She placed the Moka coffee pot on the stove and lit the flame with steel blue hands. I'm sure those hands had been making coffee like this for decades. “Keep the flame low,” she said in her thick Italian accent, speaking slowly so the American could understand....
"Wait with Me for a while. I have much to tell you. You are walking along the path I have chosen for you. It is both a privileged and perilous way." - Jesus Calling by Sarah Young Jeff and I have been on the road for six weeks now - traveling, shooting, and...
In 2009, we celebrated in Venice. In 2010, we were traveling Southeast Asia. This year, we're riding scooters around our neighborhood in San Diego. It never seems to matter where we are or what we're doing. Valentine's Day has always made me fall in love all over...
Yes, we are officially in the middle of winter, but instead of dwelling on the cold weather, thick sweaters, muddy boots, and itchy scarves, I like to think of January and February as Wedding Inspiration Season. Right now, couples are in the thick of gathering...
Ally and Katie's destination wedding in Lucca, Italy, continued when everyone arrived at La Casa Gialla, a gorgeous villa surrounded by olive groves and drenched in warm evening breezes and sunshine. We absolutely loved the staff at La Casa Gialla. Not only did...
The inky sky melted around us as the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and soft clouds blanketed our heads as if tucking us in together for the best wedding of our lives. Between swigs of wine and laughter came trays of delicious Tuscan cuisine, the kind of food...
I realize I'm a day late, but just ask my friends - I'm the master of belated birthday wishes. And I'm also the master at Friends marathons, as my dear hubby found out yesterday. You see, we just had our very first real weekend to ourselves. You know, the kind of...
Sweet, wonderful, picture-perfect Lucca. If it's even possible - if I could drum up the energy to calculate everywhere that we have been in our lifetimes, all of the breathtaking corners of the world that we have seen even in just the last six months - I just may...
Coming home to a mountain of unopened mail after a long trip is not exactly the most welcoming picture I can imagine. In fact, upon our last return from a trip, Jeff and I walked straight past the stack of white envelopes placed neatly across our kitchen table,...
You can hear the roar of Trevi fountain before you ever see it. The winding alleys that lead up to the small piazza are filled with the sound of rushing water, laughing tourists, and anticipation. It isn't until you turn the final corner and face the monument that...
Starving, anxious, and exhausted, Jeff lurched our rental Mini Cooper into the grocery store's parking lot with me, carsick and slightly panicked, in the passenger seat. The tiny spaces and narrow lanes stared back at us, along with two old women, as Jeff...
I stared at the landscape from a tower above the Tuscan countryside. Olives, greens and yellows stretched over the mass of rolling hills like camouflage hugs the bicep of a soldier. Cypresses fingered the sky, bare grapevines scratched the air, and rays of sun...