phuket.

so once our alleged 13 hour bus ride turned into 20, the four of us were quite ecstatic to finally arrive in phuket on the southwest coast on thailand.. clear skies, open ocean, sand so fine it's like whole wheat flour.. life is good.

we've spent the last 2 days on the beach, soaking up the rays, but being very conscientious of reapplying sunscreen (darryl and ave have a slight glow about them having been months into the canadian winter already..) we've done lots of walking around the town, it's very quiet regardless of the vacationers so it's a great place to do some relaxing. [all have agreed we do it well..]

our first night was spent down on the beach, sitting in the dark and having great conversation.. catching up on the last four months, and in christine's case, the last 6 years at least(?). fantastic. we were wading in the water and spotted small specs of blue light zipping past us in waves crashing to shore.. quite enthralled, we spent almost an hour trying to catch the damn things, getting a little light to see what it was all about (scared maybe it was jellyfish or something that you didn't particularily want to catch..) later realizing it was algae that glows at only a certain time in the evening.. pretty neat.

christmas eve was filled with mixed emotions.. exciting.. doesn't really feel like christmas.. with all of us used to surrounding ourselves in huge family gatherings, lonely.. except that we're all family.. and how can one complain when we're in paradise? we quickly sorted it all out, and went out for a nice dinner, cheers'd to our circumstances, went down to the beach and watched magnificant fire works coming from all sides, and again enjoyed the company. there's a cute little bamboo bar that we went to for a bit after doing a grocery run for our special christmas breakfast, and then we awaited santa's arrival..

waking early to grab some good seats on the beach we dined on the sand.. fresh bakery bread, croussants, brie, cream cheese, olives, tomatoes, cold coffees, with chocolates and nuts for dessert. then we read, swam and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.. indulged again at lunch, and.. well, we've basically indulged every few minutes or so.. it's christmas!

just wanted to let everyone know that we are thinking of them and we appreciate our families and friends so much.. wish we could be together for the holidays, but, well.. i'm pretty content with where i'm at right now.. love love love, and merry christmas!