EW "Pretty in Pink" Fall Kickoff

  I totally swiped the following post from my friend, Kari, who lives here in Nichada and blogs about her life, family and living in Thailand...You can see her original post here at her blog Sand, Sea and Shells.

 'momoiro'(Japanese),  pink seckahl (Korean),  si chom-poo(Thailand), rose(French), rosa(Spanish).

You’re probably wondering what the words above mean. well that’s how you say the color pink in different languages.  This is what I learnt today among many other interesting things.  Like  who knew that “Alecia Moore” is actually the pop artist Pink, and that bubble gum was patented by a dentist and that the London Financial Times is printed on pink paper!!  I also realized again how lucky I am to be among woman from all walks of life and from all over the world.  totally awesome.
I met some ladies who’ve been here for only a couple of months and others who have been here for 9 years.  It’s such a diverse and colorful group of woman who have travelled many different paths and for today we all gathered for a reason - for fellowship and friendships – old and new.
I picked my study and it isn’t any of the ones I indicated yesterday.  I think after hearing from the facilitators how much homework was involved with each of the studies it  made me change my mind!!
So instead I choose Becoming A Woman of Prayer.  I’m hoping this will help me quiet my spirit.
I’m looking forward to the study.  And I’m also looking forward to making some new friends.
Don’t you just love it, even our food was pink!!

Yet another Dead Gecko

It's still a way cool name for a band.  The Dead Geckos. 

Megan informed me at the breakfast table that she had a dead gecko on her rug in her bathroom. 

Me:  I'll pay you to get rid of it.
Megan:  How much?
Me:  Um, 100B.
Megan:  What?  I think this is worse than wiping up Kylie's heiney (which is what I always promise her if she will wipe up Kylie if I'm not here and we have a high schooler babysitting...she hasn't had to do it yet, though).
Me:  100B is $3.20USD
Megan:  Fine.  I'll do it.  Can Jack help?
Jack:  Yeah, can we split it and each get 80B?
Me:  A) you need to work on your math and B) that's fine, but it's only 50B each.
Megan:  Okay Jack, you scoop it up with cardboard and throw it in the toilet and I'll flush the toilet.
Me:  NO WAY!  If you are making Jack scoop it up, he gets 70B and you get 30B. 
Megan:  Fine.

So, Jack scooped up this teeny tiny dead baby gecko on Megan's bathroom rug and tossed it in her potty...and she flushed it.  I still owe them the money.  I know they won't let me forget. 

Farm Chokchai part 2

 

So, the rest of the day was spent taking an Agro Tour.  They showed us the cows and where they grew different things (corn, grass, sunflowers for the seeds, etc) for the cows.  Then we came upon buildings that looked like the Wild West!  We got to watch guys brand (with a branding iron, but on a board, not a cow), rope a cow, use a lasso and twirl guns!  The kids could have taken a pony ride, but we had them sit on the fake horse instead :)  After that, Dan bought tickets for the kiddos to try the cap guns there.  Jack had a blast, Megan actually knocked down a thing and Kylie tried throwing darts.  Real ones.  Not really sure how safe that was...but we all survived!  Then we boarded our nice wagon to the Petting Zoo area!  You could purchase veggies to feed bunnies, deer and sheep and purchase bottles of milk to feed the calves!  It was crazy to have deer just roaming around.  They also did a pet show, but we kind of missed it, so the kiddos and Dan just got their picture taken with a golden retriever...It was a fun day and I would definitely recommend it to friends...it's mostly all in Thai, but we're fine with that :)

Fun wagons at the Wild West area

The kiddos doing the merry go round with Maddie.  She made it around 1x and then begged to be taken off :)

Megan

Jack

Kylie

Waiting for the show

They did this really cool roping thing where they did a few twists of the rope and they had this cow down on the ground so it could be branded!  Luckily for the cow, they just pretended and then branded the board in the background!

His first ever shot of a cap gun

Dan showing Megan how...

It apparently worked, because she knocked one down!

Dan looking away when he should have been focusing on his 4 year old with a real dart in her hand!

Yup, deer just roamed here...

Kylie got to feed a calf (it's cheaper at Dave and Kris's in Malone)

Dan feeding the sheep

The kiddos on fun rocking horses

Fun Thai sign

Dan and the kids with a golden retriever...

Kiddos on a metal bull statue

My Tweeter

Farm Chokchai part 1

 

So, we finally made it Farm Chokchai.  It was a pretty day and we not only got to eat really delicious hamburgers there, but we got to do an Ice Cream Workshop and go on their Agro Tour.  Farm Chokchai was started, I believe, in the 1970's and copied the way American Dairy Farms worked.  They have 8000 acres of land and currently produce 5 products:  milk, yogurt, ice cream, milk candies and something else :)  Clearly, I pay attention!  It was interesting that we were the only farang there...it was all Thai's (and quite busy)!

Me and my Tweeter in front of a waterfall (which you can't see)

My 3 kiddos in front of the waterfall (that you can see).  FYI:  The girls and Dan were already wearing green shirts, so Jack and I figured we would join them...we generally don't wear matching outfits, a la Dugger Family.

This was my "Be happy!" picture I made the kiddos take while waiting on our lunch...which actually took about 2 minutes to be served!

