Becky's photoblog

I see lots of really pretty flowers on my walks to and from work.

After dinner, we took a scenic drive up through the Blue Ridge Parkway and watched a gorgeous memorable sunset over the mountains. Lots of great photos ops 🙂

Blue Ridge Parkway sunset – June 11, 2016 from BeckyDD on Vimeo.

Becca took us to one of her favorite places to walk … we walked the whole way around Beaver Lake, then wandered through the bird sanctuary before heading back to the house to relax.

Fancy chocolate buffet at the Langham Hotel … a very sweet birthday treat for me and mom!

Long long week getting ready for commencement, followed a nice cocktail and a good meal on the Canary Square patio

A colleague sent me flowers that match my office beautifully!!

I finally got the chance to pop over to the Gardner Museum since they started allowing visitors to go inside the greenhouse, not just look in through the glass corridor. It was such a wonderful treat to smell the flowers and get right up close to see all of the beautiful details.

Photos from two weekends volunteering at the Gardner Museum

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Incredible colors at an awesome grocery store

Because it’s cold out there 🙂

I love my new coloring book 🙂

I got lots of amazing Christmas presents, and here’s one of them …. my soon-to-be brother-in-law got me a Leaning Tower of Pisa to put together. I love little art projects like this, and it was really well-made so it was a lot of fun to put together!

The pasta maker is still set up on the counter so what was I supposed to do? I took a break from playing with my new coloring book to make butternut squash ravioli, and it was delicious!

I love making butternut squash risotto, but you only need a little bit of butternut squash for that … what to do with the rest of the squash? I’ve been meaning to find a use for the hand-blender that’s taking up space in our pantry so I made my first butternut squash soup! I used a recipe that called for just the right amount of ginger, plus a dollop of sour cream to round out the flavors, and of course it needs to be garnished with cinnamon. Absolutely delicious!

Brian’s not a huge fan of pine nuts, but we both love basil, so I broke out the pasta maker for a batch of fresh fettuccine, and tried out a recipe for basil walnut pesto. Pretty good! Definitely nuttier and a grittier texture than a pine nut pesto, so it needed more olive oil. Might need to try cashews next …

On Christmas Eve, Brian took over the kitchen to make an incredible chicken pot pie for dinner, and a delicious bread pudding for dessert. He used to make his bread pudding all the time when he was younger, so his mom and sister were very pleasantly surprised to enjoy an old favorite dish!