Always lovely to see extended family at our 4th annual family reunion.
We took lots of professional photos which is a good thing because I realized as I drove away that I didn’t have a single photo from the event on my phone!
Except for my annual photo with this moose. (Or cow?) No relation.
To celebrate hitting 2,500 books read on Goodreads today, I thought it would be fun to revisit my Top 10 Favorite authors. I noticed an odd theme…
2. Georgette Heyer
3. Mary Stewart
4. Berta Ruck
5. Agatha Christie
6. Jean Webster
7. G.K. Chesterton
8. Dorothy L. Sayers
9. Helene Hanff
10. Elizabeth George Speare
In other words, you can narrow my favorite authors to the era of “they had photography but it wasn’t colored yet.”
My final days in Thailand left me feeling very loved by my church family.
It wasn’t necessarily anything specific…
Shopping, laughter, extra messages asking when I’m leaving or what my last days looked like.
But they made me feel loved and seen. I even got a shout out in church.
And though there isn’t a lot I would say I miss about Thailand, my church there is definitely one thing.
I cannot imagine the last few months without them. They became my family. ❤
Before I post them on here, I typically upload photos of my trip to Facebook. It goes like this:
Step 1: *squint at phone and click on a bunch of pictures*
Step 2: *upload pictures and then notice I chose a bunch of blurry ones*
Step 3: *delete blurry photos and try again*
Step 4: *repeat until successful*
Step 5: *share to Facebook*
Step 6: *realize I forgot to tag the right album and hurriedly delete everything*
Step 7: *begin Steps 1-4 again*
Step 8: *successfully share to Facebook*
Facebook then plays a game with me called, “How Many Inanimate Objects Can We Auto-Tag Your Face In.”
In other words, it tags me in every single picture. But it does not actually tag me. It claims I am a rock. A tree. A statute of Buddha. A cat. My friend Jasmine. So…
Step 9: *delete tag from every single picture*
Step 10: *retag the correct people*
Step 11: *admire correctly tagged photos*
Step 12: *review Steps 1-11 and question if I am actually a Millennial*
Next to the sunset cruise, the main recommendation Kaylie and I received for the Ultimate Krabi Tourist Experience was a trip to see the Tiger Cave Temple. Only 1,237 steps for a gorgeous 360-degree panoramic view of Krabi, we were told. A 1 hour hike tops, we were told. A must do, we were told.
Let me tell you how it went:
Yeah, not so well.
2 hours of climbing steep, steep stairs and questioning every life decision we ever made, we finally made it to the top. And it was gorgeous. But I’m still not sure it was worth all the sweat and misery! Still, you can now enjoy some pictures because we made the trek!
(a strangely threatening sign)
(only when we finally got down did I realize the statute at the start was flipping all of us suckers off)
It is the off season. That is the only way I can think of to describe why we got such a great deal on the amazing resort we stayed at in Krabi. But let me say, if you ever get the chance to visit Krabi, I recommend The Elements. It was smaller than we expected but that ended up being an advantage. The super friendly staff knew us by sight and were amazingly kind and helpful. The food was delicious. The pool amazing. And the view…well, there is a reason people call it paradise.
(Straight from the room to our private pool)
(If the place comes with toothbrushes, you know it is fancy)
The view:
I cannot express how beautiful our trip up into the mountains was. Here are just a few of my favorites pictures:
Though Mae Sod thought I might be popular with the locals, I solidly played third (or fourth…) fiddle to my travel companions. No one wanted to hear English when they could hear Chinese or Vietnamese for the first time! All the Karen people in the village were super kind and fed us mountain food. Mae Sod’s aunt lent us some Karen clothing, so we blended right in! 😉
On Sunday we attended church. The service was quite fun. We took communion with them, probably one of the most unique communions I’ve taken–English alphabet crackers and juice that tasted like bubble gum. The service was in Karen so I did not understand it but I recognized the melodies of some of the songs I heard. There were lots of songs. I don’t kid when I say maybe a dozen.
They asked us to introduce ourselves and speak a few words. We all considered our route up the mountain an adventure, but Phuc especially took it to heart. After introducing himself, he told the villagers: “You must have an amazing connection with Jesus. Where you live reminds me of Psalm 23. It is the shadow of the valley of death!”
Saturday evening we traveled into town to visit the local “store.” None of us realized what it was until Mae Sod’s uncle pulled the truck over and got out! (We all thought he just stopped to chat with friends.)
We apparently were highly entertaining, as the gentlemen sitting up front kept mimicking our English and laughing.
In their defense, we were taking a ridiculous number of pictures.
We also hiked about.
We arrived in Mae Sot around 7 am. Mae Sod’s cousin was waiting for us and we piled in the back of his pick up truck for a quick run to the grocery store and a much longer run up the mountain. It was a BLAST!
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