Cousin Karen, y'all!

the italian market - yay, almond paste!

karen and nola at our house

My cousin Karen and her husband Mark came to visit this weekend. Karen and I both grew up (until middle school) in New Jersey. Our families lived about an hour away from each other, so we got to see each other quite a bit. We both ended up moving away from NJ and she ended up in Texas by way of Tennessee. Needless to say, a visit from Karen is a special thing.

Karen has recently inspired me in a couple of ways. First, she's already run a half marathon and is training for another one in a couple of months. (Not to mention the fact that she teaches kick boxing, has 3 kids and works 4 days a week!) Second, she's a coupon queen but still feeds her family healthy food. She's the one who kick started my recent coupon assault when she sent me the link to Refund Cents

Anyway, my whole family came to Philly to have dinner with Karen, Mark and their friend Billie on Friday night. It was really fun to eat, drink, chat and laugh together. My sister Stacey stayed the night while my parents drove home so they could catch their flight to Ireland the next day.

On Saturday, the cousins (and Billie) went to the Italian Market in search of truly fresh almond paste for Karen's almond tartlets. Stacey and I had quite an adventure getting to their hotel - we nearly ran over Barak Obama on the way!!! Not really - we just got stuck in traffic and watched his 2 security helicopters hover over the street directly in front of us.

The Italian Market was fun, as usual. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm becoming a one trick pony with that excursion, though.....