Phuket

I just came back from one of the best long weekends ever. Phuket, Thailand showed me a great time and I've got to share some of it with you! Phuket is pronounced Poo-ket. Not whatever I'm sure you just said in your head right before you came to the conclusion that I'm too vulgar for the internets. 


These boys right here make some pretty fab travel buddies:

Josh, myself, and Kenny on a very pretty lookout cliff.

Thai food is easily my favorite. I think I ate enough to last me a while. I took pictures of some of the  dishes we had cause that's just how I roll:

 Pork! It's like magic when it's on every menu in a city.

 Super yummy pork noodle soup.

 Spring rolls with that perfect Thai chili sauce.

Lunchtime.

The beaches in Phuket are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. That blue water is captivating. 

Patong Beach. Our hotel was a quick walk from this fabulousness.

We took a speedboat tour our second day there to Phi Phi Island. We stopped at a few different beaches and each time the water and rocks made me want to stay there forever:

 On the way out to the islands.

 I'm speechless when I look at this! Gorgeous.

 Driving around..

 One of the stops on our speedboat tour. Our boat was the one cut off on the right. But these very fun canoe things were just so photogenic!

 Playing with the effects on the camera made for an awesome beach pic.

Want to see me being a tourist? 

Dinosaur snack.

 Sunset on Patong Beach.

Oh Kenny. Bloody Marys at Rock City. Never had one before.. Tasted like soup and I loved it.

Khatu Falls on a rainy day. Lots of steps and bugs in this rainforest-y thing. 

Of course my eyes are kinda closed! These Buddhist temples were SO neat. The architecture is pretty and everything was all glittery. You have to take your shoes off to go inside- I'm not being trashy. ;)

So windy! This is Peter!

Miscellaneous pics from the trip:

 Awesome cart lady.

 In the temple. They were putting those little gold flake things on these statues. Love the colors in that place! 

 A fab assortment of sarongs. 

Josh being our tour guide! 

 Tuk-tuks! This is a view of one, from ours. Really fun way to get around. We met a really fun tuk-tuk guy that drove us all around on two different days. Saw a couple of things we didn't even know about cause of him! 

 Thai beer. I actually had one!

Big Buddha. :) I wanted to see him in real life as soon as I saw him in the guide book. So cool. This thing is like 150ft  high, and was paid for totally by donations! 

 Incense on our way up to Big Buddha 

 Love these ribbon things. At the temples, these pieces of fabric are tied around trees and posts. I'm not sure if there's a purpose, but it gives even more color to the already fab scenery. 

Chimes at Big Buddha.

Besides all of that, we went out every night and Patong lived up to its party city reputation. I'll put many more pictures on Facebook.. so you'll have to check em out! 

Miss and love you!

Faith

I'm mixin' it up a little:


Pretty much since I was 15 I've had at least one person in my life that I shared everything with, emotionally. I shared my struggles and victories with a boyfriend or best friend that a lot of times could feel them as their own. I grew to find that comforting and normal. 
2011 comes along and this realization of that fact came with it. And it only became apparent because I suddenly felt like I had been pushed away from that feeling of someone being there. I didn't necessarily have someone I wanted to share all my personal things with. 
I didn't feel alone, or lonely, or anything like that. I still lived with my best friend, talked to my family regularly, and surrounded myself with good people. It was a positive change to me because I felt like I was learning things about myself. 
I've spent a significant amount of my prayer time selfishly asking for confidence in future successes and struggles as I started to not think so positively of my new, uh, state of being. 
I should've known what was to come. I wasn't going to wake up one morning and spill coffee all over my self on the way to school, and just viola! be ok with it. Instead, God started formulating His plans to give me the chance over and over to build my own confidence and learn how to be strong on my own. You might be thinking, "How do you know that?" 
I know that because it's happening. It has been happening and I just realized that I totally asked for it. 
In this city where I don't fully relate to anyone, it's happening. It makes me feel bad for any time I've doubted the capabilities of the God I serve.
Have you ever wondered how many 20something American girls move to Malaysia in the middle of the summer? I wondered, and let me give you an educated guess... one. 
So, I'm in these new situations daily that I'm struggling to get through. Without my usual support group, I'm figuring out how to get through these situations in different ways. 
There's not really ever a preferred time to be thrown into disequilibrium, but I really couldn't ask for a better time than now. I love the fact that I'm about to grow as a person in ways I clearly didn't know I could. My faith definitely being one of those ways.


Pictures next time, I promise. :)
I miss you and love you!