Sunday, December 20, 2009

puerto rico? what?

So a few weeks ago Dave and I decided to take a little trip.... to Puerto Rico baby! It was a very last minute decision and only made possible through some fantastic friends who gave us some buddy passes ($190 for both our round trip flights! I mean come on! Who wouldn't go?) Then Dave found this awesome deal at a 5 Star hotel if we listened to one of those 90 min. presentation things (which I hate but.... $199 for 3 night/4 days. Could you have chosen any different??)

Puerto Rico was another random serendipitous choice but thanks to my friend Elisabeth and her beautiful pics on her blog we decided to follow in her footsteps. And we couldn't have been happier! If you haven't considered going to PR you totally should. It was like Mexico, Hawaii and America all rolled into one. It's an American territory so they use American money, but then everyone there speaks Spanish and all the road signs are in Spanish but the environment is exactly like Hawaii. Loved it. Our 5 year anniversary is December 29th so we kind of decided this would be our fantastic 5 year celebration and it was perfect. It was a quick trip and just what the doctor ordered.

Our hotel room was awesome, marble floors and all.

Ok so this was on our sliding glass door in our room... it was so random! I just didn't know what the hotel staff wanted us to take away from that... 'Beware' because we'll never want to leave? I guess they were right.

The pool...

The beach right by our hotel...


K so this was part of the kiddy pool area. We were both a little frightened by Ariel and her plastic surgery.... come on girl! You looked beautiful before. Why'd you have to go and mess it up Michael Jackson style?

One of my absolute favorite things was going to old town San Juan. It was like stepping into the set of 'Pirates of the Carribean.'

I love all the beautiful architecture down there, the balconies, and the fun, bright, Caribbean colors.


These are the famous towers from the San Juan fortress, they're on like the license plates and the PR quarter and stuff.



Awww. What a cute couple! ;) It was sooo hot and humid that day. And we somehow found ourselves at the bottom of the fort for like an hour and couldn't find our way back up. We walked around the entire thing only to find a dead end! We had to hike all the way back and around. Dave almost gave up on me and wanted to go back to the hotel...

A famous view, this time from ON TOP of the fortress.

There were cats everywhere! And I'm such a sucker for them I couldn't resist taking a couple pictures.

I loved all of their unique doors. Every window had bars on it (reminded me of Mexico) but some looked pretty and not so... 3rd worldish.


This was our 'authentic' Puerto Rican meal that we shared.... thank goodness! They told us it was pork with rice and beans, they didn't say HALF the pig would be on our plate and we'd feel like animals eating it.

Playing chess at the pool. Dave beat me in like 4 moves and was so smug about it... so I kicked his queen and said we were done playing... yes, I was a poor sport ;)

This was our 'European' friend at Tuquillo beach or so we thought. While frolicking in the ocean, because that's what I like to do - frolick, he said in a very plain American accent "it's a good day for the beach." After that we were just a little more creeped out and kept our distance. If you're European that's one thing but if you're American and wearing a thong well... that's something else entirely.
Dave and I on our borrowed hotel towell at the beach.

The end.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

exciting news! (for me anyways)

For those of you bookworms out there like myself, you might be fans of the incredible series The Hunger Games. I was so disappointed when I finished the 2nd book, Catching Fire, and the 3rd book wasn't out yet, nor would it be out until August 24, 2010! But I just found out that I can pre-order it on my favorite website, Amazon.com, for the great price of $9.89 (hardback).

Yay hurray!

Yes, I am one of those nerds who gets excited about young adult books... HP, Twilight, The Lightening Thief, yada yada yada -- don't hold it against me and love me anyway :)

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

red mango - not so much

So I've heard so much about this Red Mango natural frozen yogurt place and do you want to hear my two cents on it? (of course you do):

It's too expensive for what you get.

Kind of yummy, tart, but expensive. This was the smallest portion size I could get and it was a whole extra dollor for those 5 berries topping it off at like $4.50! And that was the small!

I think I'll just stick to my little Yogi Berry place by my house...

Monday, November 30, 2009

how to make something ugly, semi-cute {we hope}

Dave and I salvaged an old (and ugly I might add), dark burgundy, filing cabinet.... where oh where could we put that? So I thought I might spiff it up a little and I have no idea how to. After talking to my best friend (Google), we decided that the best and cheapest way to re-do a metal filing cabinet is to spray paint it. But what color?? I guess that all depends on what I'm going to paint that room (when I get around to it). Any ideas? A girl did a post on apartmenttherapy.com where she added cute, wall paper on the front of the filing drawers here. Am I capable of doing something like that? We'll just have to wait and see...

But in the mean time I would appreciate any input from all you people out there who read this blog post :)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

they've arrived!

Yea for wonderful, cute, classic books!
(And my wonderful friend is getting me two more for Christmas and my birthday - thank you Hayley!)

Sunday, November 22, 2009

pumpkin cheesecake bites



For those of you who don't like pumpkin pie (or your husbands don't like it....) or even if you're a big fan like moi, you should make these delicious babies. Super easy and super delicious. Dave ate 3! My family ate them up for our pre-Thanksgiving feast last Sunday.

Find the recipe here.

a fetish...


I've realized that I kind of have a dish fetish. I saw these dishes in last year's Christmas issue of Better Homes and Gardens and I loved them! The only problem was that I saw the magazine in like March and the store didn't have them in stock anymore... But I found them this year! And then I found 3 other colors... how could I choose!? So I bought 8 of the red ones (for Christmas) and I'm not sure what to do with the other dishes but I couldn't resist them. The dinner dish below the red bird dish were part of my wedding dishes that I absolutely adore, another part of the fetish...