Absolutely beautiful. I’m looking forward to watching the Olympics there in a few days. Vancouver has been on my list of places to visit for a while. Someday we’ll make it out there.

Craig’s cousin Steven and his wife Val had twins back in December. We had a chance to visit them today. They were very tiny and cute. I love watching their eyes take in the world and process everything.

Liam and Kathy

Catching Autumn crack a smile

This picture and those vines feel like a metaphor for my life currently, well the past 9 years or so. We (Craig and I) had such clear dreams and plans for our lives back in 1998-1999. Then starting in 1999 it got chipped away at slowly and sometimes fast, over the next 10 years. Craig literally dealt with having his spine twisted at one point. Our efforts to keep the plan going seemed to get more and more complicated and frustrating. Here we are 10 years later and feeling like we’ve almost broken free from the vines and twists that tried to take over.

People reflected on the last 10 years with sadness of the financial crisis, housing crisis, political crisis. I looked back and said, “holy shit I survived it”. I really didn’t think I’d live to see 30. Between all the stresses over the past 10 years and then just my own health which I had put on a back burner it seemed inevitable this was going to be coming to an end. I don’t mean to sound doom and gloom, just felt like, really what else could be thrown at me.

Well maybe not entirely. I used to love the winter, but that was when I lived in a house that actually stayed warm. Our apartment when the wind kicks up can be very hard to keep warm. Thus I’m kind of missing those days of basking in the sun and feeling warm all the way through. I took this photo over last summer on our only visit to White Memorial that year. I’m determined to get out and enjoy the outdoors in 2010. It seems like so long ago but in 2006, I was biking at least once a week and doing all sorts of other things outdoors.

In the spirit of getting in better health

This past week I ate vegetarian from Sunday through Thursday. Friday we started running out groceries, time and I caved and picked up Starbucks for breakfast, Subway for lunch and pizza for dinner. Lesson learned though, as my stomach was none too happy with my meal choices and I spent the evening in a lot of pain. Which leads me to thinking, maybe I do have some level of lactose intolerance. The weekend was filled with lots of out and about activities, and I made decisions that were fairly good.

I’m looking forward to going back to eating simpler, not so rich foods this week. My goal for this week is to continue with primarily vegetarian meals and get in at least two days of exercise. I have to work on my core to help my back, which has been bothering me again. I am also planning to map out different places to mountain bike between home and work. Along with that, I’m putting together a shopping list of winter bike gear; booties, pants and a bright orange fleece jacket (I like my life).

It was probably earlier this past year I saw someone post their daily photo with DailyBooth. I didn’t think much of it, but I’ve seen more people posting lately and then today Gary Vaynerchuk’s job posting even mentioned it as a possible requirement. Since my thing is photography, I figured I’d give it a shot. Might also be a good reminder for myself to see the progress of losing weight this year.

Friend me up if you’re on there.

Shot with the 50mm lense outside my work in the afternoon on lunch break.

My humble and always willing photography subject, Craig. I was showing Ron how the lense worked with depth of field and the expo disc the other night. Craig kindly posed and I snapped this photo. I love the 50mm lense.

My good friend Ron is always fun to take photos of. Especially when we’re doing posed photos, he’s got the dead serious pose down to a science. I shot this with the Canon 50mm 1.8 lense.

A few weekends ago, we had finally set a date for our [Kelly, Debbie and myself] 30th birthday weekend away. It should be noted our birthdays are all in February and March. It has taken this long to get everyone’s schedules together. Just before the trip Kelly had to back out due to having contracted the swine flu. We only had a few more weeks left in the year, so we opted to go ahead with the day trip.

To add to the chaos of the weekend, we were also being deluged by tropical storm Ida. Our plans were to visit Newport, RI; shop on Thames St, eat at the Red Parrot and then head out to the cliff walk and mansions. We managed to keep our plans with several puddles, umbrellas and rain drop dodging runs.

The food at the Red Parrot was very delicious and we spent quite a while just catching up. Then we ventured back on to Thames and did some fudge shopping and Christmas gift shopping. We browsed through the GAP and the General Store. We decided to try to see at least one of the mansions before we headed to dinner. Turns out they have really short hours and high costs. It was $18.00 a ticket and we got 45 minutes in the mansion before they closed at 5pm. We visited the Breakers which Craig and I hadn’t been to in a very long time. They had some Christmas decorations out but not the full regalia as it will be this week.

If you’ve never been to Newport, RI and have never seen the mansions, it’s worth the cost and trip. They are amazing. To create these today would be nearly impossible, the raw materials would be too expensive, even for the Bill Gates of the world. The land is is beautiful and the views are amazing.

After the mansions, we tried to see if the ocean was visible enough for photos, but it got dark so quickly. We even went out along the Ocean Drive but it was just dark and foggy. The group had filled up on fudge and jelly bellies from earlier so we headed back into town and then back home.

I’m hoping Craig and I will get over there again before Christmas to see Marble House decorated for Christmas.