Packages from Grammy and Grandad

We received packages in the mail from Grammy and Grandad this week! We get our mail at Dan's work and I was worried that we would not be able to get it when he was traveling. Thankfully, 3 different people brought boxes home from work and dropped them off for us this week! (one from eBay, one from Dan (see previous post here) and 2 from Grammy and Grandad)! It was like Christmas!

The highlights for Kylie included a ballerina dress Grammy found for Kylie for Halloween, with matching ballet slippers and a pretty pink dress that came with a matching one for Megan's doll, Emily! Jack loved a slingshot airplane and his Batman underoo's (the slingshot is on Jack's head). Megan LOVES her new dress (and currently is wearing it to church with Dan - I'm home with a sick Jack and a Kylie who didn't want to go with Daddy). If Megan looks manic in this picture, it's because in the previous 5 pictures, Kylie kept popping in front of her. She finally picked her up, carried her 10 feet away, ran back and had me take the pic really quick! Kylie just barely missed being in it :) Yay for little sisters!




















This week, we also got Megan and Jack's school picture order forms back! It's nice that here they take 3 pictures and then give you the option of ordering them and from which pose you want! We just ordered 1 5x7 of each of the kids, so we could have them :)

My Tweeter

Today we came home from taking Jack to a local clinic (story for another time). Waiting on the doorstep was a package from Dan! He sent it to me from his business trip and it contained things he knew I would love and appreciate: pop-tarts, frosted flakes, little debbie brownies, zebra cakes and oatmeal pies! We can't get the little debbie stuff here, cereal is hard to come by and pop-tarts won't be in stock at the exchange for a while! How sweet is that? It even arrived before he will!

I hate to do Dishes

Okay, on a random note: Dan's away on a trip and I went to our church small group last night and left the kids home with our neighbors maid (for the 3rd week in a row - she's great and the kids have done well). I returned home tonight to find that the lady who was watching the kids could not watch tv after they were asleep because someone (I'm assuming Kylie) hit the wrong channel and messed the tv up, so she did all my dishes for me. (a) we don't have a dishwasher, either Dan or I (mostly Dan) does the dishes (b) Dan has been gone since Sunday, so without Daddy around, I have put off doing dishes since Saturday (maybe even Friday) (c) i think we were officially down to the last of our plates and definitely out of forks. I knew I would have to do them all day today before Dan got home and saw how insane the pile was. Praise the Lord and thank you Kuhn Som! I seriously considered taking a picture of the pile of dishes earlier today because it was ridiculous. So I definitely took a picture of the after part: and paid Kuhn Som double for doing them!

And, incidentally, I would normally pay her somewhere around 275-300 Baht for the evening. I checked before I left small group to make sure i would have correct change, and I thought I did. Then, before coming in the door, I got my wallet out and realized that what I thought was a 100 Baht note was actually a 500 Baht note and I wouldn't have correct change. Either I could shortchange her by gathering all the coins we had to make 240 Baht or pay her 500 Baht. Then, when I saw that she had done the dishes for me (and there were a TON), I could happily pay her the 500 Baht (which she didn't know, because I just handed her a folded up bill). AND, I remembered that I need to send money in tomorrow to Megan's class for a copy of her school picture, which had I paid Kuhn Som what I thought I was going to, I would not have had the change to purchase Moo's picture! Praise God!

Front Door Project

Okay, since we got our stuff 2 1/2 weeks ago, I have wanted to repaint this sign I bought at a craft fair in Nags Head when I was in college! I think it used to hang up at Clover Valley, but I haven't liked it in a while. It is a nice piece of slate, though, and already is strung up. So, as soon as we got it and all my craft supplies, I sat down one night and painted it. This is what it turned out like: p.s. the before picture is not the actual sign...I forgot to take a before picture of it, but found this one on the internet...the design was the same as mine, though! (p.s. no comments on how my new sign is lopsided - I painted it free-hand and didn't have the desire to go back and redo it after it was done)!

Before

After

Then, I also had an old metal milk can that used to by my Nana Peggy's. We had it in Malone, but never put it out there or Blacksburg. It wasn't until Leesburg that I repainted it from rusted cream to colonial red. It looked great on our porch at Spencer Terrace. Then, since it was in need of spray paint, I spray painted it black (sadly a gloss, since that's all I can find right now in Thailand - i was just excited to find spray paint at all)!

Before

After

So then, we tried to hang the sign up Saturday. After approx. 20 minutes of frustration for Dan (and me by association), we finally had to email out our neighbors because we kept bending nails and they wouldn't go in. Our walls are all concrete, not drywall. We were informed that we need a masonry drill bit and concrete nails to hang up anything in our house. So, after Kylie and I trekking to our local HomePro, we bought them and I hung it up today! It looks okay, but is slightly too small for the space. It's ridiculous how large our house is!

