I confess to having 8 quilts, 10 hostess aprons, 9 saltcellars and 2 chandeliers from antique and thrift stores.  I simply love to stop into antique malls in small towns and to slip into thrift stores in big cities.  I still miss the huge thrift store in the Mission district of San Francisco. I don’t know of anywhere else that has fun and funky clothes sold by the pound.

My latest finds are 2 cut crystal coasters that were made to hold drinking glasses on a table.  I realized when I picked them up that old coasters are the perfect size to hold pillar candles.  My dining room table now has two beautiful and elegant candle holders that were just 2 dollars apiece.  My guess is that so few people use the crystal or silver coasters anymore that there isn’t much of a market for them… but as candle holders, they are perfect.

I always keep my eye out for old silver plate flatware.  I have a collection of mismatched forks, knives and spoons that I use for backyard parties. This is a fun and inexpensive item to buy at flea markets.  Since I haven’t tried to match patterns and simple buy a fork or knife here or there, I have quite a collection now.

Shopping must be in the air, because the thrift shops and antique stores are calling my name.  I guess it’s time to hunt for more crystal coasters.

We’ve all heard of a swarm of bees and a team of horses. But would you have guessed at a parcel of pigs or a mischief of mice? Well, my brother got me thinking about these fun sayings recently, and I simply had to find a few more. Here are some ….

Parliament of Owls
Mob of Kangaroos
Creep of Tortoises
Pod of Dolphins
Troop of Gorillas
Bed of Clams
Exaltation of Larks
Pride of Lions
Herd of Swans
Float of Crocodiles

The origin of these collective nouns, as they are really called, is uncertain but there is a bit of logic to them, they are often based on animal behavior. On a trip to the Virginia Safari Park I was thrilled to rub the noses of a flock of camels that all gathered around searching for treats. So the next time you are hiking through the woods and see a murder of crows, take a look at their behavior and see what you think.

Here’s a photo of a float of crocodiles from Cathy’s trip to Costa Rica-

I wonder what you call a group of hermit crabs?  I’d call them a scatter of hermit crabs!

Now is a perfect time to visit rose gardens throughout the United States. One of my favorite gardens is the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. When I bought my first house in California, it had a beautiful rose garden with roses that had huge rootstocks and many were as almost 40 years old. I had no idea how to take care of them and went to a pruning clinic at the San Jose garden. I learned a lot, met some great friends and ended up with beautiful roses in my home garden. I still go back to my old house in San Jose and check on my roses.

I also think rose gardens are great places to take those family holiday photos.

Here are a few you may want to visit -

McGill Rose Garden - Charlotte, NC

All-American Rose Garden - Hattiesburg, MS

Ben Lomond Historic Site & Rose Garden - Manassas, VA

Walnut Springs Memorial Rose Garden - Seguin, TX

Rose Garden at the FDR National Historic Site - Hyde Park, NY

Lucille E. Anderson Memorial Rose Garden - Saginaw, MI

I have a crab from Baltimore, a pink pig from South Carolina and L’Avenue des Champs Elysées from Paris. What are they? They are fabulously, tacky key chains. My excuse for buying these bad souvenirs? I need them, of course.

I live on a farm and we have many keys to the various machines, out buildings and locks. Like in many homes, the miscellaneous keys are tossed in a drawer all mixed up together. Normally this would be a problem, but I know that I mow with the crab, the carpenter’s level from a discovery museum opens the office and a luggage tag from Lost Mountain operates the truck.  I love to buy these travel souvenirs. It’s really nice to grab the keys to do some work and instantly be reminded of a great trip, even if the keys chain for the most famous street in Paris was from my friend’s trip. I can still dream.

Do you collect something special on your adventures? If so, what’s your favorite travel souvenir?

We are excited to announce that you can now find outings all across the country.

A Day’s Outing has been growing state by state over the last year.  We started in our home state of Virginia, and now we have reached the sunny shores of California.  Now when you’re looking for a fun day trip or a special vacation side trip, check out A Day’s Outing.  Now that we are nationwide, you’ll find outings wherever you go.

