Northern India, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Nadiad

Hello Blog stalkers! Here is a brief update I will post details of the trip once I get back but I wanted to get some pictures up for those stalking the blog and waiting so patiently!
Mumbai - for a extremely huge city it is not at all metropolitan as we think of here in America. Right next to our hotel, The InterContinental was shack after shack. Here is the view we woke to in the morning after we arrived to Mumbai.

^The illegal homes are constructed on from random scraps the person collects. At anytime the "home" can be destroyed by the owner of the property.  

^ after being awakened by the Muslim call to prayer broadcast over loudspeakers, this was the sun rising in Mumbai.

Next we flew to Ahmedabad and traveled with hired drivers 1.5 hours to Nadiad. The city of Nadiad has hundreds of thousands of people but the infrastructure of a small village. Here are a few pictures from the area.

Above is the toilet in the women's restroom that was available at the Ahmedabad airport. I waited for the "western toilet" the only one with toilet paper.

^Gujarat

^A typical, non-congested street in Nadiad. Again, this is a 'small city'

^ One of the children at the orphanage we visited

^ They loved seeing their pictures on our cameras!

^Our room in the "guest house" at the hospital in Nadiad. The only hotel in town did not have bathrooms in the rooms so we opted to say in the resident quarters "guest house" instead.

^One of the beautiful flowers by the "guest house"

That's all for now... I'm going to bed I will trying to make another post soon about the next portion of our trip to southern India, Kerala.

Stay Tuned!

Thanksgiving & Preparing for India...

My parents came down to visit and celebrate an early thanksgiving with us November 13th. This was my attempt at making thanksgiving dinner.

This year their trip was filled (as it always is when they visit) with projects and more projects. This year my dad and Sol helped fix: our front door, areas where our soffit had rotted, our fence gate, our cars, and other small projects like floor trim around the house. My mom and I were busy sewing an Indian Kurti and a Salwar Kameez for me to wear for my trip to India.

Here is one of the finished products - Thanks Mom!

Some other items I will be needing for India:

GoGirl - so us ladies can pee more easily into the holes in the ground when we are out and about. Google "GoGirl" to get an idea what I'm talking about.

To go along with my 6 vaccinations - Lots of drugs!

Malaria drugs - well you can guess why
Papaya enzyme - to help digest the new and different foods
Prescription strength emergency stomach meds - again, Indian food
Over the counter stomach meds - are you getting the picture?

Oh and lets not forget the passport...

and my India Visa!
and the list goes on....

I leave Saturday morning for NYC and then we depart for India at 8:20pm. We will be arriving in Mumbai Sunday at 9pm! That's all I have to offer you for now. Keep checking, I will try to post a few pictures and updates while I'm there!
Oh, and call my husband, he might get bored during the 10 days I'm gone. Then again he might not :)

F is for FAIR, frog legs, freak shows, farm animals, and friends...

...and the best of all those Fs is FRIENDS! Gosh I'm cheesy, sorry. Anyways, back in October Jonas and Laura, two of our friends from college, came to visit us in Little Rock. Jonas is currently stationed in Enterprise, AL and has just graduated from his black hawk pilot training there (CONGRATS JONAS!). Laura is currently living in Memphis, and working at the University as a student activity coordinator. Since they were relatively close they made the drive so we could all be together one last time before Jonas moves away to his new base in Honolulu, HI!

Saturday we went to the Arkansas State Fair and we all got to share the southern fair experience with our friends. The fair offered a whole new level of people watching, the best and longest corndogs in the world, deep fried frog legs and did I mention awesome people watching? We ventured through the cow barns, visited with the goats, ducks and horses and watched the new born piglets as they  fought each other for a spot to eat.

After getting our fix of animals we decided to spend the extra three bucks on the freak show (which we were pretty sure was going to be a joke). After walking inside the tent I was immediately angry that I had given up three whole dollars to look at a bunch of mannequin replicas of freaks from the past. After all most of the people working inside the tent didn't look too much different from the people walking around the fair, that is until the show began. Once the freaks came out we got to see a man who swallowed everything from swords to light sabers then hammered a nail straight back into his head through his nostril. The show went on with a girl who climbed a ladder made of machetes, lifted heavy things with a chain attached to her tongue and girl who was able to juggle flaming batons and put them out and re-lit them with her mouth.

Here are a few pictures of our weekend adventures:

^Jonas and Laura eating the famous Corn Dogs

Below you will see the frog legs... Yes, they did eat them.

Me and Laura rating the "freak show" a thumbs down... Until the real freaks came out 

College Family Photo- We love you guys!

The Big 2-5 ! (Forgive the Cheesiness)

So today is Solomon's 25th birthday. Below is a picture of his favorite cake that I made for him. Yes, it's a dirt cake. :) I made him one the first year we were dating and have tried to make it a tradition every year since.

I don't have much to give him for a present but I thought I would list 25 reasons I'm thankful to have him as my husband:

1. He loves the Lord and to loves to serve the Lord
2. He knows who he is in Christ and is confident in his faith
3. He's caring
4. He loves me for me (all of me, yep, even the crappy stuff)
5. He's trustworthy (I trust him to make the best decision for us as a couple and I haven't been let down)
6. He is full of grace (I need a lot of grace)
7. He's helpful around the house
8. He is wise beyond his 25 years (but still knows when to ask for advice)
9. He is romantic (he doesn't miss an opportunity to give me flowers)
10. He has self control, and inspires me to have more self control too
11. He is forgiving
12. He puts me first (even when I am not deserving)
13. He is humble (he has a hard time when I try to tell him how amazing he is)
14. He's a great listener (as long as he's not playing a video game ;) )
15. He's loyal
16. He's willing to sacrifice of himself for me
17. He's honest
18. He never lets us go to bed angry (even if this means we are up all night)
19. He perseveres through difficult trials when I would have given up
20. He is generous to me and to others
21. He's hard working and always trying to improve
22. He is honest and willing to admit when he's made a mistake
23. He is sensitive to others needs
24. He has an amazing sense of humor
25. He knows how to show his love
26. He has a way of making any situation more comfortable
27. He can also intentionally make it uncomfortable for fun :) 
28. He makes it easy to respect him
29. He makes it easy to be thankful 
30. Sorry I guess have a few more than 25 but I'll stop now, but lastly, and most importantly, he makes me a better person (even when I don't want to be). To say I admire him would be an understatement.

