L'amore di vita!

Shark Space

Last night we had the privilege of attending the Virginia Science Museum's special premier of it's new summer exhibit Shark Space. What a blast.

Celine Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter) was there and later in the evening made a wonderful presentation in the Museum's Planetarium about her adventures at sea and other places. She was gorgeous (in a very earthy, natural way), and her lecture was fantastic.

The exhibit has these amazing, huge sand sculptures that were being worked on and finished by the artists in preparation for the grand opening on Saturday.

Here's Celine Cousteau on the right talking with other guests. This photo does not do her justice.

Here's one of the sand sculpture artists working on a masterpiece. It was amazing.

Light coming in the window cast some really weird colors on the sand shark in the first photo. I didn't feel like fixing. :)

Celine Cousteau's lecture in the Planetarium. She showed several films of her adventures as well, and talked about her grandfather.

Fabulous evening!

Bouillabaisse Blowout

Went to a local French restaurant to eat tonight, and I ordered Bouillabaisse for the first time in my life. 

It was delicious! Clams, mussels, squid, two different kinds of fish, shrimp...topped with those delicious French thin green beans (nice and crunchy, not over cooked)...all in a red base broth with saffron and fennel. My only concern was the squid. While I love fried squid, I've never really tried stewed squid. But it was so tender and flavorful.

Dunking the bread into the broth after I ate all the seafood was soooo yummy because it was loaded with the flavor of saffron and fennel.The hubs ordered salmon and sauteed veggies, which he said were excellent. I shared the bouillabaisse with him, and he loved it (although he's eaten it before).

After dinner, we split a dessert. The hubs had coffee too, but I didn't because for some reason drinking it later in the day gives me an upset stomach. Bummer too, because I LOVE coffee.

I call this the shot the bouillabaisse graveyard...it contains the empty shells from the mussels and clams.

Tiny coffee cup engulfed by large Tony hands.

We didn't eat outside (too hot), but there were tables already set up if we wanted to.

A great meal!

More Beach Bravo

On the third day of our OBX trip, it was rainy and cold!  We woke up to wind howling and rain pounding the beach house. The wind blew like mad most of the day, and mother nature had the ocean pounding the beaches. Waves were crashing as far out in the ocean as the eye could see. What a sight to behold.

But we loved it!

We headed over to take a walk on Avalon Pier to experience the ocean's turmoil first hand. We were not disappointed.

We were the only crazy people tourists on the pier. It was so cool being there all by ourselves in that amazing weather and watching the ocean crashing all around us.

The wind was blowing so hard we could feel the pier swaying back and forth. It made us just a little nervous to walk out too far, truth be told. :)

The wind and light rain were beating up the hubs. He wasn't as keen on hanging out on the pier as much as I was. I thought it was funny. Him, not so much. LOL.

Inside the pier was a huge game room. We were the only people there, so we walked around and checked it out. Didn't play any games, but it was a great place.

Then we were ready for lunch. Dirty Dick's Crab House to the rescue. The sun came out for a brief period while we were eating. It didn't last long though.

After our tummies were full we decided a latte was in order to ward off any further chill.

On our way back to the beach house we stopped to check out some of the local natural landscaping. Ran across a really beautiful tree with the most interesting trunk. The Sound had receded so much that most of the plant life was exposed near the water's edge. Most of the time this tree trunk is covered in water.

This was our view of the Sound from the beach house. It was so nice watching the sun set every evening.

Another fabulous day!

Can't resist posting this last one from the Avalon Pier. :)

Squeal!!!!

Today was our 25th wedding anniversary. 

Twenty-five spectacular years. We're just as much in love as the day we wed. Seriously.

And our wonderful friends sent us an Edible Bouquet made of fresh fruits.Wow, was it ever amazing! The biggest "flower" strawberries, and some of them covered completely in chocolate. "Stems" lined with melon balls or grapes. The cutest fresh pineapple cut into flower shapes with melon centers. Beautiful!

And the best thing? It was DELICIOUS. So very fresh. All the fruit was sweet and perfectly ripe. We ate most of it for dinner. :)

Thank you our dear friends. We love you.

This is how it arrived. Beautifully wrapped. And the inside, even more gorgeous. YUMMY!