We would like to tip our hat to Chris Morancie and his development team for all their hard work.  It’s been quite a trip to get here and we’re glad they have been along for the ride.

Have fun!

We took a fabulous vacation last November back to Costa Rica. I loved all of the fresh fruit juices that were everywhere to drink. They were very light and not nearly as sickly sweet as most of the juices we have here. One of my favorites was watermelon agua fresca. As summer rolled around, I started to look for recipes. I blended a few recipes I found and here’s and easy way to make my new favorite summertime drink. You can adapt this many ways, the key is to infuse the water with fruit essence without turning it into a smoothie or slushy drink. My husband (who doesn’t like to see anything go to waste) came up with the fruit leather recipe below while thinking about ways we could use all of the pulp from the making the drink.

Watermelon Agua Fresca

1 Seedless Watermelon
2 Cups of Good Quality Limeade (I like Newman’s Own)
4 Cups of Water

Cut the watermelon flesh from the rind. In a blender, process half the watermelon pieces until smooth. Pour through a strainer into a pitcher. Repeat the process with the remaining melon. Set the strained pulp aside and below there is a recipe for a quick and easy homemade fruit leather. Add juice to a large pitcher, combine with water and limeade. You can add more limeade or water to taste.

Watermelon Agua Fresca Cocktail

This was a hit at a dinner I had for some friends recently. Follow all of the above steps. Add ice to a cocktail shaker, a shot of Ketel One Citroen Vodka, and the juice from above. Shake and pour into a tall glass. Garnish with a skewered watermelon ball and a lime wedge.

Watermelon Fruit Leather

Pulp from the Watermelon Agua Fresca above
¼ Cup of Superfine Sugar
1/8 Cup of Lemon Juice
Non-Stick Cooking Spray (Plain, mine was Sunflower Oil)

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees. Mix all of the above together. Very lightly spray a 9 X 13 baking pan with cooking oil. (tip- place the pan on the open door of you dishwasher before you spray and you’ll have no mess to clean up on your counter) Wipe up any excess oil. Pour the mixture from above into the pan, it should only be a very thin layer about 1/8 of an inch thick. Place in oven until the fruit is completely dried out and not at all sticky to the touch. In my oven on convection, this took about three hours. I think it would take about 4 ½ hours in a standard oven. When it has cooled, you can peel it out of the pan and cut into strips.

Last week we were fortunate to spend time along one of South Carolina’s many beautiful beaches with our good friends.  While the weather was a little hot, we had a wonderful time.  One of our entire groups favorite things to do was getting up bright and early and heading over to beautiful Huntington Beach State Park to go shelling and hunting sharks teeth.

We found if you went early, it was much cooler and you could look before most of the people got there.  Huntington Beach is stunning and many people come to enjoy it, especially on summer weekends.  The kids were in heaven hunting for their treasures.  They were running up and down the beach showing everyone what they found.  I was lucky enough to find a treasure trove that included two pristine tiny red olives, tiny welks and numerous augers.  I like the tiny shells because it is easier to make things from them.  An artist in our group also found beautiful architectural pieces she can use in the jewelry she makes.

We were also very careful to make sure we did not disturb any live shells or sand dollars, or shells with hermits in them.  Those hermits always pick the prettiest shells!  The welk below let us know he was very angry with us for picking him up by shooting water us.

My littlest and I are now looking to see what we can make from our treasures.  We are hoping to make something as fabulous as this!

We were the ultimate tourists in New York City — we took a horse drawn carriage ride through Central Park. Actually, only half the ride was really in Central Park, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

In Midtown Manhattan, the carriages line up along West 59th Street at the southern end of Central Park. It is quite a sight to see all the horses and the beautiful carriages in a row. Some of the drivers even dress up for the occasion with top hats and coats.

The carriage rides start at $40 for a twenty-minute ride. Even at that cost, we had a lovely time. The weather was amazing and it gave us a moment to relax during our adventures in the city that day. I did learn that if you take a carriage ride, you want to get into a carriage that is closer to 5th Avenue, near the Plaza Hotel. We made a mistake and choose a carriage closer to Central Park West, at Columbus Circle, which meant we rode half of our ride on the street with cars and only came through the park on our way back. If we had chosen a carriage closer to 5th Avenue, we would have ridden our whole ride in the park…. And really, that’s what a carriage ride through Central Park is all about.

