mountain people new years part 1

so we decided instead of getting fancy for new years, we opted for the mountains, serenity, and wilderness. we rented a cute little cottage on tons of land in chester springs for a long weekend. best decision we could have made. the air was clean and brisk. tons of birds. lots of hiking trails. and even playmates for shilah. 

 driveway on the property. the house sat on about 70 acres

 exploring.

 i had fun exploring the trails with these two.

 the cottage. 

 the property had a beautiful stream running through it. thankfully it was too cold for shilah. 

 view from the road.

 she loved running on all of this land. i see a big backyard in her future. 

 early morning walks are my new favorite. 

 we ate like kings. i could get used to this. 

 most afternoons you could find her all nestled up on her bed in front of the fire. it's precious. 

 this sunporch was key. we spent a lot of time on the lounge chairs reading and watching the birds. i need one of these in the future. 

cozy living room. 

deck tha halls

christmas morning we had stefano's family over to open gifts, and of course eat. i cant tell you enough how nice it is to be home for the holidays. we missed this so much while we were away these past few years. 

 rey's new favorite gift- marshmallow gun. beware. 

 love these two!

 bahaha! we laughed at this pic so much. no other words needed. 

 precious. lorenzo and maya. 

 new hangers for his suits!! great gift hil!! 

 bert got stef an awesome tie. he loves it. 

 lorenzo got a new pillow for his bed. :)

 bert got a cool wallet and black and brown belt. 

 i got brown leather gloves! :)

it was nice to have my sister to spend christmas with, as the rest of my family is now living out in colorado springs. we had a christmas skype date with them later in the afternoon :) 

we were all missing stefano's mom, she is visiting her family in Peru. can't wait to see her soon!

we are hoping everyone had a great holiday season with their families as well! 

thanksgiving with the calvello's

hilary and rey had thanksgiving at their apartment. it was filled with yummy food, good family times, and always lots of laughs. 

 love their apartment!

 my beautiful sister-in-law/hostess-with-the-mostest

 these two guys clearly don't watch a lot of tv. ;) 

 oh man this thanksgiving breakfast was delicious! 

 what a great looking group!

 on our family walk we stumbled upon this awesome piece of furniture on the side of the road. hil and rey loved it so they carried it to their apartment a couple blocks away. one mans trash, another mans treasure. 

hope everyone had a good holiday season! we sure did!

its been so long. i know. this blog is one of my goals for this new year. i have a lot of posts that i am working on to catch everyone up to speed over these past few months, so bear with me.

sneak peak of our house. its the one on the left. 

my mom made this delicious pumpkin cheesecake for her birthday. we had her sisters and mom over to celebrate with dessert and tea. mouthwatering. 

life so far

these past three weeks we have been settling in to our new house and life here in bryn mawr. it's been an easy transition, and we are loving being so close to family and friends. we have been using our time off to explore and do some fun stuff. 

 bike riding through valley forge. 

 enjoying a cool morning on the hammock.

 eagles training camp. so neat. 

 ice cream at "the farm"

iced latte. peach-pear-apricot smoothie. raisin spice vegan cookie. 

work starts monday. heading downtown tonight to enjoy baltimore ave dollar days (basically all the restaurants come outside and give you food for a dollar....need i say more?) and then going to the shore on saturday. 

journey to philly

well we finally made it to philly. it was a long 24 hour drive...yes 24 hours. but alas we made it! here are some pictures of the ride. 

we left west palm with a bang. all of our friends went out for our last dinner together and stefano and i destroyed the "grease beast"...it's a double cheese burger with two grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, fries, and onion rings all piled high on top of each other. delicious. 

and yes we did have chest pains later that night. 

 getting gas in some state in the middle of the night. we were both over driving at this point. stefano was driving the penske truck with the volvo on the back and shilah and i were following behind him in the jetta. 

every time i looked back at her on the trip she looked so peaceful and cozy. poor thing has such a hard life. ha!

never been so happy to see this sign. 

we made it! woo hoo!