Before

After

Max and Passey

Cute new pic of Max that Brian just sent out (literally, like 3 minutes ago). The picture actually had his Social Security card above his head, but I edited that out (aren't I so smart, Bri -didn't think you would want me splashing his number for the whole world to see). So so cute...and a passey, which is even cuter.

While we are on the subject, have we told you that Kylie no longer has her passey? Dan made the command decision on August 29th that Kylie would no longer have passey. She thought he was joking. He went upstairs with Jack and took all her passey's while I snuggled her downstairs and she whimpered, "I really don't want passey to leave." We had been preparing her for a while that she was too big for it. She informed me that she didn't want Avery or Rachel (friends from Spencer Terrace and also Passey lovers) to have it. Then, when we put her to bed that night and I prayed with her, she added at the end, "And please bring passey home soon." It about broke my heart. But, that being said, she has not had passey since then, occasionally makes comments about it, but is good to go!

"Bugga: Passey free for 22 days and counting!"

My goofy Moo

My Jack-in-the-Box

Kylie's Cup is Low

Kylie has started "over-pronouncing" her "L's". It cracks us up. Here she is telling Dan what we keep making her say because it was so cute when she first said it.

Fun Shirts

So I just found this website and was cracking up at the t-shirts. Here are the ones i thought were funny: oh, and my 38 year old brother owns the top shirt and wears it proudly (i'm slightly jealous, because it is a cool shirt). If i had my choice, i would easily choose the Sandcastles in the Sand shirt from How I met Your Mother. Ah, Robin Sparkles. And, skadoosh is Dan's new favorite catchphrase - from Kung Fu Panda.

My Artist

Megan drew this of her good friend, Ryley, at the beach. I love the fishies, the crab and the palm tree...and definitely couldn't do much better!

Dolphin Bay - Day Three

Day Three at Dolphin Bay was pretty much the same as the other 2, except we didn't have to do anything. We just swam and took naps. And hung out. Dan and I keep talking about how relaxing and fun it was to be there - that the kids did really well, slept great, ate great, had a fun time and didn't throw any fits and that we weren't short with each other (except when we got stuck in the mud). :) It was fun just to relax in our room, too. Dan read, Jack played the DS, Kylie watched "Sun Tzu Panda" (i.e. Kung Fu Panda - but she calls it Sun Tzu Panda, so I keep feeling like it should have the subtitle: The Art of War) and Moo and I either read or played Scrabble! Scrabble is such a fun game to play with Moopert - both spelling and math incorporated, too, so it is also educational! Although, it does get hard to find spots to form words when you make 3 and 4 letter words primarily :)

But, it was like Dan's dream realized in a small time frame: He always talks about how he would love to be at the Beach House and have it rain for the entire week, so we could just hang out, read and do puzzles - but that we have to wait until the kids are older and won't go stir crazy in a house for the week. We were able to just hang out in the heat of the day and not have the kids freak out (granted, Kylie was watching a movie on the iTouch and Jack was playing video games, but we are one step closer). And that's all that really matters.

Oh, and for lunch, we had sandwiches: Dan-grilled ham and cheese, Kylie-cheese, Megan-ham and cheese, Me-BLT and Jack-tuna. Not tuna salad - just Tuna on a roll with lettuce, tomato and mayo. He was adamant that he loved tuna, because they eat tuna sandwiches at school for snack, but we normally make tuna salad (with mayo, onion, celery, salt and pepper). Jack LOVED the sandwich. He hugged it to himself and ate every last bite. I'm telling you, he LOVES seafood! And, because you can't drink the water in Thailand, the hotel provides 4 bottles of water to drink per day. And this is what it looked like: we couldn't figure out if it was ammonia, rubbing alcohol or water...so Dan tried it - and survived! Not a little bit Scary :)

Can you tell that we had a great time at Dolphin Bay? My sis-in-law Tiff just made the comment that I've finished most sentences in the previous posts with exclamation points and sarcastically wondered if we liked it at all? It was a blast and it definitely brought back great memories for me of going to St. Croix (in 4th grade) and Grand Cayman (in 6th grade) with my Uncle Johnny, Aunt Ann, Nana Peggy, Beth and Dave :) And Jack's been on a "what animal does this meat come from?" kick, so thanks to my trips with my cousins, I have been able to tell him that I've eaten conch and turtle (and shrimp cocktail and shrimp for every meal for dinner) in addition to all the other things I've eaten in my life and thanks to Dan's traveling for work, he has eaten pigeon (in Egypt) and lamb (while not crazy, just not what I grew up eating, so it's kind of exotic). Anyway, here are pics of my cousins, my Nana Peggy and me in Grand Cayman circa November 1989 - just to keep you laughing. And cute, cute pics of my nice kids!

