Mazel Tov!

Mazel Tov- Congratulations to Alex and Courtney! We had another amazing weekend traveling on the wedding train. This past weekends stop was in Georgia at Barnsley Gardens http://www.barnsleygardens.com/ It was ridiculously hot for the ceremony which was outside in the garden, but the scenery was breathtaking all around.

Where the service took place....

All of my photos of the bride and groom are blurry - go figure- so above is a photo of the bride and her father.

Check out the story of this old 1800's house on the Barnsley Garden Resort web site- link above.
A quick shot of me heading toward the fountain in the gardens. (and to those of you who were at my wedding: nobody got naked in this fountain)

This was my first experience at a Jewish wedding and I learned a few things: Some Jewish Wedding Traditions The Chuppah: The wedding ceremony takes place under the chuppah or wedding canopy, a symbol of the home to be built and shared by the couple. It is open on all sides and symbolizes that their home is always open to family and friends. First photo above. The Ketubah: The Ketubah is the marriage contract recognized by the Jewish law. It is signed by the bride, groom, Rabbi, and witnesses. It reflects the bride's and groom's obligations to one another as husband and wife and affirms a connection to the Jewish faith. Sheva B'Rachot: There are seven blessings that celebrate the creation of the world, the union of the couple, family and happiness for this joyous occasion. Breaking of the Glass: The tradition of breaking a glass at the end of a Jewish wedding ceremony is to remind us of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and how fragile life and love can be. To the couple, it further signifies the end of the ceremony, a time of celebration and the beginning of their life together. It is customary for friends and family to shout Mazel Tov! following the sound of the breaking glass, which is the traditional expression of congratulations and best wishes. Next weekend we head north to Alicia and Brian's wedding. We are looking forward to another great wedding with friends! Next weekend will end phase 1 one of wedding season. We will be on brief hiatus from wedding travels until fall, but don't worry the chronicles of my exciting life will continue...

Help!

Can anyone explain the empty space at the bottom of the below post?

The newlyweds- stunning

As I promised here is the beautiful new family. If you could only see the detail on Sarah's dress. It is gorgeous. Tomorrow the dogs are getting dropped off for the weekend and we will head out first thing Saturday morning to Georgia. Wedding season continues...

Wedding Bananza!

It is officially Wedding Season! Last weekend we kicked off the season with a trip to Jacksonville- and what a way to start the festivities. Sarah was a stunning bride and the two families were amazingly hospitable. As if that was not enough the wedding was at the beach, so I got a chance to put my feet in the sand and get run over by a few big waves! I miss living close to the beach SO MUCH. Thanks to everyone in Jacksonville for an amazing weekend. As we approach another weekend we are heading south once again, but this time we are heading to Georgia. This time we switch gears from Field Artillery to Infantry as we celebrate Alex's wedding. I am sure we will have a blast. You would think that after such an amazing weekend I would have photos, but we were running late to the actual wedding (since I spent a little too long at the beach) and I ended up running out of the condo without my camera. So now I have to wait for photos to be sent of me. I have one photo of the entire weekend. I know- LAME. We did get to see a lot of old friends last weekend which was fantastic. This weekend will most likely be the same. In other news: I have a job interview next week for a job I actually want. What an amazing concept! I had a phone interview last week that went well, so next week I will go in for the in person interview. Please keep your fingers crossed for me- I am eager to work and this job would be perfect. It is a campus recruiter for a fortune 500 firm. It is one of the big six in accounting firms...blah blah blah. In other words it is a prestigious company and I really want to work with them. In my spare time I have started golf lessons. I am so darn competitive that I am determined to be good at this sport. I have a lesson this afternoon. It is rough I have to carry my bag up the hill to the clubhouse just to get there : ) The house is really coming along. We seem to be settling in. We still have a lot of things to put away, but we have been busy outside- trimming shrubbery, mowing, fertilizing, digging - you name it. I really enjoy the yard work though. I always have. Me and the lawn mower have a little agreement and things are going well. I have not told it about the big debacle in Germany over my old loaner lawn mower. The only issue with this lawn mower is that the lot next door has a plastic orange fence along our property line that is like a magnet to the lawn mower. Every time I mow I dread that section. I had to show the fence who was boss and as a result there is a large hole in one section of the fence where the lawn mower took a bite out of it. Oops. Maybe they should have waited to put the ugly orange fence up until they were actually going to build the house!!! That is all I have got for today. I will work on some photos of last weeks wedding.

