I will definitely miss them. This time I didn’t underestimate the hot Florida sun and kept reapplying sunblock.

Awesome boating time, awesome friends, skinny dipping, girls daring my hubby to putmy bikini on, him actually doing it and modelling it for us, laughing till we’re snorting, trespassing, hitting massive waves, making dinner and crepes, eating italian ice cream and passing out from sheer exhaustion- that’s what Florida weekends are all about.

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LINKING UP WITH

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

On Friday my hubby and I took a 3 hour drive to Orlando to meet up with Teagan from Echoes of a Soul and her husband Scott. We had planned on taking a ton of pictures ( at least I had), but as it always happens with new bloggy friends, we just spent the whole time talking. We met at Islands of Adventure (where else?) and the first ride we rode got us so wet, so all our pictures featured wet hair and “peed on” clothes. Case in point below- first shot!

We tried to utilize every trash can in our way as a tripod for group shots. It got more difficult when we got to Dr Suess Land, since all the lines in the land of Dr Seuss are crooked.

And of course the trademark jump ( in my friend circle I am known as a jumping queen)

Showing some attitude here. Hubster spent half the time trying to get some work done on the iphone, so he’s completely out of it as you can see by most pictures.

Our favorite was of course Harry Potter land. We rode the ride and everyone loved it of course, had lunch at Three Broomsticks and dueled with/on the dragons and even had a taste of Butterbeer ( well, Teagan and Scott did, I decided not to waste calories…a decision I regret right at this moment, because nothing sounds better than Butterbeer right now)

The only straight trash can in the whole Dr Suess land means a jump…

or two.

Of course we got the usual “people staring” as we counted “1,2, jump” and pressed the remote button. I bet you some wondered who was taking a picture of us.

And what has become an obligatory SLURP shot for couples…

ever since I took this one a while ago.

So needless to say, we all had a lot of fun. The evenings was concluded by a dinner at Villa de Flora in Gaylord Palms, during which we spent, what had to have been, 3 hours disussing vegetarianism and veganism and nutrition in general. We pretty much got kicked out ( you know the time where everyone is gone and the servers are clearing tables and putting chair on top of the them). We were so involved into the conversation, we completely forgot about dessert. It was for the best though- we were all stuffed.

So that was a hugely fun day. I loved both Teagan and Scott and I am happy to know them in real life. My most favorite thing is meeting bloggy friends in real life ( 5 of my best friends were met through blogging and social networking) and I have to say Teagan was my first Selfie Magic bloggy friend that I can consider a friend in real life.

Girlie, I expect you and Scott to come stay with us in Naples as soon as we’re done with the whole baby making business haha

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LINKING UP TO:

I’ve been bad! I’ve been given a few awards and have neglected to act on them. So I’ll correct that by accepting the last award I got, the good ol’ trusty Stylist Blogger Award given to me by the lovely Dana from Wonder Forest. She also has a cute Etsy shop.

To accept this award the recipients are asked to do a few things.

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Award 10-15 blogs you feel deserve the award
   Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.There are so mnay bloggy friends that I have that I would love to give this award to, but I don’t want them to feel obligated to accept it, so I’d love to award it to those of my readers who haven’t received this award yet!

1. I was born and raised in Russia and moved to US when I was 18.
2. I used to model professionally and live the glamorous (not!) model  life in New York working runways, going to crazy after-parties and having careless fun
3. My husband and I are about to make a baby haha
4. I used to speak 3 foreign languages. Now it’s down to 2.
5. My husband is 15 years older than me, but no one guesses it because he looks like a rockstar! Yeah, baby!
6.  We eat insanely healthy. So much that our friends can’t stop bitching about it every time we eat together lol
7. I love self-portraiture photography because of the full freedom of expression and no limits. It’s the way I express my creativity. It was a sad time when I stopped taking selfies. I really need photography to mean something, rather than just be a picture of a person or a rock.

I feel like I’ve been gone for a century from this blog. Seriously! I must be that attatched to all you guys!

I have an update on Selfie Saturdays. Since I was such a sucky challenge host this week, I am going to extend last week’s theme “Magic tricks” till next week seeing as so many people might need extra time to get it done ( including me ).

So if you ran out of time last week, you have one more week- DO IT UP!
And if you have already submitted the image, YOU ROCK! And feel free to do it again!

Also this Saturday, I’d like to feature all of your best magic tricks, because they’re too good not to share with the world.
So if you are still working on your magic tricks, don’t forget to  link up your images  HERE

Now here’s what’s been keeping me busy this week:

• TAXES: 2 corporate returns, two schedule Cs, personal return, plus two amendments- all done manually by me ( yes, I know about TurboTax and such, but our returns are so complex most accountants screw it up, let alone a software catered to consumers)
• Universal with Teagan from Echoes of a Soul. Something I love more than blogging is making bloggy friends into real life friends. My favorite thing is meeting online people in real life. I met some of my best friends through different social networks and blogs, including my husband. (I’ll write about our meeting in a few days)
• Epcot and Boardwalk lunch with my mother-in-law and her boyfriend. While we were up in Orlando, we figured we’d spend some time with family too. {no pictures there, but it was a nice time}
• Sunday boat trip with friends. This is almost becoming a tradition! Hope it stays {pictures later}

About all of that later, because now THIS AWAITS ME!

Today will probably be the most interesting submission day EVER!
That makes it even more disappointing for me to miss it!  The sad thing is I have two ideas, both of which I intend on executing. They absolutely ROCK and I cannot wait to shoot them and see what you guys think. The truth is this week has been mad. I’ve complained about being bust before, but this week was truly insane. I’ve been working non-stop (12 hours a day) on our two corporate tax returns, 2 schedule Cs, NOL carrybacks and carryovers and a personal tax return, while learning tax laws and rules as I went.

So needless to say i had NO TIME to do a selfie during the week. Friday and Saturday is spent in Orlando meeting with my one of my favorite Selfie Magic reader, Teagan from Echoes of a Soul, so needless to say those two days are out as well. I finally finished taxes on Thursday at 11pm, and even came up with a magic trick selfie that would be perfect without day light, but with the packing for Orlando and sheer mental exhaustion from learning in 1 week what accountant’s learn in 4 years, I just simply couldn’t master the strength of staging not just a selfie but a MAGIC TRICK selfie.

I WILL shoot it once I get back, and you’re going to love it, but for now I have to be satisfied with all of your submissions. So make us all proud, let’s see what you’ve got!

Make sure to check out all the entry, because I suspect we will see some selfie brilliance this week!

This week’s tutorial will be slightly postponed as well until I get back ( Sunday or Monday). And I am aware that I haven’t commented on anyone’s blogs this week- I’ve been reading each and every one, and the commenting will resume upon my return.

So I’ll leave you now and will be checking all your submission on my IPhone!

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LINK UP!