A Whole New World

I feel like I have to write this since the president has addressed this issue and God knows something must be done about the gun violence in this country. I am not a fan of guns but I am not a gun hater either. I grew up in Pennsylvania with a family that loved to hunt deer and sometimes pheasant ( I think more than anything they liked to go for a nice long walk in the woods). I grew up eating venison and never knew the difference. Guns were always locked up and they were only ever used during hunting season. We were always told that hand guns were lethal and to always stay away from them. When I was in college in the Washington D.C. area I realized how dangerous guns could be since certain parts of the city were so dangerous that the thought of going there was like entering into a war zone.  Later we moved to the Philadelphia area where gun violence seemed to be taking over parts of the city like in D.C. and getting into the hands of too many young people. I saw first hand the mural

 2015 was a big year of change for our family. We moved from the northeast to central Florida with 3 children and one of them was a baby at the time.  Tod is a patent attorney as many of my friends and family already know. He has been in the "patent business" for 19 years. His experience includes 6 years as an examiner at the U.S. PTO while attending law school at George Washington Law, 12 years in private practice,  to his current patent attorney day job for a major corporation . Over time we have been asked many questions about the patent industry in general. Women have come to us with fabulous ideas and questions more than anyone else.   One thing we have been thinking long and hard about is a new business venture. I have worn many hats since we have been married...wife, mom, teacher, event planner, Stella&Dot stylist and self-proclaimed fundraising guru for non-profits. We have always had the desire to help others; whether it be helping a friend raise money to get

     We were in the last corral. Although we had run a half marathon in February at Disney, Disney does not automatically keep track of those results. That would have been nice if they did, because we were in the last corral. Our fault, I get it, but still.  Crammed into the last corral, it took almost forty five minutes until we ultimately started.  The real challenge for most of the race was not the run itself but the people on the course.  Many of these people had already stopped running less than a mile into the race.  This left us running on the edges of the road off the main track or risking major collisions trying to weave in and out of the plodding "runners."                                                            Still we stuck together.  The course was still fun despite them cutting out the Animal Kingdom portion.  Hollywood Studios was especially fun because we first approached it from the backside of the Tower of Terror and then got to run through the Osbou

  This is part 1 of a 2 part post about the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. We ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon race. We thought it would be awesome. We were horribly wrong. We had previously ran the Half Princess marathon in February, so we were accustomed to some of the pitfalls of Disney runs (crowds and runners who seem completely unfit to run).                                                                 On paper the run seemed great. We run at 10 PM and end the evening in Epcot partaking in parts of the food and wine festival.  Our children were with their grandparents so we headed to the park just before six PM so that we could park and pick up the bus that would drop us at the Wide World of Sports area.  We arrived early, parked and headed to the park since we had some time.  We meandered around the park for a bit and then headed to the buses.  I contemplated placing our items in the storage lockers there but was unsure as to whether or not they would clear out the l

Dr. Phillips of Orlando is just minutes from Disney and home to the best restaurants of Orlando ( I should add hundreds of restaurants along Sand Lake Road). We are so fortunate to live less than 5 minutes from these fabulous eating establishments. Just a suggestion...if you are able to have a car at Disney...USE IT! Just a few of the fabulous places that offer amazing deals and lovely atmosphere are the following.... Roccos Tacos   https://www.roccostacos.com/  is known by the locals as one of THE places to go here. It is a large Mexican restaurant located on Sand Lake (we live off of this lake). The views are amazing and you can opt to sit inside or out. They have music just about every single night of the week. We stopped in on a Tuesday around 9pm and the place was packed. Tuesday night is all you can eat tacos. They also make killer margaritas (a pitcher is about $24).                                                                                                         On

So this is a little late but we wanted to share how this journey began. Tod was very unhappy at his job in private practice as an intellectual property attorney. He had desired an in-house council position for a very long time and a position at Siemens finally came along. In the early spring of 2015, we decided to take a leap of faith and accept the position in Orlando leaving everything else behind...the house, our families, everything that was comfortable in our lives. We have had many firsts this year....a brand new 3rd baby, a new job, a new state and new school. Change is always good although it's never easy. This video made by our son (with a lot of  the baby in the middle) speaks volumes.