A Very Merry Christmas

MN and I spent a few days in New Orleans over the Christmas holiday. The city rejuvenates, inspires, baffles, pokes fun at and enamors us beyond description. As always, the Big Easy provides elixir for all that ails us.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

And we're off …


The photo's a little blurry - it's important to select a decent photographer from the crowd of mature adults at a casino in southern Mississippi


Suckered into the penny slots again


Life after the devastation


Christmas Eve - ready for Santa


Christmas morning service at St. Louis Cathedral


Check out the trees on the balcony


Decorations in the Quarter


Riding St. Charles streetcar


Postcard shot


So yummy


Ah, sweet Bourbon St.

More from Charleston

Charleston is a beautiful city filled with lots of charm and lots of history. Exploring cities by foot is our favorite way to get a feel for a new place, so staying at the Francis Marion, a historic hotel in the heart of Charleston, was ideal since it's located on King Street, a street boasting block after block after block of local and regional shops and restaurants. Also, the Francis Marion overlooks Marion Square which is where the Saturday Farmer's Market is held, so we were close to the action and enjoyed viewing the wares being sold at various vendor booths.

Of course, food was at the center of our vacation (as is always the case with us!). We tried to hit all of the bakeries and cupcakeries in town, including Cupcake, which was a mere three blocks from our hotel. We also indulged in yummy seafood at a restaurant on Market Street, and donuts and beignets (yes, beignets!) from the Farmer's Market.

We had a great time and look forward to visiting Charleston when the weather is warmer! As always, we're sending lots of love and hugs across the miles...the girlz

Trotting with turkeys

Our visit to Charleston for Thanksgiving was lovely! On Thanksgiving Day, we ran our first 5K race together (woo hoo!) on Kiawah Island - it was so much fun! About 400 other turkey trotters participated in the event as well.

Then we converged on a Thanksgiving buffet fit for kings and queens, complete with all the comfort foods of the holiday. Running three miles in the morning helped us to feel less guilty about the amount of food we consumed at the buffet that afternoon!

More Charleston pictures to follow. As always, we're sending lots of love and hugs across the miles...the girlz


Pre-turkey trot


Check out the crowd!




Check out those two turkeys!


Action shot during the race


Action shot during the race #2


We did it!


So proud!




Re-enactment

Finding joy in the little things

So Paul McCartney put on an outdoor concert in Piedmont Park this past summer and, since Piedmont Park is one of our favorite places in Atlanta, we decided to walk to the park and listen to a rock-n-roll legend. Neither of us are big fans of his music, but he put on a really good show nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the clouds above looked threatening, so we left the concert a little bit early so we could get home before the rain began, but....

The skies opened up and we got drenched.

And it was super-fun to jump and splash in the puddles all the way home!

Pride!

Last weekend was Halloween and Gay Pride in Atlanta - well, it was Halloween in other cities, too, but you know what I'm sayin'. Usually Pride happens in June to coincide with the Stonewall Riots, but had to be moved because of the drought. We were skeptical, but put that aside and went into the weekend with a positive outlook and ready to have some F-U-N!

Sunday morning, we walked to Piedmont Park to peruse the booths and do some people watching. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed our walk very much. Sidenote: It seems the colder weather has limited the frequency of our walks – and we love our walks, as some of y'all may know – so we were thrilled to be able to enjoy a long walk. Then it was parade time! We chose a perfect spot and waited in anticipation, ready to be amazed.

The parade was fun. We both agreed we'd like to have seen more floats and we'd really liked to have more music. The majority of floats seemed to be politicians and restaurants. Regardless, we danced, waved at the participants, shouted (nicely) for candy they were tossing and scored two t-shirts! That hardly ever happens to us! All in all, we had a wonderful time and are grateful for the freedom to celebrate who we are without fear.

Our Sunday was capped with a Vikings win over the Pack - can't think of a better way to end a weekend. GO VIKES!

Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure...

Happy Pride!


The flag


Yep, it's made of bubble wrap



Lemme hear a big ROLL TIDE for a huge victory yesterday against LSU! Watch out Gators, we're coming for you.

We love and miss y'all very much!
the girlz

Things that go bump

This morning as we were about to head to work, we heard a THUD, stopping us dead in our tracks. The sound was unmistakable.

Our suspicions were confirmed when we saw a tiny gray bird lying motionless on our balcony's love seat. The little guy had flown head-on into one of our windows.

Upon closer investigation, our tiny feathered friend was still breathing, thankfully, but it appeared he was bleeding from his head.

Oh my gosh, what do we do, we wondered. We watched and we fretted and we wondered some more. Absolutely heart-broken and stunned, we felt powerless. How can we help this beautiful creature?

Crazy thoughts entered our minds. What if we take the bird to the vet? What if he is in a lot of pain? What if the bird has a concussion? Do we need to put it out of its misery? Will we be conducting a funeral?

In the end, we left the bird alone. We hoped and we prayed he would recover and live to fly another day.

So imagine our excitement and glee when we discovered a tiny little fluffy feather lying in the spot where the bird had laid this morning -- just a small reminder of the fragility of life and the power of positive thought.

Another superfun adventure

This past Sunday, MN and I went to the Taste of Atlanta. Let me start by saying we are by no means "foodies," but we love love love to eat, so an opportunity to sample fares from 80+ restaurants, quite a few of which we've been wanting to check out, was right up our alley. We prioritized our ticket allotment prior to arrival, but found it in our best interest to wander and take in the sights and scents in order to immerse ourselves in the experience. (Sidenote: Something I've been focusing my energy on lately has been to be in the moment, regardless of whether it's a fabulous moment or a not so fabulous moment. Life is the here and now, and I'm striving to embrace it.)

Our first sample was a Louisiana crab melt and unfortunately, it left quite a bit to be desired.


Our next venture was completely out of our familiar zone: duck confit salad.


If you don't know what confit means, you may not want to look it up if you're even remotely thinking of having it. I'm sure I'll be working off that small portion for about a week. So what does duck taste like, you ask? For me, it tasted like … no, not chicken, but turkey. Pretty good, but definitely not worth the calories, especially when we still planned to sample chicken 'n dumplins and ice cream!


Mmmm, Mary Mac's chicken 'n dumplins

We spent the afternoon tasting and commenting about which restaurants we would definitely be checking out and which samples were not worth the ticket. We also watched a cooking demonstration by Carla from "Top Chef New York - hootie hoo! She was very entertaining and we enjoyed her very much.


Here are some other things we tried and our impressions:

Chicken tikka masala rice bowl: MN really liked this


Black truffle lobster mac and cheese ball: Not nearly as amazing as it sounded


Chicken and waffles: Disappointing (you know what they say about expectations)


Kobe beef burger: Decent, but not outstanding

Butter chicken masala with rice: MN's favorite

Lobster bisque - MN liked, Lucky not so much


Red velvet mini cupcake: Thumbs-down on this particular bakery


Spare ribs & coleslaw: Lucky's co-fave




Chocolate chocolate chip ice cream: Yummy!

Brownie sandwiched between chocolate chip cookies: Again, not as good as it sounds


Low country grits: Very tasty


The Taste of Atlanta was worth the price of admission, and we'll definitely be attending next year's event.



We love and miss y'all very much - the girlz