Tag Archives: blogging

February 11, 2017 · 8:44 am

My 5th blogoversary!!

Wow, really? Five years ago I started this blog and I’ve learned so much and I have new friends, all great things! Once again I’m sharing some of my favorite posts from the last year followed by a photo gallery from these posts.

Last year was an up and down year but it started off great with our two week adventure in Spain the highlight in March. I created no less than twelve posts about the trip. If you missed any of them, not to worry as I’m relinking them here. My first post was a quick peek into the several cities we visited. We started our trip on the southern Mediterranean coast in the town where we plan to retire, Málaga. One of our favorite spots, the alcazaba really shouldn’t be missed. If you happen to be in town on a Sunday, it is free. But it is worth the very small admission price to see this fortress from so long ago. Beautiful architecture and views of the city and the sea. We spent an afternoon touring urban art with a fellow blogger and had a nice meal at El Pimpi too. And one last one about Málaga with other things that we did and saw.

One post from our trip to Spain was completely devoted to food. Check it out, I bet you get hungry! We had one day trip from Málaga and visited the small town of Córdoba which is only an hour train ride. We enjoyed touring the mezquita, the sinagoga and even El Corte Inglés. We stopped into Spain’s largest department store on our walk back to the train station that afternoon. We had some time to kill so looked around a little before catching our train back to Málaga. I love Córdoba and can’t wait to go back.

From Málaga we headed north to another of my favorite cities: Madrid, where I spent my junior year of college. It holds a special place in my heart due to that year abroad. I fell in love with Spain then and knew I had to return. I have only one post for Madrid but it also appears in the food post, referenced in the previous paragraph. We took another day trip, this time from Madrid to Toledo. I spent many a weekend in Toledo while living in Madrid all those years ago. This town is also special to me, many happy memories, including the trip we took that Friday in March 2016. Come have a look at La Judería and one other post I created with other things we did and saw. It’s a short 30 minute ride by train from Madrid and well worth a day trip.

The last 4 days of the trip were spent in Barcelona. We seem to always cut Barcelona too short. I again felt that we didn’t have enough time to see all that I had hoped to see. But the weather had something to do with that too this time. We did have a great time in a fabulous city that I can’t wait to see again. I had posts about Sagrada Familia, the Palau de la Música Catalana and one other that includes other things that we did and saw. The Palau was another highlight of this trip. We only saw the outside in 2010 and I was determined to see that famous, gorgeous dome. If you only look at one Barcelona post, please make it that one. I can almost guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

The year had much sadness with my beloved and spunky cat Fritz dying unexpectedly then two months later my brother died. I’d rather not dwell on the sadness in this post. I’m still dealing with both losses. Grief takes a while to work through. Click on the links for more information and get the kleenex box.

It turns out that I did a lot of travelling last year. I already mentioned our trip to Spain in March. In April I went to the D.C. area for my nephew’s wedding. I also got to go to D.C. with my daughter, my sister and my nephew. We had a wonderful, quickie trip and saw many things. What a great day that was! I was so happy to travel to northern California for my brother’s wedding over Labor Day weekend. It was a perfect day and everyone had a marvelous time and love was in the air! We also got to tour Benziger Winery which is 30 minutes away the day after the wedding. Another perfect day spent with family in a most beautiful setting. One more post about another quick visit, this time to San Francisco, the city by the bay. It is as beautiful as the photos you’ve seen. We were lucky to have another warm, sunny day to walk around Fisherman’s wharf and take selfies in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had such fun that weekend. Memories that will last a lifetime.

As likely most of you know, we never miss the fair. And I never miss the chance to create a post about our visit. Such fun!! One other, sort of travel related post was about our visit to the now closed Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, the east bank campus. Their new building on the St. Paul campus is under construction and will open in 2018. What a fascinating and educational place!! I’m looking forward to visiting the new museum.

I did only a couple of restaurant reviews. I see that department is a bit lacking. I will have to remedy that and go out to eat more often this year. Ha ha! I wrote another review of Hell’s Kitchen, always a great meal and a good time. This post includes photos of the famous Schmitt music mural which is right across the street from the restaurant. One other review was of Muffuletta, a new place for us. It’s been there for a while and we finally tried it and we give it high marks. I can’t wait to go sit on their patio this summer.

Finally, a review of the seasons is in order. I love taking photos of the seasons and last year’s autumn colors were especially brilliant I thought. Take a look at this post and you’ll see what I mean. I created a spring flowers and plants as well as a summer blooms post. I had great fun photographing the four gardens that I got to tour last summer. And one last post from the cabin from last summer.

