a december that went out with a bang

Finals being over! A week in the Baja Peninsula! Christmas! Homey-home-home in Bozeman for New Year's! Books! Dr. Who! So many  fabulous things have happened in the past month that I don’t know where to begin.   Since I don’t want this to be a chronicle to my everyday urges and itches (one Facebook friend has taken to parodying status updates by updating her status to things like: “I just took the biggest dump ever!”) I think I’ll just stick to the glamorous. 

Es decir, Mexico!

We explored around La Paz during our first day:

And lounged around at our lovely hotel:

We then hopped a boat over to a desert island (no kidding!) and set up camp on the beach:

We had toilets with gorgeous views:

And we did fun things like kayaking:

Complete with thumb brace from the freak banjo accident

and snorkeling with lobitos marinos:

and gorging our eyes on scenery, flora, and fauna:

People laughed at my silly Spanish accent, we spent far too much time surrounded by other people (we were not, alas, on a deserted desert island; there were 16 other American tourists on our slice of beach heaven) and I lost quite a few layers of skin from the endless sand-scouring wind, but all in all, it was a fabulous trip.  And did I mention, I got to spend great time with family?  That was the point, after all, and after a stressful quarter of grad school, relaxing and spending time with la familia was the best Christmas present of all.