The Daily Run: Summer dreams

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We are almost at the start of summer and I can hardly hold back my excitement.  The kids have only four days left of school, my garden is in full bloom, the birds are singing and the sun is rising at 5 am.  Ah, the joy and freedom of summer!

As usual, summer means a wondrous, crazy, jam-packed three months of fun.  I looked at our calendar and we have not a single weekend free. Everything is booked up with tons of fun, exciting adventures.  Here is a brief glance at our summer plans along with some spectacular photos I took yesterday of my favorite, beloved backyard lake, Lake Harriet, on my daily run.

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Antigua's Volcanoes: Fuego and Acatenango

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Reblogged from loca4motion:

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Following on from my post of Volcán de Fuego erupting here are some tranquil views of the volcano nudging its twin-peaked companion Volcán Acatenango, two of the three volcanoes surrounding Antigua.

She's done it again! I think these are some of Lucy's finest photos from Antigua! I had to share them with you all, they are so spectacular! And as you know, I loved Antigua so much! Enjoy!

Granada

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After leaving Cordoba, our next stop on our driving tour of Andalusia was Granada, by far my most favorite place in southern Spain.  Granada is an romantic, beautiful city.  Located at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and tucked between two hills and two rivers, Granada has a lot of bang for the buck.  Its beauty stemming from its Moorish past is constantly admired through its lovely white-washed buildings, beautiful plazas, magnificent fountains and of course, the crown jewel of the city, the Alhambra.

I could have spent the entire week in this town, I adored it so much.  I loved the mix of Arab and Spanish influences.  The food, the art, the shops and the architecture.  I fell in love with this city and it was the perfect place to relax for a few days before continuing on our driving tour of southern Spain. Continue reading →

New Blooms at the Trial Gardens

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Over the weekend, we had our good friends in town from Chicago and wanted to give them a tour of our lovely neighborhood in Southwest Minneapolis.  After stopping at my favorite coffee shop Patisserie 46 to get a cup of mi gasolina we headed towards the Rose and Trial Gardens near Lake Harriet.

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Memorial Day and the march of summer’s drums

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There is no better way to spend the long holiday weekend than grilling out, drinking an ice cold beer, eating a brat, slurping down an ice cream cone, and hanging out with family and friends.  The weather has been cantankerous to say the least with bursts of heat and humidity followed by massive thunderstorms and white bolts of lightening.  Last night was perhaps the most powerful system of storms we’ve had in months.

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Markets: An afternoon in the souq

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A fellow WordPress Blogger, Ailsa over at “Where’s my backpack” did it again with this week’s travel theme of Street Markets.  What a fantastic topic for who doesn’t love the vibrant colors and fragrances of a world market?  Markets are amazing as they give you such a slice of culture.  Whether it be the divine floral markets of Paris to the brilliant indigenous markets of Peru, a market always has a treasure to find.

One of my favorite markets of all is the souq.  In the spring of 2011, I spent a week volunteering in Rabat, Morocco and had a wonderful time exploring the ins and outs of a Moroccan souq.  You could truly find literally every thing for sale; pretty much whatever your heart desired.  The colors, the sounds, the people, the smells and the diverse offerings of goods made the souq one of my favorite places to wander and buy gifts for my family and friends.

Follow me through the winding paths of Rabat’s central souq….

There is always a mosque shooting up towards the sky and summoning the daily call to prayer.  The sound of the call echoes throughout the souq, bouncing off the curvy walls of the serpentine streets.  

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The Sunday Post: Doors

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Jakesprinter’s Sunday Post of the week in a wonderful topic:  Doors. Doors are fascinating. They are also quite mysterious for who knows what lies behind the doors of a place. They are the gatekeeper when closed. Yet when opened, they offer you a look into a whole new world of possibilities inside.

When I think of doors, there is one place in particular in which I was utterly blown away by the doors:  Guatemala. This colorful country had perhaps some of the most unusual and interesting doors I’d ever seen during my travels. For those of you who have been following my blog, you have already seen these photos. However, I decided to spruce them up a little by playing around with the colors.

Come, take a walk with me and admire some of my favorite doors I found…..


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The Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer

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I adore this week’s Photo Challenge topic:  Summer!  Yeah!  Who doesn’t love summer?  It is such a wonderful time of year to let your hair down and be free!  I actually already did this challenge just last week as a fellow WordPress Blogger, Where’s my backpack? came up with the idea.  I really liked the post I did so in case you haven’t seen it, click here.

For this week’s official Photo Challenge, I decided to pick one week out of the summer that has become a family tradition and truly means summer to me.  Our family vacation up north in Minnesota.

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An unexpected surprise at the Como Zoo

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After creeping everyone out with my last post on the invasion of the caterpillars, I thought I’d share a nice and pretty post about the Twin Cities.  Overall, the comments about the tent caterpillars confirmed that there is an overall dislike for these slimy pests but I did hear some other stories from readers that were right up there with the caterpillars.

On Monday, it was a gorgeous spring day and I took Sophia to a new zoo we hadn’t been to:  The Como Zoo in St. Paul.  Minneapolis and St. Paul, otherwise known as the “Twin Cities” are actually two separate cities only a mere 9 miles apart with two distinctive personalities.  It is quite bizarre but it makes sense if you consider the history and geography.  At the time they were built, it was paramount to be near water.  The Mississippi River just happens to flow right through both cities where flour mills were built.  It is no coincidence that General Mills and Cargill are both based in Minnesota.

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Attack of the tent caterpillars

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They are literally everywhere.  These greenish brown multi-legged caterpillars are practically falling out of the sky.  They coat the sides of our creamish-white stucco house.  They invade the sidewalks in mass.  They swing from the trees on their slippery, silky slime.  They cover the sides and bottoms of the tree bark.  And I even found about a zillion of them stuck to the wheels of my garbage can!

Every day there are more and more of these creepy crawlies and the invasion isn’t over yet.  It is just beginning and pretty soon my house will be covered in them.

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