Thanks for coming along for the ride and here’s to another year of blogging! I hope you’ll enjoy a gallery of just a handful of last year’s photos.

mmmmm, churros y chocolate, Casa Aranda Málaga

Atarazanas market(Málaga) from the outside

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Santa Maria La Blanca, Toledo

Puerta de Alacalá-Madrid

Esglesia de Santa Maria de la Mar, Barcelona

the origin of all roads in Spain-Madrid

La Mezquita, Córdoba

We’re headed for that castle(Toledo)

Alcazaba y teatro romano, Málaga

Málaga at sunset

from the alcazaba, Málaga

spring gardening: gorgeous trillium

Schmitt music mural, Minneapolis

urban art, Málaga

the reading room from the overlook(Library of Congress, D.C.)

Library of Congress, D.C.

nation’s capitol

pink coneflower

from summer garden tour

sunset 11th Crow Wing Lake, summer 2016

Darling Fritz, I miss you.

autumn in MN

autumn, MIssissippi River

Crop art at the fair featuring Prince

Crop art: I’m so sorry Mr. Khan :(

San Francisco from the plane

attempting a selfie with Golden Gate

Golden Gate again

wine tasting at Benziger winery. so fun!!!

red wine grapes, yum.

Benziger vineyard, Glen Ellen, CA

my brother’s wedding. miss him too.

Bell Museum: view of entry from second floor

they encourage you to lift the horns to see how heavy they are(Bell Museum)

Bell Museum diorama

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February 12, 2015 · 6:55 pm

my third blogoversary redux

How could this be a redux you say? Well, I am having technical difficulty with the one I started so I am going to do something different and hope this works better.

For my last two blogoversaries I created posts with a recap of some favorites over the past year including some photos. I was having trouble inserting text after posting a photo. Instead I am going to link all the favorites first, then you can have a photo tour in the form of a gallery. That seems to work well lately so I’m going with it! Thanks to all my followers once again. Here’s to another year of blogging fun!!

To start, here is a restaurant review from W.A. Frost where we dined for our 23rd anniversary. Next, some weekly photo challenges that were popular with fellow bloggers: Weekly Photo Challenge – Inside, Weekly Photo Challenge – letters and Weekly Photo Challenge – Spring.

Early last spring I did a review of Babani’s Kurdish Restaurant. Oh yum!! In walks with my sister, there are some fun reflection photos.

Last summer, I went to Chicago for my aunt’s 95th birthday party. It was a blast! I also collected photos of sunsets at the lake. While working downtown Minneapolis last year I was able to take walks around and through Gold Medal Park. And that included walking by the 35W Bridge Remembrance Garden and Memorial, a lovely memorial to those that died the day the 35W bridge collapsed. I work in a building that is right next to the rebuilt bridge.

Another collection of photo challenges that were popular with viewers from last fall: Weekly Photo Challenge – silhouette, Weekly Photo Challenge – signs, Weekly Photo Challenge – minimalist, Weekly Photo Challenge – yellow and Weekly Photo Challenge – serenity.

To round it out, a summer blooms post and the Minnesota State Fair. I have two holiday posts, one about our unusual Thanksgiving last year and another celebrating Hanukah. One last one on our brief, but “full” visit to the Walker Art Center. Hubby always says his eyes are “full” when it’s time to leave the museum and take a break from absorbing all that stimuli.

As promised, what follows is a gallery of some of the favorite photos contained in some of favorite blog posts of the year. Enjoy!!

my lunch-Babani’s

11th Crow Wing Lake, spring

on walks with my sister in Florida

spring

35W bridge collapse memorial

summer bloom

queen of the prairie

Aunt Sarah’s 95th birthday party, Chicago, July

I can see Wisconsin! And the John Hancock building.

In memorium-MN state fair ag building

great perspective-MN state fair flower room

tulip

silhouette

crunchy, crunchy, oh yum-latkes for our Hanukah meal

Walker Art Center

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February 9, 2014 · 2:40 pm

My second blogoversary

How time flies when you’re having fun! Last year I had fun creating a summary of some of my favorite posts during my first year of blogging. Check them out at the link if you are so inclined. I thought I’d do the same thing this year as well. So, sit back and enjoy a snapshot of my second year of blogging.

I love the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Last February we paid a visit and I documented it. There are so many great works of art there it’s hard to choose just one photo so I’m choosing two :)

Minneapolis Institute of Art(Chihuly sculpture)

The clockmaker by Ivan Vasilievich Kliun. I never heard of him but I loved this painting.

I write restaurant reviews from time to time and here’s one I especially like, both the restaurant and the post. It was our first visit to Hell’s Kitchen and we really need to go back again!

I take part in several challenges, so here’s one of my favorites that was fairly popular. It was a dual challenge post for both the weekly photo challenge and the CBBH challenge. And the Chihuly ceiling and red velvet cake garnered the most comments so here they are again:

ceiling at the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas

I did some posts from downtown St. Paul. The skyways of St. Paul. I like this photo from that post:

When the weather was nicer I took some outdoor photos downtown. Here is Downtown St. Paul on the outside. The Peanuts sculptures were quite a hit with readers so here is one of those:

in downtown St. Paul

This was a fun post to snap photos for, Downtown St. Paul – the old and the new.

