Play it Again Samui

Yep, this was our 3rd visit to the island Koh Samui in Thailand. Every so often we aim for a Mouth-Breathing-On-the-Beach experience somewhere close to Mongolia. Somehow we always seem to forget that Mongolia is close to nothing. Well, OK, Beijing and Seoul. No beaches there.

So, off we go. Two overnight layovers and 3 planes later, we get to the beach. It's the return trip with a midnight flight in the mix that makes us question our choice.

But. If getting rid of Randy's cough, my red eyes and turning into chubby, tanned and totally relaxed blobs was the goal; we scored big time!

Not ours! The question begs answering...

Valentines Day--our 1st date 34 years ago!
Randy made reservations for a sea side table at an amazing restaurant, the Page (can we talk about lemongrass sorbet?! Yum!). Which was attached to an equally amazing resort, The Library. Check out the red pool: The Library (Trip Advisor)

Oh, and we had to change hotels because the one we were so happy with before had downgraded to a Dump. This during Chinese New Year week. Hunting for an available room seriously cut into our mouth breathing time.

Life at Hotel #1:

Life at Hotel #2:

Our backyard in our private courtyard. Not budget, but loved every minute. Except for the daily decision of whether to have a scalding hot shower or an ice cold one. (where ever you go there you are...)

Sawadee!
(no we did not eat here)

Comments

Rita Phillips MacLean said…

How nice that you've gotten a few beach trips in this winter. You find the beauty in everywhere you go, even if colored by a little tongue-in-cheek. Love hearing about your adventures!

March 1, 2013 at 1:36 AM

Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

I'm so tickled to be a part of this year's Bloggers' Quilt Festival ! My entry was done in Outer Mongolia (literally! --read on). This quilt is one of my favorite recent projects that I named "Renegade Geisha's" --renegade because two of the geisha's don't conform to the rest (mainly because I ran out of coordinating fabrics!). Can you find the two renegades? ;) The quilt incorporates fabric origami and the quilt itself is from Fantastic Fabric Folding --many projects from this book were a big hit with the Mongolian class pictured below. Due to my husband's work, we live in Mongolia; and I was privileged to teach classes at a local quilting studio. I've included a picture of the class where we were working on the geisha blocks. The students spoke almost no English and I speak what I call Monglish--a lot of English sprinkled with Mongolian. Regardless, we all had a blast! ...and, I'm very pleased with this quilt of mine!

Much Needed New Winter Robe - Vogue 9232

Last spring I chucked my 20-year-old bathrobe, giving me no choice but to replace it come winter. Granted, I never took it to Mongolia, so it only got worn when I was home in the US. But still. For summer I made several light weight robes, but I knew I liked the style of my old RTW one. When I saw reviews for Vogue 9232--on PR (all 3 of them), I knew I'd found my pattern. Interestingly enough, the pattern is actually for a caftan-type dress; but all 3 reviews were done up as a robe. Sham's review in particular had great tips. On a trip to Colorado Fabrics in early summer I spotted a beeeuuutiful pink sweatshirt type fabric. The outside is more like a thick knit and inside is dreamy soft. And it's baby pink! Which is hard to tell in the pics as we in Colorado have had lots of rain and no sunshine. And OK, I'm no photographer. But seriously, this is like stepping into a pink cloud. I made a small through the neck, shoulders and sleeves

A Stitch Sisters Kimono for Dubai

My husband had meetings come up quick in Dubai and of course I tagged along! We were going to be there a week and I wanted a lightweight kimono-type pullover for the pool and getting out of the shower. I had snagged a gorgeous white linen/cotton (guessing on this) here in UB that was perfect. My inspiration came from Lisa's over at Lisa's Carolina | Handmade . I'm not good at pattern drafting and this was a quick FREE measure and cut tutorial of Stitch Sisters--find their Patternless Pattern Link here . I'm so happy with this! It basically took me an afternoon. The directions are great--and they include 5/8" seam allowances--yay!--as I wanted to turn under and top stitch them since I don't have a serger here. I left off the ties. Shapeless worked for this. I also raised the neckline by about 1.5" The neckline was a little trickier as I didn't have any bias on hand and there is no "running out" anywhere here. So, I used

Scenic Route

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