Taste of Home

Today, I was grocery shopping for my family. Just scanning the shelves in the produce department at Foodland, trying in vain to find cilantro. Then I saw a bag of peanuts on the shelf. I looked more closely...Boiled Ground Nut...hey! Those are boiled peanuts! Shamelessly, I picked up the bag and sniffed it. Yep, that's the right smell. It's only 27 baht (that's $0.77, for those who don't do regular baht-dollar conversions), so I had nothing to lose. Arriving home to share my find with Tim, we decided they weren't bad. Pretty good, in fact. Not as salt-drenched as those you find at roadside stands in the deep South, but beggars cannot be choosers.

The grocery store outing was an all-around pleasant experience today. I had a good taxi driver (although he did inform me that he thought Americans were fat because they eat too much bread and too little rice; I conceded that he might have a point), the construction on Srinakarin Road was finished, making it less of a struggle to reach the desired destination, and I had my darling daughter as a shopping companion, bringing back pleasant childhood memories of mother-daughter shopping excursions.

I am also finding more and more that I have the ability to communicate with those around me. It's limited, but it's improving. I wowed the folks at the grocery store today with phrases like, "I'd like half a kilo of ground beef" and "Are these the noodles you use to make Pad Thai?". It's funny, whenever I'm out and about using my Thai, I get a mental picture of a sweet Asian woman tootling about in America, using her limited English to construct stilted and gramatically incorrect sentences, then smiling broadly with pleasure when someone understands her. I am Mrs. Chou. Humbling, but surprisingly fun.

Better Than the Trees

The wording of Emmy's valentine to Tim:

I love Daddy so much. I love him better than the trees in our yard, because I don't want to stop loving him. He takes me for walks and gives me some time to have some fun.

And we have some pretty great trees in our yard.
One of the many reasons I love having a preschooler.

On The Town

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go out to dinner on Friday night. There just aren't that many places to go around us, at least not the sort of places that we're accustomed to for a Friday night dinner. No Mellow Mushroom, no mexican. But we decided it was time to stretch ourselves a bit and go get some good Thai food at one of the local restaurants built over a pond. So we went to this one, which is called (translated from Thai) "Come Get Rich Pond". The picture above is of these little huts that line the pond, where you can go and fish, and the restaurant will prepare what you catch and serve it to you! We opted for the more traditional dining experience and left the procurement of the food to those more expert in that area. The picture below is of the area where we ate; you can see our tiny little heads in the middle at the railing. We had coconut milk soup, cashew nut chicken, and fried rice with crab- all delicious!

We recently headed downtown on a Saturday to Lumpini Park, the Central Park of Bangkok. It's really beautiful greenspace, and it afforded us two fun opportunities- to get into the city AND to enjoy God's beautiful creation! When we thought we'd be living right downtown, I always hoped we'd be able to live near the park, as it has much to offer right in the middle of the concrete and smog of the city. At different times of day, you can see huge groups doing aerobics, people doing Tai Chi, people picnicking and playing games on the grass, running, swimming, and even working out on outdoor equipment!

A picnic lunch

Asa Bear's first picnic. This one was too cute not to include.

Is that an alligator lurking under the bridge? Nope, just a monitor lizard in his murky abode!

And, a picture from a New Year's barbecue at our neighbor's house. Emmy and Tim went while I stayed home with a sleeping baby. Giant prawns and squid- yummy!