The Story Of Us

As of lately I have been seeing a lot of posts on bringing new life to clothes and accessories with the magical properties of dye. And I was intrigued. But I didn't want to have the issue of accidentally dyeing my hands or my sink though I did manage to get a little of the dye on the inner drum of my dryer :( I also wanted this to be a zero cost project. I thought natural might be the way to go. So I started my search of everything I could use to dye my old white skirt. There was a lot of mention of plants that I hadn't heard of and was in no mood to go hunting.. I thought a purplish pink might be nice but I didn't want to waste berries. And then I stumbled upon Itty Bitty Impact Tonia suggested turmeric for a bright yellow and I couldn't think of a better color and an easier source of dye. Turmeric is something always found in my kitchen, perfect for my no cost project. Supplies: White Vinegar - for plant dyes or salt - for berry dyes. Turmeric

Hello Everyone.. hope you all had a lovely weekend celebrating your fathers and helping your little ones celebrate theirs.. our day started out with D waking up at 5am and snuggling into our bed. When we finally did roll out of bed we had breakfast at home.. Banana Walnut stuffed French Toast.. then we headed out to an indoor park south of Jersey.. We Skyped (a god sent) with out respective dads.. both continents away. D is now tired and wet and ready to go home..(as you can see from his above take-the-pic-quickly-so-we-can-get-out-of-this-cold-wet-place-bombarding-me-with-it's-surprise-splashes-n-squirts picture) He's not much of a thrill seeker, at present. We picked up some mangoes on the way home and grilled a few steaks and corn on the cob.. and called it a day.. what more could you want? How was you're weekend? What did you do to celebrate? Don't forget to read about our hilarious misadventures of last years Father's Day .. Get my post directly in you

We have had a road trip overload.. so I thought I'd give you all a little break with something sweet.. Halva  refers to many types of dense, sweet  confections , served across the Middle East, Sub - Continent and Africa, just to name a few. I know I don't talk about it much but while I was born and initially raised in Chicago I spent my pre-teens to early adulthood in my parents birth country Pakistan. No, not India and yes there is a difference. :) I met my wonderful husband there though he was in New York during our entire pre-wedded bliss epic long distance engagement era. (can you sense the drama? well drama there was)  I feel it is because I was lucky (though it didn't always feel that way) enough to spend a huge part of my life living in two vastly different countries that I was able to soak up the right amounts of each and bring it not only into our life and in the raising of D but also into my photography .  Wow.. now that was quite a sidetrack.. com

We arrived in DC early evening and checked into the very nice Savoy Suites in the Glover Park area. No complains with the hotel, very friendly people at the desk, they had a shuttle that ran every half hour to take you to the Metro and the driver Mustafa gave you his number so he can come for a pick up at other times too.. my only issue was that on our last day, during a D melt down we decided to come back to the room around 5ish and our room had yet to be cleaned.. 5pm is a late for a still messy room..but other than that I would stay here again. We freshened up and headed out for dinner.. at no more than a minutes walk was Surfside, a Mexican spot. A less commercial and gimmicky version of Chipotle. Good food, you order at the counter like in a fast food place, there were little color coded order forms for those who wanted to build their own plates or you pick off the chalkboard menu.  I had the Cabo San Lucas (above) and M had the Belize (below) The next morning we w

Leaving the Charmed City behind we made our way towards the Capital with some nature viewing on the way. Great Falls Park is a small National Service Park along the banks of the Potomac River. We stopped here just to take a look from the three overlooks though there was an abundance of activities to partake in. Kayaking, fishing, camping, picnicking just to name a few. Three beautiful overlooks, two pretty simple to walk to the first a bit rocky. Which was not a problem for us just made tossing D around a bit more dangerous.. The only negative was the long wait to get in. I head read about it online but I still didn't understand why we had needed to wait for almost an hour to get into the park.. It didn't seem that full once we got in..  Next stop DC. 

Towards the end of May we took a Tayeb Family Road Trip, we try to take one every year to different cities and towns each time.. we want to share our love for travel with D and hope he too grows a passion for it. If you take a look at the upper right side of the blog you will see a few of the places we have been to. Yes, just a few of the many places because I didn't start blogging about them back then. I had the blog but I wanted to keep my personal life separate and in doing that not only was no one interested in reading the blog but I also missed the opportunity to share my experience and now the details are all fuzzy. Never again. Coming back to the road trip, first stop Baltimore or the so called charm city.. which if I must be honest I found lacking. Our day and a half spent there was and is forgettable. There was only one shinning moment and I'll have to save that for the end. We started with lunch at the supposedly awesome Chap's Beef Pit just outside of Balt

I am very excited to announce that I am now offering sponsorship opportunities beginning with the month of June.. the month of D's birth :)  To learn more click on over to my Sponsor page.