It has been uncharacteristically warm here for the last few weeks, which means more fun times at the dog park…

That is two happy dogs right there.

We are also happy that she has been interacting more playfully with dogs on the same side of the fence. When we head up to NY for Christmas there will be three dogs in the house, Riesling, Jeter (yorkie) and Holly (cockapoo). Should be interesting!

We were recently saddened to find out that Restaurant Starlu, our favorite local restaurant, is closing before Christmas, so we decided to stop in for one last meal. I got my last taste of the amazing arancini appetizer, and of course we split a chocolate plate for dessert. Since Chef Sam is selling off the back of the wine list, Leandra got an early Christmas present in the form of a 1992 Phelps Insignia to be enjoyed at a later date.

In honor of one of Eric’s favorite signature burgers, Leandra made a double Boca burger layered with sharp cheddar cheese and wrapped in a puff pastry for dinner this evening.

Thanks for the great meals Sam, and we’re hoping you make a reappearance sooner rather then later…

(click picture for larger/readable version)

Flew into Buffalo on Friday afternoon, drove up to our friend’s place for lunch, then walked across the Rainbow Bridge into Canada to meet my dad and Lynn for dinner. The next morning we drove back into the US and out to Geneva, NY to start our multiple vineyard tour of the Finger Lakes. On Sunday morning, we drove from Hammondsport, NY back to Buffalo to catch our flights home (photo1, photo2).

Winery, restaurant, and B&B reviews coming up next. :)

Even with the drought we still have a few plants that have provided us some color late into November. For example, we planted hardy cyclamen several years ago, and they send up flowers every fall.

These are really winter plants- after they’re done flowering they’ll send out their leaves which will stick around until April or so. We’ve also got some traditional fall color, especially from my Japanese maple:

Clearly happy in its container on the patio.

The biggest surprise is our gerbera daisy:

We haven’t had a gerbera flower in several months, but after we got some rain a few weeks ago, “Fred” came back to life and started blooming. With a bit of mulch the gerberas will come back next year. Hopefully we’ll have a better balance of sun and rain in the next growing season for Fred and all the others!

White we are both fans of traditional candy bars, Southern Season has a wonderful and extensive collection of speciality chocolate. Here is one of our absolute favorites, milk chocolate with almonds and cinnamon…

We’ve been out of town quite a bit over the last few months and that trend will continue through Christmas. The good news is that we’ll be able to take her with us on a few of the trips… otherwise she stays at Camp Bow Wow.

The Camper Cam lets us know that she’s doing just fine. :)

We landed in Tampa this afternoon on a trip to both visit my grandmother and allow Eric to give a talk at Eckerd College (our alma mater) on Wednesday. We picked gram up for an early dinner around 5 and whisked her off to Bella Brava in downtown St. Pete. We really enjoyed ourselves the last time, so we figured it would be a great place to take her. Thankfully there was a parking spot right in front, so it was easy to get gram out of the car, into her wheelchair, and in the door.

All of our dinner’s were tasty—a margherita pizza for gram, gorgonzola gnocci for Eric, and lobster ravioli for me. We completely filled ourselves up with the fried dough dessert topped with caramelized pears and vanilla gelato. We washed all of this down with the only Riesling they had, Royal Rheingau, which was light and nicely priced.

Unfortunately it’s become more difficult to talk with gram because she tends to fixate on certain things and she repeats herself often. She is much better in person (opposed to over the phone) when we can steer the conversation to the current situation, and after all, she is 88 years old. We had a lovely dinner despite this (of course) and plan on visiting with her a few more times before we head home on Thursday.

We are back from our trip to Curaçao!

We have plenty of information and photos to share; I’m planning separate posts on snorkeling, the resort, food, and various other sites and adventures.

Here is a photo of our resort to get you warmed up. :)

The BCS rankings came out this week and we were not at all surprised to see the SEC conference boasting the most ranked teams.

In fact, the Eastern division has more ranked teams than all other conferences except the Big 12 (they have six total, while we have seven total).

We wish our UGA team was doing better this year, but in a conference like this one… 5-2 is not so bad. Of course, we have a bye week and then it’s onto Florida. Gulp.

We also wish that South Florida was around when we were at school a mere 36 miles away. Go Bulls!

The Office premiered last night and it was so worth the wait.

There were many funny lines including the above quote, Michael claiming that he was not superstitious but was more reasonably “slightly-stitious,” and Angela explaining how to deliver meds to her sick cat.

For more laughs, see what the cast did over the summer break by watching this 3 minute video on YouTube.