Daily Life

Birthday Vineyard Trip

by Chansoda on October 14, 2014

Our friends Krista and Francia came back up from the city for another vineyard trip joining my besties, Jeannine and Sally! This time we went up to New Preston, CT’s Lake Waramaug to celebrate a duo Charla birthday. Overlooking the lake is Hopkin’s Vineyard, such great place! Plenty of people, live music was playing, and the colors of the leaves were at their best. Grabbed a bottle of wine and picnicked outside with some snacks. Great view, beautiful day, awesome company. Can you tell how excited we are (jumping pictures define excitement)??

Overlooking Lake Waramaug.

Charla sighting.

My friends!

More of these ladies.

I actually started out the day with a photoshoot for this really adorable family in the morning. After the vineyard, we headed to my mom’s house for a party and introduced Francia and Krista to the Khmer community. My brother ended up proposing to his girlfriend (finally) at the party. Wedding officially coming in July.

Campers

by Chansoda on October 12, 2014

Karla, Tom and Skip decided it was a good idea to go camping, in the cold rainy October month, on my birthday. I have to say, I really didn’t agree with this. I much prefer sitting around the fire in the comfort of my own home, with my own shower, soft bed, and a full kitchen to cook my meals. Holly and I both prefer that set up, we don’t mind the outdoor walks, but when it comes to warmth and sleeping, my own home is so much better! I was so happy to finally head home, so was Holly. It was a beautiful place to go camping, if you’re in to that kind of that thing, it also allows dogs, if your dog is in to that kind of thing. Tolland State Forest in Massachusetts. We used Reserve America to book our stay.

The camp ground was very nice.

The beautiful fall.

I love the colors.

The lake at Tolland State Forest.

Fallen leaves in the water.

Holly was not a fan of this.

Holly prefers being in the tent.

Tending the fire.

Sitting around the fire.

more tending to the fire…

more sitting around the fire, apparently, that's all it is to camping.

more sitting around the fire, apparently, that’s all there is to camping…

Let me in the tent.

Morning of freedom from camping.

Couldn’t have been a more gorgeous day. Happy Birthday to me.

Hurry home, I need to shower.

But this crazy thing happened on the ride home. A car with a bicycle strapped to it’s roof was driving ahead of us, unfortunately not so tightly strapped. The bike comes flying off the roof on I-84, and hits our car, bike goes flying, luckily no one was hurt. Scary, but it was all good. Lady should definitely double check how her bike is mounted on. Not cool.

Birthday Lantern

by Chansoda on October 4, 2014

Karla’s birthday, this actually made us kind of nervous… We wanted to shoot a lantern in to the sky, because why not, it’s so pretty. We hung out with our favorite people, Nancy and Skip who have become my pseudo parents. A little dinner finished with some home made chocolate cakes, wine, and a little birthday lantern wish. Nothing caught on fire, at least that we know about…

It’s lit.

Karla and Skip getting ready to launch

And there it goes…

Ice cream, cake and candles.

Easter at the Rossi’s

by Chansoda on April 23, 2014

It was nice of Shirley and Angelo to host an Easter brunch for us on Sunday. Absolutely delicious and beautiful meal! Ending with a pretty sweet cake, and cigars. We had lots of fun, and came home even fuller than we need to be! Check out the Easter decor and pics.

Snow!

by Chansoda on February 23, 2014

February dumped so much snow on us, creating a beautiful snow globe of a winter wonderland. It also meant a lot of shoveling as our place became covered in over 2 feet of snow. The lake is frozen and serene. Such a pretty time of year, but, I do look forward to being able to swimming in the water again, rather than treading on the frozen surface.

Savannah and Florida

by Chansoda on January 16, 2014

Karla and I decided to drive a car packed with goodies to our semi retired friends in Florida, who are pretty much family to us. They just built their new house in Kissimee, and are staying there for the winter, so if we delivered the car to them, they would host us and fly us back north. Win/Win situation for everyone, it’s an excuse to take a little break from this cold northeastern winter. Wish we could’ve stayed longer.

Got up and hit the road at 3 am, and drove straight through to Savannah, GA, where we spent a night in the Marshall House. It was a beautiful old hotel with charming decor, lots of history, and a few ghosts! Yikes. Very nice city, will definitely spend more time there in the future. After, we hit the road for Florida, and visited St. Augustine, the oldest city in America. Not as charming as Savannah, but learned a lot of history there too. Could have been warmer also!

All in all, we had a great time with Shirley and Angelo, and will head south again. If we didn’t have to rush back for work, we could have enjoyed a little more sun, and lived like retired folks!

Holidays

by Chansoda on December 26, 2013

Started off our Christmas Eve trying to get Holly to sit still in front of the tree to do a little holiday pose. Christmas will be the one year anniversary of us adopting her, and it’s been quite the Holly Jolly year with this little monster.

We are joining Nancy and Skip for Christmas Eve dinner at the Mulranes’, it’s very nice of them to invite us. We had a great dinner, and it’s nice to see a family embracing the holiday spirit.

Christmas day I exchanged gifts with my partner then we headed to my mother’s to exchange gifts with the family and eat some Cambodian food. The holidays always puts me in a state of mind that isn’t too pleasant, but I enjoy giving gifts and spending time with loved ones. It just comes and goes so quickly and a new year is right around the corner. I have a lot to be thankful for, and really enjoy the life that Karla and I created for ourselves in our home and circle of loved ones. I just especially miss my dad, and what he wanted Christmas to be for us, a reflection of his hard work and good intentions to give us what he can, to help us fit in here even though this wasn’t his culture. As kids we weren’t always the most appreciative though, I miss him.

I was sort of dreading this Christmas before heading to my mom’s, but they surprised me this year. I appreciated how thoughtful my youngest brother was, he knows I’m trying to get in to running, so he bought me a new pair of running shoes which was a nice surprise. We also have a treadmill our friends are getting rid of that needs to be picked up and brought to our house so he offered to help pick it up and transport it over. It turned out to be a really nice Christmas because everyone was so pleasant to one another at my mom’s house. Afterwards Karla and I went over to Nancy and Skip’s to finish off Christmas over there.

Saturday Morning.

by Chansoda on December 7, 2013

Visiting Caramoor because Karla wanted to go in to work on a Saturday, but we ended up walking around the beautiful grounds of her job instead with Holly. It really is a magical place.

December!

by Chansoda on December 1, 2013

We decorated, by decorated meaning we got our tree on time this year. A full year at this house, and it couldn’t be cozier. I love the fireplace, usually Holly sits right in front of it on the ottoman. This place is the perfect size for us, and we are doing our best to make it feel “lived in” over this past year.

It’s Thanksgiving Already?

by Chansoda on November 28, 2013

We are nearing the end of the year, and the holidays are here, already! Yikes. This year we stayed local, jumping from my mother’s house to our friends’ down the street from our home with our alternative parents, Nancy & Skip. Great food, great company, plenty of cheers going around. It has been a great year, and we have so much to be thankful for.

We also started our morning with the 5K Turkey Trot, which was a great way to begin our day of feasts.