Emily who is 3 yrs old took this
Mike whistling with a blade of grass, acting out what he would do in an emergency-which was funny bc the whistle a blade of grass makes is more like a bird song than an emergency sound!


So how I love sharing life with other people...as I don't have a normal work schedule I have a lot of alone time, which I do love, but to be honest it can get a little lonely and boring, so I was so blessed to have been asked to babysit my neighbor and friend's daughter for two days of her spring break! I was truly blessed, we had a blast...first we biked for over an hour...I love how kids love to explore and that the little things are so exciting, like trying to find the tiniest bloom on the tree or throwing wishes into the river. Then we had a picnic in Central Park-for those of you who don't live here in New York...come in the Spring-its so special and romantic and amazing and happy here in the city! So we packed up lunches and headed to the park where we sat amongst tons of other sun seekers under a nice tree (it was 78 degrees...and after a long long winter this was so exciting!! Finally warm weather) and we played go fish while a sax player played music down the hill from us and tons of happy and laughing people biked, walked, skated danced by...such a quintessential NY moment. Then the next day we watched a girl movie "Ella Enchanted" and I set up a "professional" nail salon, and did her nails, I did a sea salt scrub a hand massage and even put gems in her nails..just like a real salon-oh and we had popcorn for breakfast. Then another picnic. Thank You Lord for such beautiful weather and for little friends! Oh I forgot we made home made ice cream too...we put on our aprons and everything..she said "This was the best Day ever" so sweet huh!

Marriage...how I love it!!!

So Mike and I were both in the kitchen last night (and we don't work in the kitchen together....its just us...we have two different ways of doing things...and thats fine) so he was getting ready to cook and I just wanted to put something in the fridge and he was like "why are you in the kitchen" and I am like "I just want to put this away it will take 1/2 a mila second" and he was like, and so seriously too, "I don't have half of a mila second" He wasn't mad just serious...and with that I sat on the kitchen floor and started laughing and laughing...I mean what is half of a mila second...and why half...and how hilarous that that tiny amount of time was so serious!!! Ahhh I love being married! So we both just stopped and started laughing at how silly we were!!

Ahh how I love love...Mike and I had an amazing weekend, it started off with friends at the brooklyn botanical gardens..and then sunday moved to church and explorations...we happened upon two street fairs, which took us to four different countries...eating food from around the world, and one street fair was full of free stuff, and everyone knows I love a free bee...so we had free icecream got a free tomato plant and a free starbucks coffee and three coupons for more free coffees and a frisby! WE racked in in! Then how sweet is my hubby he knows I love craft fairs and he was so excited to take me to one in Brooklyn, so it was awesome lots of cool stuff and for me, bc I am crafty, I got a lot of cool ideas! So there we were me and Mike, one of three men there :), at the "Bust" craft fair...(Bust is a magazine for "women who want to get things off their chests" basically a womans magazine)...isn't he awesome!!

We had such a full day that I soaked in the bath with a good book for like an hour when we got home! Oh I didnt mention that me of all people motivated my hubby to get up early before church to go for a run in the rain!!! It was soo fun, and gorgeous to be out with no one else out and the views...so funny! A tip for marriage, keep doing activities together!!!

Lattes, Hotties, and Spring

Here is a photo of the sweet and perfect latte, vanilla soy latte that is, that Mike made for me. I was a bit nervous as he likes STRONG coffee, and because soy can be watery, but it was perfect, full bodied, smooth, slightly sweetened and yummy!!! Even the foam was a nice texture. And to top it off he put it in this cute little cup.

I am sure you have wanted to see photos of us, as lately I have just been posting food...so here is my hubby...looking very modelesque so handsome and cute...we were going for a "mature yet cool scientist shot"

Oh and Spring has Sprung...we have a gorgeous line of Cherry Blossom trees near our home, and sat under them for a picnic as the weather reached a peak of 70 yesterday...finally...flip flops here I come. I got a little too ambitious bc I wore filp flops again today and it was back to cold.

Ok all signing off with love.

Photographing Rock Stars!? :)

So I have been photographing the Q conference and I am pretty proud of myself...it has been great fun, but a lot of work.
And in this I have been super blessed, I have had the opportunity to meet great people, Francis Collins, Chuck Colson (if you haven't heard of them wiki them) and I was able to photograph one of the leading rock bands of today, The Fray.
Here are a few picks from the intimate concert! Enjoy!!

Easter and thoughts...

Happy Easter!!!

What really stuck out to me this year in the Easter story, was in John 20, how Jesus chose to first reveal himself to Mary Magdeline, a (former) prostitute, and I love the intimate way she recogonized him not by his look, she thought he was the gardiner, but by the way he called her name..."Mary." The word says how he calls his own by name in John 10; How there are days that I wish in the stillness of my heart to hear my name too... "Misha." I am sure there are times he is calling out to me but I am just not listening...maybe like Mary I too need to be looking for him..as Paul writes..."Fix our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith."

