Mother's Day

This weekend Bryan and I spent the weekend in Vermont with my parents. My Mom took me around to take photographs of some places that I have always wanted to photograph. Because she is the greatest Mom (happy Mom day Mom!) she weathered the cold with me and even found a new rare flower which she has yet to identify. My favorite photographs from the day are below.

Kensico Resevoir

Finally, I am posting 3 new pictures. I know - not really a feat. I haven't been striking gold lately, but I like the first and last pictures. Not so sure about the middle (yellow flower) one. 

Thanksgiving in VT

This week Bryan and I headed up to VT on Tuesday morning to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. We had a great time and cooked our first turkey (Bryan did the grunt work for sure, I kind of watched and made some squash :) ). It came out really good! And it was 26.9 lbs!!! Anyway Thursday morning I woke up and went driving around to take some pictures since it was so foggy. Here they are.... and happy turkey day!! I should also mention that none of these are photoshopped for the color. I thought it kind of looked like they had been.

Fall in Upstate NY!

Hola! This weekend Bryan and I went to visit his family for his sister's 10th birthday. It was a lot of fun! We drove up on saturday morning and stopped at an antique shop on the way. Bryan bought a GIANT piggy bank. I mean HUGE! Then we continued on to his mom's house for the birthday party. Elena called me desperate for dating Bryan. I tell you, they turn ten and look what happens! :). His grandmother, Grandfather, Uncle and two cousins came to celebrate. We all had a yummy lunch followed by really really yummy flan that his grandmother made. Then we just hung out the rest of the day. The next morning I got up early and went to take pictures in the hills behind his mother's house. Those are posted below (along with the Jess picture). When I got back I found out Bryan got bit by a crab spider!! It was in his sock and then he tried to put his shoe on and it bit him. He said it hurt. After Bryan's wound had healed a bit Bryan's mom made everyone french toast and raspberry french toast for Elena's birthday breakfast that was delicious! Later we had lunch outside where Ari (Bryan's mom) valiantly defended us from invading yellow jackets that made us scream like babies. I don't know how we have made it this far.

Enjoy the pics!!!






Jess's Picture!!

Fall Hike in Vermont

This weekend Bryan and I drove up to Vermont to suprise my parents. We had a great weekend, and got some nice pictures of the fall foliage on a walk we all took on Sunday afternoon. Here are some pics! Short blog this time since we were there less than a day. The 'action shot' of Vader is right before he nailed me in the leg with that log, ouch!

I noticed after I posted this that these pictures appear far more saturated (and much closer to the true color) when you click on them. Must be the black bg verses the white.








Jess's Picture:

Swimming Holes in VT!

This weekend Bryan and I took a romantic weekend at my parents place. We drove down on Friday night and got there just in time to fall asleep because we got too drunk the night before and were really really tired. The next morning we woke up and stayed in bed for a while before getting up to eat breakfast. Then we went straight to the Harpoon Brewery to do some taste testing on some beers. It was such a beautiful day, and you can take the trays they give you outside. We studied the 'area map' which sucked and looked at real estate magazines while sipping our beers. Then we went to the pet store! Our grand plan (Bryan's idea) was to get my Mom a fish-tank to say thank you for letting us stay at her place. But after a few hours of deliberating which tank we should actually get, we decided it was not a good time to get her one anyway since they might be moving soon. We went home and had a very yummy lunch and some homemade pumpkin bread made by my mom and then headed to our first swimming hole. It was awesome! I miss swimming holes so much. We didn't take our suits because we were not sure it was warm enough but by the time we got there we were pretty hot already. We walked around in the shallows and played ball with Vader, then each one of us climbed the waterfall while the other one distracted Vader. We also spent many many throws trying to get him to dive in then shake off so we could catch his shake in action, but he never wanted to shake when we were paying attention. So we got one shake on camera that didn't turn out so great. After all that we walked back to the car, inspecting the covered bridge on our way, and then headed to another swimming area down the road. This one is kind of dangerous, there were a couple of grave stones on the path down to it. I think there is a damn that lets water out without warning, and it is also a pretty big white water kayak spot. We meandered in the sun here for a while. Bryan showed me some crayfish he found in some of the small ponds caught in the rocks from when the water was higher. Then we went home and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to an italian spot and enjoyed a few (surprise!) harpoons while playing video game bowling and waiting for our table. I love that restaurant cause it has some damn good rolls. And they let you draw on the paper table cloths. We ate and headed home to play some rummy! Yay rummy! I win Bryan hahaha! :) then to bed. The next morning we woke up and on Bryan's idea went out to breakfast at Lou's... I was very very happy because they make real blueberry pancakes there and not the plain pancakes with the blue jelly crap you get around White Plains. I spent most of the time stirring the peanut butter I brought that had separated cause breakfast ain't breakfast without peanut butter. Then we went home and took a really long nap. I love taking naps on a perfect day in the sun, especially with Bryan. After our nap we drove out to the Taftsville Rope Swing. But when we got there we both chickened out because we were the only two there, had to watch a dog and you have to swing out and miss a fairly large amount of rocks... and I have been known to get scared and not let go of the rope at this particular swing so on our better judgement we got back in the car and went to yet another swimming hole. This one was perfect too! There is a big waterfall going into it that you can slide down. There were quite a few people there, including one guy who let me take his picture while he jumped in. I jumped in too but a big burly hairy man is mostly blocking me in all the jumping pictures so I thought I would spare you, the reader. After that we went home and had beer and left overs, played cards (I won again!) and then watch BasKetball. First of all I won because Bryan said if I guessed the card he was holding I could have the rest of the cards plus win. And I guessed it!! Second, Bryan rented Basketball, not me. Then we went to bed and read, woke up and drove home. Awesome weekend. And of course, this is the first run of the 'Jess Picture'.

This is the last swimming hole we went to, but I thought the pics were cool:






This is the first one we went to:


The Jess Picture!!






The second (and more dangerous) swimming hole, and Vader going diving:








The Rather Intimidating (although it looks docile here) Taftsville Rope Swing: