More Visiting! Green Grass, Curtains and Coffee

Recently, our place has been a haven for the winter beleagered!

Mom and Dad--that is, Abby's Mom and Dad--have come south for a visit! Proving to themselves that snow does not in fact cover the entire earth. We even have green grass and flowers:


green grass (and a dog, but he's not ours)

The sun has made several appearances, and we've even opened windows in our long little house.  Mom and I have gotten in some lovely girl time (shopping, coffee shops, more shopping, etc.) I tried Starbuck's new cocoa cappuchino (iced) but was unimpressed with their grainy rendition of chocolate. It was good, but it wasn't great. It looked cool though:

The men have generously played with drills, hammers, screws and such:



This is them feeling self conscious because I've been hovering around taking pictures



 Our master bedroom has taken large steps this weekend toward looking respectable. Curtains go a long way when it comes to communicating habitation beyond the transient dorm room feel.

After all that work hanging curtains we had steak for dinner and watched Live Free Or Die Hard. Don't worry, Mom and I spent the first half of the day at JoAnn's purusing the clearance and making shrewd use of coupons, so it wasn't an entirely manly day.
;-)
Not that I'd mind, being a bit of a tomboy.

-The Lady

It was a Nice Thought

I was going to post once a week here.  How am I doing?
Shhh.
So, a quick recap:
Nick's hobby progresses:

Uruk Hai pikeman: charmingly ugly, I know.

 Just wait till you see the berserkers (which, Nick doesn't have yet, but lets just say they are suicidal for a reason).

And this is my freak onion eyed red lettuce:

 We had a couple warm snaps. Such that I could open the door and walk around on our deck.

 I spent more time at the barn with the girls (and Nick's camera-yay!)

 This is Navarre, a Morgan, and Dusty, a Shetland.

 the boys:

 Wellie:

 Dewey:

 I also took portraits for a friend.  I've never taken portraits before in my life, but I read a lot of photographer blogs and Nick taught me a few things.  We all had a blast.

 Annnnnnd, one of the completed crafts:

February has come and gone, it was fun. Sorry I didn't post more. :-) I'll try to do better this month.

15 Things You Should Do In Venice

Note: Do not go to Venice in the summertime. Everyone else does. It's crowded and smelly. Don't do it. Go in winter. It's chilly, but gorgeous, and you can do everything you can in summer, but without the crush of people. Oh, and buy a map from the public transportation people. It's a good map.


1. Go to the Bridge at Rialto. The view is worth it.

2. Shop for masks.

3. Find the only horse in Venice.

4. Eat something on the Grand Canal. Not necessarily dinner, but at least a snack. Try not to be too distracted by the lobsters staring at you from their icey beds of doom among dead fish with oranges in their toothy gaping mouths.

5. Step inside the Cathedral of San Giovanni. (hint, it's right next to the city's only horse)6. Ride a Gondola. (Practice your haggling skills beforehand, and be prepared to use them, remember every Italian sterotype from the movies) [disclaimer: this is still on our list to do]

7. Eat Spaghetti.

8. Eat gelatto in St. Mark's Square.9. Go to the Bridge of Sighs. If you can find it beneath the ads for the Opera's version of the History of Italy.

10. Wander the city. It's all gorgeous.
11. Shop more-but carefully. Remember that Venetian glass is heavy and fragile, and you have to get it home somehow. By plane.
12. Eat tiramisu.
13. Eat more tiramisu.

14. See a sunrise on the Grand Canal.

15. take lots of pictures.

Dubrovnik

Tired yet? Yeah, us too. Travel is great, but a port-a-day does get exhausting. Dubrovnik was the last stop on the cruise--well, other than returning to Venice and spending one last day there--and it was a good thing, too, because we were pretty port-ed out. We'd heard from a friend that Dubrovnik was beautiful. I feel as though I've use that word a great deal in these posts, and it really does characterize many of the places we went. Dubrovnik is breathtaking.
Cruise ships dock at the modern city--which is all red roofed--because the old city harbor is far too small.
The port is sheltered, tucked in an inlet--the docks are off to the right of the bridge above.
I know very little about Croatia, their history or their recent past, except that they have been wartorn. I never imagined an immaculat new city and perfectly preserved old city.

We took a bus over the ridge from the new city to the old city. There was a collective gasp as the Norman castle came into view. Not even the Pyramids got that response from the busload of Americans. Those Normans sure knew how to build a castle.

Once you got inside the old city, everything was stone. Well kept, clean, operational. Once again, we were there before the rest of the tourists in the world, and before all the shops were open. It was a rainy day the way VA does rainy days: it would pour, then the sun would come out, then it would pour, and then the sun would come out. It made exploring a stone city interesting.

This is the main street when you walk in.

See the oranges? They decorate with them.

This was a working church.

Everything was still decorated for Christmas.

There's the old harbor, through that door. Much, much too small for the Magnifica.

Not entirely sure who had the idea to name a pizzeria this:

We bought tickets to walk the city wall. It was amazingly gorgeous. Norman castles+lagoon water=more beauty than I thought possible in a single spot.

Overlooking the rooves of the city:

And there's the wall, going up a cliff. I only barely survived this part of the tour.

Narrow walls. Low guard rail things. Normans apparently didn't believe in guard rails.

But someone believed in cannons.

Bells rang almost constantly while we were there.

This is the inside of a memorial to Croatia's defenders.

Remember the rain and sun cat and mouse game I was mentioning? Well, this made for plenty of rainbows.

We wandered through almost the entire old town and still made it back to the ship (and the hot tub!) and hour before we were supposed to be on board to leave. We were pretty tired at that point, and sitting in a hot tub in 40 degree weather was a fabulous way to unwind and recover from being rained on so many times. Dubrovnik was doubtless the most beautiful port other than Venice, and it is definitely more striking than Venice.

We spent the evening packing our bags and dancing in our favorite lounges, feeling great relief that on the following day we'd debark in Venice--familiar Venice--and after that be on a ship no more.

-The Lady