Anyhow that part of the story touched me this year...and I was able to read it to some new friends who we brought Easter lunch to, and I think they too saw a glimpse of the deep love that God has for us individually.

So we had a different yet great Easter, it started with going to church with new friends, and how I love corporate worship; I love singing and praising the Lord with hundereds of others who love Him. Then we brought food to some friends, which was special. Then we met some friends for a late dessert...there is a group of us who have spent every holiday together (except Christmas, we are all usually home then) for the past year...so it was nice to end the night with them.

Oh and I made my first cake for Easter, it was a small goal of mine. Here in New York bakeries are everywhere and I hadn't thought of myself as a baker until recently-I have started baking for friends weekly-and every time that I pass those windows full of big cakes flowing with waves of white frosting on sweet cake plates I think "I want to do that." It seems so warm and inviting and old fashioned, to make a home made cake and have it resting on a cake plate ready for family and friends to partake of its goodness...anyhow so I made a carrot cake! It was amazing..though I have to work on the presentation...my frosting wasn't flowing across the cake as beautifully as I had imagined it would but hey it was my first time..and everyone loved it so in short success!

Oh and on another note last week Mike and I went to the Bronx Botanical Gardens for a "hike". There is an area of "natural forest" there, it is beautiful but funny that our hikes are now on a few acres of city land, anyhow we saw an old man feeding birds...he would hold out peanuts, and birds from the wild would come and pirch on his hand, of course I wanted to get in on this experience and prompted by Mike I began talking with this bird feeder and he proceeded to give me a few peanuts and showed me how to get the bird's attention...so there I was slowly waving my hand to these chirping creatures hiding in there trees and after a few false alarms, a sweet little bird pirched on my hand. I thought he would immediately take the food from my hand but he just stood there investigating me, looking at me in the face checking me out for a moment...it was a very special experience..I will post pics soon.

March Update!

Hey all,

I am a little over due with a new post, but here is a photo that I am proud to share, not so much bc of the photo itself but
of what is in the photo...my valentines day cookies, that I made from scratch from my own recipe! Over the past year I have really gotten into baking and after baking so much I combined a few recipe ideas together and created these raspberry linzer tarts, soo yummy! I made about 4 dozen total...lets just say that took some time.
Also about baking I made this past week some AMAZING pecan bars from a recipe from the barefoot contessa the only down side was that about 24 large bars consisted of 9 sticks of butter...wow so I chopped the bars into bit size pieces, I mean we calculated that each bar alone was 3 tbls of butter soo yum but who needs that tummy ache.
Ok and here is a beautiful photo of the one big snow we had in NYC 10 days ago, gorgeous right, and that's down the block from my home-infact from the very spot that many ny movies film the view from...Zoolander, the movie with Don Chedal and Adam Sandler and basically every movie that has a manhattan skyline..pretty nice huh.

Thoughts...

Hello everyone, its been awhile since we have or rather I have posted anything, and I realized that I get a bit bummed when I go to other blogs and find nothing new realized I should just post something!
So right now I am at home, getting ready to prepare for the first meeting for a women's bible study that I co-lead with a good friend. I am really excited about this as all of the women in the group are all good friends, and this time we have 9 women, compared to 4 last session. I know this will be a very fruitful time. We are reading Henri Nouwen's "The Return of the Prodigal Son" and so far I am realizing how we each carry qualities of the three; and although I often see myself as the older son relating to the "good kid", which is actually not a great thing-the older son was a son that did the right thing by duty but didn't truly see his fathers heart (if he had he would have rejoiced with him), I am actually often the prodigal in the rebellious sense, looking for things other than God himself that will satisfy my heart-that plays out in many ways each day, maybe its r trying to find my identity in some sort of career, or searching for validation from others-all those things are just idols in the way of the Lord. I am also learning and how the Lord longs for us to be both the returned prodigal, desperate for the true love of the Father and the Father alone, humbled before him, and the Father, a comfort to others (as a Christian the Lord says, his spirit is in us and with his spirit we can be an extension of God's heart here on earth)...hmmm...so that is that.

An another note I have been and am very prayerful about my photography career, currently I am working on two photo documentary projects which are exciting but until these take off and get turned into books etc.. I would love to get paid for my photography work-I would love your prayers on this one. Right now I have my resume out at two of the most influential human rights organizations-hopefully they will have a position for me-if not I trust that God is leading me in some direction-the hard thing is that often I only see the first few inches in front of me and am desperately wanting to see the next turn. But I know God better than that he desires for us to hold unto him and follow his lead, and in that position we are protected and secure and in the humble position we often see only the Father, which is his desire, but boy is that hard. I often want to see more. So pray for confidence in this time of waiting.

Here is one of my documentary photographs that I love-its a group of neighborhood kids on the basketball courts, where many kids spend all their time during warm months.