Return of the Maggio

We headed off to NY last Thursday to visit the hub's family.

Awesome trip. Lots of great things went on, which I plan to post about later.

Haven't had much chance to update the ole blog since last Friday (which was from NY).  But will be fixing that soon.

Can't believe I'm posting without a photo! Will be fixing that soon, too.

:)

Nephew

He's the cutest!

I still remember the warmth...

...of the beach that morning.

Warning...heavily loaded with beach photos.  

 

We were so excited to get out the second day of our beach vacation at OBX and go to one of our favorite places, Ducks Cottage, for coffee and book perusing. It was a beautiful morning!

Right outside the bookstore there was a bunch of active bird houses. 

The hubs drank coffee and read the paper while I drank coffee and picked out a couple of books. Not that I needed any more books. I brought several Photography books to read. But I wanted a novel. I still haven't found the 7 or so novels I had stacked up to read when I packed during the move. I've looked everywhere.

After coffee and while the hubs was still reading the paper, I took a walk behind the coffee shop. There was a small pond filled with plants and wildlife just waiting to be photographed.

This looks like a morning glory to me.

Then we headed on over to the same shops where we watched the sunset on the Sound the night before so we could enjoy looking at the water in the early morning sunlight. On the way over, I saw this neat plant hanger and loved the design and rusty texture.

One of the stores had put a big crab basket of sand crabs (?) out for customers' viewing pleasure and purchase. The store painted some of the shells different colors.

When I saw this one, I couldn't help but think of the song "she wore an itsy-bitsy tiny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini". Yes, I know it's red dots. 

We were both anxious to get to the ocean on this beautiful morning. It was only ten minutes from where we were on the Sound. The beach house complex where we stayed had its own private entrance to the beach. The beach is just beyond that gazebo.

Our first glimpse of the beautiful ocean.

The weather was gorgeous!

 

My favorite photo of that day. I was trying for our self portraits by holding the camera at arms length. Our faces came out blurry, but the focus on the beach is perfect. I did get a couple where we were in focus, but I like this one better.

More beach beauty.

On our way back to the beach house, caught a snap of this hanging flower. What I love about this is all the out of focus areas (sometimes called bokeh) in the background.

Right after we got back to the beach house, it started raining like crazy.  After a rest, we decided to head out for big lunch (which we hoped would tie us over through the evening).

Lunch was at First Light restaurant.  Everything was delicious.  I had the best crab cake sandwich and a cold beer to wash it down. The hubs was on cold meds, so he didn't drink (and he wasn't happy that he couldn't because we both enjoy a good, cold beer (or wine) with our food).

It was still raining when we left the restaurant, so we decided to hit up some of the shops close by.

We saw some of the most lovely flowers in the landscaping around the shops.

 

After hitting a few more shops, we decided to head back to the beach house.  It was still raining some, and getting really cold too.

 

We decided to stop off at another local coffee shop for a latte before heading back to the beach house for the evening.  

See that bolster on the chair? That's Martha Stewart's line from K-Mart - I know because I had the spread and matching shams in one of my spare bedrooms in the house we just moved out of. For some reason that pattern looked a lot better in the bedroom then it does on this chair. :)

It got so cold that we had to turn on the heat that night! It got down to some crazy temperature, like 45 degrees.  This photo is typical of us. He's in his bare feet. I have on pj's and socks. The hubs never gets cold. On the other hand, if a cool wind blows towards me I'm ready for a sweatshirt. I did bring warm pajamas...thank goodness. Great sleeping weather.

Second day in OBX was terrific!

Damn Hell Bathroom

Yea, I dragged the hubs into the ladies room for this photo (at OBX).

He resisted. More than once. But as you can see, I got him there.

He's got one hand on the doorknob ready to make a run for it (which he did as soon as I shot this).

Damn, he's cute.

Hey Mamma Zu!

We were swamped today.

The to-do list was long, but we put a big dent in it.

The hubs was going to cook us up seafood for dinner, but he was pretty much exhausted.  So we opted to eat out.

Decided on Mamma Zu, a popular Italian restaurant not far from us (now that we've moved to the city condo it's close).   Because the hubs works in the city he's been there a few times, but this was my first. 

