Thailand

Just wanted to drop in and say that we've been gone without much access to internet for the last few weeks. Look forward to lots of updates when we get back home in EA in a few weeks!

Hope you are all doing well! 

We toured the King's Palace in Bangkok to celebrate my 27th birthday. 

It was pretty phenomenal. 

Vacation Recap {7}- Koh Lanta part 2

Last One.... 

Maybe I've procrastinated on posting this because I just want to hold onto every last drop of being there...

That's lame. 

We got back 6 weeks ago... 

My skin has returned back to a lovely shade of white and this all seems like a distant memory now. 

So here are the last of my favorite things/highlights from Koh Lanta. 

Fruit Shakes. 

Seriously- I think everyone had at least 2 a day everyday. 

By the time we left, we all knew what we would each order:

like Hannah always got Watermelon Coconut....

....and I always ordered Lemon. 

Seriously they tasted just like Fazolis Lemon Italian Ices and I think I drank like 30 of them in 11 days. It is quite possible that all of that acid did damage to my digestive system- and I'm okay with that. It was totally worth it. 

My Favorite Day:

We took a full day boat tour thing around the "Kohs" near Koh Lanta

Here is "James Bond Bay" where, as the name may indicate, part of one of the James Bond movies was filmed. Crystal clear water. 

We stopped here to go for a swim

And then headed to another island to eat lunch on the beach....

Spent some time snorkeling....

enjoyed shakes at Koh PhiPhi.....

who doesn't want to eat a coconut shake in a coconut!? 

... and in perfect "my worst nightmare" fashion, went to Monkey island. Fortunately there were enough crazy people with us to distract the monkeys that I was in the clear. 

It was a great day of lots of time on a boat with lots of friends and seeing lots of fun things. 

Our favorite restaurant "Slow Down"

I don't think I need to explain why....

This was my favorite meal on vacation. SO good. I had it 2 nights in a row. 

The last night we were there, they surprised us with this.....

and said, "Thank you come to Slow Down many time!" 

I will frequent any restaurant for free ice cream. 

And lets not forget the "Bisquick" sand at slow down either. Most definitely the softest sand I've put between my toes. 

The highlight of my trip was most certainly TONS of quality time with such wonderful friends. Jules coming was such a blessing, I got to know many people on a much deeper level, and I got to deepen relationships with some of the most treasured friends I've had. 

Like my sweet Anna Mo. She's like a long lost sister. 

I'm seriously so thankful for her. 

We spent hours walking up and down the beach having long heart to hearts. 

I'm still wondering how we lived in the same city for the last 2 years and didn't know it. 

Anna B has become such a sweet friend as well! 

I would gladly take time with these 2 ladies any day! 

And of course these 2 crazies.....

Who I love more and more everyday we spend together over here! 

And this sweet, wonderful friend. 

Brook has been a light and a half in my life over the last 9 months. 

I am SO thankful that she spent vacation with us and wish that she lived closer! 

She has acclimated well as a California girl with all us southerners. 

And as her shirt indicates, she is now an avid Kentucky Basketball fan. I'm just glad I can actually remember "California Polytechinc State University San Louis Obispo." I am now quite the "SLO" mustangs fan myself. 

We were SO sad to say good-bye after a wonderful month together! 

I still can't get over the fact that I got to spend my vacation in the "jungle" of Cambodia and on the beaches of Thailand. Seriously, SO blessed. 

Joyfully SO thankful,

Vacation Recap {6}- Koh Lanta part 1

In my mind I posted these a few weeks ago- I did upload the pictures almost a month ago, and have since forgot. Oh well, better late than never. 

Ah Koh Lanta. What I wouldn't give to be sitting on your WARM beaches right about now. 

So after Bangkok and Cha'am we headed to Cambodia for 5 days and then flew back to Thailand to park it in a beach chair for 11 days.... at least that is what MY intentions were. Adam spent at least half of his time under water breathing from an oxygen tank. 

This leg of the trip got off to an exciting start when I met up with this WONDERFUL friend in the Bangkok airport!

