For the Holidays

Happy Halloween everyone! Look! We dressed up as snorkelers for Halloween....well....and we actually went snorkeling! Here's a few tidbits from the Tweed River (where I got SCUBA certified!).

 


Today has been our first American holiday here in Oz. Thanksgiving is coming up, and we have already been recruited to help host a traditional, pot-luck American Thanksgiving dinner with another American girl for some of her Aussie friends. I'm definitely looking forward to that kind of comfort food already!!

But the real reason I'm writing about the holidays is to make our Christmas announcement...READY?

WE'RE GOING TO SOUTHEAST ASIA!!!! 

Starting in mid-December, Paco and I will be going on a tour of 5 countries in 5 weeks. First up, we will hit Bali for 4 days to relax, check out some temples, and test out my new diving license. Next, we fly north to Hanoi, Vietnam where we will spend about 7 days exploring mountains and markets. We are hoping to spend Christmas on a cruise boat there in the beautiful Halong Bay! We will spend most of our time in Laos, ringing in the New Year with a seriously remote (10 hours by bus outside of town to be exact) forest and hill tribe trek and kayak tour. Maybe, if we're extra super lucky, we'll see the rare tiger or spot an Asian elephant! After the trek, we will head south to the Lao capitol of Vientiane to meet some of Paco's ESL students who live there! They are very warm and welcoming people, and they have offered to give us the proper tour of real Laos. After we finish our adventures here in early January, we will be meeting Paco's parents and brother in Thailand. The next two weeks will be spent with family, exploring Thailand and the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

After all these years of dreaming of Thailand and Bali and Vietnam, I am ACTUALLY going to visit!!! PLUS I get to explore Cambodia and Laos too, which I'm super excited about. Is this really happening?? Whoa!! You can follow along in the blog during my planning process!