1. Finish honeymoon scrapbook – DONE!

It’s official.

I have finished the scrapbook for our 2007 honeymoon.

After three and a half years of working on it, I finally scrapped the last page tonight.

Then I cried! Something seemed so final about it, even though I still have to work on the wedding scrapbook.

Here are the last few pages…

 

This is the Chateau du Roi Rene in Angers, France. Husband studied there in 2004 when he went abroad for a semester, so we had to visit there during our honeymoon. The gardens next to the Chateau were so beautiful. There was a plaque in French that described the history of the place.

 

Nearby Angers was the town of Amboise. We toured the castle there and saw the chapel on the grounds – this is where Da Vinci is buried.

Inside, we saw the castle decorated as it would have been in the medieval ages when it was inhabited by the kings of the region. It was absolutely wonderful! I love that Husband had to sit in this chair and take a picture.  

 

Down the road from the castle at Amboise was Clos Luce, a sort of summer home. This was where Da Vinci lived at the invitation of the king for the last years of his life. The grounds are decorated with replicas of his invitations and is just a beautiful place to visit in the springtime!

 

“After our weekend in Angers, we were back in Paris for our last night in France. We had a reservation at Taillevent – our first five star restaurant. We ate and ate and ate for hours and then had the most amazing desserts of our lives. It was a perfect end to a magical honeymoon.”

 

“Our Honeymoon, April – May, 2007”

Unfortunately, the last page of the scrapbook didn’t quite fit in the book! I was so worried about finishing the last page that I didn’t count ahead to see how many inserts I had empty. But the good news was, there was just one last page that didn’t have a spot – but there was space on the back cover. A little glue fixed it right up!

 

You can see my other scrapbooking pages here.  There’s also a list here about all my 101 in 1001 items that I’m working on too.

The One Where I Finally Meet Her Boyfriend

My best friend and college room, J, has been dating T for like, a year. And I had never met him. Things were always getting in the way of us going out together, and with Husband in MBA and then adding more law school classes over the fall semester, we just never had extra time to get together.

But last week during our women’s group, T came over to J’s house while I was still there and I actually got to meet him! We sat down with our calendars and set up a double date.

And that was last night!

We met up at Katie’s Pizzeria – this adorable little place that you might pass by it if you didn’t know it was there.

But when you get in, there are bunches of big tables that they actually put multiple parties at. If you are only two, you might be at one big table with another couple down the way.

Behind the bar, there’s a projection screen and it was playing Casablanca.

J said this place was known for cocktails, so far be it from me to not try one out! Mine was a fresh apple pie with vanilla vodka, some other alcohol and cinnamon added for good measure. It was so good I had two!

It was so much fun to meet T. He’s pretty awesome.

And J is pretty happy about it. :)

Of course, getting my husband to actually smile for a picture was another highlight of the evening! 

 

The best part? We have butternut squash and four cheese pizza leftover for lunch today.

    

YUM.

Wordless Wednesday

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My Husband Really Loves Me

Not just because he came home to me after two weeks abroad, but because he brought me some lovely presents. :)

One is a Tiger’s Eye necklace and the other is a Jade necklace. Both are about 18 inches and absolutely lovely.

I really am a lucky girl!

I love winning things – and sparkly things to boot!

A few weeks ago, I got a fun email from Mrs. Jones from Keeping Up with the Joneses – I had won a CSN gift card!

When I entered the contest, I said that I would probably use the money to buy something fun for me.

And I did! It cost a bit more than my gift card was for, but it was worth it. :)

My earrings and necklace set arrived a few days ago and I’ve already worn it twice to work. That’s exactly why I picked this set – it’s small and dainty but not cheap looking. Perfect for suit wearing! Who doesn’t want a little bling at the office?

I’m not so good at taking pictures of myself yet – but that’s our new fancy camera we got for Christmas!

Here are the close ups of the earrings and necklace…

Aren’t they purty?

 

I’m so happy that I won! Thanks, Mrs. Jones!

Taking a Step I Forgot I wanted to Take

When Husband was on his Hong Kong trip a few weeks ago, I decided to take myself out on a date. It was lovely. :)

On my way to dinner and the movie, I didn’t even realize that I would be completing one item on my 101 in 1001 list!

