Troygan wed in Tofino

Team Mia went up to Tofino to attend Troy & Megan's wedding (the event some have deemed ''impossible'')

Tofino is located on the west side of Vancouver Island (which is the size of Maryland). To get there from Seattle you drive 2 1/2 hours to Vancouver, take an 2 hour ferry to Nanaimo, then it's a 3 hours drive. We hooked up w/t Todd & Jamie in Bellingham and they did most of the driving.

Tofino is a beautiful town that's very Maine-like, but decidely Canada. Laid back, lots of chowder houses, well known for their sea kayaks and ton of winter surfers (see photo of a surfer going into the water amid a backdrop of snow). Yeah. OK.

The wedding itself was just fabulous. The group took over an entire lodge (see view from our room) and there were parties around the clock. Last time we saw Jen she was downing tequila shots at 3am and we never did see her the next day. Troy & Megan somehow survived all this and are currently traveling in New Zealand.

Stormin' Seattle

This past week Seattle got hit with the worst wind storm in 13 years. The storm knocked out power to over 1 million people and caused massive damages to roads, bridges and homes.

Casa Mia was out of power for 10 hours, lost 2 trees in the front yard and part of the backyard fence.

I missed all the excitement as I was in NY (did had trouble coming back as the airport had no power). Big A & Baby Crumpet however enjoyed the day off in style by dining on fish tacos in a lakeside restaurant w/t Gracie.

Cozumel

Sunny. Consumed much ceviche and pina colada. Lots of sand.

Well, that's the summary of our Cozumel vacation.

Here is the slightly longer version:

Three years ago we decided to no longer wear shoes on Thanksgiving so we started spending in Mexico.

This year we chose Cozumel. An island off the coast of Riviera Maya (near Cancun) with one side on the Carribean sea. It is well known as a diver's paradise with good natural preserves, reefs and abundant marine life.

Adrian's parents joined Team Mia, we met at the airport (they came in from Boston via Charlotte; we came in from Seattle via Houston). We quicly checked into our hotel - the cheesily named Coral Princess. It's a perfect setting as the hotel pool (and beach bar) sits right on the ocean so you can just simply put down your drink and jump into the warm carribean sea.
One day we took that opportunity and signed up for a ''resort dive'', which beautifully sum up the causual nature of strapping several ton of gear onto your body and go into the water. 3 hours total, including training. Maybe total 45 min in the water. Fun, but not fun enough for me to do this more seriously.

We spend a good amount of time eating and eating well. Lots of ceviche, sopa de lima (lime soup w/t chicken & tortilla)...etc but mostly A LOT of delicious seafood. Not just your run of the mill grilled fish, but lots of creativity and of course fresh as heck. Best was a snapper w/t asparagus sauce and grilled in tin foil. Other terrific sauces included ''sweet mustard'' and ''diablo'' - a tangy, spicy mixture that really awakes your taste buds while reaching for that corona

OK so that's one day. What did we do the other six days? Well. A lot of sitting by the beach, eating tortilla chips and drinking pina coladas. We didn't do as much snorkeling as we'd have liked 'cause it was too windy at times (we got caught up in a once-every-years north winds, or El Norte).