Throwback Thursday

I am implementing a new tactic to keep me posting more regularly.  I shall call it "Throwback Thursday."  This was actually inspired by a recent Facebook posting by my lovely ex-roomie, Miss Keri Jewell, of a photo of me, her, and Katie snowboarding about 2 years ago.  It made me all nostalgic, so I thought it would be fun if every Thursday I posted an "old" photo that I love and relive some of those fun memories with y'all :)

This inaugural Throwback Thursday picture comes from the glorious year of 2007, when the mingos decided that we should dress up like "Saved By The Bell" for Halloween.

Yep.  Nailed it.

AP

My semi-traditional Thanksgiving

Oh Turkey Day.... one of my favorites!  Ah, who are we kidding...everything is pretty much my favorite.

Anyway, this year's Thanksgiving was probably my second favorite one ever.  My favorite was a beautiful one spent at the beach with my family a few years ago at the below table dining on turkey and oysters (and it was the last time I was actually home for Thanksgiving).

As much as I missed my family and my NC and MI friends this year, I had a blast with Landon and all of my CA friends.  Here is where the "semi-traditional" part comes in.  I hosted 22 people at my house this year.  3 of us were born in the United States.  That's right.  Three.  Including Landon and myself.  Here was this year's Thanksgiving by the numbers:

1 - 24 lb turkey (which I cooked myself for the first time ever!  Can I get a woot-woot?)
22 - friends present
 6 - countries represented (Colombia, Germany, Ecuador, Paraguay, Spain, United States) (and a lot of Spanish spoken!)
7 - first-timers to this holiday
And too much wine to count the bottles!

As per the nature of this holiday, there was SO MUCH FOOD!  But again, it was a semi-traditional Thanksgiving.  Meaning that I provided the staples of this country (turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, creamed collard greens, biscuits, gravy, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie) and my Colombian/German/Ecuadorian/Paraguay....ians?/Spaniards provided a whole mess of delicious food from their countries that I can't even pronounce/remember.  And ceviche.  Which I love.  It. Was. Awesome.

I am so thankful for these wonderful people in my life, and so thankful that we could be together on such a wonderful holiday!  They were a great "fake family" for the day :)  And I am so, SO thankful that I could be with Landon since I won't get to see him over Christmas.

Home fry's turkey day even got to start off with a little surfing.  How bout them apples for non-traditional, eh?

Now, I'm no food-blogger (which means I don't take good food pictures, as CLEARLY evidenced by the below photos), but that is a fine-lookin' bird, if I do say so myself!

Sylvana and Luci breaking the wishbone on their first Thanksgiving!  They didn't really understand this concept.... ha.

Also, since I have no counter space, all tables were pretty much occupied and we ate on the floor.... Japanese style!  Don't tell Martha Stewart or Southern Living.

TTFN!

AP

Food for thought:
A train is the dumbest way to die
Thank a farmer for your food
Zombies in real life...er...nature

Canyoneering, anyone?

You know what one of the best parts about having a long-distance relationship is???? (side bar:  yes, there really are good things about long-distance relationships!)  When you get to see your honey, there are usually grand adventures involved, especially if you are meeting somewhere in the middle.

Landon travels quite a bit for his job, so we sometimes get to meet in fun places, like Colorado, or, most recently, Nevada.  Not quite "in the middle," but when his job sends him to Las Vegas for work, I am most definitely willing to take advantage and drive out to see him!

It wasn't the most organized trip on my part, but it was certainly a ton of fun.  On Friday night we stayed in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel and Casino and did the fancy city deal. I got to meet all of his work buddies and bosses (so nice to put faces with names finally!) at their Black Jack Tournament and we got to enjoy all of the lights and sights that Vegas has to offer (Elvis included)!

Saturday dawned bright and early and we said adios to the city and headed out to do some camping and hiking.  We originally had our sights set on Zion National Park, my absolute favorite National Park, which is only about 2.5 hours away from Vegas.  The last time I was there was when Daddy and I stopped to camp there during our drive across the country during the move from NC to CA.

But Zion had different plans and decided to dump 2 feet of snow on the ground the day of our planned visit.  Neither of us felt like camping in a snow storm and freezing temperatures, so we changed our route and headed for the high desert outside of Las Vegas instead.

After a few wrong turns (and an accidental drive across the Hoover Dam....) we enjoyed a beautiful canyon hike down to the Gold Strike Hot Springs.  This hike was absolutely a challenge, and was super fun.  Lots of difficult and tricky climbs up and down steep boulders and canyon faces, but the hot springs at the bottom were SO worth the trip!  It is so amazing to me how they just bubble up out the ground out of nowhere and form a natural bath tub!!!  However, we didn't bring bathing suits, and didn't want to sit in the biggest tub with a really creepy mountain man naked, so we just enjoyed the hot springs as we passed by.

We headed to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to camp for the night and caught a breathtakingly beautiful sunset on the way.

I have always loved the desert.  I think it is such a beautiful place, so full of color.  And so full of animals and plant life that are so amazingly tough and hardy!  Like this coyote (can you see him??)

After a beautiful sunrise on our secluded little canyon ledge, we did some more visiting around the Lake Mead area, then headed back into Vegas for a good lunch at Bachi Burger, featured on Diners Drive-Ins and Dives.  Let me just tell you.......aaaaaaamazing!

I am so blessed that Landon loves adventures as much as I do!

-AP

Sometimes you just gotta shave a pony

Ever have one of those weeks where you forget to slow down and appreciate the little things in life?  I love the enjoy the simple things in my life when I get the chance.  The things that seem insignificant, but just make me smile and flip my mood around every single time.

Like the magic of a plain 'ol turkey sammich with nothing but pickles on it (takes me back to 8th grade and my Subway fix).

Or the lovely surprise of a random package from your family containing stuff they bought you at the NC State Fair.

Or the fantastic pb&j that you made with the world's best peanut butter and some divine muscadine jelly that was in the aforementioned package.

Or the incredible joy of watching all that winter hair fall away as you body clip a fuzzy pony (horse people, I know you feel me on this one.  Non-horse people, I swear I'm not crazy.  Its liberating.).

But first the pony needs a bath to clean all of that hair:

Ahhhh....non-furry bliss!

Some people get their jollies through ordinary means.  I, however, prefer to be creative with my clipping and give my pony sideburns.  I shall call him Elvis.

I won't say if I clipped them off or not so that you can speculate the truth :)

So, this week if you are feeling blue or over-worked, go shave a pony!

Or if shaving a pony isn't really your jam, I encourage you to play with an incredibly cute puppy,

watch a sunset (preferably at the beach),

or just go do something your really love with great enthusiasm!

-AP

Food for thought:
Boy Meets World - where are they now??
This makes me miss the south
I really want to be this cool when I'm old