The Wright Life!

  We are heading up to Tahoe on Thursday (its my first time!)...I'm so excited to see the snow! This pic was from last winter up at Butte Meadows.

Feeling a bit sentimental sitting here on Christmas day looking at our beautiful tree snuggled up with the worlds cutest (loudest snoring) dog and my amazing hubby I suddenly felt the need to document times like this.  But I realized that I failed with my last promise to post a picture a day :(  I (we've) been busy...which is a good thing but I need to get back to my passion, photography...so although I normally don't have resolutions...that will be it for 2011.  We've been in Santa Rosa now for just over 5 months and I've never lived anywhere that feels more like 'home' (except of course Birmingham, Michigan...my hometown).  The amazing friends that we've met in such a short period of time, two great jobs, and our cozy home (even if its just a rental) all factor into this but I think I'm finally learning how to just live life and not worry about the future too much, something I normally have a really hard time doing.  And sometimes its the little, sim...

First week we brought Rufus home!

Fall '09 Chico, CA amazing colors!

Going forward I'm going to TRY really hard to post one picture (old and new) along with a little blurb about the picture...here goes the first one! This was a couple weeks ago at Hale's Apple Orchard were we went to pick out some pumpkins and apples.

10/6 Museums We slept in a bit and walked north of our hotel to explore before heading to the Duomo Museo. 12 Euro for both.  The museum is small but had some great pieces of art including: Michelangelo 'Pieta' and Donatellos 'Magdalene'. After the museum we headed over to piazza croce, grabbed 2 diet cokes and 2 calzones at a little cafe along the way.  10 Euro.  We sat on the steps of Santa Croce and ate our lunch.  After lunch we headed over to the Uffizi, we had reserved tickets online prior to our trip so we could avoid the lines. 20 Euro.  No pictures are allowed in the Uffizi which is sort of a bummer, and there is no ac!  I think we would have lasted a little longer with some cooler temps.  The building is great though as well as the sculptures and paintings.  On the way back from the Uffizi we stopped at a few street vendors for some gifts (25 Euro) and then grabbed some beer to enjoy back at the hotel for our own happy hour. 6 E...

10/5 Tuscany Wine Tour We had booked a private tour with Enzo from chiantiinsideout.com as a recommendation from Anne, as she had used him in her prior trips to Florence. (300 Euro for both of us-included all food, wine, transportation)  I was probably most excited for this day and Enzo did not disappoint!  He picked us up at our hotel just before 10am and we headed out to Tuscany.  Enzo is an Italian chef who has spent several years both in America and England, so his English is perfect.  He was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his job.  Our first stop was the medieval town of San Gimignano, where 72 towers once stood, now only 15 remain.  We walked around the whole village taking some amazing pictures and hearing great stories from Enzo.  Around noon we stopped in a little cafe to enjoy an 'apertivo' and small panini to hold us over until lunch, this being a tradition Italians partake in during a typical workday prior to lunch. ...

Monday 10/4 Exploring Florence The power was going to be out at our hotel starting at 8am for some sort of repair, so we got a early start and took our breakfast voucher down the street to a little cafe in campo di fiori.  We had a light breakfast of croissants, bananas, juice and my regular 'un cafe' (espresso).  We took a taxi to the train station, not wanting to deal with our luggage on the rush hour bus ride. 12 Euro.  Walking into the Rome train station was a bit intimidating but we headed straight to the kiosks and bought our one way tickets to Florence.  88 Euro for two.  Thankfully we had a bit of time to figure out our next step, since the train station had well over 25 tracks and of course mostly everything listed in Italian.  We eventually figured out that what our track was, and Rollie figured out that we had a specific 'car' with our seats.  On the train we shared a small can of pringles and a diet coke, 5 Euro. After the quick hour ...