Maung-Kut

Jesse announced via email that he stopped at the Talin Market (our big international grocery store that neither of us have ever been to) and got me a "present."  I spent some time at work thinking about what that could be (oyster sauce?) but didn't even come close.  Jesse appeared triumphantly at dinner bearing maung-kut!  I was amazed and delighted.  Maung-kut (along with mango, peach, plumb, and berries) are my favorite fruit and until now I have never seen it anywhere outside of Asia except for at Harrod's in London.  I couldn't wait to crack a few open and they were perfectly ripe and amazing!

Most Americans know maung-kut as mangosteen (maung-kut is its Thai name).  I did a little research on the fruit and was surprised to find that it was banned (something about fruit flies) from being imported into the US until 2007.  Currently, the maung-kut that you can find here is almost exclusively from Thailand, which is probably why it is so expensive ($20 for 9 fruit folks!) -- good thing Jesse did not realize this until he got to the checkout line or I would not be enjoying them right now.  It also, apparently, was dubbed the "queen of tropical fruit" by David Fairchild, which sounds about right to me.

P.S.  Jesse and I ate all of the Maung-kut on the same day that he bought it!

Serenity Finale

I can't believe that it has been five months since I last posted a layout of our trip to Asia.  I finally got back to finishing them up and using up my Bo Bunny Serenity stash.  This first layout is from our trip to Bangkok and includes some cute family pictures.

This second layout is the last one from our time in Hua Hin.  You will have to excuse the kissy picture -- it was our 9th wedding anniversary!

This final layout celebrates the amazing food we got to enjoy while in Thailand and Japan.

Since I had so many layouts using the Serenity line in this album, I decided to decorate the album cover with pieces from the line too.

I also had enough scraps left over to do a few cards.  This first one is based on Scrapbook Express's January card sketch. 

Last but not least, this final card was inspired by Bo Bunny's January card challenge: to have 70% of white space on your card.  I love the simple elegance!

Tree Verdict

I am here to report on our live tree experiment.  We really loved the look and smell our our tree for about the first week.  After that, the tree stopped drinking water and began to smell like over-ripe vegetables.  Over the next two weeks, the tree got progressively harder and deader.  Still green, but the limbs started drooping with the weight of the ornaments.  We took our tree down and put it outside before we left for Christmas and just took it to the dump today, where Jesse threw our tree into the huge pile:

Disposing of it was pretty easy, and Jesse wants to give the live tree thing another go next year.  I am less excited, but could be convinced (I am quite a push-over when Jesse gets excited about something).

Last Hens' Den Post

This Country Boutique layout is both the final layout of our trip out east this summer and my last layout as a design team member for the Hens' Den.  I truly loved working for the Hens' Den this past year, but felt that I should step back from design team work in 2013, which is shaping up to be quite busy!  Don't be surprised, though, if I come back as a guest designer for the Hens' Den at some point.  Head over to the Hens' Den blog for more details about this layout: