US Friends Come to Visit!

In February we had 3 friends from the US come to visit for 3 weeks!  Our dear friend, Adam, brought his daughter, Isabel--a very close friend of Faith and Hope, and another mutual friend, Elise.  They really got a good taste of our life here, starting from day one!

I was hoping that we would not see any snakes while they were here; our neighbor had JUST run over a 5ft long cobra in our street a couple nights before they came!

Well, sadly, they saw one the first full day they were here!  The girls were playing outside, running around in the yard and driveway, and ran into this . . .

. . . just part of our life here in Thailand; you see them EVERYWHERE!  

Here are some pics of their time with us here . . .

Painting by the river

Walking on the boardwalk/ picture taking at the Black Crab

Trip to the beach

This was on "Middle Island"--a community batik project started by World Vision after the tsunami

We took a trip to a neighboring province called Phang Nga, where we have been helping.  We did a service project there for "Grandma and Grandpa."  We helped them clean their house, as their many disabilites have made this regular task very difficult for them.  Grandma had a stroke several years ago and is unable to walk.  She is a precious soul!

Next, we visited a rubber tree farm.   Some new friends of ours work here daily and call it home.

This is a bear they killed in the forest.  This man was drying it out and planned to burn it later on to make some kind of medicine that you rub on your skin to cure various ailments.  We'll send you some!

The girls made valentines for all the families in the church

We also took a trip to visit friends in Satun, a province that borders Malaysia.  The girls were a great attraction at the night market!

No trip to Thailand is complete without an elephant ride!

Their visit went by way too fast.  We had a great time and made a lot of memories.  Saying "goodbye" is always the hardest part.

Faith's Birthday!

There was no way we were going to top Hope's birthday and we knew that friends from the States were coming to visit in February, so we would have lots of opportunity to go "thiaow" (out on fun adventures) then.  So, we did a low key neighborhood birthday party for Faith's 8th.  It turns out that two other children here had birthdays within 5 days of Faith so we did a joint party!  We arranged it that morning and let people know where and what time-- very Thai!  We bought a couple pizzas and there was fried chicken, kabobs and noodles with curry.  One very sweet friend bought an ice cream cake from Swensens (a very nice ice cream shop in town)!  The kids had a blast.  It was very special to have Buddhists, Muslims and Christians all celebrating together!

After singing "Happy Birthday", Faith passed out cake to all the guests, starting with the oldest.  As she went about, each adult spoke a blessing over her.  We are so thankful for all our dear neighbors that have been so kind and welcoming.

Nong Muk making fried chicken

Baa Laan eating pizza

Aa Rak making balloon animals

Three birthday children... Faith in the middle back, Blaa Daow to the left and Sammi on the right

Our Kitty

So, I'm not so good at this blogging thing.  I am 7 months behind!  I really wanted this to be more like a journal for our family; so, I am going to try to "catch up" here.  But, before I go on, I wanted to share the story of how we came to have a cat . . . .

Chris has not really been excited about having a pet, at least not until the girls get a little older and can share the responsibility of taking care of it.  BUT, a neighborhood cat decided to give birth to kittens in our roof!  Yes, in our roof, right over our kitchen.  So, everyday during random meals we would hear the kitty jump on our roof and the little kittens crying for milk.  For some reason, we heard the cries becoming less and less, until only one little meow was left.  Mommy kitty was not coming to our roof anymore.  We saw her jumping on our neighbors roof now.  Finally, the lone kitty cry in our roof stopped and it was replaced with a TERRIBLE stench in our kitchen for a week or two.  We had no access to the roof; so, the only option was to cut through the drywall to get the little kitty out (we were not really wanting to do that--not quite sure what else we would find up there) or wait it out.  We choose the latter.

Soon, we saw little kittens climbing on our neighbor's roof.  Mother kitty was taking them somewhere one by one.  These ingenious cats give birth on roofs to avoid the dogs in the neighborhood.  Sadly, we have seen/heard of at least two kittens being mauled by the street dogs in our subdivision.  Well, one little kitty was left up on the roof.  Each day it would come out of the roof and cry and cry; mommy was no where to be seen.  This was agonizing for the girls, who were watching the kitty from their window!!!  Chris was not moved and stood fast in his resolve NOT to have a pet.  (BTW, our neighbor's roof comes right to our back porch and is on a lower plane, such that we can easily see and, even, touch it!)

On Thanksgiving morning things came to a head.  I started to give the kitty some food on the roof, since mommy kitty abandoned this one, as well.  The kitty was very afraid of me and would only come to the food, if I left the scene.  We had a growing concern that it would fall off the roof and get mauled by the dogs down below.  Well, it got too close to the edge, slipped and was hanging by its claws on the wall that separates our house from our neighbors!!!  As the girls screamed in horror, Chris rushed to it's rescue so it would not plummet to it's death and it, somehow, ended up in one of the girls arms.  :)  That was the end of that or should I say the beginning?!  So, we named our new kitty "Fiddler Fear";  Fiddler, for her singing (OK, crying) on the roof, and Fear, because it was terribly afraid of us and we had just read about the pilgrims and learned about a young child aboard the Mayflower named Fear.  Really, we simply call her "Kitty."

