Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It seems like only yesterday we had just bought our home and moved in. And here were are a year later. Where does the time go?

So many things have happened this past year and there are so many things to be thankful for.

Of course I'm thankful for my hubby, my home, my family and my health. And I'm truly thankful for my friends. I couldn't do a post without a picture so I thought I'd put my 'babies' up on the blog.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. And know there are many things to be thankful for. I hope you can find at least one.

-Michelle

Powerless

If you haven't been watching the news or you don't live in VA, then you may not know what's going on. Let me share.

We have been without power since 6 last night. But the recording from our power carrier says we will have power back by 10 tonight. Let's hope it's sooner as my computer battery is now at half life and it still needs to charge my phone a little more.

Leafing!

So today Jim and I went to the Shenandoah National Park and went leafing. Now some of you might wonder what leafing is. Well it's slang in areas that get beautiful fall foliage for the people who go out to ogle the leaves, like us.

The first shot is of Jim's side mirror. He wanted to get a shot of the leaves behind us. I thought it was really kind of neat.

We took turns passing the camera back and forth. So it's a mix of Jim's work and mine. Which was kind of fun. Because after a while of looking at what seems like the same thing over and over you need a new prospective.

I know the red leaves is a shot Jim took.

We go leafing just about every year. If time allows and all. This year I think we got there a little late, but the weather and schedules really weren't all that cooperative.

And sometimes the colors don't come out as vibrant as we thought they would. They seemed to fade as the sun got higher. We call the tree a fire tree, because it looked almost like the leaves were flames.

And I know this odd plant is my work. We don't always photograph the leaves. That's what makes it fun. We look through the pictures later to see what we did. And if we don't like it we can delete it. That's the beauty of digital photography.


I hope you enjoy them as much as we did taking them.

Ship Manuevers

Came across this while goofing around in YouTube. I love how you can hear the guy say 'I want to ride on that'.

He's taping this from the flight deck of the Eisenhower. That should tell you it's a MUCH bigger ship.

All I gotta say is I hope everyone was hanging on when they made that turn.

No matter what ship you're on it's always impressive to watch other Navy vessels in action.

I've added this one so you can see the difference in sizes and how quickly they can turn.

Wine Tasting

Last night we were able to attend a wine tasting with our wine group, the N2S2V2. And I'm not telling you what it stands for. A normally 2.5 hour trip took us 3.5 hours. 64 was a parking lot! I'm sorry that I suggested taking the route. And the trip home wasn't much better.

Jim took the

pictures this time around and I think he got some good ones. The first one is Lillian and Sue.

He got a lot of very good candid ones. I only used a few though.

The next one is of Melanie.

By the end of the evening we were all acting silly. Omar tried to give the bear a sip of his wine. To loosen him up. And Debbie let Jim know what she thought of all his picture taking. And of course I had to pretend to be afraid of the bear. Which was really hard, because I was laughing so hard.

Spanish Summer Wine Dinner At Cobalt

So last night I was able to attend a wine dinner at Cobalt in Virginia Beach with some friends from SOS.

The first course was called ensaldas. Which I'm guessing means salad. It's all new to me so I will be translating as best I can. Please bear with me on this.

It was lobster and crab salad with adobo grilled asparagus. They served Legado Del Conde Albarino 2008 from Rias Baixas, Spain. Which is a very nice white wine.

I really enjoyed this course. Asparagus is a favorite of mine. The flavors blended so well together. But it's so hard to find a wine to go with asparagus. This wine however was a wonderful pairing. Even people who prefer reds enjoyed this one.

The second course was called pescados which translates to fish. It was grilled swordfish with mango and strawberry salsa and sweet potato fries. They served Muga Rosado Tempranillo Rose 2008 from Rioja, Spain.

Normally I'm a huge fan of Rose wines. However with this one I was not impressed. I actually left the glass full after only three sips. It was a bit sweet and that's just not something I wanted from a Rose.

The dish was pretty good. The sweet potato fries were very thin. But the flavors went nicely together. I rather liked the fruit salsa. And I don't eat strawberries very often since they are persona non grata in our household due to allergies.

The third course was called mariscos, which translates to seafood. It was Spanish rice with chicken, crawfish and Chorizo. They served Bodegas Paso A Paso Tino Tempranillo 2007 from La Mancha, Spain.

I had never had this combination before. It had a really nice spice to it and I admit I cleaned my plate on this one. And I don't really do crawfish. But when you don't have to clean it or prep it, well then it's quite yummy!

The wine was good, but I didn't finish the glass off. I don't recall what it was about this wine, but I'm not sure if I liked this one or not.

Next was the intermezzo, which I took as an intermission. At this time we just had Tinto de Verano and Hank Foiles of Country Vintners Wine Distributors came around to talk with everyone. He had been giving talks about each wine and the parings as they came out. It was very educational, but we did spend a lot of time chatting and catching up with.

Tinto de Verano is a wine-based drink similar to sangria and is very popular in Spain. It's much simpler though. It's usually made up of 1 part red wine and 1 part La Casera, a soda similar to Sprite only less sweet. It can be replicated using a mixture of Sprite and seltzer

or club soda. It literally translates to red wine of summer. And I really enjoyed it.

So I had to get a picture of our wine steward, Arden Allen. She sat down with the chef and Hank Foiles to choose the wines that we had tonight. Plus she speaks Spanish. Just a nice little tidbit to throw in there.

The next course was called carne which translates to meat. It was grilled flat

iron steak with mushroom ceviche and chipotle mashed potatoes. They served it with Atalaya Almansa Monastrell 2007 from Ribera Del Duero, Spain.

I truly enjoyed this course. And the wine was very nice. All of the flavors combined so well. It was like a symphony in your mouth. Especially when you followed it up with a sip of the wine.

They did make it possible for you to purchase wine that you enjoyed at the end of the evening. Sadly I didn't, but I have the names of all the wines. So I can always search for them later. But some of my group did decide to leave with a bottle or two.

Sadly I forgot to take pictures of the last two courses. And I could just shoot myself for forgetting. But it was such a sensory delight that I forgot about my camera and enjoyed the meal.

The final course was called dolces, which translates to I believe means sweet. I could be wrong though. They served cinnamon and lemon creme Catalina with Lustau East India Solera Palomino nv from Jerez, Spain.

The best way I can describe this delight to the taste buds, was it was sort of like creme brulee only it was a light lemony flavor. I hope I don't offend Chef Alvin Williams with that description.

I was lucky enough to get my picture taken with the chef. I know I look awful, but when I asked for a photo of him he sat down and said okay. Which was cool. It was also his birthday.

And of course I couldn't leave without a picture of the group. So we had Arden take a picture. So Erin, Amy and Andrea I had a fantastic night! Thanks for inviting me along.

Afterwards we went to the Melting Pot, just a short walk from Cobalt, to have coffee and dessert.

Duty Day

So once again I took Jim dinner while he had duty. Among a bunch of other things. As I was getting ready to leave there was a storm that passed through. So Jim and I waited under the tent on the quarter deck.

As we waited we happened to see this. It's a single tugboat pulling, what we think, is a trencher. I hope I got that right. But I thought it was cool and decided to snap some pictures with my phone.