About Our Girl

It's been a tough week here, as I experienced my first car accident. I won't go into detail here, but everyone is fine, everything is settled, and we have much to give God thanks for. In an effort to spread some sunshine, I thought it a good time to update you on the happenings of our Em...

She is 4 3/4 years old, but we sometimes look at her and think we can see the 12-year-old just beneath the surface. The time goes so fast!

She is still all imagination, loves to be read to and is delving into books of exciting and adventurous content (like the Chronicles of Narnia. I really thought she wasn't ready to follow these stories, but agreed to let her try the early ones as she and Daddy were desiring to do, and she has fallen in love with them and will not hear of stopping her reading in the series. Her play is now filled with talking animals, sword fights, and adventures on the high seas. We soften the battle-laden scenes and other assorted aspects). She also has a passion for cartoons that no doubt stems from the fact that I give her so little opportunity to watch them, poor thing, so of course she thinks this is the most exciting possible activity!

She has finished her preschool year and this photo was taken before her summer party, where the girls in her class danced in full Thai regalia. The only things missing in this picture are the ornate gold pieces that fit behind her ears. She was quite the sight and it was fun to see her engaged in this beautiful aspect of Thai culture with her school friends. Preschool was a mixed experience for her; she really enjoyed aspects of it (particularly watching Tom and Jerry, which they sometimes did before lunch, and the guaytiaw soup they sometimes ate for lunch! These are the two things she told me this week that she misses about school), but overall had a stronger desire to be home. So we're looking forward to doing home school next year for kindergarten.

Preschool did give her a strong dose of Thai culture, and she can now sing a number of Thai children's songs, which they sang every morning as they "exercised" outside before the day began. In fact, she now sings the Thai national anthem (they sang it every morning as they raised the flag) while she brushes her teeth. She calls it the International Anthem. I've explained to her that America has a national anthem, as well, and have sung it for her, but her interest waned toward the end!

This photo was taken at the beach a couple of weeks ago, proudly displaying her first manicure. We actually went for pedicures, but she wouldn't let the woman touch her feet with any of the implements (having her toenails trimmed is one of her phobias), so they opted to do her fingernails in lieu of the regular foot beautification.

She is a bubbly, talkative, very thoughtful little girl, and there's always something brewing in her mind. In fact, I think the best way to show her personality and interests is using her own words. I saw the following list of questions on several blogs a few months back, and thought they would be fun to do at some point. These are Emmy's answers off the top of her head, unedited:

-What are you good at doing? Well, what I'm good at doing is...helping my mommy.
-If you had ten dollars (or 300 baht), how would you spend it? I'd spend it with buying a pet. I'd love to buy a pet.
-What are you afraid of? I'm afraid of having scary dreams at nighttime.
-Who are your friends? Here are 3 people I love. I love PJ, Gracyn and Claire.
-What is important to you? What's important to me is God.
-What is your favorite book? My favorite book is The Chronicles of Narnia books and Little House on the Prairie.
-What is your favorite food? My favorite food is pizza, basghetti and chicken pot pie.
-What is your favorite thing about school? My favorite thing about preschool was what happened before lunch- watching Tom and Jerry.
-What is your favorite thing to do? My favorite thing to do is watch a movie and I love starfall (an internet phonics/reading site), too.
-How do you show your family you love them? I show my family I love them because of the way I have the "I love mama" shirt. The "I love mama" shirt means I love everybody.
-What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a...artist.
-Why? Because I want to do art like I've been doing all the time.
-What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for my mother and my father and my little chubber brother.
-Tell me something about God. God came here to die but he rose again after 3 days in the tomb.

With her paper chain last month, counting down the days until Granna's visit and the last day of school. Pretty soon we'll be counting down the days until we're visiting all of our loved ones in America!

Happy Easter from Bangkok

Happy Easter, everyone! We pray that your day was full of joy and celebration. It was a happy and full day here; here are the children ready to go off to church. Thank you for the beautiful Easter outfits, Granna!

We had a sunrise service at our local park...

