Tag: vacations

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Long overdue… When in Fayetteville, NC visit Habana Restaurant!

Last year for John’s birthday we headed down to Myrtle Beach, SC. We had never been and were looking forward to our “field trip” to celebrate J’s big day. I had bought a great package and was excited to take John to a completely different place than where we normally go.

We left DC early and stopped at a local place for breakfast on the outskirts of Fredericksburg. We were really excited about taking off on this vacation. I don’t know about you but if I get in a car for more than two hours that calls for a nap. John doesn’t think that is good but he understands LOL. I think my parents used to drive me around when I was a baby and could not go to sleep, so for me, being a passenger in the car equals falling asleep (yep snoring and all.)

After a few hours we we wanted to explore a bit more. We found ourselves in Fayetteville, NC and although I had a couple of friends living in the area and we were left to our own device since they could not hook up with us in such shot notice. But it was all good. We were ad-libbing our trip, as we normally do, except that we needed to get to SC by the next day when our reservations were set for. Ahhhh cute and comfy hotel -Hilton related, and J found an excellent Cuban Restaurant right there. If you stop at Fayetteville please do yourself a favor and visit “Habana Restaurant” you won’t regret it, it is a gem. When we arrived a very nice lady called “China” (pronounced: Cheena) greeted us and explained everything about the menu. She was so sweet and she helped us select from our drinks to appetizers to the entrees. What an amazing culinary experience. Mind you, we consider ourselves a bit savvy on the Latin or Cuban cuisine but this place was amazing. Everything is cooked fresh and the setting is very casual, but don’t let it fool you, the food is absolutely amazing.

  • Excellent Cuban cuisine in Fayetteville, NC
  • Bella ready to have a great meal
  • John after a short nap ready to enjoy a feast
  • Great way to start our vacay
  • Tostones rellenos con camarones! And Canastitas de ropa vieja! TDF (to die for)
  • These are the side dishes that came with the meal!

Quite frankly we had a very great time, the music was not too loud, the atmosphere was great and lo and behold we even got to meet the owner who graciously took pictures with John. He is a very humble man from Cuba, Miguel, who fancied cooking Cuban food all his life and now is the chef of his own restaurant. What a treat!

Needless to say our stop in Fayetteville was quite a success. We had breakfast at the hotel the following day, went to the pool and then left shortly before lunch down South to Myrtle Beach, our next destination to celebrate John’ birthday.

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The Joy Christmas Brings to Our Hearts

Yes, we have a new tradition since 2017. We take professionally made photos with Santa Claus and we don’t regret it for one minute. Last year even though it was a trial year we did it, we again had a beautiful session with my personal friend and professional photographer, Jess DeLaski. Of course I want to share them because we did not send Christmas cards, instead we took a three week trip to Panama to visit family and visit this wonderful place.

Santa has my heart!

John decided to buy the tickets and fly to Panama for Christmas. Our base was my brother and sister in law’s beautiful home and from there we visited a wonderful resort right next to the Panama Canal on the Pacific ocean. We could not have asked for a better time. Sun, breeze, love and fun.

Here are some of our photos:

  • John fooling around at the pool.
  • My brother and I
  • Friends like Fam
  • Having a grand time
  • Christmas Eve Kiss
  • La Vida Bella

Three weeks that went by so fast. It was the best time to be on this tropical country because Summer was setting in, which means warm during the day, sunny and bright, and cooler in the evenings. The perfect time indeed. So many places to see and beaches to be at, and for us, it was a much needed vacation time.

  • The Panama Hotel at Casco Antiguo
  • The Herrera Park at night with lights
  • Beautiful Colonia Building
  • Dreams resort Playa Bonita – a must!!!
  • Our view from the resort room
  • With my Daddy

So Christmas was very fun to say the least and warm. But that feeling of wonder was still there and that fun excitement that Santa would come to leave his presents as when we were kids was also there 😉 Life has its ups and downs and we took this high to celebrate that, life.

  • With my cousins Tito and Jay
  • Just Us
  • My brother and Annabel my wonderful sister in law
  • John, my soulmate

What a grand time. Thanking my John for all the effort he put into us having a wonderful time together and away from everything. “Just US” as we like to say even before the show appeared. And that is how our year ended!



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Summer Don’t Go

I know, summer in November? Well we had crazy year so when we took vacations it felt like summer, plus the weather definitely was mild. So here we go…

It seems like it was yesterday we planned to start this blog and then life happened LOL. But we’re baaack!

Last year we were so full of hope and looking forward to doing something together, like this blog which would be fun and light even though life can throw curve balls… but then we did not know what was lurking ahead. So we needed some time off to nurse ourselves back slowly into us, into our lives, as we knew it.

So here we are, back to life in semi slo-mo but not really able to catch up with Summer, and watching it go by in fast forward, so much things we did not get to do (like using my giant yellow duck pool float) and all of a sudden trying to understand that Fall is finally here. Heck no, we refuse to call it Fall yet because we are pretty much still in a Summer mood. So last Friday when Fall season was announced I found a pretty funny meme that explained exactly how perhaps we both felt.

So there you have it. Fall is here, we need to get with the program, soooo… since we could not even do a proper spring-cleaning this year we are preparing for a “much dreaded” fall-cleaning so we can feel renewed and kind of unburden the guilt for not doing it earlier. Yep, wait for our next blog post, we may post a picture or two.

In the meantime, stay out of trouble, we’ll try the same 😉