Cookie Party!

So we had an amazing night full of fun and excitement!
We had a Christmas cookie decorating party for friends in our building and we also had a few friends over in early celebration of Mike's 29th bday, so we also had a bday cake too-thanks Dawn!
As I was looking out at the cookie table at the seven joy filled children excitedly decorating their cookies, I thought how funny we are having a total kid party and we don't even have kids.
Well I guess until we do we will continue to enjoy blessing other people's kids-which is a joy to our hearts.
One of our neighbors Nell who is about 10 she came over early to help me prepare everything-thanks Nell!
Now we are preparing to go to California where friends and family await us-we can't wait!

THANKSGIVING

dressing the turkey
Good job Mike, he carved it after following the techiniques of an NYC butcher-online

I am so into decorations-I love cooking but the most fun part was creating the table. The vision was leaf cookie place makers, each individually scripted with every guests name. So the vision was challenged when the cookie cutter that I had went across town for went missing-it must have hoped to freedom on the F train-ahh I was soo bummed. But being the problem solver that I am I decided to fulfill the vision through a longer route-I hand cut each cookie into a leaf! So as you can see the results are soo cute! I attached a paper leaf on the back with a thanksgiving scripture and then why we were thankful for that person. I am mooshy too.
Jumping in and almost didn't make it!
Everyone thinks silly photos are the funniest but as you can see serious ones are hilarious!
another example of how hilarious we are
we just couldn't stop with the photos-too fun!
Mike with the girls...too cool!

It was a day of JOY!!!

I was so honored to host my friends this year. I love that friends anticipate me hosting holidays, it really blesses me that people feel home here. So Mike and I and three of some of my closest girl friends, Anna, Dawn and Kay, shared this special holiday, along with Umu and her two brothers. There was opposition against Umu and her family coming, after a conversation with the eldest brother and then Umu a few times she was allowed to come (as a conservative Muslim family they don't celebrate holidays, not even birthdays so sometimes events like this can be a point of discussion). So praise God she was here with her brothers, who are soo sweet.

We had a great time together filled with friendship, fun, laughter (always), and good food. It started off with Anna filming me cooking as I call it "free form style" then we ate amazing food. And then of course quickly moved to photo shoots as you will see, then we cuddled up on the couch and watched Elf moving into the Christmas spirit. It was so special to just be!

Then we went to the hospital down the street from our house and brought our new friends thanksgiving dinner (I had made double everything that day in preparation for this-I made four pies! Unfortunately no sweet potato pie as I learned was their staple, next time guys! :P ) The men there that we have grown to love so deeply are truly a joy to my heart-(there are a few that I have built a relationship with who have been living there for over a year, some even four years. I have been going weekly bringing them yummy treats and just sharing life with them). There in the hall of the hospital we ate and laughed and talked; one of the men shared a bit of his life's story-powerful. They especially loved the hand cut leaf cookies they said "Misha you went all out this time, how do you expect us to eat something so cute!"

I am filled overflowing with joy that the Lord has chosen me to be his physical hands and feet to this group of men that from the outside are so different from me-The Lord has a way of connecting people deeply. Please join us in covering our time with them in prayer.


So the day was soo blessed from beginning to end. I am thankful for the life the Lord has built for me, every detail of it!

Fall in New York-Central Park

Fall in New York...ahhh...and by the way do you know how much Mike and I like photo shoots!!!
We do! Or maybe me more than Mike:)

An intimate moment in the home of a legend!

Wow-

So we went to Corona, Queens today, to tour Louis Armstrong's house, the one he lived in the last 30 years of his life. I was determined to get there; I had the "vision" and although we weren't sure if we would make it for the last tour we made our journey there. I was feeling a bit bummed bc the journey was taking longer than we had hoped, a few of the trains weren't running their normal course, but I said "ok it was the vision and at least we can see a new neighborhood and Louis' house if not the tour".

So the Lord truly blessed us...

