Spring Styles

Toms officially released their woman's ballet flats today. I've been looking forward to them for quite a while as I find their shoes quite comfortable but often wish they looked a bit more feminine (particularly with shorts/skirts).

Well the wait is over! Below are some of my favorites, I definitely plan to pick out a style or two to test out for our spring vacation!

Source: toms.com via Jen | Life Accounts on Pinterest

Source: toms.com via Jen | Life Accounts on Pinterest

Source: toms.com via Jen | Life Accounts on Pinterest

Source: toms.com via Jen | Life Accounts on Pinterest

Any other Toms fan out there? :)

Tuesday Randoms

Just a bunch of random thoughts for today...

All this warm weather we keep getting has put me in the best mood! Today it is supposed to hit the 60s! Sunday night, we randomly got a snow storm. One minute there is a wind storm going on and no precipitation, the next minute we look up and the windows are totally covered in snow. Craziness! There was no precipitation called for in the forecast but thankfully that's the first (and hopefully last) of the freak storms this winter.

I am also grateful that most of the snow we've had this winter has been on the weekends so there's been minimal problems with having to be out on the roads and traveling for work. So so happy that I have yet to have to deal with that headache this year. Come on March! :)

After writing in my last post how I had never blogged about our previous trips, particularly Disney, I was going back through old drafts and I have 8 Disney recap posts! I loved reading through them and I think I am going to post them with their backdates so that I'll have them up on the blog. Those of you who follow in google reader will still see them pop up though.

I also found a whole bunch of recipe posts that either didn't get posted because I didn't have a chance to upload or a photo, or I had the photos but need to type the recipe up in the post. :) I will probably let those post with their backdates as well. Some of them were too good not to share!

Hubs and I got our last tax documentations needed for our taxes right before the weekend so we had a fun Sunday night date putting those together. Ironically, Sunday morning we decided on a crazy whim to book our spring vacation. It was rather funny seeing similar amounts of money that will eventually go out the door for vacation and eventually come back from the taxes. Always nice when it works out somewhat close like that.

I am very very very excited for our spring vacation. I am counting down the days already!

I have been obsessed with vanilla tootsie rolls for years and I recently discovered they had a special edition bag where you could buy just vanilla! Brilliant! This is like Starburst releasing a reds and pinks bag! It's nice when the candy manufacturers finally get around to releasing what I've thought they should do for years. Better late than never.

Valentines Day is coming up and I am thinking about asking for a Zoku Popsicle maker. Every time we're at the grocery store we always want to get some fun Popsicle and ice cream treats and even the fruit ones are filled with high fructose corn syrup crap plus they are all either sugar free or fat free. Gross. Just give me the real deal. Apparently, my only option is to make my own. Do you remember back in the day when Fudgsicles came in vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding and a vanilla chocolate swirl? I lived on these in college but no one seems to carry them anymore. I am determined to make them myself!

I also want to get some sort of slim p/s camera that still takes good crisp shots. Something that can be tossed into a purse or a pocket with ease for the times we are traveling or out and about and don't want to take the DSLR with us. Anyone invested in one recently or have any good recommendations?

Some Days

There are some days where you wake up and you just feel blessed. Boy oh boy is today one of those days. I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact that it is currently 60 and sunny out right now at the end of January is certainly contributing but hey, I'll take it!

Hubs and I stayed up far too late last night reminiscing about college yester-years and favorite vacation memories and man there are a lot of them! I find it ironic that many of our favorites (Disney World, Saint Lucia & Atlantis) are the ones that never made it onto this blog. Maybe I felt like I couldn't do the memories justice?

Anyway, all this talk of vacations has got us both in the mood to travel and go on some crazy fun trips. The toughest part is narrowing down where! It's always so hard to pick between a new location and going back to revisit some of our all time favorite spots.

Of course, to make matters worse, friends of ours posted that they were at Magic Kingdom this morning after we'd stayed up until waaaay past our bedtime talking about just how fantastic and romantic and magical that very vacation was. It's hard to believe we are coming up on two years now!

We had been tossing around the idea of going last November and seeing Disney World all decked out for the Holidays but with work craziness and the Holidays we ended up tabling the discussion. Well, now it's back in full force. Do we want to do a last minute spring vacation there? Book something for the fall? Go next spring?

We have also been tossing around the idea maybe of a Caribbean cruise this spring. And I am dying to go tour the castles in Europe. So many incredible trips, so little time/money. :) Basically we just want to get up and go. Get away and make some memories.

In the meantime, it's date night tonight and Hubs and I plan to only further the Disney hankering by popping in some Disney treasure collections while munching on a big ole pizza with garlic butter dipping sauce. Mmmmm love me some date nights!

Catch-all

Well this post has been a long time coming. Life has been busy busy busy since I finished our NY recaps.