The placed opened at 5:30. We got there at 5:15 and there was already a long line forming. After it opened, we still waited almost 45 minutes to get a table.  It's a dumpy looking place, and really tiny.

Waiting a long time to eat at a restaurant is rare for us.  If the wait is any more than 10-15 minutes, then we seriously consider moving on. But the hubs said the place was so good, that it was worth the wait.

And it was delicious!  Really, really delicious. I would say some of the best food I've eaten in a long time.

One small problem. After our meal a person who was just seated behind us lit up a cigarette. I could smell it immediately. The tiny place quickly filled with smoke.  I could feel my throat burning. We thought the place was all non-smoking! The hubs said in the many times he's gone he's never seen someone light up. 

As we were leaving I asked the waiter if the place was non-smoking, and was told no. And the kicker is they don't even ask if someone smokes and therefore smokers end up seated next to non (as in our case). Horrible! 

Our state recently passed a non-smoking law in restaurants. It takes affect soon (in Aug or Oct, I think). We won't be going back to Mamma Zu until that law passes.

After the law passes, we're looking forward to going.  The food was amazing.

I though we got in line in plenty of time to get a table right away, but no. :)

There was a really cute couple in front of us holding hands the whole time.

TGIF!

Happy Friday.  Have a great weekend. :)

We've got a ton of things to do.

Will post more beachy beach photos later. 

I took this one at the beach too, but it's not too beachy looking, is it? :)

OBX Vacation

We had a fabulous vacation at OBX a few weeks ago, and I want to start posting some of the photos from the trip. For those not familiar, OBX means Outer Banks, which is a huge beach community located in North Carolina.  

On the way out we stopped at our favorite going-to-OBX-on-vacation-watering-hole, Virginia Diner. It's a tradition for us to stop there for breakfast. It's the only time we ever eat there because it's really out of the way otherwise. We also love to pick up several kinds of their home-grown peanuts for some good munching at the beach. We almost didn't make breakfast this time - they stop serving it at 11AM...we barely made it. 

 

(Click on the photo to see it bigger.)

 

 

We arrived at the beach house at around 4PM, just in time to get settled in and head out again to grab a few groceries, unload them at the beach house, and head out again to watch the sunset on the Sound.  There's a great shopping area next to the beach house that's right on the Sound. We headed on over there where we window shopped a little and then settled in afterwards to watch the sunset.

 

 

 

A view of the ocean as the sun began to get lower in the sky.

 

Had to have a little ice cream treat during the wait.  Yummy.

 

A guy was out having a ball hand sailing (I don't know what the sport is officially called). :)  It was really windy that night, and he was flying all over the water.

 

 

 

He was amazing and fun to watch. You can't see the sail in this one, but you can see the ropes that connect to the sail and that it has carried him about 15 feet off the water!

 

 

The sunset was beautiful that night.  The clouds really made it especially breathtaking. The weather was gorgeous, even though it was wicked windy.

 

Just after the sun set behind the horizon.  Gorgeous! A terrific first night.

More photos to come!

 

 

Getting my Studio On

I mentioned in a previous post that I met up with a bunch of other photographers to shoot a real live model in a studio setting using artificial lighting.  The studio is less than 10 minutes from the condo. So convenient!

I am a natural light photographer, and have never ventured into using artificial light before.  I can't believe how much I learned during this shoot!

The model FaBienne, was a doll.  What a trooper!  She modeled for about 4 hours, with only a minimal break in between.  She's just starting her modeling career, and in exchange for modeling for us all the photographers gave her a nice collection of high resolution photos on a CD that she could use in her professional portfolio.   I also sent her all my photos in small resolution so she could post on the Web at Facebook and such.

Here are a few shots I took from the session. They appear to be a bit out of focus, but the original hi-resolution versions were sharp has a tack.  Usually when photos are resized smaller they loose a little bit of crispness.  I really should have re-sharpened them before posting, but just didn't feel like it. :)

The photographers plan to meet at the studio again soon. 

NAPP and French wine

I attended a photography seminar today from 10 AM to 5 PM sponsored by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) called "Down and Dirty Tricks with Photoshop".  Learned a ton of new stuff on how to apply unusual techniques to my photos.   Excellent class.  