To our so special surprise we, after arriving 20 min after the last tour was supposed to have left, were warmly greeted by very enthusastic staff who genuinly loved their jobs working at "scatchmo's" house, and we were immediately introduced to 84 yr old Gale, Louis' wife Lucilles' best friend and neighbor; then they said they would love to take us on a tour! And to our great pleasure we were touring with only two other people--one who happened to be Louis Armstrong's great newfew, Ray!Although that may not seem like a close relation, it was. Ray's mother was "adopted" by Lucille, and raised by her, and Ray lived in the Armstrong home for a few years in his youth. As Ray said he and Louis were the only two guys in the house, and Louis would often take him upstairs to his den and teach him about jazz, other times Louis would sit at the piano while his aunt would sing before dinner, and other times Louis would step out of his den onto the balcony trumpeting for the neighborhood so that all the kids would know he was home. He was a people person they said, you knew you were loved when you were in his presence. So there we were Mike and I in Louis Armstrong's house with his own newfew. Funny because we have all listened to his music, danced to it...I mean "what a wonderful world", "give me a kiss to build a dream on..." and there we were absorbing the personal stories of his life from his newfew.

It was a rare intimate moment into the life of one of the greatest legends of all time-jazz great foundly known as "satchmo."
Truly special. At one point in the tour Ray began to cry; it had been his first time in that house since his aunt Lucille died 23 years ago. He was so excited to share his story and be apart of carrying the legacy of his uncle he kept saying "tell people you were here with Ray, aka. bull boy."

Well that was a blessing from God, reminding us he is in the details of our life!

Then we went and explored the nieghborhood a bit, quickly discovering it is "the mission" of nyc. There were some amazing Mexican, and Dominican cafes-one cafe even had pasole, and tamales and fresh tortillas. Lets just say Corona is so me and Mike.

Now we are home...you know what....listening to Satchmo!!!

Lots and Lots of Good Stuff!

Oh also the week after our arrival from our anniversary trip we had some dear friends visit-first Ellen Park a good friend from SF, then our friends from Tanzania, Africa, Patience and Peter Mitiminigi! We had a great time, it was there first time to NYC, and they loved it. I met them at their hotel and took them to Central Park, Upper West side for lunch, then to Times Square a short zip through China Town then to Ground Zero, which they were so excited to share with everyone back home, and to Battery Park to see the Satue of Liberty. By the end we were tired so Patience and I enjoyed conversation back at the hotel while the guys continued exploring.

It is amazing that we have such a strong bond to these people, bc the foundation of our friendship was a short two week visit to Tanzania last summer...but the Lord really binds people-they are kindered spirits. They are an encouragement-a story that touched our hearts was one about there son Precious we are guessing that the new one which is due in two months is going to be named Peace. Ok so an encouraging story is one about their son who is now 7 but at the time 5. One day at school all the kids and teachers started running bc they saw a posinoussnake but Precious ran to the snake with the scripture playing in his mind "you will kill snakes and they won't hurt you..." So he ran towards the snake and trampled it to death! Wow the faith of a child, as the Lord says, we need to come to him with that kind of faith-really holding him to his word...but with discernment! Way to go Precious!

Check out the photos, what an NY moment, Peter and Patience' first time on the subway and they were approached by singing Mariachi's!



Another recent and exciting thing has been my writing! I have found a lost love-the love I have for writing! In pursuit of developing my photography career I have published two articles with photos for our local paper-the Main Street Wire-the cool thing was that I thought I was volunteering, but then I recieved a small check! This is a photo that I took for an article on Thom Solokoski's Encampment, an art installation that was erected on the south point of Roosevelt Island. This image is of Yvonne, a woman who has been living at one of the island's hospitals for 13 years; she was pushed off of a train and lost her legs in the incident-now she dedicates her life to painting. She painted six paintings for this collaboration. Check out this article online at: http://www.nyc10044.com/wire2/2007/10/thom-sokolowskis-encapment-takes-walk.html



I have also had a few photo shoots, which is a huge blessing. After six months, I had three in one weekend! You will see the cute photo of the two year old I photographed-he was so excited in the begining but after a few shots he had a melt down, but don't worry God provided me with a large selection of images for his mother; the life of a two year old :) I am also working hard on my documentary project which you can visit through my website: www.mishacohenphotography.com clicking on "projects".

