When in France, do as the French!

We did the best we could with our non English speaking waitress and our non French speaking selves lol. We knew what this was before ordering, but Sommer said bring it on.

Then when it came out this is the look she gave lol.

Still debating on it. Do you know what it is?

OK I might as well give it a shot she said.

OK that wasnt too bad. I will try the whole thing now.

Back Off! She said to Austin lol

And incase you hadn't guessed, it is sea snails lol. All of those were an appetizer.

She finally let Austin try one.

He wasn't too sure about it, but in the end he said he liked it.

This is what the little boogers look like out of their shells.

Hey mom try one she said! I was very skeptical, can't you tell haha.

OK better just get it over with or I won't do it.

It wasn't too bad, not as bad as I had expected that is for sure.

And Gary tried it, he put a little of the mayo mixture on his though.

He liked it too.

Sommer asked to take the rest of them home with her and the waitress thought she was crazy or something. Her and Gary both agreed they were better hot than they were cold. And yes Codey refused to try them at all.

Any way this was a cute little place on the river in a little village between Juno and Sword beach I think. I will know specifics when I look for the papers that we brought back. There was a fresh fish market right beside of it. Pictures to come soon from that too.
Sorry mom hope it didn't make you sick. Sommer just said we had to share them with ya'll. HAHA.

Paris!

These are as we watched night time fall.

This one is my favorite I think.

We went to France on the 25th of October. Spent 5 days in Normandy and then headed back to Paris for an additional 4 days. Here are a few night images of the Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower) that I took on our last evening there. I love the beautiful sky in these. Most had nothing done to them at all but cropping. I did boost the colors just a tad on the first but the majority are straight out of camera.
Hope you enjoy and I will post more about the trip soon.

Decided to play with this photo today while on break from my creativelive class and while waiting to hear back from a client about some birth announcements.
I took this image while in Sicily. We had just entered NAS Sigonella when it started storming. The light was bright and no rain yet so I jumped out of the car and started tracking the lightening. I was fortunate enough to catch one strike. Unfortunately within about 2 minutes of getting out of the car the bottom fell out. So it is nothing spectacular but I am happy that I finally captured some lightening. I have tried off and on for years. I hope with the rainy season upon us here in Naples that I can practice this even more.
So tell me what you think!

Mt. Etna

Man I can't believe it has been just over a month since I have posted anything. There has been lots going on though. G had surgery, the market playces oh and yeah our week long trip to Sicily. Here are just a couple of teasers from Mt Etna. We got to see her burp on the 28th of Sept. It was really a great thing to witness. I only wish I had gotten more shots. Unfortunately she started while we were having dinner in Catania apparently. As we were heading to our room, my middle ones said the mountain was on fire. And sure enough she was burping. By the time we got back to our room, which was a "perfect" few she was almost finished. But that was the one thing I had hoped out of the trip, and I got it so all in all even with the bad weather it was a pretty good trip. I will post more soon.

This was the view of her the morning she errupted. It had been raining and cloudy up until then so we weren't able to see her peaks until that morning.



And this was the only shot I got of the actual erruption. The rest are of the lava flow. These were taken from the balcony of the apartment we rented.

I had 2 photos picked in a contest for Italy

Just wanted to share for any of you who missed my share on Facebook yesterday. I entered a contest (was able to keep all rights to my photos etc...) never enter when you give up the copyright to your photos.

I had 2 of my 3 images submitted picked as a finalist in thecontest on Walks of Italy Blog. Unfortunately I didn't win the grand prize but that is ok. I won a discount code to use towards any of their tours. How cool is that? I am sure we will be able to take a couple of tours in our time left here and a discount makes it even better.
You can view all of the winning images along with my 2 here:

http://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/all-around-italy/announcing-the-winners-of-our-travel-photo-contest

This was the 3rd images I submitted. This is the view from Sorrento, Italy. Hope you enjoy.

Oh yes, yesterday at NSA Naples we had a Market Playce. Lots of vendors came out, I believe there were 16 of us and only in the second month! I think it is great that we can all represent our hobbies and businesses. I had great feed back about my photography, style and quality. Looking forward to working with some great people here in Naples!
So all in all yesterday was a great day!

Market finds

Some ladies had talked on Facebook about going to a Market that isn't too far from where we live. Gary and I got up at a decent time considering he is still on nights. We headed over and got there about 930am. We parked on the side of the road as we weren't sure exactly where it was but we knew we were there because of all the cars haha. Will have to post pics of the parking next time. Any way we made our way through, strolling along, at a fast leisurely pace cause it was HOT! If something jumped out at me I looked but for the most part we just wanted to see if it was worth going back to another time. Gary looked for a small shovel to use in the BBQ to get the ashes out. No luck there. I didn't know what I was looking for but I told him when I saw it I would know haha. Don't think he liked that too well. Any way we came upon this one vendor that had canning jars, so I asked how much in Italian. He wanted over 5E's a jar and that didn't include the lids. said no thanks. At the corner of his table on the ground in a bin I saw some glass bottles, again asked how much. He wanted 3E each or 3 for 5E. And so here are my 3 limoncello jars. On our last swipe through the fruit and veggie vendors were ready to pack up. I saw a crate of zucchinis left and asked how much again. I got an entire crate, 2 plastic grocery bags crammed full for 4E. and he tossed in 2 bananas also. So all in all I think it was a good day. We decided if we are just going to "look" we go early. If we are there to "bargain" shop we will go late morning, when they are ready to go home. Can't wait to venture out to another market soon.

1 Tequila, 2 Tequila, 3 Tequila, Floor....

The Navy paid for Darius Rucker to come out some of the Naval bases and put on a free concert. The kids and I got to go. Unfortunately, just like every other event, Gary had to work.

Darius put on a great show and we are thankful he took time out to come and play for us.
Thought I would share a few pics from the show.
Enjoy!