoiding chemicals doesn't make me a hippie, I don't know what will....lol

Why we went RAW?

2011-01-12T14:50:00.001-05:00

Here are three reasons why we are on board with this new Raw Vegan Lifestyle. *

Dehydration
Your body is over seventy percent water, shouldn't your food choices mirror this? A great way to get a head start on becoming hydrated is to consume food that has not had the natural water removed from it through cooking. Cooked food does nothing to provide your body with much-needed water and dehydrates you further in your bodies attempt to digest it. Everything you put in your stomach needs to be turned into liquid to be digested. How easily is your current diet liquefied?

Malnutrition
Recent data shows that nutritional deficiencies are most often caused by what we eat rather than by what we do not eat. Your current diet may be robbing you of precious vitamins and minerals. A well balanced diet of consciously prepared raw plant foods contains the full compliment of essential vitamins and minerals, while food prepared using conventional methods destroys over 80% of that foods nutrition. Can you afford 80% less nutrition than is naturally found in your food?

Lack Of Enzymes
Enzymes are responsible for every metabolic process that takes place in your body from digestion to healing. Most prepared food is served with up to 100% of the natural enzymes destroyed. One hundred percent! When the lipase and amylase enzymes are destroyed, the body cannot digest fats or carbohydrates and they are stored in the body, causing you to gain weight. When you consume living, enzyme rich food, it practically digests itself. This leaves you with a surplus of energy to play harder, work more efficiently and do more of what you love!

* Excerpt from "Rawvolution" which can be found here.

"We Earned this Medal."

2011-01-09T22:39:00.000-05:00

Completed another half marathon! On Saturday we completed my fourth and Josh's second half marathon at the Disney Half Marathon. This was our first half marathon that we DIDN'T TRAIN for. Not the best idea. We both ran the race strong and our endurance was phenomenal. I credit that entirely to our diet and lifestyle. Yay team Raw Vegan! lol. But we are both really sore today (at least I am) and that is purely because my muscles were not at all prepared to go 13 miles. My muscles apparently forgot that they ran a full marathon last year. But not having run since October is definitely the reason why I am so sore today.

But the running bug has bit me again and I just signed up for the Princess Half Marathon which is in February and Josh and I both decided that we are doing the Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge next year. The Goofy's challenge is where you run the half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday. I'm sure I am crazy, but I do want that Goofy medal...

Anyway, here are some pics from the event. And yeah they are blurry because I thought I could take them while I was running, lol.

In the year 2011

2011-01-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

Alright, gotta have a resolution post, this is a blog after all. So here we go...

1. Go Raw.
This is a big one, we are basically changing our lifestyle so that we stop putting processed food and food without nutrients into our bodies. For right now we are making sure that 51% of each meal consists of raw foods and veggies. I will make sure I write a post soon that explains our new lifestyle since it is a big part of our lives and we are really excited about it.

2. Blog more.
Seeing as I just spend 3 days updating the blogosphere with our happenings, I need to do this more often. I hope that I can use this blog to look back on and see how much fun we are having enjoying our lives together.

3. Complete a Triathlon.
We've done the whole marathon thing, now I have my sights set for a Tri. I am hoping to do the Key West Triathlon in December 2011. Who wouldn't want to swim, run, and ride a bike in the Keys?

4. Go to South America.
Pretty much going to make sure this happens when we go to Peru. It will also be my first time backpacking, trekking, and shitting in a hole.

5. Go Natural.
This kinda goes a long with our whole new Raw Lifestyle, but we need to get hold of our lives and really make sure we lay off medications, chemicals, and other harsh toxins that aren't doing our bodies any favors. So to do my part I will no longer be bleaching my hair. No sense putting chemicals on my head if I am embarking on this new lifestyle. I actually have no idea what my natural hair color is because I have been bleaching it since middle school!

Well here's to 2011! Let's hope it doesn't take me until March to remember its 2011 and not 2010 when I write checks.

Ringing in the new year right

2011-01-06T21:44:00.000-05:00

We were lucky enough to spend the new years with my parents at their house in Tampa. We had a great dinner and then we settled in to play some poker while we waited for the new year to arrive. Josh ended up being quite hot that night seeing as he won most of the money!

Dog City

2011-01-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

Over New Years weekend we had the opportunity to drive over to the Tampa area and visit with my parents and grandpa...along with 3 other dogs. So we have 5 dogs to entertain us while we all got to spend some quality time together.

