Christmas in Florida again but, different.

I hope all of you are happy and healthy this holiday season!

I spent Christmas down in West Palm Beach this year with my mom and Patrick. We enjoyed lots of yummy food, some long coffee drinking sessions on the porch before each day got started and a whirlwind, one-night trip to Key West! Here are a few (ok, more than a few) photos from my time down there. I need something to help remind me of that sunshine state-of-mind now that I'm back on the tundra.

Sunrise at my mom's place:

A quick stop on the side of the road to enjoy the aqua colored water during the latter part of our 4.5 hour drive down through the keys:

We finally arrived, checked in and then decided to head downtown for a short walk prior to dinner.

A church on Duval Street...

The larger than life sculpture in front of the Museum of Art & History.

My mom, enjoying the ferry ride over to Sunset Key for dinner at Latitudes!

Yep. That's how it looked.

An idea for another trip... :)

We arrived to Sunset Key just as the sun was setting and grabbed our table. Dinner was pretty special that night. We all left the island (fancy us on the free ferry, ha!) feeling very content and grateful.

The next morning, I woke up early and ventured out to take a few pics of our hotel.

Our hotel had 4 small and very hidden pools. There was so much foliage around each. Mom and I had one to ourselves for our swim! Of course only one shower in our room though...that we battled over in good humor. Our room was super air conditioned which made re-entry after a swim a little uncomfortable. Brr...
We ended up at Blue Heaven for breakfast on Friday morning. My friend Stephanie use to work there years ago and always raves about it so, we tried it out. They invite customers to come and "dine with the roosters"...and dine with the roosters we did! They were practically scampering over our feet. Funny. They served this Key Lime Pie that looked ridiculous. We were too full to order our own but, I managed to steal a quick shot of the towering meringue.

Hemingway's House was a tourist trap but, still cool.

Where he wrote...

Where he entertained...and kept an eye on all of his cats, (there is a feline graveyard).

Some pretty neat fixtures...

We arrived back in West Palm on Friday night and devoured pizza for dinner and fell into bed by 9:15p.

The next evening was Christmas Eve! We decided to go to Bethesda by The Sea for their Christmas Eve service. It was long-like, 3 hours long but, the Church was beautiful and the music was festive. I grabbed a few pictures from Flickr to give you an idea of what it looked like.
This is where we lined up to wait for the church to open their doors. Kind of weird but, necessary I guess. The BBTS service is quite popular so we had to get there early to get a spot.

I'm sure there are other details to share but, those are the highlights. Always nice to come home after some time away. See you all soon. xo

No More Honor Role.

Comparing ourselves to others is a key driver of unhappiness. Tom DeLong, author of Flying Without a Net, even describes a "Comparing Trap." He writes, "No matter how successful we are and how many goals we achieve, this trap causes us to recalibrate our accomplishments and reset the bar for how we define success."And as we judge the entirety of our own lives against the top 1% of our friends' lives, we're setting impossible standards for ourselves, making us more miserable than ever. -Daniel Gulati

What have you accomplished this year? How about in the past 5-10 years? Some may say that they have not accomplished much. If you take a closer look, however, you may find that you have accomplished many new things. I find that when I accomplish something new I have a tendency to behave as if it is no big deal. I think to myself, "Oh anyone could have done that." A good friend of mine pointed out that I need to take a moment and enjoy my successes. I may not be where I want to be yet, but I am better than I used to be. If I do not appreciate what I have accomplished now, I won't appreciate it when I get to the future "there" either. I want to encourage you to take an assessment of where you are in your life. What great things have you accomplished? Did you learn something new? Did you create something? Did you help someone? I'm positive if you look closely enough, you will find that you have accomplished quite a lot. -Kizzy Preston

19 hours in Quebec City.

I woke up early on Saturday morning...excited to get up to Johnson for some QT with Laura and Dana. Rucchi is away so, us ladies had discussed a day of drinking coffee, catching up and maybe visiting a craft show or two. Shortly after we arrived to Johnson, the conversation turned to the day's plans. It was 12:30pm. The wheels were turning. Laura wanted to see the ocean. A tall order. Provincetown? No, too far to drive and we'd arrive in the dark. At one point, all three of us were looking at a map of the Northeast. Silly but, true. We finally decided on Quebec City which is mere 4 hours from Johnson. Why go? The Ballet! We found tickets to The Nutcracker and booked a room at Hotel Le Saint Paul really inexpensively.

