Last night we went to the beach to watch the sun set. The sun has moved far enough now that we can see it set over the ocean from the beach in front of our house. Previously it would set over the peninsula that is Punta Ballena. We went down with our beach mats and some mate. It was a great experience and a great lead-in to Thanksgiving.

If you've never had a well prepared leg of lamb, I can honestly say you're missing out. Lamb is not an oft used meat in the US, but it's a staple meat in many nations. For us it was a nice treat. We would buy one lamb every year and I would try to make it last until the next year. I sure miss Bev and Chuck's awesome grass-fed lamb!

We had our most successful Boston Tea Party this year...ever! So many friends and family showed up. It made me really happy to have such a good turnout considering it was to be our last Boston Tea Party in the US.

The table was loaded with treats of all kinds and we even had two children's tea sets for all the kids attending.

Yay! My favorite holiday! We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. It was just the three of us, no pressure whatsoever. I got up late, took a shower, and didn't stress at all about the big day!

On to our gluten free, casein free Thanksgiving!

I finally made it to my birthday! What a great day! I had an awesome breakfast made by Shawn. It came complete with a little bouquet of flowers from the garden and a delicious mix of Alpine strawberries, sugar, mint leaves, and lemon balm leaves.

I can't even begin to say how delicious the sweetened strawberries were with the lemon balm. It was the most extraordinary and surprising taste! I highly recommend giving it a try.

Shawn was having a difficult time waiting to give me my birthday gifts. Once he had them all gathered, he wanted to give them to me early. So he made some delicious sopapillas with coconut milk ice cream and gave me my gifts.

I love this recipe. It took a lot of searching before I was able to find a pecan pie recipe that didn't use corn syrup. This recipe is great because it tastes perfect and no GMO corn syrup is required. Yay for that!

Today is our 8th wedding anniversary. The story of our anniversary actually begins last night, though. It was around 9pm, to be precise. We were just getting ready to go to bed when the wind started whipping around outside. Shawn said we should go downstairs and just as we were heading down the steps, the sirens signaling a tornado started going off in town. We all headed for the basement. When the worst was over I went outside to check on my garden with a flashlight. I was just coming around the corner of the house into the front yard when I saw something was very wrong.

My husband and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. Instead we have our own holiday. We call it “Honey My Love Day”. It’s the day we first met in person. We met on an on-line dating site and e-mailed, chatted, and called for some months before Shawn’s first trip here. We got engaged that first night we met. So HMLD is the anniversary of meeting and getting engaged.