It’s been a long time since I’ve been up north for 4th of July – about 11 years! When we started looking at weekends to have a baby shower with our Northern families, making a long weekend out of the holiday made a lot of sense. We spent the day amongst friends and family and it was lovely. Continue reading
Category Archives: Travel and Adventures
New Bites: Husk Savannah
In June, during our visit to Savannah, we ate at Husk’s new location there. The Charleston original is extremely well-known and we were very excited to try out the Savannah location. Each location uses ingredients as local as possible throughout the menu. We had a wonderful experience and so am including Husk Savannah in my New Bites series. Continue reading
Plains, GA: The Jimmy Carter Experience
With President Carter and Rosalynn Carter, Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, GA. June 10, 2018
Though I wasn’t alive when Jimmy Carter was serving as President, I’ve long been an admirer of his life’s work – particularly once he was out of office. He and his wife Rosalynn are true humanitarians and have worked tirelessly to help their fellow citizens of the world at a time when most people are fully retired. He’s been courageous is shedding light on situations our mainstream media doesn’t cover and hasn’t shied away from speaking out on topics where his perspective or experience isn’t popular – but is right. I was inspired by his bravery to share the plight and oppression of the Palestinian people despite the anger and backlash he received for it.
When I found out earlier this year that he still teaches Sunday School about twice a month at his Baptist church in Plains, GA and that it is open to the public, I knew I had to make the time to attend. He’s 93, after all – and the only living President I truly wanted to meet. Continue reading
Mini East Coast Road Trip
We’ve been asked a lot if we are taking a “babymoon.” We thought about it, talked about it, researched all kinds of different places but in the end we decided not to take a big trip this year. As avid travelers, this was a little hard but ultimately we didn’t want to spend the money, I didn’t want to go very far on a long plane ride while pregnant, I wanted to save PTO at work, and we did have an EPIC trip to Japan about a month before I got pregnant. And earlier last year we went to Cuba and I went to India, and a bunch of US weekend destinations in between. Not like we don’t travel!
So we decided to spend time with friends and family on different trips to different places with the longest being 9 days visiting Charlotte and Outer Banks, NC, and Savannah, GA at the end of May/beginning of June. It was a lot of fun – even with several days of rain in the mix. Continue reading
Osaka, Japan: Cooking, Eating, Exploring
I’ll start by saying that Osaka food is sooooo good. Not that the food in Kyoto, Tokyo or Kobe wasn’t because it was. It’s just food in Osaka kind of exceeded our expectations and we had some really memorable experiences, bites and flavors that started with a cooking class on Thanksgiving day. Continue reading
Himeji Castle and Kobe – Japan Day Trip
While in Osaka, Sean planned a day trip for us to Himeji Castle and the town of Kobe (where Kobe beef comes from). Himeji Castle is an enormous complex and one of the few original castles the Japanese did not destroy after their WWII defeat to show their break from the past. Continue reading
Mother-Daughter Weekend in Chicago
My mom went to watch the condo, dog and cat of her best friend in Chicago while he went to India and Sri Lanka for a month in January. He has a great place north of Uptown in this awesome, ethnic neighborhood. I took the long MLK, Jr. Day weekend to go up and visit for a fun mother-daughter weekend in the Windy City. Continue reading
The Food Paradise of Kyoto, Japan
We arrived in Kyoto on Monday evening after taking the Shinkansen high-speed train from Tokyo. Kyoto was incredible and I described all the beautiful sights and activities in my post on its temples, etc. This post is all about the FOOD. Kyoto is known as a “foodie” city and its reputation did not disappoint.
Our first night we discovered that the hotel included in our package deal was very far from the center of town – about 30 minutes by car! The room was also minuscule, with the bed again against the wall and almost no room at the end to walk around it. We made the most of our first night be first researching and booking a new hotel in the city center for the next 2 nights, and then finding somewhere nearby for dinner. Continue reading