Getting Ready for School :(

This is our last full week before school starts back up. I KNOW! Isn't it insanely early? I feel like we should still have 1/2 the summer left, but we don't. The kids start back next Thursday (i.e. 1 week from today). We spent the morning at their school getting bus tags, purchasing a new skort for Moo and a new hat for Jack and buying school supplies (you just go to the school bookstore and tell them what grades you want and they are already packaged in a bag for you - 1 K and 1 Grade 2)! Nice (and $82 later)!

After that, we went to get Jack's hair cut. It turned out AWFUL! It was still long, totally uneven and the lady cut his sideburns into a point. Who does that? So we went to a different place straight from there and got his hair washed, then cut. It looks great and we won't be going back to the other place. We've been hanging out, having play dates, running errands and getting nails done. Oh, and tonight we made milkshakes as Jack's special treat for sitting through not just 1 but 2 different haircuts today. That's why we all have smiles on our faces in the bottom picture. Milkshakes make us happy :)

Whatcha think?

Saw one like it for sale and painted it tonight. Is it still plagiarism if I copy it but don't sell it?

Happenings and Rainbow Cake

Our life so far back in Bangkok has consisted of swimming a lot, grocery shopping, meeting Dan down at work for lunch (LOVE the Lard Na, Megan now loves the Pad See Ew and Kylie loves the Kao Pad Gai - chicken fried rice), Dan and I going out on 2 Friday night dates (with other couples out to dinner - a Korean Barbeque place and River Treehouse), pedicures (not my favorite design), lots of rain showers, more swimming and Dan traveling. People are slowly trickling back into the area after being gone. It's been nice to be back at church and our new Youth Pastor and his wife will arrive Tuesday night late :) Last night we went to Que Pasa for dinner, ran into our friends on the way in and ate dinner with them!Oh, and Dan bought me flowers for the 1st time in Bangkok! Flowers are really inexpensive here...but you do have to know where to purchase them. For instance, last semester my Bible study leader used to make the table where we met in the basement of our church so cozy with a table runner, candles, candies and 2 dozen pink roses in 2 vases - it was awesome! We finally asked her by the 3rd week why she continued to purchase such expensive flowers and she told us that the roses cost 4B each at a garden stall near here (i.e. approx. $0.11 a rose). She figured she could swing the cost for the ambiance :) Dan found a flower guy downtown the other day and bought this bouquet for 50B or $1.42 :) And it makes me happy to have them in our house!!!


And I think everyone and their mother has made a rainbow cake in some form or another in the past couple of weeks. We've seen it down on at least 5 blogs - and had to try it out for ourselves! We made one last week (although in pastels and not in vivid brights) for Dan returning from a trip! The kids had fun and I think we'll probably be using it for Kylie's birthday (in 6 months)! And it was yummy! You can do the same recipe here! We used a bundt pan and made it with just a regular recipe and icing out of a can :) Cool-Whip is insanely expensive here, so it's just easier to buy a can!

We're HOME!!!

So we flew back on July 11th, arrived in Bangkok at midnight on the 12th and Dan headed to work at 6am Monday morning. The flight was long, but the kids did really well. For our 2 hour layover in Narita (Tokyo), Jack slept through the WHOLE THING. In this position:

It took us a good 6 or 7 days to adjust to the time change here...we were all pretty messed up, but it was really Kylie who was the worst. We're all back on schedule now and glad to be back home in our own beds, with our own toys, our own van and swimming every day. :) I think it was the 2nd day we were home, I had to put the kids down for naps because they had been up at 1am for the day and by 3pm couldn't stay awake (they all fell asleep on the couch). I had planned on waking them up at 5pm when Dan got home, but we physically couldn't wake them up. So Dan just said, "Forget it, lets go to bed." We passed out and were woken up at 3:30am by Megan saying that we never ate dinner and by Jack who said, "I was laying in my bed thinking and I can't remember what we had for dinner?" Needless to say that day we were up for the day at 3:30am. Nice.

When you wake up for the day at 1am or 2:20am or 3:30am...by the time daylight actually comes around you are bored out of your mind. There is only so much you can do in your house without waking the neighborhood. At 7am, we finally went for a walk around the neighborhood...and checked to see how the pool was. It progressed from "only piggy toes in the pool" to "only your legs, no shorts in" to "not your shirt" to "please don't get your hair wet". When they got their hair wet, fully dressed in the pool that doesn't officially open until 8:30am, we headed home...but couldn't resist a picture of them :)


So, while we had a great time in the States, we are very thankful and happy to be HOME.

Phew! (part 8 - My Family)

The last part of our time in the States was spent with my parents, Mark & Heather and their crew and Brian, Sarah and Max! They flew up for Wednesday through Sunday to visit with us and let us get to visit with Max! It was a blast and we got to spend lots of time together! We had some yummy meals at Grammy and Grandad's, a mini-early birthday party for Max, a day of swimming at the new Leesburg water park, a gourmet meal made by Mark (and Heather) - yay for an amazing version of Shrimp and Grits (I need the recipe) and hanging out time at their house (plus a sleepover for Megan and an almost sleepover for Jack - who called us at 11pm to say he wanted to come home). Not too many pictures by me - but hopefully we'll get more soon. Oh, and also a professional photo shoot of the whole fam! I only have small thumbnail pics, but I'll post the real ones when I get them! Thank you Shana - you did a GREAT job!!!

