First Day of School!

Darcy, we will be thinking of you on your first day of massage school....and look forward to hearing all about it!

Honey Harvesting!!

The honey harvesting at Half Acre Farm (right next door to Jamie and Darcy and John and Elizabeth) was so much fun! The pictures below show the process of first taking the hives (in the frames) out of the 'supers', then cutting (or scraping) the caps off of the combs to release the honey, then extracting the honey by spinning it in the extractor...and then on to the jars..and good eating!!

Our favorite one-and-a-half year old

Jamie and I spent the weekend with Matt and Janelle Reeser in Philly and the highlights of the weekend were playing with Ruthie and making homemade apple cider from their Winesap apples in the backyard.

Close to Paradise

Pictures from our camping trip a few weeks ago. . .

thanksgiving 2007

just wondering if we could discuss plans for thanksgiving this year. I think the most helpful thing would be to know where we are going to have it so paul and i can look into getting plane tickets. I guess it really comes down to liz, john, and abby's work flexibility. hope to hear from you all soon on this. thanks

Crammed in the Car

I think this was on our way over to
Christian's Pizza (that's why everyone has such big smiles on their faces... except Dad who is having a staring contest with himself in the rear view mirror! Sorry, Dad). We had a great time down in Charlottesville. Thanks for having us,
Mom and Dad.

where's ada?

look what I found at the library! talk about blast from the past...good ole Gilad. curious as to Ada's whereabouts. I'll have to let you know how this video is. well, you'll probably be able to notice all the cuts and curves when you see me next.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

Wishing we could be there with you to celebrate. We love you!

and this little piggy went to rio

i'm home! after over 28 total hours of travel time (there and back), it was a nice feeling to be over with being on planes, waiting on planes, being on buses, waiting for buses, etc! i wish i could have stayed for longer than a week (although the last day i was there i got a bad cold which made the idea of leaving a little easier) because there is so much to see that it was overwhelming just to decide what we even had time to see when i was there.

at the samba club, casa rosa, sunday night
(me, our american friend carl, nicole, our brazilian friend daniel, blair and kathy)

in front of the Cristo Redentor

i feel like i ate SO much while was there, which is funny because the food was so different than i had anticipated. the meats and fruits are phenomenal but everything else is very bland compared to latin american food. however, they have these things called salgados (which literally translates to snacks) that are usually like meats or cheeses inside pastries (sort of similar to empanadas) that were so good!! they were usually 1,50 or 2,00R (so about 75 cents to $1) and they sold them at every little diner and kiosk so we ate those for lunch every day. not a lot of flavor punch but how can you deny melted ham and cheese in a flaky pastry for so cheap?!

one last thing, the guy that played mr. belding on saved by the bell was on my flight from atlanta to charlottesville! very random!

second and third day in rio

well rio is STILL so fun! yesterday i slept in a lot to try and catch up from the trip. we went to dinner on copacabana beach and then went out to a neighborhood called gavea. basically gavea is just one big block party a few nights a week so all the little bodegas have their doors and windows open and people just hang out and drink in the street. it was so much fun to just talk to some of the locals even though i can only speak to them in english and they can only speak to me in portuguese. it creates very interesting conversations but i talked to the sweetest guy named raphael who just kept kissing my hand and asking "how can i find you?!" which i thought was funny.

me, blair, kathy and nicole in gavea

today we woke up and went to ipanema beach which was very crowded because today is the brazilian independence day. they don't do anything like our 4th of july but everyone has off work and most of the stores are closed so everyone went to the beach. it was beautiful.

ipanema

nicole and me at ipanema

nena (the matriarch of the house) made dinner tonight and it was very, very good. she made a salad (which apparently is pretty rare in rio), whole grain rice, polenta and a pot roast. she was afraid that i wouldn't like it but we all got three servings! then the four of us washed the dishes and just laughed at some of the funny things that the brazilians have said to us since i've been here. i think we are going out tonight and then going to a different area of rio tomorrow to go shopping and see another beach. i used sunscreen today so i'm not burnt anymore which is a relief! my eyelids no longer look like i got punched in the face!!

(mom and dad, give lola a big hug for me!! i miss her so much!)

KIVA Bombarded with Oprah-Watching Housewives

When I tried to reinvest a loan tonight, the following is what popped up. Darcy informed me that KIVA was highlighted on Oprah and the Today Show this week so they had A LOT of extra publicity. Yippee!

Congratulations Kiva Lenders!

We've funded EVERY business on the site!!

Your loans are now on their way to the developing world. Those of you who have been with us for a while probably know that this has something to do with the recent glowing press we've received and the record traffic that has come along with it.

First time visitors can rest assured - The Kiva team and our Field Partners around the globe are hard at work receiving and approving new loan applications right now. We hope to have more businesses posted on the site within 24 hours, so please check back again shortly (hit 'Ctrl-d' to bookmark us!).

With your help, one day we'll run out of businesses forever. We at Kiva.org look forward to the day our website ceases to be a functioning microfinance site and instead becomes an online museum dedicated to showing future generations what we used to call "poverty."

Until then, you can help us in our efforts to reach more businesses by making a donation. Keep up the great work!

first day in rio

rio is amazing!! i don't have any pictures yet because it's hard to really take pictures without people noticing you have a camera (and maybe trying to take it) so i will try to post some when i take them. we went to copacabana beach today after i got in and it was so beautiful. apparently it's not even a very nice beach for rio so i am excited to see the others. it's only about a block from nicole's apartment so it's very close. i got pretty burnt though. it didn't seem that hot but then i fell asleep and got too much sun. sunscreen from now on! tonight we went to a flamengo futbol game (they aren't very good but they are the team with the strongest following in rio) which was SO fun. it's amazing how much brazilians are into soccer! it wasn't a very "good" game in the sense that there weren't a lot of people there (for brazilians standards) but we won 4 to 1!! everyone got so excited when we scored and everyone was singing and clapping the ENTIRE game so it was just a fun thing to experience.

nicole and the other girls from UVA (blair and kathy) have a meeting tomorrow so i will probably just stay at the apartment and read some for my class. there is a little "buffet" type restaurant directly below us that we went to for a quick dinner before the game so i might try and go there for lunch tomorrow since i'm pretty sure nothing too bad can happen so close to home. i feel very safe here and everyone is so nice. they all think i'm french though which is funny. i was going into the soccer game and the ticket man said "bonjour!" when i walked up, as well as the bus driver this morning at the airport so i guess they just think i look french. bruno, the girls' friend who took us to the game and also saved my life from getting hit by a car (brazilians are literally the most crazy drivers i have ever seen) said that he thought i looked french too but i don't really understand why. anyways, tomorrow will be a nice relaxing morning until the girls' get back. i don't think nicole has to leave until noon-ish anyways but hopefully i can sleep in a little to catch up from my long weekend.

brandon and charlie cooked on monday night some tuna and mahi mahi that anna (my roommate) caught in key west on her family vacation and it was AMAZING! i just tried to upload some pictures from the weekend but the internet is a little slow at the apartment so i might wait until i get back to the states. we all hung out until pretty late every night though so i was definitely already lacking in sleep when i arrived this morning.

alright, i hope all is well and i will try to update as much as i can! i love you all!!

Lindsay........

Hope you have a great day!