Under the Sea

Right before Christmas we took a scuba diving trip to Cozumel, Mexico. Taylor and I are so addicted to scuba diving. One of our friends got these amazing underwater pictures and videos with his gopro.

Such a beautiful spotted eagle ray.

I LOVE the turtles!

The lion fish, very poisonous and invasive species.

SHARK!

Dive buddies

Selfie with Bruce the cameraman.

A green moray, you can hear me scream after I touch it.

So happy to be on the dive boat

Sometimes diving makes you hungry.

Scuba kiss

Our First (not second) Thanksgiving

Taylor and I have had a tradition from our first year of marriage called Second Thanksgiving. Since we always spent Thanksgiving with family or traveling, the following weekend we would buy a turkey on clearance and cook a whole Thanksgiving feast for the two of us. This way we could enjoy the leftovers every day for a week or two. But this 6 year long tradition has also been preparing us for our first time hosting Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, so I was so excited this year to finally host. I started grocery shopping two weeks in advance to prepare. However, we still ended up at the store 4 times the night before and the morning of Thanksgiving. I had failed to calculate the number of dishes I would need to cook all of the sides I wanted to, which led to the first trip to Target. Then came the dreadful over salting of the yams which required another trip to start that dish over, and then somehow we ran out of marshmallows! When all was said and done we had such an amazing meal with good friends and family and I can't wait to do it again.

We made the BEST mable, bacon turkey, courtesy of this recipe (here). And the gravy was even better. 

Couldn't have done it without my sous chef! 

Moby was so tired after attacking my poor sister's chihuahua all day.

Murphy hiding from the evil cat

We went to the park after dinner

And then enjoyed the Christmas lights

Confessions of a Bookworm

Being the bookworm that I am, last weekend was my 3rd trip to the Texas Book Festival in Austin. I look forward every year to going to hear authors speak about their book in the capital, and then getting to meet and have them sign my book. I am developing quite the book collection. (nerd alert!) It sometimes can be a double edged sword when you go to hear an author speak and they turn out to be real dud or jerk but it is still worth it when you find new great authors and books to read.

"But is it a true first edition, first printing?"

If you love all things books, you must visit The Book People in Austin.

 Team Vonnegut on the way to the book festival, yes that is a suitcase of books.

Standing room only.

Sexist bingo at the lit crawl.

We always have such a good time!

If you are looking for a book to read I highly recommend The Son by Phillip Meyer, he was at the book festival this year. The book was incredible and it was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize this year. It is an epic that spans 3 generations of family and 200 years in south Texas on the great frontier and subsequent oil boom. The book is very well written and has cowboys, Indians, even the Germans in Fredricksburg.  It was so fun to read about the characters drinking pearl beer when my grammie used to be their bookkeeper at the brewery in San Antonio. I can safely say I learned more about Texas history in this book than I did in my 12 years of Texas history in grade school and I could not put it down! (I must warn you there are a couple gory scenes between the Indians and Texan that stayed true to the history.)

Untouched Thailand

After visiting Cambodia, we flew to Chiang Mai where we began our three day guided tour through Northern Thailand. The tour company we used is called Untouched Thailand and specialized in taking you to sites tourists don't usually visits, including visiting two hill tribes.

Our first stop and the highlight of our trip was to an elephant sanctuary. First we were introduced to the elephants and fed them bananas. I had no idea elephants loved them so much, they would skip the hand you held one banana in and go for the whole bunch.

Next we rode the elephant down the hillside with some incredible views. 

 Bath time!

After the elephant sanctuary, we went to go visit the tigers. (I should add visiting tiger kingdom is optional, this was definitely not "untouched" as this is a major tourist attraction.)

Loved the babies but the big kitties were terrifying!

Next we explored a huge cave that also served as a Buddhist temple

Next we visited "no man's land" which is on on the border of Thialand and Myanmar. There are hill tribes with refugees from Myanmar, since they are not Thai citizens, the children cannot attend schools and they have no access to health care. We stopped on our way and bought lots of candy for the village kids. First they all lined up and then it turned into a frenzy, reminded me of a pinata.

We finished our day visiting a temple with a great view of the border. Here's the panoramic view from the temple. The view was so great, I did not even take one picture of the actual temple.

This was all just on day one of our three day tour. I'm tired just writing about it! I'll post the rest soon.