Before & After - Miles

I think it was Wednesday or Thursday that Alex called me to say that there was a surprise waiting for me at home.

What was the surprise?? It wasn't flowers. It wasn't a gift. It wasn't even a clean house. No, my surprise was that Alex had taken Miles to get shaved. He was fed up with the shedding.

Miles was so pretty.....



Now, I feel like there is a new dog in the house. I miss my old Miles. This one is just ridiculous-looking.

Engagement session at The Fair

I don't normally blog about Alex's work here - but this was probably the highlight of my week last week. Alex shot engagement portraits of Ana and Javier at the Dade County Youth Fair. I LOVE the Fair so this was just awesome. Also, I've known Ana for half of my life, as she is the sister of my best friend, Lourdes.

So here are some shots from their session. I know that some of the horizontal ones are cut off - that's because they are sized correctly for the photography blog. To see the rest go to our photography blog.

Cultural Norm Confusion

In Miami, the most common way to greet someone is to give them an 'air-kiss' on the cheek. This standard applies in almost all situations: parties, work, church, socializing, etc. It goes for almost anyone that you've met more than one time.

Here is the dilemma and where I stutter in my application of this norm: gringos (aka white people). For example, today I had a meeting with a consultant at work, I've met her numerous times and more recently we are getting more friendly with one another. She is VERY all-American and does a lot of consulting in Idaho, of all places. So I go to greet her in our lobby and on my way up to her this thought crosses my mind: we've now seen each other too often to shake hands, but then I don't know if she's down with the Miami kiss-thing. So I ended up doing a very awkward hug/kiss thing. It was awkward on both sides. Oh well.

This has also happened numerous times when Alex has booked brides from Ft. Lauderdale who are white/gringos.

People from Miami - thoughts?

Anticipation

We are 3.5 weeks away from our Alaska vacation! I am ridiculously excited. Several months ago, my mom and I were talking about vacations and she pointed out that Alex and I hadn't been on a vacation alone since our honeymoon almost 3 years ago. We have taken a few trips but always with friends or family. At that point, I was on a mission: identify and book a 2-person vacation.

After much research, we decided on Alaska. We love to take trips to places that are unlike Miami. That means: no tropics, no palm trees, no beaches, etc. In fact, we went to Wyoming for our honeymoon and it was awesome!

So we are going on an Alaskan cruise on the Norwegian Pearl - one of the cruiselines newest ships. We like the new ships because they are cleaner.

We leave from Seattle and then cruise to: Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan and Victoria (Canada).

I will blog more about our plans for the trip as we get closer.

Pooped puppies

We took Pete and Miles to a new dog park today. It was wonderful, by far the best dog park that we've been to in Miami. This was the Palmetto Bay Perrine-Wayside Dog Park. It is a full city block in size and has a lake and fountain the middle. The dogs can swim in the lake. The main problem w/ most Miami dog parks is that they are WAY too small - so the dogs don't really have much to do in there. That's bad if there are dogs that don't really get along well with one another. This one is so spacoius and has so many different areas for them to play in that they just run and play all over.

This was Miles' first trip to the dog park. He had a blast. He played with other dogs, he swam, he jumped off a 4-foot tall pile of rocks (scaring everyone). This was Pete's frist trip in a long whle. He has a history of not playing well with others either due to growling or humping. But he didn't do either (much) today. We think that Miles is helping him to be more sociable with other dogs.

They came home absolutely filthy and tired. So now I'm tired from bathing them both, but we're all happy. That's good.

the way we were

More and more often lately, I am reminded that I am just not the same person that I once was. "How do you come to that realization?" you ask. Well, because every so often, Alex and I will be reminded of something that we used to like and we try to relive it. It just doesn't work. So here are the latest in a list of things that just aren't as funny as they once were:

1. Mystery Science Theater 3000. Tried to rent it at Blockbuster, they didn't have it. I recalled it being SO funny that I bought it on Half.com for $25. We tried to watch it last week. It was painful and 100% NOT funny.

2. The Big Lebowski. While it's still modestly amusing, it is just not as funny as it was before in my crazier days.

3. (this one hurts). Fletch. This was a Hamilton-family favorite. The movie has a TON of quotable lines. Alex had never seen it. Aaron gave it to me for Christmas and, finally, my husband was able to participate in the joy that is Fletch. Aside from the memories that I have from the movie, it just wasn't as funny as before. Alex doesn't like it at all.

Some things are still funny though:

1. Seinfeld. Stays funny.
2. The Simpsons. Stays funny.
3. Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Still REALLY funny.
4. The Great Outdoors. john candy + dan akroyd = funny.
5. American Funniest Home Videos. Just funny, no 2 ways 'bout it.

Wicked update and other stuff

So it's been a few days since my last post - I really have no excuse except that I've had other stuff to do.

On Saturday I saw Wicked the musical with a bunch of co-workers. It was really an awesome production. I just can't imagine having that kind of broadway musical voice come out of my body - that is really an amazing gift. It was all around a nice day because I met two co-workers to have lunch on the Ft. Lauderdale Riverwalk before the show and we just had a great time.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful.

Monday I got utterly fed up with myself for the weight that I've gained since I got married. Now my best friend, Ann Marie and I are going to be working out together and doing journaling what we eat. That will definitely help keep me on task. She found this website for logging food/exercise called The Daily Plate. It's free and AWESOME. It's like Facebook for dieting. So on Mondays and Wednesdays she and I get together to run after work. And on Tuesdays, a few of my friends at work and I have begun to jog together. So that's good.

I already feel better just from the first 4 days of doing this; if for no other reason than it helps to relieve tension (of which I have plenty). Ann Marie told me to blog about this so that we have some public accountability!