You better check your lease, because your living in DOG CITY.

SANTA!! I know him!

2011-01-06T20:51:00.001-05:00

We awoke Christmas Morning with two excited puppies. We made some vegan pumpkin scones (which I think will become a new holiday morning tradition), we opened our gifts, and we watched the Disney Christmas Day parade. We had a lot of fun even though we weren't able to go over and visit my parents. We ended up visiting with them over New Years. We mostly rested the rest of the day because despite having the pirate wedding a week before, we were still tired. Now I see why people take honeymoons after their weddings. You need a vacation! Anyway, here are some pics, enjoy!

Vegan yummy-ness.

Yes, I got underwear. If you had puppies that liked to eat laundry, you would be excited about getting this too.

Alright! Celebration license plates!

ooo puppy sweaters?

How not to use an air compressor.

yeah, we only allow sugar free treats in our house.

Puppies enjoying their presents.

Better start learning about Peru for our trip!

ooo presents! Spoiled puppies.

Tickets to go see Barry Manilow and a dinner at Ethos vegan cafe in January!

Tired puppies in sweaters.

Puppies in sweaters looking outside.

Caught someone sleeping upstairs!

Tough life opening presents and wearing sweaters.

Christmas Eve..the coming of Santa Paws!

2011-01-05T21:55:00.001-05:00

This year we spent Christmas Eve with just the four of us here in Celebration. We had a nice day wrapping presents, Josh went to the pool, I made a nice vegan dinner served with my favorite red wine, we took a long walk around celebration, and we exchanged pajamas before bedtime! The puppies got new pajamas too! We curled up and watched a Christmas Story before bedtime all together, and then we fell asleep anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Paws!

Oh no! Santa left one of his reindeer here!

Santa paws brought some puppies some presents!

Yummy vegan Christmas dinner. Don't you wish you were vegan?

Wore Mickey Ears for our Holiday Evening.

Had to leave some treats out for Santa Paws when he got here!

Someone got into her presents early.

Husband and Wife...Again.

2011-01-04T22:09:00.003-05:00

That's right, we finally got married for real this time...or at least in front of a lot of people this time...er, well let's just say we got married as pirates this time. Let me just say that it was a great time. Although my mom wasn't able to make it because she was in the hospital with some lung trouble due to her cancer, so that was something that I had never ever pictured happening on my wedding day, but that's life. Gotta roll with the punches. I also didn't expect it to POUR all morning and afternoon the day of the ceremony either. Mind you, we were having an outdoor ceremony in a state where it rains like 10 days out of the entire year, and winter is supposed to be the dry season! You owe me, Florida! Luckily we found a covered picnic area in the North Village of Celebration that we ended up moving the ceremony to. But still, I would have liked to rest and enjoy the morning instead of scrambling to move chairs and call people to tell them the ceremony location changed.

But once the clouds cleared a bit, we headed to the site and took some photos and finally started the ceremony. It was really nice having my dad walk me down the isle because when you get married at the court house, you don't do things like that. And I did really miss my mom, but as I told her, she got to be at the court house for the real one, this one was just pure show.

The ceremony went great--it was a buddhist ceremony, so it was very awesome. We said some really cool vows that I really feel are important. Our vows had things like, "We promise to be compassionate towards all living creatures....etc." None of this obeying each other bullshit. And to top it off, our friend Ed performed the ceremony for us dressed up as a Somalian Pirate. Yeah. It. Was. Awesome.

After the ceremony we headed back to our place and loaded the buses for the Living Seas Pavilion in Epcot. And let me tell you, what a perfect venue this was for a pirate wedding reception. Just perfect. Worth every penny. They greeted us at the door with special pirate drinks and they had it all decorate in piratey things. So awesome. And the food was AMAZING. All vegan and vegetarian--we got so many compliments from meat eaters about how awesome the meal was. I am sure most people were just being nice, but I am still counting this as a win for team Vegan.

After dinner we all enjoyed some dancing with our awesome DJ. He was actually one of the top Disney DJs and people that I work with couldn't believe that we were able to book him. We totally lucked out, he was a great DJ.

Once the clock struck 9pm, we all boarded the buses back to Celebration. The party was over. But Josh and I then headed to the honeymoon suite at Wilderness Lodge for the evening.

Great night, great food, great friends and family. Here are some Piratey Photos from our photographer Kristen. (You can check out her site here.)

