Something Fun to Do!

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you've had an awesome weekend... Go check out Averie's Blog and enter her Tazo giveaway!

Married.... and some honeymoon pictures!

hellllooo bloggies! Happy Friday :) So sorry for the long absence - the past month has had me busy busy busy getting married

(yes... those are the fabulous crystal-encrusted sapphire-blue sex-in-the-city Satin Manolos... so comfortable and made me feel super sexy all night long :)





...and honeymooning in gorgeous St. Lucia (if you've never been, I totally recommend it - we stayed at the Sandals Grande resort which was fabulous!) We spent 7 amazing days zip-lining through the rainforest, horseback-riding along the beach, and exploring a drive-in volcano and botanical gardens.


The resort from up above - this was taken from the Fort, about a 20 minute hike - the weather was fantastic and the view (as you can see!!!) was totally worth the exercise (which was also very welcome by the end of the trip and all the eating and drinking gluttony which had ensued...)


The Piton mountains are in the background - the range is small but it looks like the outline of a figure lying down (most notably known for the "boobies" - one of which you can see in the background of this pic)


one of many, many incredible flowers at the botanical gardens - so many unique and interesting plants and flowers, which definitely inspired me to dedicate some time to art (I love charcoal, pencil, pen & ink....). I also met a fellow geeky engineer who was into photography and he taught me a bunch of new things about how to shoot with my camera (I have the Canon Rebel and I love it! Sometimes it seems like it's a pain to lug it around, but the pictures are always great, so it's worth it)

didn't want to bore yall with too many pics ;)


-the rear view! hahaha... one of the better pictures of horseback-riding (my horse's name was Vegas). Unfortunately, St. Lucia is in the midst of a drought; hence all the dry foliage in the forest. Nonetheless, it was an awesome ride - especially bareback through the ocean!

... and the latest addition to our family: Maki (short for Macchiato, as any Starbucks aficionado probably knows, means "spotted" in Italian - she's a Jack russell terrier mix, found by a friend of ours, abandoned... so we rescued her - my first puppy ever :)


...on to a bit of bad news - I slipped on Maki's giant raw hide (some friends with a big dog watched her while we were away on our honeymoon and they have a big dog, so Maki got quite spoiled with big chew toys and treats) - and dislocated my knee. As in, I totally dislocated it - it was way off to the side :( it's back in place now and propped up on the couch and I'm icing it, but it hurts (thought my butt hurts a lot more - I bit it pretty hard on the hard wood floor).... seeing as how it's the weekend, I guess I'm waiting 'til Monday to see what the prognosis is, but I'm really disappointed because I've been super eager to get back into working out and yoga (the last month, and even this week, has been a total whirlwind - still cleaning and laundry to do, and I had a massive Spring Cleaning planned for tomorrow while Rich was at a soccer tournament). The injury makes me thing of Gina - she's definitely doing the safe (albeit hard!) thing and playing it safe by taking it easy.

Go check out Rawdorable's (Shannonmarie's) awesome giveaway for raw revolution bars - if you haven't tried them yet, them are pretty tasty!

time for me to get back to our movie - Julie & Julia - but expect some recipes to come (tomorrow night is tapas & Sangria with a side of basketball!) as well as lots of pictures. Happy Friday night everyone!

Tribest Giveaway!!!

Happy humpday bloggies!!! Go comment on Gena's blog for a chance to win the totally amazing Tribest personal blender (I soooo want one!) .... and go to Gina's blog and offer some happy thoughts as to Viesa's recovery, because even though we're not all dog people (I may be becoming one soon... more on that later ;), it is never good to see a furry loved one in pain ... let's all just thank God for the sunshine and the rain and the flowers and the happiness and the weddings to soulmates in 24 days!!!!

A Little Bit of Heaven

Macaroons! I made these a few weeks ago and just now got around to posting pictures... Blonde macs (coconut butter, shredded coconut - I love the finely shredded 40% reduced fat organic from Whole Foods, coconut oil, touch of sea salt, date paste, swirl of agave) and chocolate macs (same as blonde, plus raw cacao powder & soaked goji berries, so they plump up like raisins - does anyone else soak their goji berries?)

and a close up:

In other news... and probably why I've been absent from the blog lately (though I have been catching up on your blogs!) we had my Bridal Shower a few weeks ago... check out the cake:

it came from this amazing bakery called Chocolate Pi, and while not gluten-free (so I couldn't eat any) it was gorgeous! It was pink & black, like everything at the shower... Dana (my maid of honor) did a fabulous job planning everything. Here's the inside of the cake:

It was yellow cake with buttercream and raspberry filling between the layers. Everyone said it was outstandingly delicious! The fondant was super-thin. Since I couldn't eat the cake, Dana had a special dessert made for me:

It was an almond cookie with a strawberry filling, so light and fluffy (it tasted like a cloud!), with fresh strawberries. It was really quite scrumptious, but I was sharing with Erin (my sister, who is also GF) and she loved it so much that I took a few bites and let her have the rest.

Here I am practicing cutting the cake for the big day:

Yay! I am getting super excited for the wedding... 26 days to go ;)

My camera is getting fixed right now (the CF card door was broken), so I haven't been taking pictures for the past week or so. Somehow the point and shoot camera doesn't seems as fun as my Canon Rebel. If you take pictures of food, what kind of camera do you like to shoot with?

I was going to run a few errands yesterday and my car just sputtered and wouldn't start... the starter is shot. It's only about 6 1/2 years old, and I guess they aren't ever supposed to go, but sometimes it happens :( My fiancee signed up for AAA when he booked our honeymoon (it's a surprise! I don't know where we're going ;) so they towed my car this morning and now I'm at home waiting for Tires Plus to call and say she's ready... good time to blog, of course ;) I successfully completed the 30-class Bikram yoga challenge at my yoga studio, Yogani, where I attended class 6-7 days per week over a 5-week stretch of time. I absolutely loved it. The reward for completing the challenge is a super cute T-shirt and 50% off your next yoga package (I'm definitely doing the 6-month unlimited!) I love yoga!

It's a great time to set a positive intention for something you would like to accomplish this week, perhaps something you didn't do last week or over the weekend, or something you've been procrastinating for awhile. One of my favorite yoga teachers says there are only three things you ever need - BREATH, INTENTION, and SMILE - and I wholeheartedly believe that. With those three qualities and love in your heart, there is nothing you can fail at. My day today is not going the way it *should* or the way I intended it to, but I'm rolling with it the best I can - hey at least I got to crawl back in bed for a few hours and finally get a long blog entry in! I find that either writing down an intention or telling someone a goal you have in mind can be an effective motivator when you need some fuel for success. Have a great week and Happy Monday everyone!