We hope everyone is having a wonderful time with friends, family and loved ones! Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

-The Scappa Family



My Favorite is the turkey hiding
in the corn stalks! ------>

This year's trip to Dewey ended up being a bit of an interesting one since it started a little earlier than we initially expected. Let me explain...

For the past few of years we've booked the same week down at the beach so we can overlap with friends and family. But this year we kind of got our dates a little mixed up when booking our house. We didn't realize that we were off about a week until a couple of weeks prior. Luckily we've got great friends and family who came to the rescue and let us get things kicked off early. At first it felt a little gypsy'ish since we spent our first night in Dewey, then our second night in Salisbury, then back to Dewey....but in the end, it was a lot of fun. We were definitely happy that we left early and were able to see everyone and grateful for everyone's hospitality!

Here are some pics from the trip. All in all, we were again really pleased with Dewey's great empty beaches, Rehoboth's great restaurant options and a relaxing time at the beach together!

So to recap:
1) Got to see everyone despite mixing up our dates.
2) Felt a little like nomads.
3) Nico finally went into the ocean.
4) Won two baby ogres (need to say that in a Mike Myers voice) with the claw thingy on the boardwalk.
5) Ate big yummy crabs.
6) Olivia was disappointed to find out that she really can't breath underwater like a mermaid.
7) Saw a really cool red moon rising on the horizon.
8) I kinda got a sunburn.
9) Family had a great time.

I hope everyone had a great summer!

My eyes have been opened to a brand new cocktail that's not only refreshing, but remarkably tasty and can be drank at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now that's my kinda drink! ;)

Although I'd heard of a Pimm's Cup before, I'd never had the pleasure of actually trying one. That all changed this past weekend when we ventured downtown to have brunch at Founding Farmers in DC. I gotta say, the food was pretty tasty and the decor was warm and inviting. It was a fairly straightforward contemporary feel with a few fun and original touches, like puffy clouds hanging from the ceiling and cute animal sculptures throughout. The service was great and we all had a great time. I think Nico's french toast was the best order though. He got the New Orleans Style French Toast: House-made brioche soaked in vanilla cream and deep fried. They were amazingly crispy yet tender on the inside! He wasn't happy, but we skipped on the bananas and chocolate syrup toppers, just overkill. They were simply delicious.

Okay, so back to the drink. I'd originally heard of the Pimm's Cup as being a popular drink served at Wimbledon, but can't recall ever seeing one on a drink menu here locally. In any case, it makes for an exceptional alternative to the mimosa which can be a bit boring at times. The Pimm's Cup also has an interesting story and tradition behind it and it's not difficult to make, it's definitely well worth trying to make one at home! In fact, they were so good, I've already gone out and bought a bottle of Pimm's #1 and am now addicted! I'm definitely going to make a pitcher of these for our next party!

Recipes vary, but here's a quick and dirty method that gets the job done:

Add the following to a shaker:
1 cup Coarsely Crushed Ice,
2 oz Pimm's #1
2 oz Organic Lemonade(get the good organic stuff),
1/2 oz Fresh Lime Juice,
1/2 oz Agave Nectar/Simple Syrup(optional),
Shake thoroughly.

Top with:
1 oz Fancy Ginger Ale(don't skimp here either, really adds to the drink)
2 Slices of Cucumber
1 Sprig of Mint

Add straw, stir and get ready to find out what summertime in a glass tastes like!

The 4th this year was a true blast. Thanks to Facebook, Chris had reconnected with a really close friend that she'd lost touch with and hadn't seen in years. As it turns out, her family has a beautiful house right on the water outside of Annapolis and invited the fam down. Since the weather was just so perfect, it truly was a great experience seeing the Annapolis fireworks show over the water. The kids had a blast playing with the goats and chickens and won't stop asking to go back the "the party house"! Here are some pics.

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful 4th of July!

So let's start with the "Good". I finally went out and bought a new MacBook Pro! Wahoo, I'm really super excited! It's been something i've been putting of for over a year now. And with the recent unexpected refresh of the MBP line earlier this month that introduced a new speedy little 13", I'd been chompin at the bit for a new one! Yet even still, i'd still been trying to ride out my five year old G4 12" pushing it to it's limits! You know, I've just been tryin to keep financially responsible and all!

Which brings me to the "Bad". Now, I'm not talking about David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson or even Billy Mays. The "Bad" is that my old laptop kicked it last night...it's been a really tough time for me..:( Which brings me to the "Ugly".

Since I knew it was just a matter of time before my old G4 would surf it's last online wave, I bought an external drive to back up all of my family pics, videos, music and even applications. "So why is that 'Ugly' then, Mauro" you ask? Well because my computer actually died when performing my regularly scheduled backup. Which means, it partially overwrote my backup file on my external drive wiping most of my pics and applications! That's right, I lost over 3,000 pictures!! Luckily, I have a few online resources like this blog, flickr, shutterfly, facebook, dropbox and others, so I at least have low-res copies of some of my favorite pics. I was also able to find some lingering within folders that were somehow saved. But I essentially lost the last three years of parties/events, birthdays, vacations, holidays, excursions and more. What makes it so excruciating for me is that I had a back-up in place for this exact reason, and it failed.

So consider yourself warned, you can't rely on simple hardware for important information you can;t do without! Remember to always backup online as well!

We were lucky enough to have a friend of ours, and talented photographer, Kate Kress come over a couple of months ago and shoot some fun pics of he fam. She somehow hung in there through all of the 300+ pics. And to our surprise, she came out with some really great pics! Even while working around our two little animals, Chris and my lame modeling ability(really just me), I'm really not sure how she did it, but she seriously worked some magic! We're really happy with how they all turned out so if anyone's looking for family photographer, I've got a great referral for ya!

Here are some pics from Olivia's 5th Birthday Bash. We ended up having it at Jammin Java and she had her very own rock band, Rocknoceros! No, we didn't have it at our house or at a kids indoor gym or even a park or something, like normal parents would. Nope, she had a kids rock concert. It seemed a little much when we were actually booking it all, but after seeing the kids form a mosh pit and show their best moves on the dance floor, it was all worth it! :) It didn't take much, but after a little warming up, the kids finally got going and tore up the hardwood! It seemed that all the kids had a really great time!

A warm thank you to everyone for coming and making it such a special day!

To give you a little background on this video, Heather, Josh and Co.(fam) gave Nico this really cute book for his bday. You essentially have a child's picture printed inside as part of the book. So you send them a pic and they print it so it looks like he's one of the other children dressed in animal or bug costumes, ala Anne Geddes. Super cute and when he realized and it was him, he absolutely couldn't put it down! Thanks for the awesome gift guys! As you'll see, clearly he couldn't get enough!:)

We had a small get together for family this past weekend to celebrate Nico's second birthday. Here's a quick video on the morning of as I went over the guest list with Nico. I'll post some other pics of the party soon. They grow up so fast, don't they!?

As you'll see, we don't have too many pics from xmas. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera when we celebrated with Chris' side of the fam in Salisbury. Then we missed xmas eve dinner with my fam because Olivia had some stomach thing happening and we ended up spending xmas eve at the hospital(Olivia's fine). So all we have are a few pics from olivia's school recital, a trip to see santa with the Schneiders and from xmas day. Even though we don't have the pics to prove it, this was one of the best Christmas' yet.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and happy New Years!