Flowers

Some flowers for today.

I'm a star!!

I won a major award at work! To win the award, people get nominated for doing a good job and then the employees vote on who should win. I was priveledged enough to be one of the winners this week and I got this super cool balloon. :)

What in the World?

We saw this hearse on our way to lunch a week or so ago. In case you were wondering, the silver thing at the bottom of the back window was a silver skull thing. I thought it was weird enough to warrant a blog post, so here you go:

Better Late Than Never...

I know I've missed posting for a couple of weeks, but I swear I have a good reason. I had all 4 wisdom teeth removed a couple of weeks ago. (Blech!) No pictures from that lovely event, but I have some even better ones.

Hubby and I celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary in mid-July by having dinner at The Melting Pot. It was truly fabulous. Everybody greeted us by name and wished us a Happy Anniversary, we were seated in a private booth, and the Manager came by to personally congratulate us. And the food was yummy, too! So without further ado, I am proud to present..our dinner. :)

This was the tabletop of our private booth. :)

Our first course was a cheese course. We went with a cheddar cheese fondue. They brought us bread pieces, chunks of green apples, and fresh veggies (cauliflower, carrots, and celery). It was really, really good and a great sign of things to come. :)

Our second course was a salad course. We forgot to take a picture of that one (oops!), but it was a house salad with "crisp greens, roma tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs, and Emmenthaler Swiss cheese with a sweet and tangy House dressing." It was really good. :)

Our third course was the meat course. We chose a "court bouillon" (sounds fancier than "homemade, seasoned vegetable broth") to cook everything in. The dinner we picked came with: Filet Mignon Medallion, Jerk-Seasoned Sirloin, Vanilla Rum Chicken, Marinated Pork Tenderloin, Zesty Peppered Shrimp, Butternut Squash Ravioli, and Fresh Vegetables. They also brought an assortment of sauces to go on everything. Super good! :)

For dessert, we went with a "Yin & Yang" fondue. It was white and milk chocolate swirled together. The presentation was awesome and it was amazing!!

These are the goodies they brought us to dip in the amazing chocolate fondue. There was: cheesecake, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows covered in Oreo crumbs and Graham Cracker crumbs, rice krispy treats, pound cake, brownies, and a cherry on top!

Mischa

This is one of the amazing pictures Hubby took of Mischa a couple of months ago. It's one of my favorite pictures of her that we've ever taken.

Girl Meets Frog

So, usually I hate frogs. Alot. A whole lot. But, I made an exception for this one. We went for barbeque on my Birthday to Sticky Fingers (great rib place with amazing sauces). I was happily eating my ribs, minding my own business:

When out of nowhere comes this 6 foot tall frog!!!

Turns out, he's their mascot (we've been eating here for over 5 years and have never seen the frog before - go figure). They told him it was my birthday and then made me get my picture taken with a frog.

At least he was a nice frog. :)

Lounging with my Buddy

I've always loved to read. If I'm at home, chances are, I'm either cooking or reading (sometimes both!). Since that activity does not directly involve Mischa, she does her best to make sure she's still the center of attention. This time I was lucky - she usually tries to curl up on my book. :)

Shameless Plug

If you have not seen Wall-E yet, you're missing a huge treat! :) Hubby and I went to see it a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. This will be one that we buy the day it comes out on DVD. I laughed, I cried, it moved me, Bob.

Mischa

This is Mischa on the first night I had the new camera. I was looking around for things to take pictures of and she's a (mostly willing) subject. :)

Morning has Broken

Now, on to pictures that I've taken with my snazzy new camera. :)

If you read Hubby's blog, then you will know that we went to the beach on the Fourth of July to take pictures of the sunrise. We woke up just after 5 in the morning (I'm not sure I was aware that there was a 5 o'clock in the morning!), picked up some breakfast from Dunkin' Donuts, and head up to the beach to camp out for the sunrise.

Here's a few of my favorites from my camera.

Man Fishing:

Sunrise:
The Pier:

My absolute favorite of the day:

Back Finally...Again....

K, so I've seriously been slacking with my blog over the last couple of months, but I'm really going to try to stay caught up this time. :)

My birthday fell into the middle of my accidental hiatus from the blog. And for my birthday, Hubby got me my own "Point and Shoot" Digital camera. It's a Nikon Coolpix S210 and it is small enough for me to carry with me all the time (see below). For those moments when you look out the window of the car and think, "That dog is wearing a hat! I wish I had my camera!" :)

Back...finally

I'm back after a month-long hiatus to get settled with some new stuff going on with me. :) For my first post back, I've picked an elephant from a recent trip to the zoo with Hubby. It was the first time we've ever really seen one of the elephants doing more than standing (and we go to the zoo A LOT).

"I" is for Instructions

The sign is missing the "B" in "Bubbles, but you get the idea. :) Hubby and I went to Fernandina for the weekend and ran across this sign there. We were strolling on the main street and noticed all the bubbles swirling around. We looked around to see where they were coming from and saw this sign. So....we followed Instructions and followed the bubbles!

A Visit to Uncle Phil's Diner

These are some more pictures from the youth fundraiser we attended. It was really cool - a diner themed Dinner Theater. The kids did a fabulous job (and so did the adults who helped out!) It was a blast! :)

This first one is me with my Dad (aka Uncle Phil) and "Flodine" (the head waitress).

This one was during the show they did. They had stuff going on onstage as well as out on the floor where the diner patrons were sitting.

This one is my Mom (on the right in the gray wig). She did a fabulous job as Uncle Phil's Ma. :-D You can see her in the picture above, too.

The whole thing was super awesome and I really hope they do something like this again. :)

More Uncle Phil pictures to come later!

"H" is for Hair-Don't

As opposed to Hair-Do. :) We attended a 50's Diner themed fundraiser for our church youth group this past weekend. One of the characters was a failed hairdresser named LaVonna. In the spirit of fun, I let her "fix" my hair. It turned out very...well....umm...let's go with special.

More Mischa

Sky Watch Friday

Worker on a Roof

"G" is for Glee

This is not our child, just some random little girl at Disney World, but she was just too cute meeting the princess Aurora so we had to take a picture - pure glee! :)

Sky Watch Friday

This one was taken at the beach around sunset last weekend. Everything was kind of hazy and so the sky looked like a giant rainbow. I don't think that we were able to fully capture the awesome sky, but it's still pretty. :)

Butterflies

These were taken at the Natural History Museum in Gainesville at the University of Florida. They have a large section that is entirely devoted to butterflies - there's a butterfly garden, a nursery area where they hatch new butterflies (which is where these were taken), and a huge display of butterflies of every size, color, and shape imaginable.

Revisiting Otters

Sky Watch Friday

I've been drawn to water and blue skies lately for my Sky Watch photos and today is no different. This one was taken down in St. Augustine. We've had some rain the last couple of days, so I was feeling the need for a crystal blue sky. :)

Birds

An assortment of feathery friends for today's blog entry.