All the excitement added to the craziness of hosting a HUGE Thanksgiving feast!!!

This sweet kitty is very patient with the girl's excessive love and intrigues.  It has really become one of the family.

Holiday CRAZINESS!!!

     The last two months have been jam packed with lot of activities!!!  We have barely had time to take a breath.  For thanksgiving this year we hosted a dinner for a number of Americans (and some other nationalities as well) that we have met since moving here.  We provided the turkey and others pitched in with sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing and even pumpkin pie.  It was a great feast and everyone had a great time!  We had invited some of our Thai neighbors to join but they didn't come as the atmosphere was English for the most part and they didn't know any of the guests.  So, Chris and I thought we would host a Thai Christmas dinner with our neighbors in December.

      A few days after Thanksgiving, Chris went to Bangkok to find a car for us.  We had been looking here in Krabi but the prices out here were crazy expensive.  So, Chris ended up being gone for a little over two weeks.  During that time a number of neighbors helped us out with rides to school and grocery shopping.  We even had an invite to do the 4 Island Tour, which we gladly joined.  The scenery around Krabi is AMAZING!!!!

     As Christmas slowly approached we talked with one of our neighbors about hosting a Christmas party with those in the neighborhood that we knew.  She thought this was a great idea and began to invite some more neighbors!!!  It was suddenly getting too big to host under our car port so we organized it in front of another neighbor's house.  Altogether we ended up having over 40 people.  I cooked a turkey, made mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade applesauce and pumpkin pie.  The neighbors brought food as well (enough to feed an army) and we did a present exchange with the kids and played the game Gestures, which was the hit of the night!!!

      Since Christmas we have been invited to so many social events it seems like we are eating out with people every night.  We were invited to celebrate New Year's Eve with our friend Nam Kang and her family in Nakorn Si Thammart.  So we made the two and a half hour trip to visit with her relatives and brought in the new year with Luke Tung Karaoke and Thai dancing.  The next day we explored the city and returned home to make it back for a neighbor's son's birthday party-- which lasted till 3 am.

This is Nam Kang's Family.  She is one of 9 children, which is very unusual for Thailand.

      Our Thai neighbors are so sweet and we are so thankful for all the relationships we've made since we have moved here.  We are slowly adjusting to drop-in visitors all throughout the day and unexpected dinner guests.  You never know what a day in Thailand will bring!!!  We were looking forward to some down time after the holidays but it seems that the Thai holidays don't stop... There is a festival in our city that ends Monday night and then there is Children's Day next Saturday, which is HUGE here.  After that, Faith's Birthday.  We might just be living in "party" mode for the foreseeable future!!!

    On another note, one of our neighbors, Phii Daeng, sells pearl jewelry at the night market in town.  She has invited us (well really Hope) to go sell jewelry with her.  Hope has a blast being her little advertising tool by wearing the jewelry and inviting (in Thai) potential customers to try something on.  She even helped set up the display.  I've been helping Phii Daeng with her English and translated for her with some customers.  Phii Daeng has made Hope and Faith their own bracelets and necklaces too!

     Wish I had more time to write about the kitty that died in our ceiling, the kitty we rescued on Thanksgiving day, my 8 hour hair salon appointment or the m-80 that hit Chris on New Year's Eve but don't have time and this is too long as it is! :)  Hope you all had a great holiday and will have a wonderful new year!

Settling Down Here in Krabi...

Meeting the neighbors...

We are in a great neighborhood with very friendly neighbors!  Thai people are amazingly hospitable.  Since we have begun to meet them, we have received more yummy treats than we can begin to count.  Sometimes, it's a pomelo, sometimes sweet coconut milk with some kind of treat inside, or a dinner entree.  Sometimes, we are not quite sure what it is--a great opportunity for a little Thai cultural lesson. On just one day this past week we received a huge hand of bananas, two coconuts (hand picked by our neighbor's son, who climbed the tree himself to get them for us!), a pack of fried banana chips, a couple bags of shrimp flavoured chips (which the girls loved!), 3 cucumbers, and 3 mangos.  If we meet anymore neighbors, we might not need to go grocery shopping anymore!

Our super sweet neighbor, Loong Chai peeling a pomelo for us to eat.

I've tried to reciprocate and have received (and had) a lot of good laughs!  One morning, our neighbor's son, Monchai, came to do some yard work for us with Chris.  Since they had been blessing us with so much, I  decided to give him some of our oatmeal to try.  :-)  I'm not really sure that he liked it; but, he gave it a go.  He only finished a third of the small bowl.  The next day he came, I made pancakes topped with pure maple syrup from back home.  This went over much better; he said it was much more tasty than the day before.  On Hope's birthday I poured some milk for everyone to drink with their cake and ice cream.  The two teenage girls didn't even attempt to pick up their glasses and the father drank his like it was a shot glass, quickly pouring water into his glass to chase it down!  I still laugh when I think about it.  I'm hoping to make some chocolate chip cookies to pass out soon; I think they might win the day with everyone!  We'll see...