44. Go to the movies… ALONE!

I have wanted to see The Social Network since they announced its release. Unfortunately, Husband had NO desire to see it –which kind of left me out of luck. Spending money to see an expensive movie in the theatre is not good when one of the couple doesn’t want to see that particular movie!

I thought I’d have to wait until it came out on Netflix, but all the details fell into place when I realized I could take myself on a date. It was wonderful!

As much as I love my husband (and I do! A lot!), taking myself out to dinner and a movie almost made up for being a single lady for two weeks.

Our Impromptu Spanish Christmas Vacation – Day Six in Gibraltar

The Monday of our Spanish Christmas trip happened to be my brother’s birthday. We asked him what he wanted to do for his big 2-2 and he said Morocco. Unfortunately, the schedule didn’t work out for that, so Morocco was saved for later in the week and we ended up in Gibraltar.

  

Our first view of the Rock of Gibraltar

Gibraltar is actually a little part of the U.K. at the very end of the Iberian peninsula. You have to show your passport and go through customs in order to visit. But the actual British area is only the size of a small city, but has an international airport. They actually have to close the highway in order for the planes to land! I was so afraid of getting landed on that I didn’t end up with pictures of it.

Once we crossed the border, it was a perfect picture point!

It’s easier to park on the Spanish side of the border and walk across.

We found this awesome statue right across from the airport landing zone. Of course we had to take a picture.

To remind you that you are indeed in the Queen’s Land, there was the traditional red telephone booth…

And Winston Churchill Avenue.

 

We decided to walk into the old town from the border rather than taking the taxi. Once there, we saw the original entrance to the city…

Originally, this was the only way into Gibraltar other than by sea. This tunnel was rebuilt in 1727.

We were fascinated by old doors throughout the trip.  

        

The shops in Gibraltar’s main street.

        

This is a pretty awesome picture of my husband with an old canon.

  

Once we had our fill of the city, it was on to the cable car and up the rock. You can see two little things sticking out of the rock in the picture above, and that’s the top where we had to go. It was a crazy angle in that cable car though! So scary.

At the top of the Rock, we took a bunch of pictures of fog – we couldn’t see as far as we had hoped.

 

This is looking straight down from the observatory deck.

 

We knew it was time to be done at the top of the rock when Mom got attacked by one of the famous Barbary apes that lives on the rock. Seriously.

 

She may look innocent, but she’s so not!

This lovely female ape decided that Mom’s red backpack was really quite exciting and needed to see what was inside the bag. We were told that the apes know what food packaging looks and sounds like so not to take any out, because they will grab for it. We were also told that they could operate a zipper – I didn’t quite believe it until I saw this ape jump on Mom’s back and literally try to get into the bag and go for the zipper.

Needless to say, Mom kinda freaked out! We had to be done up there.

We started walking down the mountain and stopped at the St. Michael’s Cave.

 

“Known to the Romans and long believed to be bottomless, this cave winds downward some 700 feet into the Rock. The upper hall, fitted out as an auxiliary hospital in 1942, is now used for concerts.”

We found ourselves beneath the surface, in an amazing cave, while hearing classical music bouncing off the formations. Wow.

  

This is the area used for concerts, with the red seats at the bottom of the frame, as the audience area.

  

We had enough apes, and so we skipped their habitat…

 

And went to the siege tunnels.

 

The siege tunnels they were carved out by the Merchant Marines in order to defend Gibraltar during one of the many sieges, the first starting in 1779.

During the time of the American Revolution, Spain and France took the opportunity to try and recapture the Rock from the British, while they were distracted elsewhere.

The tunnels were used off and on throughout the next two hundred years, and there were displays explaining all of their different uses.

 

We kept walking down… and down…

 

The tunnels were quite long and the angle at which they angled down was impressive. Climbing out was not fun.

But climbing in and out of a piece of history was pretty amazing.

After our exploration of the rock, we hit up a hole-in-the-wall English pub, called The Aragon. :) The kitchen, which were seated nearby, was basically a fryer and a hot plate. But it was awesome.

We ended up getting our English experience, albeit it in a totally different place than we had originally intended for our trip!

See how the other days went  – one, two, three, four, and five.