Bachelor/Bachelorette Party

2011-01-04T21:44:00.000-05:00

Since Josh and I are already married, it would have been silly to go and have separate parties to celebrate, um, well I don't know since we are already married. But that didn't stop me from wanting to have a big get together where the goal was to get drunk. I mean come on people, we were tying the knot AGAIN, we had to drink to that. So we got a group together and we went to "Drink Around The World" aka have a drink in each one of the countries in Epcot. And let me tell you, BEST IDEA EVER.

The night started out with Will and Brian helping me drive across town to get the chairs for Saturday's ceremony. Okay, they didn't help me drive, they drove because my car decided to break down in my work parking lot. Lame car, lame. After we got back with the chairs, we had vegan tacos and starting to pre-game before we headed to Epcot. At our house we had Katie and Eric who came down from Cincy, Ed who came down from Huntsville, Will, and Brian. After a nice carb-filled vegan meal, we hit the road for the park.

At the park we met up with Andy, Kevin, and Annamarie from Cincy, Nick and Valerie from Chigaco, and our friend Brandon. We all rode Spaceship Earth--and I had a great time with my Spaceship Earth partner, Katie! Good times.

After that ride it was time for a drink. We started our journey in Mexico. And if I knew that I was actually going to succeed in this adventure, I would have maybe taken photos along the way. But as usual, I forgot. So deal with it. Use your imagination, lol. And no we did not go on the imagination ride, but I bet it would have been awesome later on in the night when most of us were wasted.

In Mexico we started things off right by stopping at the Tequila Bar. I got a Blood Orange Maragarita. Yum. Next stop was Norway. there wasn't much to drink here so we decided to ride the boat ride, the Maelstrom. It was funny because we all piled into one boat. It was tight, lol.

After Norway, we hit China. I had a plum wine. Very good. Then we were on course for Germany. Ha, yeah, we spent most of the night here. Beer, beer, pretzel, beer, and more beer. After we gathered our group we hit up Italy where I got a sparkling wine that tasted like peaches. Then josh DIDN'T buy me a pumpkin spice funnel cake in America (lame) and then we hit up Japan for some Saki. There wasn't much to drink in Morocco. so we went to stand in line for crepes and this orange slush alcohol drink in France. Yummy, yummy. But as we were walking over the bridge into England, it hit me. I was drunk. So after that, I had water--until we got to Jelly Rolls.

So in the UK I had water and then we sat down and watched the fireworks while some of our group went and got some beer in Canada. After the fireworks we headed over to the Boardwalk where Jess and Tristan had saved us all some seats at Jelly Rolls--the Dueling Piano Bar. And Boy was that a lot of fun. Let's just say that our time there included Josh and I getting on stage, Jess requesting a lot of my favorite songs for me, and lots of our friends buying us more drinks.

Overal it was an amazing night and I am so glad we have such great friends. Here are a few pictures we did take.

Christmas Day Parade...Taping.

2011-01-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, our friends Lisa Jo and Brian were lucky enough to score some tickets to go see the taping of the Walt Disney Christmas Day Parade. Surprise--they don't tape it live. We went and watched the taping the first weekend in December. Well I can now cross that off my bucket list.

Here are a few photos. We were stationed in front of the castle stage where we watched some little girl sing opera....it was kinda weird. But I did see two people I know in the cast choir, so that was cool.

Also, it was really cold. Come on Florida.

Stay tuned and have a happy new year!

2010-12-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

Please pardon our lack of posts, but we have seriously been insanely busy. With the wedding, the holidays, and working full time--yeah, we are ready to sleep for at least a whole week straight. I have about 10 posts I need to write about, so check back next week for an update on the our awesome adventures.

We got married...again!

2010-12-22T10:46:00.000-05:00

As of Saturday December 18th, we officially got married again! In case you haven't heard, we had an AWESOME pirate wedding. Once we get our pictures back we will write a more detailed report of the evening. But with the holidays coming up it is doubtful that we will have it posted this week. But look for it soon!

Operation Orange Harvest

2010-12-14T11:04:00.000-05:00

I know we shouldn't complain too much about the cold weather down here because most folks who read this are dealing with several feet of snow. But seeing as one of the reasons that we moved down here was to escape the cold weather, I have a really big problem with these 20 degree temperatures that we have been having down here. Last night we were under a frost warning where we would be under the frost mark for several hours during the night and early morning (we have the same thing going on tonight too). So basically that means that we have to cover up our plants to make sure the frost doesn't kill them. Well our blood orange tree had lots of oranges on it that are just about ready to be picked. So in fear of losing all those oranges due to frost we quickly picked all of them off the tree and now they are resting inside. There were quite a lot of oranges on that tree, so looks like we will be making lots of orange juice in the upcoming weeks!

