Day on the Lake

Here I am enjoying a day on the lake.  I really need a break from having the summer off:)

As you will see in the following photos Tony is a great wake-boarder but even the best has to wipe out at some point.
Our new camera is so much better at capturing shots like this.  The zoom lens really helps get close up and the shutter speed is so fast that action shots are frozen in time.

Here is where the speaker should be.

So then why is it floating in the lake?

I know this isn't a lake picture but it is a photo of Tony and me on our 1 year anniversary!

Disney World

My friend Andrea and I are both teachers so what else would you do during the summer except go to DISNEY WORLD?!  I went when I was about 4 years old and I think she was around the same age as well.  I hated it but I did grow into a huge Disney fan throughout my childhood.  My Dad recently bought a retirement home outside of Orlando so we had a free place to stay and opted for a little road trip.

It is definitely not cheap getting in, nor is it easy; they really allow time for the anticipation to build.  But immediately upon arrival you are greeted on Main Street with barber shop quartets, balloons, and the smell of sugar.  Yes, the streets smell like sugar!  The smell actually comes from the confectionary where the make delicious treats like Rice Krispy treats and fudge.  They also have every type of candy you can imagine including about 30 different colors of M&Ms. 

We did have a Wally World moment; Space Mountain was out of order but we rode just about everything else.  Splash Mountain and the teacups were my favorites.  We stayed until midnight and saw the fireworks and the parade.  You turn into a twelve year old again for the day.  I left the camera at home but luckily Andrea had her iPhone and was able to snap a few shots.

Greece

Greece was definitely the trip of a lifetime.  It was actually more than I expected.  As my school year was winding down I would often need a little boost during the day so I would look at pictures of Greece online.  All of the pictures were so beautiful that somehow I thought it wouldn't or couldn't actually be like that in person but it was.  After spending most of my twenties so far backpacking through Europe during the summers; carrying my belongings. sweating profusely, and staying in shitty hostels this trip was a breeze.  We used a travel agent so we had someone to help us choose islands and hotels in our price range and she handled all transfers, ferries, and island hopping planes.  The transfers were the best part for Tony and me because rather than our usual get off an airplane-find a train, bus, whatever-walk to the hostel-pain in the ass we had people standing at the airport with a sign that had out names on it and they would kindly take our bags and drive us to our next location; they even had AC!!

Our fist stop was an island called Paros.  It is a small, non touristy island.  We stayed there for 2 days and spent one of those at the beach.  The best part about Paros was how nice the people were.  All Greeks learn English from the second grade so there are really no language barriers and they were so friendly we felt like everyone on Paros was our best friend.

Next we were off the Santorini.  We stayed in a town called Oia (pronounced Ee-ah).  This was as gorgeous as all of the books and websites said it would be.  We were so impressed with Paros and how beautiful it was but it could not hold a candle to Santorini.  For that reason we were glad to have gone to Paros first because in reverse order Paros would have been somewhat disappointing.  In Santorini we had a relaxing beach day and a not so relaxing boat cruise.  The beaches on both islands were so cool to us because they were not the typical white sand beaches.  They had rocky sand and the one we went to on Santorini actually had black volcanic rock.  It was very hot but also more unique.  The beaches were also surrounded by stunning rock formations.

We were then off to Athens.  The Acropolis was cool at night and the to go gyros were amazing but other than that I could have stayed in Santorini for 2 more days.  It was hard to choose pictures because we took over 700 of them but I hope you enjoy these.

I would also like to add that Tony and I celebrated our one year anniversary yesterday and it was awesome.  We went out to dinner on Saturday night to Blackstone which was the site of our rehearsal dinner exactly one year earlier and spent yesterday out on the lake and eating our year old wedding cake which was delicious btw. 

This is the view of the Acropolis lit up at night from the roof top bar at out hotel in Athens.

These 2 are a gorgeous sunset in Oia.
Oia
Below is Kamari beach in Santorini.

The 2 below are views from our hotel in Oia.

Below is Kolimbithres beach in Paros.
Below is the sunrise from the patio of our room in Paros followed by our hotel in Paros.

Atlanta Botanical Gardens

Today my mom and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.  I had never been and she took the week off of work to get things done so we decided to spend a few days doing fun things around Atlanta.  Tony and I have been getting more and more into photography and trying to learn how to take pictures so I thought this would be a great time to practice.  I'm really pleased with how the photos turned out (although it's almost impossible to take a bad photo in the orchid center).  You can also really see a difference between the photos I took today and the ones I shared from the park about a month ago.

Also-we did just return from Greece and it was awesome; stay tuned for that entry!!!!