We arrived about 2 hours prior to our 7:30pm show. We had just enough time to relax, change clothes and orient ourselves so we could find the theater. We left our hotel about 30 minutes early. We found the theater with no trouble and parked out front. We picked up our tickets but, found that our seats weren't together. Laura agreed to take the single ticket on the opposite side of our row. After sitting for less than 5 minutes, the ticket agent came over to us to let us know our tickets were for Sunday night, not Saturday. Yikes! We had to follow him immediately to try and change our tickets. After 15 minutes of scrambling, and a brief moment of panic after hearing the Saturday show was sold out and our tickets couldn't be refunded (they weren't cheap), we were able to negotiate 3 spots in the balcony. Dana and I were finally reunited with Laura. Together we found that our new seats (all together) were even better! The Nutcracker was so much fun to see. After the performance ended, we walked a bit before eventually settling on a restaurant for dinner. After a yummy meal, we headed back to our hotel and fell into bed around midnight. None of us expected the night to go as it did but, we were all very pleased that everything worked out. Onto the next...!

Our hotel.

The Nutcracker

Complete with a snow squall...

On our way to brunch...

My impromptu travel companions.

The view after climbing many, many stairs. Lovely.

The Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac

Quebec City was so Christmas-y.

Our stage!!! or, bathroom.

An epic evening of friendies, figs, fried food, furry creatures and fun!

My Thanksgiving took place in Vermont this year. The Spiekermann's hosted a most festive holiday meal consisting of: cheese fondue with assorted smoked meats, pork tenderloin, turkey confit, the most ridiculously tender fall-off-the-bone beef brisket, green been casserole with homemade onion rings (omg!), curried pumpkin soup, mashed sweet potatoes with ginger, whip cream flavored vodka shots with pumpkin flavored syrup, macaroons, apple pie, pumpkin pie, baklava and some sort of ice cream with whole figs! What? Yeah. Looking forward to leftovers and Christmas tree lighting tomorrow night.

Early Thanksgiving!

The Curley's hosted their second annual Thanksgiving with friendies on Saturday. We all enjoyed some great food and lots of laughs!

The last few weeks have been busy, busy and there is no reprieve in sight. Chances are good that I'll see some of you this week. So many reasons to celebrate and be thankful!

(don't miss the most organized dinner plate you've ever seen...scroll down)

Festival of Pumpkins!

Meet Amy Purdy.

Stephanie, Bannister and I went over to Burton Snowboards for a women's "networking event" this evening. What started off as mini cupcakes and cider mimosa's soon turned into a pretty inspiring evening. This girl with messy brown hair was sitting in a large comfy chair in the middle of the room-participants were sitting all around her. I didn't know much about the guest speaker but, she started off by saying she was totally out of it. She had taken a red eye from Utah and arrived at noon after having taken a benadryl. She had some coffee and then a drink before doing this talk. Hmm...

She moved on to share a story about who she sat next to on her flight last night. Some bizillionaire from the TV show Jersey Shore. They talked for 3 hours or so over twizzlers. He explained how he became a bizillionaire. He said one thing to Amy that was kind of meaningful. He said he was no happier now than he was before the fame/money. Now he's got everything. He doesn't dream. There you go. How wonderful is it that we still have our dreams?!?!

Amy started sharing her story. How one day she was on top of the world, living a happy and healthy life doing what she loved-massage at the Bellagio in Vegas. The next day after having what she thought was a 24-hour flu, she was near death. She felt sick and spiked a fever. Hours later she felt exhausted and could barely move. Her cousin came to check in on her. When she arrived she saw that Amy's feet, hands and face were entirely purple. She was in septic shock. Her organs failed. She went into a coma and went into emergency surgery.

Tonight she explained how she heard and saw what was going on around her before surgery despite being in a coma. The doctors gave her a 2% chance of survival. They spoke to Amy before surgery and said, "Amy, if you believe in anything, think about it now...hard." She heard this. She wasn't religious but, she thought about what she believed.

Love. She hadn't loved yet. She wasn't ready to go. Jesus. If that didn't get everyone...

She explained how she knew she was dying and felt her last heartbeat. She fought death. This changed her life forever. She believes she chose to stay. To be alive. To live.

Although Amy lost both legs from the knee's down, she is the thriving! She snowboards, skateboards and travels the world sharing her story. She started a non-profit called Adaptive Action Sports. She is also working with a small team to build a prosthetic foot that is engineered for board sports. There isn't one yet. Hers is currently made of wood, bolts and duck tape.

She had lots of inspiring words for the group this evening including this: View your obstacles as something to push off from, not something to overcome. You truly become disabled when you choose not to overcome your obstacles.

Awesome.

AHHHHH. I couldn't resist.

Soe's owl themed baby shower!

Such a lovely morning with the Wall family celebrating Soe and Colin's little bundle. There were lots of owl themed gifts, decorations and even an owl shaped carrot cake! We're all crossing our fingers that the new baby isn't afraid of birds. :)