Welcome to my first day of freedom! For those of you who either don’t know me, or haven’t read my “About Me” section on our site, I am currently pursuing my Master Degree in English and as of 7:00 last night I am officially FINISHED my first semester! I wanted to throw open the window shutters like Scrooge this morning (Forgive me, I was taking a Dickens class) and I’m just basking in this freedom and irrepressible excitement. That being said, I wanted to blog again since I’ve been neglectful in that department for a while. Continue reading
Little Red Adventures
Adventures in Montreal!
At the end of September, my husband and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary, and it’s been our custom since our honeymoon to celebrate this awesome moment in our lives with travel! Traveling is something we love to do more than almost anything else; we both spent time studying abroad in college (Scotland, Ireland, and Brazil), have backpacked through Europe (Doug for 2 straight months!), and have an ever-growing list of places we want to see together. On that list are definitely several places in Canada, and when we realized that Montreal was a short 7-hour drive from home, we decided to make that part I of our anniversary trip! Continue reading
Adventures in Upstate New York (or “My Favorite Place on Earth”)
Note: This is a very picture-heavy post, so apologies for the slow load time!
My husband’s family has had a “Great Camp” in Upstate New York since the late 1800’s, tucked away in the Adirondack Park. It’s a gorgeous, isolated place with a lake, myriad hiking trails, and the most breathtaking views I’ve ever seen. We have been extremely blessed to spend a lot of time there over the years, and even more blessed to have had our wedding there in July of 2011.Most recently, we had the opportunity to make a spur-of-the-moment trip to Camp with my graduate school friends (whom I’ve missed dearly ever since moving back to Virginia). The driveway alone is a 30 minute drive, so we hardly ever leave once we’re up there. It was a lovely, lazy weekend, and I can’t wait to head back up that way for Thanksgiving.The weekend started off with the obligatory jump in the lake… Continue reading
My husband’s family has had a “Great Camp” in Upstate New York since the late 1800’s, tucked away in the Adirondack Park. It’s a gorgeous, isolated place with a lake, myriad hiking trails, and the most breathtaking views I’ve ever seen. We have been extremely blessed to spend a lot of time there over the years, and even more blessed to have had our wedding there in July of 2011.Most recently, we had the opportunity to make a spur-of-the-moment trip to Camp with my graduate school friends (whom I’ve missed dearly ever since moving back to Virginia). The driveway alone is a 30 minute drive, so we hardly ever leave once we’re up there. It was a lovely, lazy weekend, and I can’t wait to head back up that way for Thanksgiving.The weekend started off with the obligatory jump in the lake… Continue reading
Milwaukee and Beyond
As promised (a month ago…okay, okay) I am giving you some more pictures and details from the rest of my trip to Wisconsin, which centered in and around Milwaukee! Continue reading
Fun in Your Backyard: Adventuring Locally
At the beginning of this summer, my husband Jay and I moved from what we like to call a “food desert”. We use that term differently from, say, the northern parts of the Adirondacks, where it is sometimes literally difficult to come by fresh produce; where we came from, it was difficult to find fresh, local, non-chain food establishments. We like food to mean something– to local businesses, to the chef, to the consumer.Thankfully, we moved into an amazing town, Blacksburg, Virginia, with an emerging emphasis on buying and eating locally. Drive 45 minutes southeast of here, and you can even find grass-fed, organically raised bison. I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to eat locally, and to purchase my foodstuffs from folks who really care about their quality. In this post, I’d like to showcase some of the local businesses that Jay and I love.In order to share with you, I spent an afternoon wandering our local farmer’s market (within walking distance of our new home): Continue reading
Madison, WI: Come for the cheese, stay for the everything (and the cheese)!
My husband, Doug, and I are coming to the tail end of our week in Wisconsin; it was a business trip for him, but we like to take these opportunities, in places that normally aren’t high on our list of vacation destinations, to explore what a new location has to offer, so I always tag along. (Plus I’m a sucker for a nice Marriott.)
I knew that I’d have fun regardless of what we did, but I can honestly say that my expectations for The Badger State were murky. I didn’t know much about what there was to do, what the landscape would be like, what the cities would feel like. However, several cheese plates and Native American-named towns that I can’t pronounce later, I have fallen for Wisconsin! Continue reading
The Little Red Kitchen 