A doggie dog day

Saturday we had a fun little adventure with the dogs. I heard Friday afternoon on the news that there was a 'Dogs walk against Cancer" event in Charlotte. So, first thing Saturday morning we loaded up the car for a trip. We were instantly the best dog parents - taking the kids for a ride. Here they are getting ready to go. When we got to the walk it was chaos. There were easily a couple of hundred dogs there. The amazing part was that they were all getting along. There were no spats- just a lot of excitement. Below is a picture of us walking- notice the size of the Great Dane in front of us. Bailey looked like a teacup poodle next to it. Then of course there is a Chihuahua too. There were so many different kinds of dogs- very entertaining for a dog lover. If you don't like dogs you are probably bored out of your mind at this point.

Since Bailey is a cancer survivor he got a special "survivor" bandanna to wear on the walk. We ended up giving Sam one too since she always likes to dress up. She was a supportive sister.

They were so happy- a car ride, a walk, a chance to play with other dogs and free treats! We truly were the best parents that day.

Here is our survivor sporting his special bandanna.

and the supportive sister...

Restaurant "Tagged"

I have been "tagged" to name my five favorite restaurants. I am going to list my favorites in each place that I have lived. Massachusetts- Pizzeria Regina's at the north end! It was a weekly trip as a kid and will always be my favorite pizza. Part of it is the memory the other part is that I LOVE PIZZA. The other favorite Kimball Farm, Westford MA. It started as a barn that served huge home made ice creams and now they serve food too, but really I have only ever eaten the ice cream. This place should be in a tourist book- it is that great! Oklahoma- The snow cone drive thru's!!! Nowhere else have I been able to get one of about 25 flavors of snow cone at a drive thru location. See, Oklahoma is good for something. Germany- Pizzeria Capri, Massbach. I would love a Bayern Salad and penne arrabiatta with some chianti. I have a second for Germany as well, but that is probably because the food is so darn good there! Ladies, the Lowenzaun. Need I say more? New Jersey- Terrazza's, Nutley NJ- great mafia Italian food and the other (I love food too much to pick just one place for each location) The Sushi House, Hoboken NJ North Carolina- I am still searching, but I love Maggiano's. Some of you may know if from your city since there are about ten of them. If you have one near you and you have not been- GO

Green?

Who termed being enviromentally concious being "green" anyway? Kermit? How do you determine a person who is green. I have been called out on my "lack of greeness" for using disposable toilet bowl cleaners (you know who you are). However, the wand is reusable, it is the sponge that is not. And I have not yet admitted this on my blog, but I love Lysol wipes! Yes, I use them like crazy! But, I do not like papertowels. Hmmmm. So, what does it take to save the earth? I want to know everyone's tricks on keeping mother nature clean and preventing global warming. Here are a few of the things I do: I recycle everything accepted by the town I turn off the water when brushing my teeth. I don't always accept plastic bags at the store and the ones i do take I reuse I don't buy paper plates, cups, etc we minimize the use of heat and a/c. Yes, sometimes we suffer a bit I plant a tree every year on earth day - or something if I can't plant a tree(a tradition since I was a kid) I never do a half load of laundry or wash one thing just as I never run anything but a full dishwasher I replaced EVERY single DARN lightbulb in the house with energy saving LIGHTBULBS. Now that is a task. (I may have had some help) Those are the things that come to mind right away. I would love to hear other quick thoughts and ideas on other ways to make our natural life a bit better. By the way, I love the MINI and it does pretty well on gas mileage, but that only justifies the Volvo SUV. However, they both do better than a lot of the gas guzzlers on the street. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read: "Save water, shower together."