Just wanted everyone to know about the prestigious award nominated to us here at Hennacornoelidays by our friends at http://thisamaceinglife.com/.  http://thisamaceinglife.com/ is a cool blog we follow that details life on the road for a young family who happen to be part of the Wicked  tour (right now they are in Portland, OR, tomorrow who knows).  The star of their traveling circus is Mace, an adorable child who’s not yet one.  The award given to us is the (drum roll please…..)

The Liebster Award is part trophy, part chain letter and is given to blogs with less than two hundred followers with the stipulation that they in turn list their five favorite blogs.  Liebster, by the way, is German for “dearest.”  After almost one full year of blogging, our efforts have finally paid off.  Thank you very much thisaMACEing life for your kind words.

Here are our nominees for the Liebster award:  

http://walkingpapers.wordpress.com/ I (Corey) am always SO excited when I see a new post from walking papers! This blog eloquently chronicles a family living in the L.A. area with stories that touch the heart and always make me feel something with each post. 

http://keitherphoto.wordpress.com/   Where’s Keith?  is a cool blog about Keith’s many interests including photography and rock and roll.  We love the photos and are interested in anyone living on our favorite island (Vancouver Island). 

http://www.munchinwithmunchkin.com/ This blog is both humorous and yummy.  Very doable recipes and photos to boot, make this blog a must follow. 

http://nicfreeman.com/  NicFreeman is whom we want to be; a freelance writer who  travels to exotic places, probably on someone elses dime.  She is also a great photographer and offers great insight into the places she visits.

I (Noel) also wanted to give a shout out to some of my favorite travel books/ writers.  They are: 

Blue Highways and River-Horse by William Least-Heat Moon.  PrairyErth is good, but a little dense for my tastes.  And while I think that Quoz is better than most travel books out there, it was Blue Highways and River-Horse that most inspire me.  For both books, Moon does an incredible job of matching landscape with people.  He also has an amazing ear and talent for bringing stories out of strangers.  Much of his writing is over the same terrain that we travel which makes it fun to compare notes.

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux.  Really, I recommend any book or collection of essays written by Mr. Theroux.  Although at times he goes a little to heavy with the literary allusions, his frankness and willingness to travel to places others are not makes him the rock star of travel writing. 

Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.  This Bill, unlike William Least-Heat Moon, is a little hit and miss for me.  I find him to be sometimes too dismissive of regions based on one bad, limited experience (for example, he does not have kind words for Southern Illinois but I am not sure he ever even got out of the car).  But in A Walk in the Woods he is at his most funny, most charming, and most endearing self.  I also recommend his book about traveling around Australia.