My uncle passed away recently and we have been quite busy dealing with the funeral preparations etc. It's a long story but the short version is that he came down with a "cold" in November, after it didn't get better in a few days, he was mis-diagnosed with Pneumonia. My aunt (a nurse) disagreed with the assessment and took him for a second opinion. Turns out it was stage 4 melanoma. He received that diagnoses on November 11th. No other symptoms except a cough and feeling under the weather. He had had regular physicals and regular appointments/check-ups with a dermatologist. Clearly they missed something big. I don't think they were ever even able to determine where the cancer came from it was so widespread into every single organ by the time they found it but he fought it for 2 months before passing away.

It has been a sad time here for our families and I hope you will keep his family in your prayers as they struggle to deal with all of this.

In addition to all of this, I have had a horrible flu and hacking cough that I just can't seem to shake and have just been miserable. I don't think I make a very good sick person. In fact, it may be worse then the "man cold." It has been an exciting time around here let me tell yah.

Ya'll, I have been coughing so much that it's been kicking my gag reflex like woah. Try explaining that one to work....fuuuuun times.

Hopefully I'll get caught up at some point but in the meantime, hope you all are well!

Christmas in NY, part 2

Friday was another full day of touring around the city. The weather was quite the contrast to the day before. Colder and much more windy, it definitely felt like winter had arrived.




We of course had to stop by Wall Street, thankfully all the Occupy Wallstreet crap was cleaned up & didn't spoil our visit.











Perhaps the most memorable stop of the day was the visit the new 9-11 memorial site & St. Paul's church.








Tthis was the only remaining tree or plant left behind in the 9-11 devestation, since 9-11 it was transplanted to a farm in PA to be nurtered back to health & was replanted at the new 9-11 memorial just a few days before Hurricane Irene struck NYC. Thankfully it survived. It is called the Tree of Hope.




This is one of the new WTC buildings being built.

We returned late Friday night for a Christmas party being thrown by some friends of ours and happily collapsed into bed afterwords, exhausted after the many miles we walked over the last few days.

Brent and I have plans to travel back up again in the Spring to enjoy more of the wonderful parks and outdoor activities that NYC has to offer but I have a feeling it will take quite a few more trips to see it all!

Christmas in NY, part 1

Hubs and I have been talking about visiting NYC during the holiday season for a few years now but the holidays always get so crazy that we end up swamped and pushing back the trip to the following year. We were quite determined to go this year so several months back I purchased Broadway tickets for us to see Radio Christmas music Spectacular featuring the Rockettes.

When my grandmother heard we were going and what show we were going to see, she swooned as she and my grandfather have been all over the world many times but she has never seen the Rockettes. The show has always been canceled from crazy blizzards when they've had tickets. With that piece of news, we invited her to join us. This grew into an invitation to my mom to join us as a chance for her to get away & squeeze in some mother/daughter time with her mom right before eye surgery. Annnnnd when my grandfather heard the news, he was not about to be left out.

So what started as a trip for two, turned into a trip for five. We all had an incredible time together seeing the sights and I would even venture to say that both Brent and I felt that there wasn't a smidgen of romance lost even though it was no longer a trip for two.

We originally planned to stay pretty close to Time's Square but when my grandparents got us all the hookup with free military housing, we were all on board with that!

We left quite early Thursday morning (think it was around 6AM?) to drive up and get in around mid-late morning. We promptly dropped our bags, grabbed the cameras and spent the day touring the city, experiencing the lights and ohhhing and ahhing over the window displays. We had incredibly gorgeous weather the first day, sunny and warm with no wind, practically balmy! It felt like we were heading into Spring, not preparing to hunker down for winter! It was so warm that the ice was all nasty and slushy at Rockefellor center and we opted out of paying a premium for that experience. Perhaps next year if it's colder!







We toured through the fashion district and I just had to snap a shot of the needle and button all decked out for the holidays.




I loved the "believe" decor all over the Macy's building, very beautifully done.






Funny how much bigger the ball looks on TV when it's reaching the final minutes of dropping! :)



A few of our random shots along the way:



5th avenue was gorgeous the full way, such pretty lights and decorations! We really enjoyed shopping at American Girl and FAO Schwartz






Trump tower was heavily decorated inside & out, we had to stop in and take a peak around. :)



Tiffany's was a personal favorite, each window bow had a gorgeous winter scene completely decked out in jewels!









The incredible window displays at Henri Bendel.









Our show was at 5PM and it was absolutely incredible. Radio City Hall was beautifully decorated and show was perfection. I think the Living Nativity Scene may be my favorite part. :)













Afterwards we heading over to the Stardust Diner to enjoy amazing diner food and more singing and entertainment. :)



We finished up the evening touring around a bit more, picked up some NY Christmas ornaments and enjoyed the views of the city at night from the Staten Island Ferry.











Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.