The Lone-Hiker: Tony Conquers Franconia Ridge, NH

On vacation for a week in June, with his preggers wife unable to take more time off after their trip to Spain, Tony decided to go on a solo day hike adventure up to Franconia Ridge in New Hampshire. Though it started to rain almost exactly when he got there, and persisted until he finished - the lone hiker did not give up! With a ready-made walking stick awaiting him at the head of the trail (how perfect!), he made his way up the mountain.  Here's the proof:

View from the Kancamagus Highway.

The gear: complete with perfect walking stick.

Waterfalls on the ascent

The rainy mist hung around all day.

Finally - the summit!

Babymoon=SPAIN!!

Despite what I am sure will be a future full of amazing adventures with our little one, Tony and I couldn't resist one last international adventure together, sans bebé. So we were off again - this time: Spain! We split our 10 day trip across 3 different cities: Barcelona, San Sebastian (Donostia, in Basque), and Bilbao. We left Boston on April 30th and had a great ten day trip in an amazing country. I was about 22 weeks pregnant, which was the perfect time to travel.  My energy was back and I was ready to see the sights! In Barcelona we had a wonderful time walking through the beautiful old neighborhoods of El Born, El Ravel, Bari Gothic and of course we frequented the famous Ramblas pedestrian walking street. We visited La Sagrada Familia - still under construction after over a 100 years! - several other Gaudi buildings, including the famous Pedrera and took a sky-high gondola from Montjuic (where many of the Olympic events were held in 1992) down to the port side neighborhood of Barceloneta. We spent time wandering several incredible markets, including the famous Mercat de Sant Josep/La Boqueria off the Ramblas and a cheese and honey market in the Bari Gothic. And I can't forget all the delicious food we ate and cafes we visited - yum!

The exterior of Gaudi's famous Pedrera.

Me inside one of the incredible rooms of the Pedrera.

Then we had to say goodbye to Barcelona, get in our convertible Mini Cooper (!!) and head to Basque country, more specifically San Sebastian. It was a breath taking drive through the northern countryside to the beach-haven city of Donostia (Basque for San Sebastian). Though it was definitely not beach weather (during most of our trip the weather was actually unseasonably cold - averaging in the upper 50s and low 60s most days) - it was still a beautiful city to stroll around in. We saw the two famous sculptures, "Peine de los vientos" and "La Concha", that flank either side of the coastline; hiked up to the castle a top the Monte Igueldo with great views of the city below; and partook in the traditional Pintxos at dinner time (these are even smaller than the "tapas" size plates we got in Barcelona - they are no more than little appetizer type finger foods that are laid out at all the bars/cafes - while you could simply pull up a stool at one bar and spend the night tasting all their different Pintxos, most locals treat dinner as more of a pub crawl, having a little bite and a drink at one bar, and then moving on to the next place).

Our chariot! ( and Liz's dream car)

Tony by the harbor in Donostia - looking very Euro!

One of the beautiful beaches in Donostia.

From Donostia we made our way to Bilbao by way of the northern coastline - beautiful! We stopped for lunch in the surf haven of Mundaka, where we climbed down to the water and ate incredible bread and cheese amongst the rocky shoreline - oh and did I mention we were serenaded by a guitar player sitting above - heaven! Once we got to Bilbao we were set to meet up with my good friend Dorsey and her fiancé Javier. He is Spanish and they have been living in Madrid where he works for the Spanish Foreign service and she is going to business school.  It was so great that they flew up to Bilbao to share the weekend with us!  I hadn't seen her in years and was not going to be able to make their wedding as I would be in the last month of my pregnancy.  Needless to say, we all had a blast.  Javi had lived in Bilbao for some years as a child, so he was a great tour guide!  He also did some great research into the best Pintxos places - so we definitely ate well! On Saturday we spent the day at the world famous Guggenheim museum, designed by Millenium Park's own Frank Gehry. It really is a magnificent building. It was smaller inside than I thought it would be - but it had some really interesting exhibits: Anish Kapoor (another Millenium Park contributor - "Cloud Gate" aka "The Bean" is his piece),  a sculptural exhibit of work by Robert Rauschenberg, and a multi-artist Modern exhibit featuring the likes of DeKooning, Warhol and Rothko. Then, with Bilbao behind us we had to make our way back to Barcelona for our departure. Javi recommended stopping in the picturesque hill top town of Sos del Rey Católico on our way back.  It's where the famous King Ferdinand was born. It was stunning! It was the quintessential old medieval Spanish hilltop village - what a great suggestion to finish an amazing trip!

Our picturesque lunchtime view in Mundaka.

On route to Bilbao, an incredible little church stretched
out into the water off the northern coast.
Ask us about getting this shot - it was a blog entry in itself!

Gehry's incredible masterpiece!

Sos del Rey Católico - breathtaking!