Then the hubs and I met two of our good friends at Tastebuds American Bistro for a "French Wine Dinner".  Fabulous.  Six courses of food, each accompanied by a different French wine at each course.  The food was amazing.  The wine, even more amazing.  The sommelier was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the French wine, which made it all the more enjoyable.

The NAPP seminar was packed. Must has been over 200 people there.

All kinds of people interested in photography, web design, and photoshop in general attended the seminar.  There were several vendors selling and displaying all kinds of professional photography related stuff.

Before we went to the wine tasting dinner, at about 5:45, we stopped at a wine store to kill some time.  Then we realized the dinner wasn't until 7:30.  An while we love the wine store, we couldn't see killing that much time there.  So we headed back home until it was time to go (again). 

At Tastebuds, the tables were all set up and ready for the 6-course dinner.  One of the forks (for dessert) was placed at the top of the dinner plate, so it's not with the rest here. Had a fabulous time!  

Now I'm off to bed!  First, I've got to down a few Rolaids. LOL.

PS UPDATE:  I didn't take the Rolaids before hitting the sack.  And I woke up with heartburn at 4:00 AM and took them then.  Nice.

Mother's Day

May has been a busy month for us, and I'm trying to catch up on posts with all the wonderful things we've done.

We had a great Mother's Day.  I don't have children, and Tony's Mom passed away many years ago (she was a wonderful person, and she is still loved and missed so much).  So the entire day was devoted to my Mom. 

We started off with brunch at LuLu's.  The hubs and I have been there for dinner a few times, but this was the first time for brunch.

It was loud.  Very loud.  The kitchen in open to the dining area, and the cooks were busily cranking out food and banging pots and pans and such.  The music was pumping.  The place was packed with hungry guests, and there was a lot of active morning chatter.  I think Mom enjoyed it, but she's not big on loud environments and it made her a little nervous. I think she finally got used to it (at least a little).

This was the front of the restaurant next to LuLu's.  Loved the spring flowers.  

Afterwards we headed over the river for a ride on the canal.  The weather was excellent, and it was a lovely ride.

Here we are waiting for the boat office to open to get tickets.  Against the building are my Mom (purple jacket), brother (light shirt), and hubs (navy blue shirt).

It was a really comfortable ride.  The boat was nice and clean.  The hubs says I'm always noticing how clean something is.   And it's true.  LOL.

Getting ready for the ride.  Front seat cruising.

The hubs amusing me again.

It was a wonderful cruise, going under shady bridges.

The view behind us as we were heading out on the boat towards the canal, leaving the dock.

The old (and still used) elevated railroad tracks along the river. Our town is historically well known for trains that run all along the river and city.

Lots of beautiful wildlife along the banks of the river.

Heading back to the city after the ride.

Storage location where the other boats are docked.

Afterwards, we headed home for Mom to open her gifts.  The hubs and I gave her a Costco gift card.   The bro and his lovely friend gave her beautiful clothes and the cutest purse with frogs all over - just adorable!

Then we headed out to take a walk along the river.  Tons of old buildings down there.  Mom is such a ham!

Me and the Mums. 

After our walk, we headed on home.  A fabulous day!

Bro's Bday

A few week's ago my middle brother had a birthday.

About 10 of us went to Peking to celebrate.  We like to meet there because it's centrally located so that none of us has to drive too far.  

We had a ball.  Food was good.  I brought a yummy cake from UKROPS with the fluffy cream frosting that's so darn good.  It's so good I could skip the meal and go right to dessert.  But I didn't.

I thought the "1" on the cake was cute.

  

This is a good friend of the family.  Really, friend doesn't begin to describe our relationship.  She's a family member, like a sister to me.  Love her to pieces.  This is one of her adorable nieces.

Her other niece.  Love these kids too.

The nieces adore my bro.  The feeling is very mutual.

There was a little cake left and our Mom wanted to take it home.  The bro decided to put it in a to-go box.  For some reason that tickled us all.  Never have seen anyone try to put slices of cake in a to-go box before!

We had a great time.  We all wished it could have lasted a little longer.  But we already started the dinner late, and we all had to get up early for work the next day.