Dog Photos

These are for my niece Sofia who looks up the blog to see Dublin and Salem's photo.

The Great Escape! Part 1

Our third Anniversary was coming up, and Stephen and I decided to go to St. Augustine, FL. We would see the Fountain of Youth, walk through old Spanish-influenced architecture, maybe see Savannah again, and spend time together (awww). We bought our tickets, booked our hotel and rental car and then waited. We were going to leave Thursday night, the "Snowstorm of the Century" was starting Friday. We decide to "escape" the snow and continue with our plans. Maybe we would have a delayed flight getting back, but that was okay. Here are the highlights of our trip.
-We had a great time on Friday in St. Augustine,FL
-We drove to Savannah,GA on Saturday (another great time)
-When we were in Savannah, the airline called us and told us that our first plane back on Sunday was canceled.
-We rescheduled our flight for later on Sunday: we would have a layover in Nashville, and then get to BWI late Sunday night (right).
- Late Saturday night, after eating dinner when we got back from Savannah, our second plane was canceled.
- We were on hold 1 1/2 hours to reschedule for our third plan.
-Southwest tells us they could only fly us back to BWI on WEDNESDAY!
-We canceled our flight, and then rescheduled with another airline and flew to White Planes, NY
-Lars, my brother-in-law, picked us up on Sunday at White Plans and we spent the night with my sister Kim at her house.
-We rented a car on Monday and drove back home Monday afternoon.
-Below is what greeted us at our door. There was about 3 feet of snow on our cars. We are not expecting to see our minivan until Spring (LOL).
- In short we went through MD, GA, FL, CT, NJ, NY (a total of six states) in 5 days.


The white lump behind Stephen is our minivan, and the car you some what see is our Hyundai.


The white lump is a car parked on the street.

Cars had to be dug out from their street parking.




Thanks to my mother-in-law, we had a snow blower to help us at least see our minivan.

Nemours Mansion and Gardens

Stephen and I traveled to Delaware to visit a house tour that we had read about. Over the years, Stephen and I have gone on many house tours, but I have to say this one was equal to the opulence that I have seen in France and England. When we got there, we learned that A.I. Dupont built the house for his second wife and based it on the designs at the palace of Versailles in France! We were not allowed to take photos in the house, but the pictures on the grounds that had french gardens and 5 different ponds with many, many statues.

Gingerbread Man!

Run


Run


As fast as you can


You can't catch me


I'm the Gingerbread man!!


In our story no fox was needed! LOL

Shanandoah (Skyline Drive)

Stephen and I had recently read about Skyline drive in Virgina. This is a beautiful drive along the Shandoha Valley that takes you up and down the majestic area. We packed our bags and headed out to see Kelly and Tim in Charlotsville and took them along with us. The pictures do not truly show the beauty that we saw. However, I gave it my best shot (smile).











Hi HONEY!!!

What a "Knight"

I know, I know. I dressed my dogs for Halloween. But, in my defense, it started as something that made me laugh REALLY hard. Last year (as seen in previous post), I put a pumpkin hat on Dublin and witch hat on Salem. This led me to create a card and send it to my family. I was never really into sending Christmas cards, but I did start sending Halloween cards. So this year, this was the design I had on the card. In our defense, I would not spend much money on dressing them up, so the "costume" you see was bought from the dollar tree. Stephen thought up the saying, and the castle behind them was from a picture of Gillette Castle that we had visited. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!

Gillette Castle

For a couple years now, Stephen and I have wanted to visit the CT Castle. Its official name is Gillette Castle. It was owned by a popular actor in the early 20's (Arthur Gillette. He was best know for working with Sir Author Conan Doyle and brought to life on stage the most popular image we think of when we think of Sherlock Holmes. The cap, cape, pipe, and the saying, "Elementary, my dear Watson" was all him. It was a surprisingly cozy and very beautifully situated home. He designed all the wood carved doors himself and, evidently, loved cats. Statues of them were everywhere! It was a great day and we then walked in the wooded park later.

(one of the MANY doors that Gillete designed)


One of the two Tiffany lamps he had installed in the house


(One of the displays of Gillette's personal cat statues)

The main room of the castle