Photos from a Friend

A friend of ours here from church is a great photographer. We happened to crash her pool (it's where Ken and Amy live, but they weren't home, so we used their neighborhood pool anyway) and swim one afternoon and she took pics of our family! Here are some of the fun ones...

Their pool ROCKS! I think it's my favorite pool in the area (that I've seen so far). It is so beautiful with frangipani's surrounding and over it, birds of paradise and other beautiful flowers, plus a huge kids pool, waterfall and statues spouting out water!

And a cute picture of some friends of Megan's from and in front of church!

Settling Down

So things are settling down here in Bangkok and starting to resume getting things back to "normal". We think the violence is over and although there has been a curfew imposed on all of Thailand, we're getting back to normal. Dan will resume work this week - it was great to have him home the last week or so (and much needed after his travel schedule the last couple of months)! The kids' school will resume normal hours, normal after school activities and normal bus runs.

And Bangkok is starting to go back to normal. There is a good article here about how the people are chipping in on the clean-up...

The Red Shirt protesters burned some buildings downtown...including Central World downtown. It was our favorite mall to shop at...had a Toys R Us and Mos Burger...It's the one we took Mom and Boyd to to eat at Mos Burger! Here's 2 pictures my friend had on her facebook showing the damage...crazy!

We're Still Fine...

But things are crazy here in Bangkok. Things definitely heated up today with the Thai Army trying to break through and apart the Red Shirt demonstrators. We keep getting updated text messages from Dan's work letting us know what is going on. Dan tried to go into work today, but they aren't allowing ANYONE who isn't already at his work to go in. We're not leaving our neighborhood and actually took a friend to pick her daughter up from preschool that is outside of our neighborhood early. We are still fine at the moment and are hoping and praying that this is over today or tomorrow. WE ARE PHYSICALLY FINE. Our cell phones are down...and when we try to check web pages, we get this message:

Access to this information. ถูกระงับเป็นการชั่วคราว Suspended temporarily

โดยอาศัยอำนาจตาม By virtue.

พระราชกำหนดการบริหาร ราชการ Emergency Decree on Public Administration.

ในสถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๘ In emergency situations, BE 2548.

ตามคำสั่งของศูนย์อำนวยการ แก้ไขสถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน The command center of the emergency situation.

Bangkok

I would like to say "We're fine. Everything's fine" here in Bangkok. But, if you read cnn.com or any other news source, I'm guessing you realize that it isn't. We are thankful that we live about 10 miles (as the crow flies) from downtown Bangkok where all this is happening. Unfortunately, it is happening right near where Dan works. The Embassy has been closed Thursday, Friday and will remain closed on Monday. They are saying maybe 23 dead total so far- we keep getting updated SMS (text) messages saying things like this latest "Shooting and explosions on Wireless Rd. Employees directed to avoid this area."

Feel free to pray that this will be resolved quickly and, Lord willing, without any more bloodshed...we'll see what happens.

Happy Mother's Day and Birthday Mom!!!

Random shop in downtown Bangkok - I couldn't pass the picture up!

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Birthday Mom! We hope you have a great birthday celebrating however (hopefully with a yummy dinner) and a great week there! We love you and are excited to see you in about a month! We love you!!! And some pics of you and the kiddos this past summer at the Beach House! Happy Birthday Grammy!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!!

Happy Mother's Day Mom! It was a real treat to get to see you the Friday of Mother's Day weekend. Thanks for all you have done for me over the years. Your continued love, enthusiasm, encouragement, prayers, and always being my number one fan are a real blessing in my life!!! Love ya, Dan XOXO

Happy Mother's Day Tweeter!!!

Happy Mother's Day my love!!! You are an amazing mother for Megan, Jack and Kylie and I am extremely thankful for you. Your never ending patience and love for them is amazing to see in action! I don't have any great pictures of you and the kids with me to post so I will have to fill those in after I get home. Hope you have a great day, can't wait to get home and wish you Happy Mother's Day in person!!! I love you!!!!!

In Him,
your tweeter

Quick Visit with the Oberles

It worked out that I got to see Mike and Heather and their crew as well over the weekend. We had a great time catching up and talking about how God has been working in each of our families over the last year. It is an amazing privilege to have friends that you can just pop in on and take right off talking like you have never been apart! Loved getting to see you guys, hopefully we will see you again in the summer!

