Loy Krathong

On Saturday, we celebrated our very first Loy Krathong (stateside for my Mom & I). It was a great success! We look forward to making it a new family tradition every year. My parents came over to help us celebrate which was a good thing because my Mom did all of the work in getting everybody's floats together and not to mention all the fine foods she came bearing.



The floats turned out beautifully. My mom used flour tortillas as the base and decorated them with banana leaves, Gardenia leaves, flowers, moss, incense and candles. The tortillas were shaped into boats and Mom placed rice into the centers to hold up the candle & incense.



She brought over a few unfinished floats so the girls (and D & I) could put the finishing touches on our own floats.













The girls loved decorating their floats. It may be questionable whether they enjoyed playing with the props more.






At dusk, we trekked down to a nearby river. Fortunately for us, there's a fairly good size river less than 10 minutes from our house. It started raining on our way there and the wind picked up as well so it was a fairly quick event. We lit the candles & the incense, re-lit the candles, re-lit the candles again... you get my drift. We finally gave up. We all made a wish and then set our floats (and our troubles) into the river.




No event would be the same at our house without a big feast. As always, we were not disappointed. I made a couple of dishes and my mom brought over a ton. It was so good. We ate leftovers for days!

These Son in Laws were the winners. Who doesn't like a deep fried boiled egg with a tangy sauce? Absolutely delicious.



We rounded off the meal with Papaya Salad (Som Tam), Panang Beef, Sweet Pork, Fried Sea Bass, Sauteed Veggies, Spicy Bamboo Shoots and Jasmine Rice. Yum! Yum!