9 Things Tourists should know when you come to Farm Chokchai!  #5 is the funniest (and true - part of the tour was the Artificial Insemination demonstration - It was in Thai, but written on a screen in English.  It took all i had to keep Megan talking to me about something to do with cows so she wouldn't read it...Before you are allowed to go into the Ice Cream Workshop or the Agro Tour, you have to walk through a mister that sprays your legs and clothing, then you walk through a anti-bacterial pan to wash your shoes, then rinse your hands with antibacterial wash of some kind...interesting.

Check out these cool hairnets and aprons we all had to wear!

The purpose of this workshop was to show how their ice cream is made.  There were 3 stations - to make Chocolate, Strawberry and Cookies and Cream.  You mixed all their ingredients (cream at 40% milk fat, milk, sugar mixture and chocolate syrup for chocolate) then poured it into the ice cream makers!)

Fun Family Pic

Nick took these next shots...you can tell because they are so much better than mine!

Megan setting up all the toppings to put on the ice cream once it's finished

Dan and Bill discussing the nuances of strawberry ice cream

Kylie and I got to work with Mike, Michelle and Maddie

My little cutie in her hair net

Taste testing to see how it is...

Bill, Dan, Mike and Nick

Kylie standing on a fence before the AI demonstration

The milking parlor...all outside, since it never gets colder than 74F here

My Tweeter with the Thai Milking Parlor sign :)

Kylie got her picture taken with Mr. Nick!  She has been saying for weeks that she just can't stop looking at him when we do lunch with Dan.  That's she's not sure why, but she just can't stop looking at him and thinking about him.  And that she thinks he's handsome.  I reminded her that he was already married to Ms. Kristine and that Ms. Kristine might fight her if she hears Kylie talking like that :) 

In true Thai fashion...they provide umbrellas to walk from area to area...so that the SUN doesn't get on you

Nothing like a John Deere in Thailand

Dragon Fruit farm!  These stumps are planted in the ground, but the dragon fruit is actually a vine that runs around it and grows out of the top!  Too cool!

Pretty Dragon Fruit

My kiddos on a wagon wheel merry go round :)

Farm Chokchai - The Truth

I would love to say that "Once we got there and got settled, we had a great time at Farm Chokchai" but the truth is that Dan was grumpy for the first hour or so and I was stressed for the last 3 hours.  Dan was done.  D.O.N.E.  After having driven for 1 1/2 hours and then sitting for 3 1/2 hours in the car, he was just done.  He really wanted nothing more than to just turn around and drive back home.  When we got there, we went to eat at one of their steakhouses...which we thought had burgers.  It was a decently pricey steakhouse with no kids menu.  Dan was done.  He just told all of his buddies that we were going to the hamburger place and we would meet them afterward.  He was just done and didn't feel like a steak for lunch (before a big tour outside in the heat).  

I was stressed because we had committed to watching 2 little girls so their parents could go out for their anniversary dinner that night.  The original plan was to be there at 9:30am and leave by 2:30pm, thus making us get home by 4:30pm.  Well, since we didn't get there until 12:40 and we still had to eat lunch, do an ice cream workshop and the agro tour, we didn't finish until 5:30pm.  See the problem?  5:30pm was when we were supposed to pick up the girls.  IN BANGKOK.  I really thought the agro tour was going to take an hour.  I didn't realize it took 2 1/2 hours.  Anyway, the mom of the two girls asked another friend to watch the girls for us until we could get there...which ended up being around 7:40pm.  And that 7:40pm?  That was a school night for the kids (whose normal bedtime is 7:30pm).  And we hadn't eaten anything since lunch at 1pm.  So they were starving, too!  Thankfully, we had a couple of cheese and cracker packs in the car that they ate until we got home after 8pm with the little girls and they all downed sandwiches before bedtime :)

We should have had a great day.  It was a fun time to be there, fun to see and do.  It just would have helped, had our attitudes been better...

p.s.  Suz just posted this comment on here:  "At least you didn't take the tour bus there..."  ;-)

The Drive to Farm Chokchai

Well.  Dan has wanted to go with the guys from his office to the Chokchai Dairy Farm here in Thailand for the last year or so.  It is approx. 2 hours north-ish from us and does tours and other fun stuff there!  This past Thursday was the Queen's Birthday, so both Dan and the kids were off from school and work.  We planned to drive and meet Dan's guys and their families from work there at 9:30am on Thursday.

We left the house a little after 7:30am.  The first 1 1/2 hours went great - totally fun to see parts of Thailand that we've never seen before...water buffalo being herded, rice fields, malls we didn't know existed, beautiful trees and mountains and truck stops...all sorts of fun things.  

Then, at approx. 9am - with 30 minutes to go....we hit traffic.  The kind of traffic that moves a foot every couple of minutes.  We spend the next 7 miles crawling at best.  3 hours passed.  3 hours.  No way for anyone to pee.  No extra snacks.  Movies for the kiddos...and traffic for Dan.  We saw Dan's buddies in their cars as they would inch past us or we would inch past them...fun times, let me tell you.  Jack had to pee so bad that we emptied out a water bottle and had him pee in the car (I have pictures as proof...but they aren't post worthy) :)

Nick and Kristine...Bill and Kristen in back

 At 12 noon, we finally started to pick up speed...and passed by a burnt out tour bus.  Clearly the reason for the traffic jam.  We finally got to Farm Chokchai at 12:40.  We had missed our original Agro Tour and Ice Cream Workshop.  They rescheduled everything for us...which was great!