Love Falls on Vermont!!

And of course we went on a romantic surprise anniversary trip-thanks to my romantic Mike. This year was Vermont (in the begining we decided that we would go to a different state every anniversary and by the time we hit 50 years we would have experienced a bit of each state! Mike started this off by taking me to Orgeon the first year; so far we've celebrated in Orgeon, Cali, New Mexico and now Vermont)-ahh gorgeous and how good it felt to be in nature!

So some favorite things, the "quiet trail" nature walk, the hot tub under the stars, and all the food: the maple syrup making place, the cider mill-fresh cider!!!, choclate shop and ben and jerrys ice cream factory...so super fun, oh and mike's favorite the Burton shop-the birthplace of snowboarding.

Baking with Umu

A whirlwind of a month-the day after I arrived home from my fabulous visit I spent an amazing, festive afternoon with Umu making pumpkin bread and carving pumpkins. It was here first time baking and carving! It is such a joy to share my life with her.

Hilarious

The day after our friends left I took off for a trip to Cali, for my good friend Kate's wedding. We have been friends since 2nd grade when we were in browniew together but our friendship really developed in Highschool, people said her Baribe and I were attached at the hip...
More stories and photos to be posted soon

Another update-as the last one was over a month old. We have been doing alot!

About a month ago our good friends Britt and Niel came to visit us all the way from SF.
We are so hilarous when we are together and we did what we, Britt and I, thought was the most hilarous thing. We went to a vintage t-shirt shop and bought eachother funny shirts that we agreed we would all wear the next day. Lets just say Britt and I went for the over the top hilarious shirts. For her hubby I picked out a Backstreet Boys t-shirt, and Britt picked out American Idol's Clay Akin for Mike to strut the next day in! To our surprise when we unvield the gifts the guys were mortified. They had thought the game was to be fun not funny-so they got us sweet shirts, lets just say mine was carebears.haa haa!!! What a great visit we had!

Apple Picking

We had a blast a few weeks ago picking apples with our new friends Michael and Elizabeth-a young married Christian couple who actually live literally down the street. It has been so nice getting to know them and to just walk over for a bbq or a visit. This time we made our way to New Jersey for some fun! The apples really sparked some romance, and as you can see boys will be boys-they had to explode a few apples on the fence posts.

And for the final results….a rustic apple tart. Done all by hand, from stratch. I was really excited about this as I am more of a cook than a baker, and it was nice because we had our dear friends Matt and Teri over for dinner that night!It has been such a blessing to share this season of my life with my highschool friend Teri; who knew that two friends from bako would end up in the big apple.

City Kids

What have we been up?

Lots..

Enjoying the city for one. Here we are exploring our beautiful and wondrous city!
This morning we were out for an adventure in one of our favorite neighborhoods the West Village-and of course on this journey we had to do a mini photo shoot-look how handsome Mike is! We had a yummy brunch at the Owl (if your in NYC check it out).

Then here we are heading down to the San Geronimo Festival in Little Italy, to be honest I still don’t get the whole saint thing, but the festival was fun, there was a lot of good candy and interesting sites…some actually disturbing...we will get to this later.

Anyhow on our way to Little Italy we passed through China Town, I don’t know about you but the last thing I want to do is buy fish from these sidewalks-and look carefully at this next photo do you see my arguing with this vendor-so his fruit stand said 2 lbs of bananas for a dollar-and I was like yes!!! So because we were still adventuring through the city I only wanted what I could fit into my purse so I asked to buy 2 bananas and this guy said that it would be a dollar. Ok for those of you who know prices, that would be the most expensive bananas ever. I tried to explain to the guy that the sign said 2 pounds for a dollar not 2 bananas!!! But he wouldn’t listen, so I was out of there.

Ok lets take a vote-there is a way to set up voting on blogs, I will have to figure this out later..but talk about upsetting. ..

We were having a blast at the San Geronimo fest, walking through blocks and blocks of non-stop fun, then we turned and came upon a 19th century freak show booth-maybe I am naive or just a HUMAN being, but I though those were outlawed over one hundred years ago. OK actually I just wikipediaed it: “Today, freak shows are outlawed in a number of U.S. states,” I guess I am not soo extreme.