Family Portraits

2010-12-12T10:30:00.000-05:00

This weekend we wanted to get a family portrait of us with our pups. We are getting some professional ones done early next year by my Photographer friend, Kristen, but we needed something for right now. Let me tell you, it is quite hard to get two dogs to look at the camera at the same time. Here is the winner:

Here are some of the rejects:

Celebration Tree Lighting Ceremony

2010-12-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday was the annual Celebration tree lighting ceremony officially starting the holiday season. Even though we are already decorated and have the tree up in our great room, we were still excited to walk downtown and be a part of this event. We were not surprised by the crowds that were down there for the first "snowfall" at 6pm. There were so many people there for the tree lighting and the soap suds that fall every hour that we mostly just walked around and then headed home. We did find out that Kona likes to eat the fake snow.

I'm thankful for left overs.

2010-12-01T11:16:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and one of the reasons is the fact that the following weekend is filled with eating left overs (and in my case reading Harry Potter). It's no secret that I love eating, and as you can see, we had several platefuls of leftovers twice a day plus left over pie up until Sunday. Now, time to hit the gym or buy some looser fitting pants...

Bring your own meat Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-30T12:06:00.003-05:00

Well we are finally catching up after an amazing Thanksgiving break filled with food, friends, fun, and more food. This year we weren't able to travel anywhere for Thanksgiving due to budget, work, and planning for the upcoming wedding. So we invited all of our friends that weren't able to go home for the holidays to our BYOM thanksgiving. We made our fake turkey, vegan corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, vegan dressing, green bean casserole, fresh cranberries, and fresh rolls. Our friends brought their own turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. For starters we made vegan skyline dip, vegan cheeseball (it didn't set up as a ball, but turned out to be a very good dip!) and home made chex mix. I served cranberry/rasberry mamosas and we had plenty of wine and beer to go around.

After dinner we ate vegan pumpkin pie and homemade vegan pecan pie while watching some holiday movies.

Our friends that attended were Will and Brandon with their daughter Aurora, My sister Sammy, Brian (his girlfriend Lisa Jo was sick), and Josh and me. And let's not forget the puppies! They had a great first thanksgiving!

I had a blast hosting a (mostly) vegan thanksgiving and hope to do it again. Think I can convince my inlaws that warm 70 degree Florida is a good spot for future thanksgivings?

Here are a few pictures from our preparation the day before and the set up for the meal. I think we were all too full to take any photos after dinner though.

Harry Potter 7 Part 1

2010-11-19T17:06:00.001-05:00

Finally Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one is out! And if you know me, which you should if you read this blog, but I love Harry Potter. I went to the midnight premier last night with my friends and we all dressed up. Unfortunately Josh has been super busy with work and stuff every night so he opted to stay home and go to bed early. (It is very rare to see him awake after 10pm anyway, lol)

I dressed up as Rita Skeeter and had a good time acting the part before the movie started. The only disappointment was paying 5 dollars for a bag of 35 cent fruit snacks.

But here are some photos from the evening. Good time.

Wedding weekend in Cincinnati

2010-11-09T14:49:00.000-05:00

Well last weekend we spent time up in Cincinnati celebrating the wedding of our close friends, Katie and Eric. I have known Katie since high school and we went to DAAP together in college. So I was thrilled to be asked to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. And what a beautiful wedding it was. She and Eric got married at the Cincinnati Art Museum (how fitting since Katie is a graphic designer too!) It was a great wedding and we had a blast. Looking forward to spending some time with Katie and Eric when they come down to our wedding in December.

Here are a few photos from the wedding. They had a cool photo booth that was a lot of fun!

4 Dogs, One Townhouse

2010-11-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago my parents were in town and brought their two golden retriever mixes, Nala and Lilo down to Florida with them. I am very close to those dogs because they spent about two months with me down here earlier this year when I was living by myself while Josh was still in Huntsville. So I was very excited to see them. However, they were not as excited to see two new puppies living in the house they called home for two months. It was an interesting week with them interacting with our pups, er I should say ignoring our pups because they wanted nothing to do with Kona and Kloe. Well they better get their act together if they want to be in our wedding in a few months!

Can you have too much fun in one weekend?

