Last Day of Summer (and Daddy's back Home!)

Today is our "Official last day of Summer". So sad. Dan got home from a trip yesterday early in the morning and stayed home the rest of the day, which was great! We hung out, grocery shopped, took naps and cleaned! We had our new Youth Pastor and his wife over for dinner and a game of Settlers, which was fun and we will find out teachers in about 15 minutes when we head up to school to see the lists posted! (Because it is such a transiant community, they don't post class lists/teacher lists until the day before school starts!)

Daddy's Back Home!!!


Dan bought himself a present - a sextant made in 1840. Any guesses on why he chose a sextant?


And beautiful treasure boxes for the kiddos!!! Thanks Tweeter!
(I got a Christmas ornament from his latest country - which I asked for and love!)

The Latest Kid Quotes

-When talking about swimming at the pool, Kylie's requirements are "no lotion and no skinscream" (fyi, our kids are allergic to every sunscreen under the sun. We've tried more kinds than I can count - and unfortunately they get the sensitive skin from me.)

-While going through the airport after arriving in Dulles, we explained to Kylie that we would have to walk through the terminal, ride on the tram thingies that look like they should be in Star Wars, then go to Customs and wait in a long line before we could get our bags and finally see Uncle Matt. I think I talked through the whole scenario about 3 times. As we wind our way through the long, long line at Customs, we finally get to be the next one in line and Kylie starts fussing that we haven't seen the lions yet. And I'm like, "Lions?" And she's like, "Yeah, you said we were going to see the Lions!" Finally it dawns on me that earlier on the tram/Star Wars thing she had asked about elephants and I blew it off because I had no idea what she was talking about. And then I realized that I need to clarify things and said, "Oh honey, there aren't any LIONS here, just that we would have to wait in a lot of LINES." (She brings this up every couple of days and tells me, "Remember when I thought you said LIONS?" - and giggles...it was only a month ago.)

-Dan's Dad died in October 2000. His headstone is in Long Lake, NY alongside his father and grandparents. We like to stop through there on the way from the Farm to the Beach to see it. On the way to the cemetery, we're explaining to the kids what we are doing and the big kids kind of understand it, but Kylie exclaims from her car seat, "I've never met your Father before - I'm excited to meet him!" So cute and so sweet and so sad. We then had to explain that we wouldn't be meeting him there at the cemetery...just that that is where his headstone is. Poor girl probably thought we had been keeping Grandpa from her for years :(

-Then on that same note - whenever we passed a cemetery the rest of the time in the States, which happened at least 2x's, she would say, "There's where Grandpa livess." We tried to explain the first time that he's not there, he's in Heaven and the second time we just let it go.

-We had the privilege of attending Dan's Grandmother's 90th birthday party while we were back in the States. Her name is Marvie Buzby. If anyone has seen the Hermie the Caterpillar Christian kids series, there's a bee called Buzby the Misbehaving Bee (and we own the DVD - it's cute). The week before going to the party, Jack had asked what we had planned for the week - and if we were going to the "Bumble Bee Party" - referring to Grammie Buzby's 90th Birthday celebration :) I thought it was too cute :)

-While we were in the States, Dan's Great Aunt passed away. We were thankful that we were able to be there to attend her funeral, drove Dan's Mom and took our 3 kids with us. They were really about as good as they could be during the service, considering they were the only children, we had driven 3 hours to get there that morning and they had to be quiet. Later that week, Jack kept referring to it as the "Festival" instead of the "Funeral". We decided that Aunt Ada wouldn't have minded it one bit.

-The last night in the States, we had pizza (except for me, I got Anita's takeout) at my brother's house with my whole family. Jack still refers to that night as his favorite pizza ever (sausage and black olive courtesy of my Dad) and keeps calling it the "Pizza Party". "Remember that Pizza Party we had at Cole and Mary Kate's? That was the best pizza!"

Cleaning

So I recently realized that one of the reasons I don't really like doing dishes or other things like it is that I am isolated from the rest of the family and don't have anyone to talk to. It's also the reason I don't like to do shopping of any kind by myself - I like to have someone to talk to! (I'm a Quality Time kind of girl from the Love Languages book, FYI.) We instituted some changes in April while Dan was on a trip and it's worked out really well. Gives me someone to talk to and has the kids helping out (tremendously) around the house.

So here's what happens now:

Jack rinses dishes for me (with the caveats that he can play with the water, as long as he doesn't make a mess and gets the dishes done without them stacking up in the sink). It's a great arrangement, he's a great helper and we get to chat and listen to music while working. A win-win situation.Megan puts the clean dry dishes away, cleans up any dishes on the table, wipes down the table for me and cleans up the counters while Jack and I do dishes. She also organizes our pantry, which she is gifted at doing :) Kylie helps Megan put away the non-breakable dishes, helps carry groceries into the pantry for Megan to put away, carries out supermarket bags to put under the sink and helps wipe down "her" table that she plays at.

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.