O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness! - William Shakespeare

This is the closest we got to turkey this year. Our incarnation of these little birds was decidedly tropical, with dried mango wings and beaks. Candy corn, which is usually used for these birds, is cute, but not so tasty, anyway.

Thanksgiving was actually pretty challenging for me emotionally this year. I hesitate to even say that, because I don't want to come across as complaining about my circumstances (which are not lacking at all), but I also know that it's easy, from a distance, to paint our lives as one big ray of sunshine, when the reality is that there are plenty of regular struggles here, as in everyone's lives. So, in short, I missed home and all that it entails on Thanksgiving, and what could be more natural than that?

But at the same time, I appreciated the opportunity to choose to give thanks for what we've been given and the extraordinary privilege of being where we are, and to celebrate in our own special way right here in Bangkok. Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Thailand, but the words Thais use for the day mean 'Day to Thank God'. So it's special to share our holiday and tradition with our friends here. We had a banquet at the church of American and Thai food, and we even had a group here from the Philippines who joined in the culinary contribution. Here are a few pictures from our evening...


We had quite a few traditional Thanksgiving dishes, but this portion was far more interesting pictorially, really. I mean, don't you think the Pilgrims and Indians picked their fish clean on the first Thanksgiving? Most traditional Thanksgiving foods are laden with butter and/or milk, so I feasted on rice, noodles and Chinese dumplings (the green and yellow balls above- quite yummy).

Okay, did anyone else have a sink full of frogs at their holiday celebration? We didn't eat these guys last night, but they were brought especially for one of our teammates by his dad, who was visiting. Parents are the same everywhere, really; it's just like Tim's mom sending him Twizzlers. Asa sat on a trash can and watched the frogs being cut up. His reaction? "Poor f-wogs."

And here's our Julian, who will not tolerate being held by anyone but Tim or me at this point in his little life, with our dear friend Tang, for whom he makes an exception. She has quite a way with little ones, and has been a tremendous blessing to our family.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

Many Faces

This was his daddy's gown when he was a baby...it is the epitome of softness, like sleeping in your favorite 34 year old t-shirt. I love his expressiveness in these pictures...






Best quote of the day, from Em: "Deborah gave me seaweed at lunch today, and I LIKED it! Can we get seaweed for my lunch?"

Shrimp Without Faces

We went to the King's Park the other day and ended up on this fabulous little tram that ferried us all around. We didn't know why it was there, as we often don't know things here, and just bumble our way through whatever happens to come into our path, but it was fun. Julian had a big time.

He's clapping his hands and waving bye bye. I've caught myself humming "If you're happy and you know it", and then looked down to see him clapping his sweet little hands, eyes and mouth wide open. Oh my.

Halloween was low key but fun this year. We've acquired some friends, which makes life so enjoyable . So these lovely children joined us for some festivities...



In lieu of real orange pumpkins, we painted bulbs of garlic orange (well, Asa got creative with his...) Isn't that brilliant? I can't take any credit for it, it was my brilliant friend's idea. Then we watched Charlie Brown and hid candy for them to find. I think my children now think that a candy hunt is part of the traditional Halloween celebration.

We also made some amazing pumpkin bread the old fashioned way...


On an entirely different note, this is where we get our Pad Thai. We like it with shrimp, and Asa asks for his "without faces". Shrimp faces are unsettling.

Our Pad Thai man is married to the vice principal of Emmy's former Thai preschool. They're both highly skilled, but in vastly different fields!


Other tidbits...

-We had our first ever parent-teacher conference recently. Doesn't that make us officially grown up? Emmy's teacher described her personality as 'effervescent', which I thought was just right. She's doing great academically and socially and wow, we're so thankful.

-I recently sat on the songtaew across from a very elderly man with a mesh bag full of live turtles.

-My favorite recent Asa quote- he and Tim were out riding bikes, and Asa looked up and said to Tim, "I love being with you."

-My current favorite Asa word- "goow" (girl)

-My favorite recent conversation with Asa was all about bottoms- whose you could talk about and whose you couldn't ("Is it okay to say that Julian has a cute bottom?"), in what contexts it was okay to talk about them, etc. He got a little offended at me for laughing, I think.

-The other day I passed a woman riding a motorcycle wearing an Atlanta Hawks shirt.

-I rode my bike to get a haircut this week. Also paid $4 for the (pretty nice!) haircut. How's that for efficient?

-We had an odd cold spell come through at the beginning of the week with overcast skies and highs in the mid 80's. It was glorious, and Emmy wore her jacket to school:) It is officially the beginning of "cool season", so we shall see...