Jules has been a DEAR friend for the last 6 years. We met in Santa Cruz in 2005, and have been great friends since. We spent a lot of time in college traveling between North Carolina and Kentucky to see each other, and then I was honored to have her stand with me when we got married. In January of 2009, she moved to central Asia where she is still living now, and I hadn't seen her since then! We decided that 2 years was long enough and she just happen to also have some vacation time the first week of February, so 3 weeks before we arrived, she decided to join us for a week in Koh Lanta! It was most definitely a wonderful treat! 

Our wonderful tropical home-away-from-home for 11 days....

The Summer Lanta House

As I stated in my intentions, much of my time during the day was spent relaxing with friends on the beach.... either sitting in chairs reading and {mostly} chit-chatting....

taking long walks over long talks with great friends.....

or sitting in the wonderful Indian Ocean that only had little waves if any where we were, and was crystal clear. Perfect for sitting and talking. 

Some evenings after it cooled off a little, people played volleyball...

Or flamingo football.... What is this ridiculous game you might ask?

Full tackel football on the beach, guys vs. girls. 

Seems a little unfair, BUT the boys had to play with their feet taped together as seen here. 

Despite their handicap, they guys still won every game. It was definitely entertaining to watch- which is what I did. I have issues- as in I can't stand it- with sand being all over me, and there is no avoiding it in this game. 

Just before sunset, everyone ran to their rooms to shower and change in time to get back outside....

 to enjoy 11 of these.....

The sunsets were GORGEOUS and different every night. Most definitely a highlight for sure. 

 Lots and lots of sunset pictures were taken. 

Everyone then headed out to dinner at different places either on the beach or in town.  

This night was a highlight for sure. These 3 beautiful women are such a blessing to me. We had a wonderful dinner together and then taught some new friends from Norway to line dance.  

Then everyone came back to usually sit and talk. One afternoon a restaurant a few doors down from our hotel told us they wanted to have a dance party for us later that night. 

Always lots of fun to be had.

More highlights to come! 

Joyfully {sigh} reminiscing, 

Vacation Recap {1}- Bangkok & Cha'am

Okay so sorry for the delay! I have 1.5 GB of memory left on my computer, so loading pictures onto my computer from the camera was a little tricky AND I ran out of free room from blogger :( 

SO Here's the first of many posts from the last month.....

The first 2 weeks we spent in Bangkok and Cha'am Thailand. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures from these wonderful places because I was busy doing other {fantastic} things, but here are some of the highlights/my favorites from there.....

The Aquarium....

Always gotta love those aquariums! 

We got to see a shark feeding too. 

KRISPY KREAME! 

My fave. Mmmm sososo good. 

Starbucks. There were 2 in the mall next to our hotel in Bangkok.... I think I had one everyday we were there. 

Reuniting with a fei cheng hao peng you! (very, very good friend)

Brook and I met in Colorado this summer and became "fast friends". She has been such a dear friend this last semester, but unfortunately she lives on the other side of the country so I haven't been able to see her yet. So we loved seeing each other again AND she spent all of vacation with us :) 

It was wonderful. 

Thai massages.....

I REALLY loved these. I'm a massage snob and get them ALL the time at home. So I don't really love them in EA for many reasons, but I really loved them in Thailand. I had a few in Bangkok. We also had 3 or so in Cambodia..... they were not nearly as enjoyable. 

The weekend market. There is a HUGE- maybe the largest in the world?? Weekend market in Bangkok. They had AMAZING stuff there- anything you could imagine. I am kicking myself for not taking more pictures. But this was my favorite little booth there....

They had super cute dresses- I bought a teal and brown one that can do a few different things and I love it.

They also had really fun graphic tees.

Finally, I LOVED the fact that we had a conf. here.... on the beach. So wonderful. I loved spending time with the BG right here.

This place was fantastic, and I did enjoy having a conf. there, but it paled in comparison to the beach we spent 11 days on at the end of our trip.... so get excited. 

So that's all I have for the 1st half of our trip- sad I know. BUT I definitely have plenty from the rest of our time to make up for it. I definitely feel so blessed to be able to get to go to confs. and such at beautiful places like this. 

Joyfully refreshed,