So there was this booth as you can see in the picture and an audio track announcing “Little Thumbelina, a real live woman, two feet tall, smallest woman alive, little Thumbelina” And I was like “Ok Mike they did not just say this, it’s probably a scam to get everyone’s buck and its probably like a little doll.”

So I had to go in, NOT to gawk at the smallest woman alive but to really see if in this day and age in, what ppl call the “center of the world,” New York city, where there is a huge concentration of non-profits and human rights groups, if right here in front of my eyes this could be real-that it could be acceptable to exploit a woman’s deformity/disability in this way.

So I gave this Caribbean man my dollar bill and walked behind the booth to find indeed a two foot tall woman sitting on a little chair propped up on a platform like a display. Wow it was unbelievable; it was true. I stopped and said, “Do you travel around doing this, do they think this is really ok, is this ok to you?” And she pointed to a sign that read, “ I am from the Caribbean and speak only a little bit of English.” Soon after I walked right back to the man collecting the money and said, “Are you her friend, do you think this is ok to exploit this woman in this way.” I wanted to go back in and take a photograph to somehow expose something that as the police later told me was “ a New York norm” and the man said “no my boss could fire us.” So I sent Mike back in with a scripture that I had happened to have in my pocket.

Wow…Even if that woman is ok with that, I mean she is there and she probably does make a ton of money, is it ok? How many of us have friends and family who do things that they choose to do but that is damaging to their body, mind, soul etc…All I can say is that is not ok-it is never ok to exploit a human being.

5 years!

Today is our 5 year anniversary!!!!!

I created a special gift for Mike-rather a few gifts (which by the way turned out amazingly, just as I had invisioned them-all praise to God really, because I wasn't exactly sure how to realize the vision, but he is in the details) -and upon doing so I came across this photo from our wedding day...wow what a special day, to enter into a life long union bound together with the Lord excited for the adventures ahead. I remember how happy we were and giddy. Celebrating with family and friends, on our day!!!

And now here we are five years later-from San Francisco to New York, we are in new soil expanding our roots deeper-growing more and more in the Lord and allowing his purposes to have his way in our lives-which has been exciting so many of our dreams are unfolding in unique ways!

It has been amazing to be apart of eachother's lives for soo long 9 years now!!! And to watch eachother grow and mature, and just the gift of being able to share so many amazing memories along the way. A special part of marriage has also been the added family-for me to be apart of the Cohen family and have more people who love me and know me and care about my life, and me there's.

I am blessed and honored to be Mike's wife-Thank you Aba Father for selecting such a special man to love me just as you desire. He is an amazing husband, with a servent's heart, a gentle nature and a strong spirit...and he is filled with million gifts and talents that are expressing themselves in new ways every day!!!!

I can't wait to see what the Lord would have for us in this new season-our fifth year of marriage!
(some are praying for a baby...especially mike....but don't hold your breath):)

P.S. for those of you who are wondering what we have been up to I will be posting some photos soon of our nyc adventures!!

CALIFORNIA-start at the bottom (my sisters grad)