Stratton

After years of renting a ski house in Stratton, VT, our good friends Jeremy, Tanveer and their family decided to invest in a place of their very own. So, now Tony and I have another wonderful place to visit in Vermont. We spent some really nice weekends together this winter - skiing, snowshoeing and eating! We also had a nice visit this spring after Jer and Tanu welcomed their own little munchkin, Peter. Mary and John came down for the day and we had a really nice picnic in the park and family dinner together. It's been great to see our good friends more often ( they live in Manhattan) and to get to know their family even better. Here's to more time with amazing friends in Vermont!

The family room at the new Ahmed Vermont getaway.

Our beautiful picnic setting this past May.

The Gemignani and Ahmed picnic at the lake!

Maine.. who knew you could ski somewhere other than VT!

This past January Tony and I decided to branch out with our east coast skiing and venture up to beautiful Maine. We cruised up, spent the first day in Portland, ME ( a city we love!) and then made our way up to Sugarloaf Mountain. It was a great trip, despite my less than stellar skiing ( I was 7 weeks pregnant, after all - who knew you could feel that exhausted!). But we made the most of it - had a great room right on the mountain with a wonderful view of the slopes - and had a great time investigating a new ski getaway option. It was a lot less crowded than many of the resorts in VT and the people were extremely nice! We will definitely visit again : )

(These pics are views from the window in our room, where we could jump on the lift right out side and be up the mountain in no time!)

Been a while...

So, needless to say, Tony and I have been VERY bad about keeping up with this blog over the past 9 months. We have definitely gone on many an adventure - so don't you worry - but one very BIG adventure started back in January, and thus the delinquent blogging began. What was this totally amazing, all encompassing adventure, you ask - well, it's the incredible journey of pregnancy and parenthood! We found out this past January that we were in fact going to embark on what will most likely be our greatest adventure of all. We are expecting this new addition sometime in the vicinity of September 16th - and thus I thought it prudent to at least get this blog up to snuff before the little one invades every last moment of our free time! So, even though the next few blogs are extrememly out of order, I hope you enjoy them and stay tuned for more adventures once the 'lil' Gem arrives!

(I'm 35 weeks pregnant in this pic!)

Hikin' in Hampshire

In mid-September, with the promise of fall in the air, Tony was dying to see some foliage. Being a native Vermonter, I think it just seemed wrong to wait for our "flat-lander" foliage - he needed to view the fall colors from the mountains. Seeing that it was still early in the season, we would need to go pretty far north - Massachusetts wasn't gonna cut it. So we set our sights on New Hampshire. And while getting up at the crack of dawn was not the high point of the day, the hike was well worth it. It was about 4.5 miles roundtrip and had a nice moderate terrain. It spanned two peaks, Mt. Percival and Mt. Morgan in a loop and had incredible views of the lakes in the distance. And even though the trees weren't quite turned - we still had a wonderful time getting out into the beautiful New England mountains.

Still pretty sleepy (me), we are at the trail head at 9:30am

(it's a 3 hour drive, you do the math!)

Our first look-out as we ascend Mt Percival. There's some orange!

Taking a water break on the trail.

Hiking up on the boulders trying to find the cave we needed to go through...

where is it??

A-ha! There's the yellow trail marker... how did we miss that??!!

In I come.. had to pass our backpacks through first... it was a tight squeeze!

Me and T on the summit of Mt. Percival.

The view from Mt. Percival.

On the way home we stopped in southern New Hampshire

for some quick apple picking. Yum!

An Ithaca Wedding Weekend

The nuptials of Sandy Nasrallah and Tom Whitlock sent us on a pilgrimage to Ithaca NY this past Labor Day weekend. Sandy and Tom were internal medicine residents with Tony in Chicago and now we are lucky to have them just 45 minutes north in Beantown. Well, Ithaca was just as advertised: "Gor-ges". We had a great time visiting with old friends from Chicago while we took in the beautiful scenery and the local libations (vino, vino, vino!).

After some wine tasting at Hosmer Vineyards, we headed to a look-out

over one of the many gorgeous waterfalls.

Michael, Valerie and Anat pose at the look-out.

Janice, Nate and little Asher take in the sunny views before

we all headed back to get ready for the big event!

Here comes the bride with her proud papa.

The reception was held in the beautiful white house in the background.

We were right on the shore of a small lake - and even had some boats

pull up to watch the ceremony.

After a great night of dancing (we all learned the Dabke, a traditional Lebanese dance

similar to the Hora, as it is done while linking arms and rotating around in a circle) -

we headed to the famous Ithaca Farmer's market on sunday morning.

It is a permanent structure filled with stalls selling everything from fresh produce to crafts to

hot food and drink. There were several musicians playing around the grounds as well.

Lauren and I pose outside the market by the lake.

Tony and Val do the same.