The Machines (it's a college thing, humor me!)

More fun in Virginia and Maryland!!!

I got to have some great time over the weekend hanging out with Matt and Tiff and their family. It was a blast to see everyone and amazing to see how big their kids are all getting. We had dinner at Matt and Tiff's Friday night and ordered some Papa John's pizza because I was craving it. On Saturday, we got to go to Josh's soccer game which was a lot of fun to see him tearing around the field.

I went over to Mom and Boyd's on Saturday night and had a great time seeing them for a bit. Chick-fil-a for dinner satisfied another craving and then I got to hear Boyd's quartet the Salem Brothers preform which was a real treat! Rounded out the weekend with a nice Sunday morning breakfast at Bob Evans with Matt and Tiff and their crew. Hello biscuits and gravy!!!! ( I hope I can still fit into my seat on the plane for my trip back to Bangkok) It was a great perk of my training class that I got to squeeze in some time with my family, loved getting to see you guys, here are some pics from our time together.

Mikey at bedtime, living the dream with 5 passies!!! We had a blast playing together!

Josh tearing up the soccer field, he was like lightning running around out there

Josh's rock star fan of a little sister at the soccer game

"I surrender!"

Laura, Mikey, and I

Matt and I, blue was apparently the color of the day!

EW Farewell Luncheon

Susan, Diane and Me

We had our ladies bible study Encouraging Women Farewell Luncheon last week. It was a great time to talk with friends, eat wonderful food, say goodbye to ladies who are moving from Bangkok and say "see you soon" to ladies who will be returning in the fall! At the end of the luncheon, we have a friend of each of the ladies who are moving spend a couple of minutes talking about why they will miss their friend. So fun to hear how these 13 ladies have made an impact on lives of ladies here. And how great and big our God is that keeps these ladies close as they continue on to many other countries around the world :) Some of the friendships began in previous countries and continued when they both moved here...which is just amazing!

I got to help speak about my friend Susan, who is leaving at the end of June. She and Patrick came out here to be the Youth Pastor (and his wife) for our church in August. God has clearly used them here and refined His plan for them over the last year or so. They will be heading back to the States for Patrick to work towards his PhD in New Testament studies with the goal of being a professor at a seminary (I think). He has a heart for God's Word and Susan does, too! We loved getting to know them through our Life Group and Susan being on the Core Committee with me for EW! I am so thankful she was our Treasurer for the last year - she is very chill and doesn't get flustered easily, which I love! And, they get to bring home the best souvenir from their time here in Thailand - their new sweet baby boy, Levi! We are seriously going to miss them, but know that God has a great and perfect plan for them being back in the States! Here are some other pics of friends...

Jenn, Cat and Debi

Allayne, Eileen and Shamita

Shamita, Wendy (holding Levi), Susan, Jaya, Ro and Leslie holding Catie

Maryanne and Dana

Karla and Deborah

Funny Quotes from Kids

Kylie:

Baycation - Vacation
Map - her Mat that she sleeps on for naps
Coiny - Money (in coin form)
Movie Fader - Movie Theater
Banilla Bar - Granola Bar
Land of God - Song Lamb of God
"Oh Land of God, sweet Land of God..."
Smoovie - Smoothie

Jack:

Steakin - like chicken, only steak
"Hmmm, this is good steakin!"
I have THE ringworm. (like it's the plague or something)

At church this Sunday, I worked in the 3 and 4 year old nursery. During snack time I went around the table and asked each kid to make a different face - happy, sad, surprised, mad, silly, etc. I asked one little girl to make a tired face and she roared at me. So I moved on and continued around the table asking kids again and got to a little boy and asked him to make a tired face and he roared at me, too! So then I finally realized that they thought I was saying tiger face and not tired face! :) Cracked me up!

Writing

The other day Kylie was playing "waitress" and cooking me pretend food. She had a notepad and pen and asked me what I wanted to drink. I told her sweet tea and she told me they were out of it. So I asked for Coke. She said okay and asked how to spell it - and wrote it down by herself on her notepad pretty nicely! Go Bugga!