Thursday, December 31, 2015

A Blissful Week of Doing Nothing in the Tropics: Christmas in DR

December 19 - 26, 2015
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Celebrating Christmas Day at Bavaro Beach Resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
A few years ago, we started an unofficial tradition of traveling somewhere interesting or at least warm over Christmas week, typically returning home on or near Christmas Day and hence avoiding the worst of the holiday crowds.  In 2012, we jetted off to (frigid) South Korea Merry Christmas from Seoul!.  2013 found us road tripping to Crater Lake National Park and around the south central part of Oregon A Wintry Exploration of Central Oregon before driving off in the opposite direction to celebrate New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in LA, cheering the Michigan State Spartans to a Rose Bowl victory with friends The MSU Spartans Go to the Rose Bowl...and So Do We!.  And finally, last year we made our second trip to Hawaii, this time to the stunningly beautiful island of Kauai, before leaving the west coast to make our home in New York City.

While it's been a truly enjoyable and rewarding experience in many ways, moving to Manhattan from Oakland last February has been a challenging transition and Scott's job as US market controller for Nespresso is highly demanding, to say the least.  Add to that our utter fear of the cold winter weather staring us down and the decision to go to an all-inclusive resort in the (relatively) nearby Dominican Republic was an easy one.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

A Family Portrait Kind of Holiday!

November 22 & 26, 2015
Beverly Hills, MI & Clarkston, MI

Scott's family selfie while waiting for Debbie to prepare her shot
This year, we decided to travel to Michigan for our Thanksgiving celebration upon realizing that we had not  celebrated this particular holiday in our home state with our families since we before we were married 17 years ago.  And while we have visited many times since, apparently everyone was feeling nostalgic and decided this year was to be the unofficial "Year of the Family Portrait" on both sides of our family.  There were no professional photographers engaged (unless you count Scott's Aunt Debbie, who also appeared in many of the shots) and therefore was copious tripod and timer use, combined with fidgety young children, but I think we managed to get a keeper or two!

I wanted to gather and present these portraits all in one place, so here they are. :-)