Life and Links: On TBEX and My Birthday

Happy May! I hope you’ve all had a great last weekend in April. I went to a gorgeous wedding Friday night, for a friend who is more like family. Our moms are high school best friends so it was lovely to see him find his forever partner. I had to duck out early though, to spend the weekend at WordCamp, a workshop on web design and WordPress. Post-WordCamp weekend, I will try to launch a new design of this blog after I return from Huntsville.

I will be heading to my first blogging conference this week. It happens to be in Huntsville, Alabama. This will be my third visit to Huntsville, Alabama as one of my dear friends moved to Huntsville in 2012. Below is a photo of the Huntsville Botanical Garden, courtesy of the Huntsville tourism board. This is a place I have yet to visit, but it looks absolutely stunning.

Huntsville Botanical Garden, Huntsville, Alabama — Huntsville Botanical Gardens, how lovely!

Not only will I be participating in TBEX, the Travel Bloggers Exchange, I will also be spending my birthday with my friend and her family. With her husband, she takes care of twin two and a half year olds and a couple of dogs. I am particularly looking forward to spending my birthday with them, which is this weekend. It’s been about a year since I saw the twins so I am sure they will be little chatterboxes now that they are talking.

I had never shot a gun before, but my friend’s brother was in the military and helped us find our sight line. Safety was taken very seriously, and we were able to rent guns and buy ammunition and targets to participate. As the media likes to portray that the deep south is “Guns, God, and Glory,” heading to Larry’s Pistol and Pawn seemed especially appropriate.

My target at Larry's Pawn and Pistol, Huntsville, Alabama — Shooting at Larry’s Pawn and Pistol, Huntsville, Alabama.

After TBEX, I will be participating in a post-conference trip to the Alabama Gulf shore. Along with nine other bloggers, we will caravan down from Huntsville to the coast to explore and learn more about the area. As It has been more than 20 years since I last visited the gulf coast, I am looking forward to checking out the area. My hope is that this will be a somewhat quieter time of year to explore the area, and to learn about alternatives to

LINKS I’M LOVIN’

-I just heard about the bog bodies of Ireland. I was listening to the Amateur Traveler Podcast, the host of which I will be meeting in Alabama, and heard one of his guests mention the Bog Bodies. Did you know about these? How crazy!

-I also read this article about Christian Missionaries in Pyongyang prior to World War II. I had no idea Pyongyang had been the stronghold of Christianity in Asia in the first quarter of the 20th century.

–This article helps you to see if using your points for flights are a waste or worth it. One of the takeaways is that your points will go farther on long-haul business/first class flights than domestic business/first class. This is in comparison to how much the points would cost if purchased.