I have found that sculpture gardens truly have something for everyone. I love how the artist’s work is presented in different settings. Sometimes the garden is quite formal with traditional water features or a knot garden made of herbs. Other times, the sculpture is displayed in large expanses of grass or in huge flowerbeds that enhance the art. I have noticed that my children really enjoy the fact that they are outside and that they can freely move about while seeing the artwork. There is something about the children’s energy and the art’s permanence that makes me enjoy the outing even more.

You can look for public sculpture gardens in city parks around the country, as well as sculpture collections in outdoor pavilions at art museums. There are also private sculpture collections that have been donated and preserved in their original garden settings. One of my favorites is Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

A sculpture garden is the perfect combination for the art lover and the gardener all rolled into one. Here are a few of the dozens of sculpture gardens around the country:

Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, SC

Bob Cage Sculpture Farm, South Boston, VA

City Sculpture Garden And Japanese Teahouse, Bethlehem, PA

Gilgal Sculpture Garden, Salt Lake City, UT

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Minneapolis, MN

Naser Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX

Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park, Hamilton, OH

Our whole family loves the Florida Keys, I hope to retire there one day with a boat. We have travel down at least once a year. Usually we drive and that way we can take all of our gear, fishing stuff, skim boards, etc. We have also taken the Autotrain down from Washington D.C. and you can read a review of that here. In the past, we have helped many of our friends with their vacation planning to the Keys and so I decided to finally go on and post my list of favorite places.  I would also like to say that I am not affiliated in any way with the places I am recommending.

These are as you drive down from Miami -

Sunshine Market on Tavernier Key - This Cuban gem is on the left as you are driving down to Key West in a yellow building. The coffee is wonderful and the to-go foods are great.

Home Away Islamorada/Tavernier Vacation House - We loved renting this house, it was beautifully decorated, had an amazing kitchen, we could park our boat right out front and the owner is a delight. We have rented several times through both Home Away and VRBO and we have had a great experience each time.

Islamorada Fish Company Restaurant at the huge Bass Pro Shop on Islamorada - The food is very good and it is a beautiful location to take photos at sunset. It is also fun when they feed the tarpon, grouper, and HUGE lemon sharks that come right up in the middle of the dockside restaurant to eat. The Bass Pro Shop is also amazing and they give great fishing advice.

Robbies of Islamorada- It is great spot to hire a fishing charter, go out on their night time party boat, and their largest attraction is allowing people to feed GIANT tarpon from their dock. There are also cute little open-air shops.

Indigo Reef and Coral Lagoon on Marathon- We love staying here too. You can park your boat right out in front of your townhouse, they are beautifully decorated, have wonderful linens and great kitchens. If you sign up for their emails you can get significantly discounted rates.

Bahia Honda State Park - This my daughter’s favorite place on earth! The beach is beautiful and one of the only real beaches in the Keys. It is perfect for skim boarding. The fishing from the jetty under the Seven-Mile Bridge is also fabulous!

Big Pine Key Deer Watching - You can almost always find some of the endangered tiny Key Deer on back roads at dusk.

On Key West -

Mangia Mangia - A restaurant with great Italian food that has been there since we honeymooned in 1993. It seems to be a little more of a local place and away from the craziness of Duval Street.

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park Beach - This another gem of a beach in the Keys. It is very clean and you can snorkel right from the beach.

Mel Fisher Treasure Museum - Who doesn’t love treasure? The Mel Fisher story is wonderful and well worth going to see first hand.

Truman Annex - The homes in the Truman Annex are the epitome of the Florida Keys to me. It is one of the most charming neighborhoods in the U.S.

Parrot Key Resort - These are great townhouse style vacation rentals that also have wonderful linens, great kitchens and are beautifully decorated.

The Mermaid & the Alligator B&B - This B&B is another great example of Key West architecture. We even stayed here on our honeymoon in 1993.