2010-10-17T22:23:00.000-04:00

Not sure, but I think we may have had too much fun last weekend. Our friends Jessica and Tristan came up to stay with us from Miami and we had a blast. I met Jess when I was teaching at Windermere Prep earlier this year and we are really close friends now. She moved down to Miami this past July, so I was very excited to see her again. We spent the weekend hanging out with them, Will and Brandon and their daughter Aurora, and our friend Lauren from Jacksonville.

Over the course of the weekend we (drank a lot...lol) enjoyed eating out, went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, went to Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival two days in a row, and ate at a new favorite restaurant: Whispering Canyon in Disney's Wilderness Lodge. Let me tell you, that restaurant isn't for everybody, but it was a perfect place for our gang.

Here are a few photos from this past weekend. And even though it has been over a week since everyone left, we are still recovering from the non-stop eating and drinking we did that weekend, lol.

Jess dressed up as Snow White for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

We dressed up as the Green Monkey's from the 90s tv game show, Legends of the Hidden Temple. Baloo knew who we were and had a blast with us at the Halloween party.

Group shot with the Ugly Stepsisters. Not the best pic, had some trouble with the flash.

Food and Wine Festival. This is Jess in the yellow, Will in the red with his daughter Aurora.

Jess at Whispering Canyon. She dropped her fork so they brought her out another one she wouldn't drop.

Not sure what I was laughing about, but my guess is that everyone was making fun of me for eating all the cornbread. Disclaimer: I love corn bread, and as I told the waiter, I would be fine with a plate full of just corn bread for my meal.

Our good friends Brandon and Will.

Been Married a Year!

2010-10-11T10:34:00.000-04:00

Wow, isn't it crazy that we have been married a year already? What a crazy year it has been too! We had a really fun anniversary weekend last week. Our anniversary fell on a Saturday and it happened to be the same saturday as the annual Celebration Yard Sale and the Wine and Dine Half Marathon.

We woke up at 5am to get set up for the yard sale, and it was quite the success! We sold a lot of our old DVDs, books, and stuff we didn't need and made $230 dollars! (of course that money was spent this weekend at the Epcot food and wine festival, but I'll get to that in a later post).

We then spent the rest of the afternoon resting because the wine and dine half marathon didn't start until 10pm that night. Once it was close to race time we headed to Epcot, parked our car, took the shuttle to ESPN Wide World of Sports and then I started the race. We were doing a relay so I ran the first leg of the race and Josh ran the second. I was able to run on Osceola Parkway and then through Animal Kingdom. Josh got to run through Hollywood Studios and the Epcot resorts. It was a lot of fun. I met this great gay couple that happened to run at the same speed as me, so we ran together the whole race. After the race we all hung out at food and wine party for the runners. It was a lot of fun. A word of cation though, I don't suggest drinking a Singapor Sling after running in a race. Not a good idea. The party didn't end until well after 3am. Good think we took naps that afternoon.

We spent the rest of the weekend working on homework and just resting. So excited that we have been married a year, and looking forward to many more happy anniversaries in the future!

Need more hours in the day...

2010-09-26T17:18:00.000-04:00

Yes, we are still alive down here, just insanely busy. With both of us working, me doing grad school, and planning a wedding, there isn't much time to relax. Ha, there isn't enough time to eat and sleep. (so glad I live within walking distance of a Starbucks). But thankfully our puppies have put things in perspective for us. We need to slow down and enjoy life, and in the next couple of weeks our goal is to do that.

Booked our trip to Peru!

2010-09-11T13:38:00.002-04:00

In exactly a year from now we will be in Peru trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We just booked our mountain trek with Mountain Madness, an adventure company that specializes in mountain climbs and treks. It will be a 10 day long trip where we will get to explore the Andies and camp along the Inca Trail. We finish up our trip by staying in this gorgeous jungle lodge. I can't wait! However, this isn't going to be a relaxing trip, it requires at least two months of intensive training so that we are fit enough to trek across the mountainous terrain. This is should be a good training trip to see if we can handle the altitude before we try and tackle Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2012.

Here is a link to the trip we signed up for: http://www.mountainmadness.com/trekking/incatrail.cfm

3 years ago...

2010-09-05T14:15:00.001-04:00

We were just thinking back to where we were three years ago this week--in Paris! September 3 was the night we got engaged under the sparkling Tour de Eiffel. And three years later, we are married, have a house, jobs, two pups, and live in paradise. Not sure I could have predicted where we would be in three years, but I am happy that we are together.