Dolphin Bay - Day Two

Day Two at Dolphin Bay started out with the kids waking up at 6am, but playing nicely so that Dan and I could "sleep" (stay in bed half-awake) until 7:30 - when breakfast started! Breakfast every morning was a buffet breakfast, and Meggie's favorite! Fresh squeezed OJ and Pineapple juice, toast, jam, frangipani honey (tasted both like honey and plumeria's...kind of crazy), hot brewed tea, coffee, cereal, eggs cooked to order, ham, sausage/hot dogs, bacon, some thai noodle dish, rice soup, fresh watermelon, pineapple, bananas and papaya!

The room next to ours was the "Massage" Room. I signed up and had a pedicure at 9am, outside on the patio - it was so relaxing and fun! And, cost me B100, which is approx $3.24 with tip - for a 40 minute pedicure! Then I went and got Meggie to have "nail polish" only done for her - she chose a fun shimmery orange :) Then, we were off to "Monkey Island"!


Monkey Island, an island off the south south west of our hotel, is an uninhabited island (by people) that has Thai monkeys living on it! The tide was out in the Bay, so we had to walk through muck to get out to the boat - which we didn't know about, so we got stuck in the muck! Kylie fell, Jack fell, I fell - and we were very thankful that we had decided not to bring our camera (so the pics of the monkeys are off the internet, sorry)! Then, we finally made it to the water and walked out to meet the boat! The boat was a decent wood boat, used for fishing for squid at night, but hauling tourists out to the monkeys during the day! We sat right on the floor of the boat and our guide took us over to Monkey Island! Once we got there, he put down anchor and we got out (me, tentatively). The monkeys quickly descended on us, since they are used to the routine of people coming over to feed them bananas! Dan had the bag of bananas and the monkeys were literally trying to take them out of his hands! Jack and Kylie each threw a banana, but then we switched to just Dan because we were worried they would grab the kids by accident! Seriously, this would never be allowed in the States! The big monkeys would get to the bananas Dan threw faster than the babies, so the kids started cheering on the babies, and Dan would try to throw them farther so the babies could get them and run off before a big monkey overtook them! There were big daddy monkeys, momma monkeys with babies, teen monkeys and little kid monkeys :) It was a blast to see them all and have Dan hold out a banana in his hand and have the monkey come up and take it right out of his hand! Then, when all the bananas were gone, we got back in the boat and the guide took us around another island, before returning back to our hotel! It was a blast and we would definitely do it again! It cost about $10 for the trip -1 hour long and $1.50 for the bananas! So fun!!! And, now Kylie can officially say that she has seen both monkeys and elephants in Thailand (which was what she would say when we would ask her what she would do in Thailand before we moved here!)!

After Monkey Island, we ate pizza, then had Jack and Kylie take a nap while Megan and Dan went on a walk! They saw roosters and talked about Buddhism, because they saw a temple - and also met a British man who is opening a retreat for Missionaries near Dolphin Bay! Then, after naps, we got to swim!!! Surprisingly, there were probably only 5 other families there at the resort (and 1 or 2 other couples) and one of them were from our neighborhood here in Bangkok! It was nice to chat some with the mom and Jack had fun playing with the 2 boys (ages 8 and 9)! The kids from the other family from our neighborhood found a Soi Dog puppy and kept playing with it, feeding it and carrying it around. He was cute, but still a soi dog, so we tried to keep our kids from touching it (and I had to talk Dan out of wanting to bring her home). Jack, in true Jack fashion, LOVED the dog and would have easily brought her home, had I let him :)

They had a special going at Dolphin Bay for dinner - a Seafood BBQ (which I think, just means cooked over an open flame) for 2! You had to order it 1 hour ahead of time, and it consisted of Saba fish, squid, prawns, mussels and crabs, with a hot chili, lemon, butter sauce! It was totally crazy, but actually pretty good! The Saba fish comes whole, with just a cut on the side for you to pick open and eat, the prawns are large shrimp with their heads and tails on, the crabs much like ones from home (although Dan got a she-crab), and tons of mussels and squid! Dan really liked the squid (as did Jack, who mooched on our seafood), Kylie liked the crab and I loved the sauce (even though it was super spicy)! I don't think either of us really liked the Saba fish, but the rest was pretty good! Jack and Megan both had chicken nuggets and french fries and Kylie had spaghetti bolognese again! Dinner was topped off by another round of apple pie a la mode for Dan and milkshakes for the rest of us! (check out the picture of both Jack and Dan eating the squid tentacles)!