Now for the final leg or our journey we spent time in San Francisco with friends and my sister.
First stop was lunch with Diana and Jill. Diana is a very good friend of mine and we used to meet weekly and go to lunch and coffee and walks, but now we just have to limit it to once a year:(. Jill is a friend from Cole Valley that I met when I first started working at the cafe.
Next was a visit with another baby-man this is the season :) This time it was Victoria's precious Paloma-which means dove, a perfect name, dove is the symbol of peace and the symbol of the spirit of God. She is definitely a blessing from God. Since I have known Victoria that has been her desire to fall in love and to be a mother-God answers prayers! She is doing great and will continue to be a great mom, she is super nurturing and present and fun and loving. I miss you Vic! :) Congrats Vic and Gary!
Then it was a fun filled weekend with Britt and Neil-we went to our fav restaurant fresca and unfortunately got served our favorite dish but burnt, so we returned it and the second one fixed our craving! Then it was up to the river for a party-how special that they through us a party with some of our friends from church. Thanks gusy. It was nice to see everyone and to catch up, eat good food-like pear pie, and canoe, and laugh our heads off. Ahh all I know is when me and that girl get together all we can do is laugh and the boys are always saying "all we can hear is you guys laughing your so loud." Don't worry that never stops us.
Of course we went to Cornerstone sun morn and it was good to get alot of hugs, and then we spent the day with my sister-we went to our traditional breakfast at the boulangerie and then for mani/pedis at lavande-It was soo good to see her, and yet a bit sad to realize how much you miss those little traditions, the reality that weekly has turned into yearly. But praise God for technology bc we always have text, cell phones and emails and oh blogs to keep up with everyone. So we also got to meet her new boyfriend. As a big sister I want to one day meet a man who just adores her and loves her as much as I do, so I am praying for her match.
So that is that, that was our adventure.
It feels good to be in NYC-you all can pray for me I am really pursuing photojournalism and am working on some of my own documentary projects, the Lord is really blessing the work of my hands, I am excited to see what he will do, I have a feeling God has a BIG surprise up his sleeve, and I am trying not to get discouraged in the waiting.

Straight from there we drove to Nana’s house in Palm Springs for quality time with the Cohen’s-lets just say I love palm springs, its so relaxing and I love being with family-and I love how nana treats me like I am one of her own-sitting on the couch together she took my hand and said “I don’t know why but I just love you.” Then we were off to LA for a few days of fun, lets say we experienced the LA trend “krav maga” basically a killer workout class, as steppo said I was walking like a penguin for three days. Again no pictures, I am a photographer but it takes so much focus that when I am doing other things I don't often like to take pictures. Oh here is one from our joint family lunch. I like when everyone gets together, its funny because we see everyone so much we forget that they never see eachother.
OH I FORGOT TO MENTION MY NEW HAIR CUT- so cute, and it was so a funny LA moment, the salon I got it cut at was the same salon the britany spears shaved her head at, random right?!

Then we made our way down to Long Beach to see our long time friends, from the college days, Mark and Missy and their little cutie Jordan, unfortunately we went crazy taking pictures just not with our camera. Then it was another UCI reunion, at our friend Knowlton’s wedding we were reconnected with our Campus Crusade friends-it was really special like a flash back to 1998-there were lots of memories and hugs. And here is a picture of us with Risa and Anders. I was super touched when after over 5 years of not having seen nor talked with each other, they said “we were hoping you would be here.”
That was a special night, congrats Knowlt and Lisa.

Then we were off to Bakersfield, and spent time with family and friends. As you can see in these photos, we got to spend time with Barbie and Justin's cutie Aubrey, who is turning one in about a week!-there is a much cuter picture of us together on barbs blog. And here we are with Kate, in high school everyone said we were attached at the hip; how time has flown by, now we are all married ladies starting family's (well kate is getting married and barb is the only one with a little one, but you get the point:) ).
Also we spent some time with Dustin and Angela long time friends that have known me since I was like 12-and after all these years we had our first double date-so sweet.
A highlight in Bako was when we went to the mountains, to this cabin my dad is working on, for a day of dirt biking-of course I tried the what they said was "safer" three wheeler-after I learned that they aren't produced anymore bc they are so dangerous I didn't feel so silly for almost running over my foot and down the mnt. But mike and my sisters had a blast, they flew up and down that horrendous dirt road for hours, I wish I had that kind of fearlessness. Mike came back with a "war wound" a huge scar from a fall, but boys will be boys.

CALIFORNIA

So we had a blessed and amazing time, from the five-hour delay on the runway and the 3am arrival in so cal to the goodbye in sf.
Really the 3am drive for 3 hours to Pismo was actually refreshing, Mike's license has expired so I was the driver-which was fun bc I hadn't driven in a year and I was finally in control-Mike never let me drive :)! We arrived at the Bako favorite Pismo Coast Village greeted by my family and cinnamon rolls. Then we were off to Emily’s ROTC graduation-basically boot camp for kids-intense, glad my parents didn’t hear about that when I was in high school! I can’t believe she is now in Highschool-ahh memories! And look how cute my grandma Ruby is in her hat-hi grandma!!!