And who can forget the mighty storm that was the start of our summer last year? The same storm that knocked out power to 250,000 of us in the twin cities. I created a post about it to document our fun weekend without power :) The appropriately titled “another interesting weekend in the great white north”. We got creative and had bacon and eggs, cooked on our Coleman stove on the back step:

When life hands you lemons, you make vodka and tonics to get you through a weekend without power :)

Moving on through the summer I created a short post with the lovely iris from my garden:

Another photo challenge that was fairly popular was the one entitled Pink and this gorgeous pink bloom was part of that post:

I had a lot of fun creating this post on how to make paella and here is the end result, yum!

And then a few more photo challenges that were popular. Good morning, Unexpected and Family and a couple photos from these. My daughter’s clever apology:

And one from my family post. My mother’s family from 1939:

I also created a post about my favorite holiday Thanksgiving and one at Christmas time about my silly cat Fritz. Here’s Fritz enjoying Christmas presents:

Fritz loves Christmas

One other post I created contained many photos of my cats and it was fun to put together. And to round out the year I will end with our recent visit to a small art gallery on the University of Minnesota campus that we really enjoyed. Here’s a sample of the art there:

Once again, thank you to all of my followers. And to the bloggers that I follow as well where I get a lot of inspiration. You’re all fabulous! Here’s to another great year of blogging!

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February 24, 2013 · 9:51 pm

My first blogoversary and I’m late!

I had intended to write something for the anniversary of my blog’s first year of life. Alas, here I am, nearly a month late. My first post was 2/9/12 and I really had no idea what I was doing. Here it is in case you’re curious. A post about Madrid, the first foreign city that I visited. I lived there as a junior in college. I had wanted to create a blog for quite a long time. Then, one day when I had called in sick due to a migraine, I was lying on my couch and I decided to create this blog. I’ve had so much fun this past year creating posts and meeting so many interesting bloggers from around the world. I’ve loved every minute of it! Thank you to all my wonderful followers. I sure appreciate all the follows, great comments and likes, it is so humbling.

I thought I would highlight some my favorite posts from the last year and a photo or two as well. While this blog’s name has the word “travel” in it, I have touched on other things as well during the year. We won’t be travelling to far off places in the next year. Instead we plan to enjoy more of our local cultural events. I’ve already started on that and will point out a couple of those posts in my summary to follow. Without further ado, some of my favorite posts from the past year:

A post about Toledo, from our trip in March 2011:

Two different posts about the city in Spain I hope to retire to, Málaga. The first from our trip in 2010, the second from our trip in 2011:

A few posts about Madrid, one from our trip in March 2011 another, more of a nostalgia post and one of the Real Jardín Botánico:

Some others of Spain, the Real Alcázar in Sevilla, a post about our brief visit to Barcelona, and the Alhambra in Granada.

Entrance – Real Alcázar – Sevilla

Our visit to Córdoba:

Now, back to the U.S. I really enjoyed the National Automobile Museum in Reno last year. I also had great fun putting this post together(here’s John Wayne’s Corvette):

A couple of sunsets posts, one a collection of sunsets over the years at our cabin, the other from one particular evening last summer. I never tire of photographing sunsets:

11th Crow Wing Lake-Sun reflection and Dad and daughter reflecting on life

We went to southern California last fall and did a “bucket list” item from hubby’s list and spent several days at Disneyland. It was great fun and putting this post together was also fun(a photo of a photo from our room at the Disneyland hotel-Walt Disney and Sleeping Beauty’s castle):

A few challenges that I especially like. A challenge called “Urban”. One of my entries for Jakesprinter’s Sunday post: Autumn. And one other Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination(from the Fremont Street light show in Las Vegas):

Closer to home are a few more posts that I really like. These posts represent some of the great things we can take advantage of in the twin cities. We really love going to the Farmers’ Market in St. Paul as well as the State Fair every summer. More recently we went to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory and enjoyed some beautiful plants and flowers on a cold winter day. Another fun thing to do during the cold winter months is visit the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Head of a Woman by Joan Miro

Last but not least is something I wrote for a daily prompt. When I saw the theme I knew exactly what I would write and it didn’t take me long to put together. I think I like this post most of all because it’s about my favorite person, the light of my life.

Thanks to the many bloggers who offered advice and helped me along the way and from whom I have learned so much. I couldn’t possibly name you all. The entire year was such a great and rewarding learning experience. There are so many wonderful blogs out there and I feel that I’ve only just scratched the surface of all the blogosphere contains. But already I feel so much more enriched. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Here’s to another year of blogging!!