Another thing that amazes me is how quick they are to invite us to go on significant trips with them, after knowing us for only a short while.  The family that we are renting our house from came by this week to deal with our terrible termite problem.  As we were talking, they invited us to come to visit their shrimp farm in another province.  They said they would pick us up and we could stay with them for a couple days.  Our neighbor's son invited us to visit his relatives' fish farm on a nearby island and then take Chris to go deep sea fishing.  A couple of days ago I met a neighbor who, after talking for only a short time, invited me to go to another province with her to see a large temple in the city.  I can't really imagine people in America meeting a foreigner and inviting him to his uncle's house in DC after one brief encounter!  :-)  We'll see if we can somehow fit all these trips in into our increasingly filled and busy schedule.

By far, our most exciting experience this past month was when a snake came to visit!  I was passing by the kitchen window and thought I saw something move in the carport.   So, I went for a closer look.  Sure enough, it was a snake!  I called Chris to come and kill it (you don't mess around with snakes here!).  Too late.  It quickly slithered under a concrete based table I had set up for the girls to color on.  We waited for a while to see if it would come out.  When it finally peeked it's head out, we saw that it had a diamond-shaped head; so, we were fairly sure it was poisonous.  Chris tried spraying water under the table to encourage it to leave; but, it didn't budge.  With the table being right next to our house where our kids play everyday, we decided to call our super-helpful neighbor, Loong Chai (who works only 3 minutes down the road) to come and help us.  He sped here on his little motor scooter right away with a long PVC pipe as his chosen weapon of execution.  Chris and Loong Chai managed to lift the heavy top of the table off without getting bit to see inside.  Loong Chai started swatting; we could all hear the snake hissing at him.  Thankfully, he was able to kill it. When he dragged it out for a closer look, we saw it was a cobra! Yikes!  Thankfully, it was not the spitting variety often encountered here.

In addition to snakes, we have huge spiders and poisonous centipedes here, as well.  Chris has killed two giant spiders under our carport and the longest centipede we have ever seen in our lives under a pile of rocks he was moving with Monchai.  We have also seen some dead scorpions, but know that their living relatives must still be lurking around outside somewhere.  Thankfully, we haven't encountered anything in our house yet, other than lots of lizards, termites, ants, and a newborn kitty, which lives above our drywall ceiling in the kitchen and screams for its mama throughout the day!  Speaking of lizards . . . the day after we killed the snake, Chris was just waking up in the morning when a kamikaze lizard leapt from the air conditioner on to his bare back.  I heard a loud crash in the bedroom and ran to see what it was: just a kamikaze lizard . . . no need for alarm.  

On the way home from language school this afternoon, Faith noticed a family of monkeys tightrope walking on a neighborhood power line to get to a rose apple tree in blossom above the street. . . . just one of the many unusual, fascinating, and (sometimes) scary, sights we experience daily here in our new home near the equator on the other side of the world.  Anyone want to come visit?  Our guestroom warmly awaits you!  ;-)

This centipede was over 7" long!!!  Crazy!

Hope's 6th Birthday

     Hope's Special Day

     We are pretty much settled in our house here in Krabi.  We still have a few things, or maybe a number of things yet to do, but we have started back with school for the girls and language school for us.  Since we were all terribly ill for my birthday a month ago, we decided we would have a really fun outing for Hope's and my birthday.  So, we gave Hope a few suggestions of things we could do around here and she choose the "elephant ride".  So, here are some pics of our time....

At first we were both pretty scared, to be quite honest!  The seat had no seat belts and the first thing our elephant needed to do was cross a small, swiftly flowing river.  As our elephant went down into the river we clung to the seat and each other so we would not fall out!  :)  About 5 minutes in, Hope asked when it would end.  The guide laughed and said in about an hour, to which she smiled.  After some time we got used to things and could relax and enjoy the ride.  Our guide was from Isaan (the region we used to live in).  It was fun to talk with him and hear him tell us things about the jungle.   Evidently, there is a very pale snake we really want to avoid.  We saw a giant lizard lying on a log across a small creek.  Chris and Faith were able to see some monkeys fighting in the tree tops.  Our elephant was too heavy to make the trek to that neck of the jungle.  Chris' elephant was a little ornery that day and was making all kinds of "elephant objections".  The sounds were so cool, though, echoing off the mountains.  

After the trek, the girls fed their elephants bananas by hand...

Overall, it was a great time and the girls had a blast.  Then we headed to the beach to have some fun in the water.  Someone from church had mentioned that the beach at the Sheraton was very clean and clear so we eventually found the hotel and walked through their beautiful landscaping to the ocean.  It was overcast but not raining.

   This was the first beach we have seen that was pretty clear.  It wasn't even sunny and Faith could see down to the bottom.  She was super excited about this, as we had told her about the beautiful beaches of Southern Thailand and we had yet to see one.  

Then off for pizza in Ao Nang...

Then, we did nails and hair...

And then we ran back home to have cake and ice cream with our neighbors.... it was a wild day!!!  We bought a cake in town and had them write Hope's Thai name, Hathai (one of the few Thai words for "heart") on it.  

  This morning, Hope asked "Mom, when is my next birthday?"  I said in 364 days.  So, the count down begins again.  :)  I should be recovered by then!