Walk in the Park

Halfway to Seventy

We celebrated 'halfway to 70' for Tim last weekend. Happy birthday to my friend of the last 20 years, my husband of the last 11.5, and an incredible father to 3 very blessed kiddos.

some birthday cheesecake to end the day on a sweet note

I happened to be looking around recently in the fancy grocery store that opened up nearby (Villa! We're getting to be big stuff over here in our little corner of Bangkok!), and did a double take when I saw ONE six pack of IBC root beer on a high shelf. Never before have we seen it here, and it's Tim's favorite, so it was a fun splurge for his big day. I enjoyed the look on his face when I gave it to him, trying to figure out how I'd managed to get it across the world.

Pondering his good fortune

Continuing our incessant discussion of birthdays...Em was invited to a friend's birthday party last weekend. She decided she wanted to make something for him, so we came up with the idea of a monster doll, and it was our project for the week...

We thought it came out to be rather fun. She wasn't entirely sure whether the birthday boy liked it, but we sure had a good time making it for him.

Just because he's cute

And now, I promise to stop talking about birthdays soon, but this is fun. In Thailand, the birthday person is often the giver, as well as the recipient, of gifts. So if you go out to dinner for someone's birthday, that person would often buy the dinner for all of the guests (!) The way this plays out in second grade is that the birthday boy or girl will usually bring small gifts, toys or treats, for all of the other people in the class. Recently, one of Emmy's classmates, whose father owns a noodle factory, had a birthday and gave this as a gift to all of his fellow second graders...

"Long Life Noodle"

The directions on the back say: This noodle is suit for birthday present and other auspicious ceremonies. Apply this top quality noodle for your favorite recipe.

We applied it for our chicken noodle soup and it was quickly devoured. Here's to long life, loving God and our neighbor. And here's to halfway to seventy!