New Years in Naples

Happy 2014! How's the year going so far?

Like much of the rest of the nation, we're freezing our butts off in Southern Illinois. Most of Carbondale has been shut down the last 2 days with the extreme cold and icy roads. With that being said, I thought it was a perfect time to share pics from our New Years trip to Naples, Florida.

Matt's parents own a vacation home in Naples, and Matt, Jack and I were lucky enough to spend the week between Christmas and New Years with them there.  With temperatures in the 70's and 80's, we spent a lot of time outside. 

Matt was in bird nerd heaven. I'm thinking about illustrating some of the beach birds we saw. 

This is the boardwalk to the beach. You walk through large mangrove forest to get there. 

Really cool and teeming with wildlife. 

 

  

On New Year's Eve we rented a boat and toured around the inlet bays that are teeming with palatial estates. Most of these homes are just vacation properties.....I heard that only 25% of properties in Naples are inhabited year round. Crazy!!!

Later that evening, we watched the sunset on the beach, while imbibing in bubbles and snacks. As you can tell, we hated every moment of this. I really love the beach, and Matt gets a kick out of how excited I get when I'm there. If I was on this trip by myself, I probably would have spent every moment there! 

We capped the evening off with a seafood feast and fireworks that we watched right out the front door of the condo. 

It was a great trip.....I really can't wait to go back! 

Happy 2014 friends! Wishing all the best. See you next week!

Summer Vacation Photos

 

Click here to view this photo book larger

Well hi! How's the weekend going?

I spent the day compiling all of our pics from the Johnson family trip to Kenya and Budapest into a Shutterfly book.
Thought you'd like to see the results. 

Enjoy!

I'm Back!

Ciao Friends!

I've been home from Italy for about a week now, and am finally getting back into the groove of things. What a trip!

Our Italian adventure started off in Venice. Such an interesting city - no cars, just sidewalks and canals for boats. I loved the layers of age visible on all the buildings. Matt and I enjoyed walking around the Island and sampling the local foods like sarde en sour (sweet, pickled sardines). It sounds awful but really does taste delicious! Our travel guru Rick Steves recommended that we order "misto" plates when dining in Venice. A misto plate is basically a combination a restaurant's antipastos and boy was Stevie right on the money. One night we ate octopus, sardines, grilled polenta and mussels.....and that was just the appetizer!


On two separate occasions while in Venice, I ran into Travel Channel personality Andrew Zimmern. He was nice enough to take a picture with us. We didn't get to talk to him for very long, so we don't know what he was shooting. We'll be watching Bizzare Foods to find out.

Something else quite newsworthy happened in Venice....Matt and I got engaged! We're so very excited and so is the rest of the Mullin and Johnson clans. We are planning a "destination" wedding in California wine country for June 2011.

After 2 nights in Venice, we rented a car and headed south. More on Verona and Florence in my next post.

Arriverderci.

Falling Food

Last weekend, Jack (my boyfriend's 9 year old son) and I did some drawing in our sketchbooks. Jack started drawing every food he could think of. (He says it's his best subject.) I love how he included cast shadow for each of the foods.

We were running out of ideas of foods to draw, so I got out the illustrated Italian book my mom had given us. (We are traveling to Italy this summer and attempting to learn some Italian.) I decided to include the Italian names with each illustration.

In other news, my passport arrived this week! With my airfare now bought and paid for and my passport in hand, I'm almost ready for my Italian adventure. Matt has booked all of our lodgings in Venice, Tuscany, Florence, and Rome. Now we just wait until June!

Happy Sunday friends.