Me and my buddy Max


I took his passey away - he was not amused :)


Me and my brothers

Chef Mark and Heather
(you're a good sport Heath!)


The lil' Hokie

Ice cream!!!

Hannah and Kylie (Kylie adores Hannah, oh, and yesterday put her necklace on her ankle and said, "Look, I'm like Abby!")


The whole family


The kids
Jack, Megan, Mary Kate, Cole
Abby, Hannah
Kylie and Max


The Grown-Ups


Our family


Me and My Tweeter


Smoochin'

And looking appropriately cheesy (but cute)!

Phew! (part 7 - Matt and Tiff's)

Michael, Jack, Hannah, Kylie, Megan, Laura, Josh
(Sammi was happy in her stroller - i.e. don't try to make a happy baby happier)

Seriously, I promise that part 8 will be it for our recap in the States, so only 1 more after this post. Okay, so we had fun hanging out with Matt and Tiff at various times at their house - Matt cooking massive amounts of yummy Korean bulgogi, jumping on the trampoline, kids playing outside, playing Settlers both on the computer and in real life, swimming at the pool, doing dinner with April & Tim and Michelle & Ben, laughing at kids antics and having the guys install ceiling fans in the kids rooms!

I willingly volunteered Dan to help Matt put ceiling fans in their 2 kids' rooms...where there were previously not only no ceiling fans, but also no box to do put them in with. So the guys had to run wires and do all that stuff that I don't really understand or know, but which could have taken them a long, long time to do (not to mention could have been problematic if they had drilled through wires, etc). Thankfully, they didn't really have any problems and got them both done in 1 day! Great job guys (and thank you Tweeter!)!!!

The Girls Room

The Boys Room

Tiff and Sammi
Pappy, Mom Mom and the kiddos
We met Mom and Boyd in Mt. Airy, MD (1/2 way point between our houses) for one last dinner with them before we flew back to Bangkok! It was fun and yummy :) Thanks for doing that!

Dan and his Mom

Phew! (part 6 - Crab Feast)

We spent July 4th in Baltimore at Mom Mom and Pappy's house for their annual Crab Feast! Dan and I look forward to it all year long. Not just because we LOVE Maryland crabs with Old Bay, but because we get to hang out eating, chatting and visiting with Dan's Mom, Boyd, Matt and Tiff and their family, Dan's Aunt Sheri, Dan's cousin Tim and Sarah and their 2 (almost 3!) girls and my parents! We always have a blast and our kids are finally old enough to mostly be fine for the duration of crab eating, which rocks! We took a family picture of our family - Mom Mom, Pappy, Matt and Tiff and crew and our crew :)

Michael, Josh, Jack, Kylie, Sammi, Megan, Caroline, Rachel, Hannah and Laura (in front)

mmm....Crabs

Ahhh! They're attacking!

Tim, Dan and Matt

Brothers don't shake hands, Brother's gotta HUG!

(bonus points for whoever names the movie)

Phew! (part 5 - Richmond)

Jacob, Megan, Eliza, Jack, Michael, Nathan, Kylie, Matthew and Liam

On the 2nd we headed down to Richmond to see our friends, Michael & Heather and Greg & Melissa. Too fun. We have 9 kids between the 3 families and they are all under the age of 8 (at least for the next 3 weeks). We've been friends for a long, long time in multiple ways - Michael and Dan since 7th grade (then roommates throughout college), Heather and I since freshman year in college then roommates throughout, I've known Greg and Melis since freshman year as well through Young Life (Dan even earlier), then were in a housegroup with them for 2 years in Blacksburg, but didn't really hang out then (what a waste!) and now they all live in Richmond (along with other friends we didn't get to see because they were on vacation in Ohio :( ) Just great to get together, have kids hang out and spend the day together (and swim, play outside, race the turtles, jump on the "srampoline" (Kylie's pronounciation) and eat yummy food). The kids got along great, we loved being down there and loved being with them!

The kiddos

Megan and Michael

Jack and Michael

Liam attempting to pull the big kids

Dan raced Greg down the hill on the turtles. In Greg's defense, Dan used his hands to push on the street and thus propel himself to win, i.e. not fairly.

After that, Dan rode down against Michael (Greg's oldest son), who asked Dan not to push on the ground with his hands, since it's wasn't fair.


Then, right before going down with Dan on the turtle, Michael whispered in Dan's ear that Dan could push on the street if he wanted to (so they could win). He was too cute with his situational ethics :)


A picture Kylie took of me, Melis and Heather


And a picture of the 3 of us in the fall of 1997 at Young Life's Rockbridge Family Camp. We were helping watch kids...we look sooo young!


The couples (with Dan goofing off)


The (handsome) Men


All the boys, minus Liam, who was asleep already

Eliza and Megan (we tripled the number of girls by bringing our 2 - normally Eliza is the only one)

We didn't leave Richmond until 10pm that night and most of the kids were still going strong (thank you guys for letting us stay until then!) This is how Kylie was for the last 45minutes there...

Thanks for a great time guys! We love you!!!