Last night was the first evening of this year’s Festival of Lights!
Image: RedKid.net

This year, bloggers from around b5Media’s Lifestyles, Health and Wellness channels are giving readers a special surprise. We’ve created a virtual mall to help ease the anxiety of shopping for those on your Christmas list who may be a little more difficult to buy for.

So, kick back and browse this year’s Holiday Gift Guide Shopping Extravaganza!
Cherie from Career and Kids has the perfect list for the business woman/working parent.
Mary Emma from One Book Two Book shares a suggest shopping list for the avid reader and artist on your list.
Everyone knows what to get a jewelry lover – but do you …read more

My family started this joke quite awhile back: Mike is a physicist who ends up mentoring younger people at work. He often referred to this aspect of his job as “turning them to the darkside.” Eventually Dani and I ended up calling him Darth Physicist.

Then one fateful evening at dinner, Dani and I decided that we needed darth names as well. She quickly selected Darth Humorous (which those who know her find very appropriate), and I ended up with Darth Pyro.
So, here’s the question: if you were a darth lord, what would your name be? …read more

As I said yesterday, we didn’t have a single bad food experience the entire time we were in Italy, but this beautiful little restaurant that we found near the Colosseum was by far the best! Found at 195 Via Cavour, L’Archetto is charming, and the food is amazing. Look for it if you’re ever in Rome…you will not be sorry!
Our server, Marco, suggested that we try the bruschetta, and we were not hard to convince. I’m so glad we did, too…it was absolutely delicious, everything that bruschetta should be, topped with fresh fresh fresh tomatoes, olive oil, …read more

I have to start by saying that we didn’t have a single bad experience with food in Rome, but several dishes stood out in my mind as exceptional!
Some of the appetizer and dessert dishes we had were so pretty:

Cheese plate

Fruit plate
Many of the main dishes were items that we’ve had at restaurants here in the States, but somehow they just seemed so much better there. Was it because of the atmosphere? The fresh handmade pasta? The fresher ingredients? The wine? Probably all of the above!

Sedanini alla Norcina

Cannelloni di Ricotta e …read more

After we left Venice, Mike and Dani and I traveled to fabulous Rome!
I got the biggest kick out of this scene! People don’t worry too much about the car traffic in some areas This street is not closed to cars, despite what it looks like:

My favorite thing about the entire visit was getting to see in person so many of the artworks that I’ve only seen in books. Michelangelo’s La Pieta is a particular favorite of mine. The list of what we saw was really endless, and I have many more treats from the various museums …read more