So here's to Solomon and I hope that we get to celebrate at LEAST 50 more birthdays together with dirt cake!

A weekend in Dallas

To celebrate our three year anniversary, Solomon and I wanted to go on a little weekend getaway. When we were deciding we considered going to Branson, MO; Eureka Springs, AR; or Dallas, TX.

Here's a quick look into the past:
For our first anniversary we had celebrated in Memphis, TN for a weekend. We spent some time on Beale Street, checked out the National Civil Rights Museum, and Graceland.

Our second anniversary we spent a weekend in Hot Springs, AR. We toured bathhouse row, Hot Springs National Park, and the Hot Springs Mountain Tower.

After scouting things to do, we decided Dallas would have to most options and Solomon always loves to stay downtown in big cities (preferably on the highest floor possible). So Friday night right after work we hit the road and headed to Texas! It’s about a five hour drive so we eventually checked into the beautiful Sheraton Hotel downtown around 10:15 Friday night. As luck would have it, the hotel was very close to many of the activities we wanted to do and we got a room on the 32nd floor (Sol was thrilled).

Saturday morning we slept in late and eventually made it to a restaurant for our 1pm “brunch”. After fueling up on some Texas BBQ and taco salad we headed to the JFK 6th Floor Museum for our first history lesson of the trip. They won’t let you take pictures inside the museum so these are the only ones we have.

After the museum we headed back to the hotel to get dressed up and ready for a night out. Solomon knew I had wanted for a long time to go to a musical performance so he surprised me with tickets to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and to top it off they upgraded us to box seats which were more than double the price we paid for our tickets! We walked from our hotel through the arts district of downtown Dallas to the symphony and had dinner at the Opus Restaurant inside the symphony. The food was beyond amazing and that night the symphony was playing with the guest band Pink Martini. The band had all kinds of funny stories and jokes to go along with their songs. The entire night was truly amazing but I have to add that as the youngest couple there, at times we certainly felt out of place. The symphony doesn’t allow photography inside so again below is the extent of my photos.

After a late night at the symphony, we slept in late again. We checked out of our hotel and headed to find some lunch. We ended up eating at Gator’s Restaurant. I had the chicken and Sol was tempted to try the deep fried gator but opted for a burger instead. We reserved a spot for the 2pm Segway tour of historic downtown Dallas. After lunch we walked across the street to begin the Segway training. It’s definitely harder than it looks. We had a great time gliding around Dallas and we even managed to stay on the Segways without any accidents. However, the tour guide was not so lucky! Here are a few pictures from our tour.

Here are a few random pictures from our time wondering the streets of Dallas on our own and our first ever visit to Whataburger.

That's all of our Dallas trip. Stay tuned for more updates!

3 Years Summed Up In Pictures

Hello Blog world! We have been thinking about whether to begin blogging for a long time and finally we have decided this would be a good way to keep those important to us up to date on the latest and greatest in our lives. Here is a “quick” look at the last 3 years of our life through photos. (Click on photos to enlarge)


We were married at 6pm Friday Aug 24, 2007 at the Officer’s Club on Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland.

We then honeymooned for a week in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

After returning from our honeymoon we moved into our first apartment together! It was a small one bedroom apartment in Waite Park, MN. The only furniture in the whole apartment that hadn't been given to us was our $30 night stands. We lived there from September 2007-February 2008 while Sol finished his last semester at SCSU and Lacey worked as an assistant in the Ortho-Neuro-Rehab Unit at St. Cloud Hospital.

In January of 2008 after Sol graduated and interviewed for several jobs, we weighed our options and took a leap of faith and we both accepted positions at Nephropath in Little Rock, Arkansas.

At the end of February United Movers came and packed our small apartment into a tiny section of a semi. We actually moved into our apartment in AR on March 3, 2008. It was a slightly bigger two bedroom apartment close to our new workplace.

In September 2008, after settling into southern living, Sol gave into my pressure for a 'little one'. While I was away on a business trip, Sol rescued a 6 week old male Yorkie. We named him Butters after the Southpark character whose personality he shares. Throughout the early months we both wanted to give him away multiple times but we always ended up saying to each other "but he's so cute!" Everyday when we come come and he greets us we are very thankful we kept him.

Sol started grad school in the fall 2008 and I followed suit in Spring 2009. As if new jobs, a new state, a new pet, and grad school were not enough change to our newly married life, we took on another challenge and purchased our first home 'Friday the 13th' of March 2009.

The house was a foreclosure that needed an update from the wallpaper-loving days of the early 90s when it was built. Before we moved in with the help of friends and family we ripped out every inch of carpet, had new carpet put in, laid tile, laid hardwoods, and painted EVERY room.

After over a month of cosmetic changes and LOTS of cleaning we moved into our first house on April 25th 2009!

Since moving in we have done even more, repainting the master bath, entry, and office. (pictures to come soon) We have purchased living room and bedroom furniture too. We still have more projects planned that include replacing countertops, replacing worn bathroom floors, and painting the exterior of the house.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates on the latest and greatest in the Horn house!