Happy 4th of July!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Happy Birthday, E!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy New Year!

Ready or not, here we go!

It's My Birthday!

Merry Christmas to All!

It's Solstice Day!

Happy solstice day!  

Depending on whether you're in the northern or southern hemisphere, today marks either the shortest or longest day of the year for you.  For your entertainment, here are some fun facts about the solstices.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Day to Remember

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday, K!

Today, We Remember

Where Have I Been?

Great question.  As soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know!

Christmas Recap

My holidays were a little bit non-traditional this year, but I managed to squeeze in a good bit of celebration regardless.

We started out down in Florida with K, where, shortly after Thanksgiving, we undertook the annual favorite task of decorating for Christmas.  What's not to love about this? It happens early, it sets the scene, and there's still so much anticipation about all the fun to come!  Plus, the trouble of putting all this stuff away again is a problem for your future self -- or in this particular case, your future sister.  And, true to form, she put away all but one forgotten decoration: the ornaments that I had hung from the dining room light fixture!

Both while we were doing that and also sprinkled throughout our lengthy stay in Florida we watched several Hallmark-type, holiday-themed rom-coms whose names were generic enough to be forgotten before the movie was over.  I caught Love Actually on our flight to Cyprus, and one of our hotels seemed to have movies primarily in German, so we watched portions of The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2 and practiced our deutsch. Plus we found some more Hallmark-style movies both in English and other languages. 

Cyrpus has a few towns known for their Christmas markets, and S planned our travels specifically so we would be in or near Agros and Kyperounta in the run-up to Christmas, so we made the most we could out of the markets in those towns.  The best part -- the Christmas train pulled through the town center of Agros by a tractor!  (Last year in Ireland, we stumbled onto a 600-odd tractor run on Christmas day.  Are we developing a Christmas tradition of tractors, however odd that may be?!)  We also happened upon similar markets in Pano Lefkara (traditional) and Larnaca (the big city version).

For our Christmas feast, not quite knowing what would be available to tourists, we opted to attend the ultra-fancy Christmas Eve dinner at our ultra-fancy hotel in Paphos.  We had a grand time!  The spread was out of this world (probably the most extensive I have seen), there was live music during cocktail hour beforehand and in the ballroom as dinner trailed off, Christmas crackers -- silly though they may be -- topped each table, and the hotel was decorated top to bottom in Christmas decor.

A delightful little treat at our Christmas morning breakfast

Speaking of which, pretty much everything in Cyprus was decorated for the holiday.  Pubs, restaurants, shops -- everywhere you looked! The hotels especially, probably knowing they're catering to a bunch of people who don't get to put up their own decorations at home, were dressed to the nines.

We rented a car for our journey about Cyprus -- a surprisingly reliable little Kia Rio, which can go farther than one might think with the gas light on (and that goodness for that!) -- and S indulged me in my Christmas playlist all I wanted as we cruised around.

And, now that we've returned home, we will collect our packages and have our own little delayed Christmas morning on this very snowy day here at home!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy New Year

Happy 4th of July!