Chicago — Navy Pier

Check out the awesome Navy Pier.


The sky was SO CRYSTAL CLEAR and amazing (right before it got freezing cold!)


LOVE this last one!

Chicago — Waterfront

Here's something awesome from the boat tour. :-)


Me + the Sears Tower.

Chicago — Trump Tower

Ok, ok, so it's been awhile since I posted about my trip to Chicago. This is from the boat trip .... and here's Trump Hotel/Tower.



And my favorite photo is last:

Chicago — for Mike II

I saw this on the way to the L from my engagement session.

She's here!

So, the last 24 hours have been BIG!

Yes, my family came into town to join us for dinner + Mass. It was lovely .... but I have to admit all day, I was distracted. Why? Well, my bizzzzzzness partner, Mike, and his wife, Angie, were having a baby! :-)

I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be doing some family pix soon, so I'll share those once I meet this little jewel of a girl ... and check out her name: Madison Noel. Isn't that sweet???!??!!?

Congrats Angie, Mike and baby Maddie!!!

Working on the 101 list

So, today begins my efforts for another item on my 101 in 1001 list.

45. Make one new recipe/week for 3 months

Today, I started with breakfast. We had peanut butter pancakes. YUMMIE!!!!!!!!!

Fairly easy, not a big adjustment from my normal pancake routine ... good times. The only thing is they're DENSE pancakes, so I could only eat 3 VERY SMALL pancakes. Yikes! NOT in character for me.

To check out the recipe, CLICK HERE. Oh, and I omitted the chopped nuts and instead added mini chocolate chips on the top. :-)

I'll try to keep a running tally of new recipes, too.

Dec. 21 — Peanut Butter Pancakes

"The Poisonwood Bible"

Wow.

That's the only word I have for the book I'm currently reading ("The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingslover).

I could not even do justice to explaining the book/plot. But, you can do so by CLICKING HERE.

My friend, Jeanel, gave it to me two years ago during my trip to Africa.


I don't know why it's taken me two years to really delve into it ... but I SO love it! Getting the characters all straight in my head took awhile, but once I got it down, I have had a hard time putting the book down.

Just last night, I was reading ... and here's a quote that just hit me like a ton of bricks.

"The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes." ~ p. 496

So powerful.

So true.

(and for those of you who might be curious, it's not sacrilegious or anything like that .... it's about a Baptist family and Poisonwood is a type of tree ... and that's all I'm going to say ... other than go check that book out from your local library!!!!!)

A few honeymoon pix

I'll start this post with what I believe is hands down, the best photo taken in Jamaica. And guess who took the pic?

ERIK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was a little sore that he took a better picture than me, but I stroke my ego by telling myself he learned from the best. ;-)

The photos haven't really been edited yet, but I just grabbed a few favorites here.


The view from the stairs ... I like it.


Happy honeymooners. :-)

On a side note, I love, love, love my new "purse camera"!!!!!!!! I achieved this photo by setting it to the sunset setting, then forcing the flash to fire when a photo is taken. Don't have control over the fill flash, but I think it looks pretty good.


This is Erik with four, that's right FOUR, of our new favorite drink: Jamacian Smile.


Thought I'd close with this one ... it's comical. We were right next door to a nekkid resort. I'm sure Erik will have some colorful post later. ;-)

Advent adventure?

So it's the season of Advent yet again. We decorated for Christmas by setting up our nativity sets and Advent wreath.



All was well until Erik and I left on our honeymoon. In all, we were gone about 10 days. Well, when we returned, there was a little shower of wax on the dining room table, around the wreath. Hmm ... in addition to that, there were TEETH MARKS on the top of the candles. UGH! ESSE!!!!!!!!!!!

The heck of it is that I've had plenty of candles around before, but she's never gnawed on it before ... and those other candles even smelled yummie! The Advent wreath candles don't smell yummie, so I'm not sure why she needed to chew on them.

But doesn't she look angelic??????

Don't be deceived.


Our kitty sitter also said when he was washing his hands in the front bathroom, she jumped onto the sink, then CRAWLED up his chest and settled herself around his neck. Think: scarf.

Strange.

I guess she was just really starving for a) human contact and b) body heat/warmth.

She's certainly glad to see us ... especially our bodies so she can curl up on them and warm up. :-)

Crossover — Braggin'

Ok, so cruise on over to the Heartland blog to check out my photos published in Kansas! Magazine.

This is my first magazine publication, and I have to admit it was rather thrilling. Coop was bummed they didn't put my name on there because about half of them are mine, but I know when you deal with people there is information lost, etc ... and you can't control what they'll do/say/publish. So it's just a glorified crap shoot. Both of us know whose photos are whose .... and Jeff is a big enough photographer to give credit where credit is due.