I love this picture of our lovely friend Catherine with her beautiful cello!

We celebrated our risen Savior with the church worldwide and celebrated the baptism of our children...

And we had an indoor Easter egg hunt due to the plague that struck Emmy midday, which derailed our plans for an outdoor hunt...

A joyful Easter to you from our family!

Duck Eggs, Anyone?

Lots to catch up on, but we'll wait until after we celebrate Easter. We started today with some good, old-fashioned Easter egg dyeing...

All hen's eggs in Thailand are brown, which is problematic for dyeing purposes, so I went to Lotus, our local superstore, in search of any white eggs...and my choices were duck eggs, or "salted eggs", whatever that is; I went with the duck. Now certain among my girlfriends just might be snickering right now because these are organic duck eggs, but for some reason organic is the only type of duck egg Lotus sells, and it is, as far as I know, the only organic item Lotus sells. So by golly, our colored eggs will be hormone and pesticide free!

They are all concentration...

and Brother finds chewing the carton to be a sufficient way to channel his energy and excitement!

And a bit of live action; Asa's exuberance is so much fun...

Happy Easter! And tomorrow on to the real celebration!

Farewell to Preschool

Emmy and I had our last day of preschool on Thursday, and now it's summertime in Thailand! We learned 'sun, moon, and star' and had a joyful last day with these precious kids. Whether or not Em will miss preschool remains to be seen, but I know I will, and it's been a growing experience for both of us. Here are a few pictures from our last day...

This is part of "the red class", a huge swarm of impossibly small, incredibly cute children who stare up at me with big brown eyes while I sing, dance, read and do anything I can think of to entertain them and maybe teach them a little something during my half hour with them.


And here's a bonus- a few pictures from preschool picture day- when the kids had pictures taken by photographers. Emmy's are...precious, of course, because she's in them...but a bit different from the classic style we tend to prefer. The background is balloons and hearts, and she posed with a number of different props, including a backpack, a tennis racket and ball, and a big stuffed wand (she likes the one with the wand the best). I wish I had some of these to share, but the ones I took turned out blurry. These two pictures show them getting her ready for her photo shoot- they brushed her hair and let her pick out a headband, then put powder and lip gloss on her. Quite the to-do!

Goodbye preschool...kindergarten, here she comes!

Coming soon- preschool summer party photos, complete with Thai dancer Emmy!

Check Up

We had our 18 month check-up for our boy today. In days gone by, when I would return from Emmy's check-ups, I would always call the grandparents and report her stats, as no one can delight in these details with you like a grandparent. So, grandparents, these are for you!...26.9 pounds (62nd percentile), 33.5 inches (79th percentile). The doctor was pleased with his mobility, chubbiness and budding verbal ability. So praise the Lord for the incredible blessing of good health. I like to take the camera to capture the moment, but I forgot it, so we'll have to make due with the above picture of him recently completing some spreadsheets involving diaper usage.

On a not so good note, Asa had his first injury this week. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say it was all my fault, and he touched the hot eye of the stove. It was certainly a hard lesson in "hot", but he's got the concept down pat now. He woke up the following morning with a blister the size of a small hot air balloon on his finger, and I wanted to cover my head with ashes every time I saw it. Thankfully, the doctor's visit was well-timed (and Asa popped the blister on the way to the doctor), so she was able to give us some preventative measures to head off possible infection.

An Eclectic Mix

A few recent events- some unusual and some tame. We'll start with the tame...

Our community center/church has an English school and we recently had a bowling tournament as a social event. I haven't been bowling in years, and it was big fun, and a great way to build community. The kids had a great time, too. This bowling alley is only a 5 minute song taew (click here for a picture of this handy mode of conveyance) ride away, and I have big plans for a bowling date for Tim and me soon. Classy, huh? But it really is fun, if you just give it a chance...

Did you know that Thailand has an aquarium? A really nice one at one of the enormous malls downtown. We had the opportunity to go recently with some folks visiting from out of town, and here's our girl with her best buddy PJ in front of one of the exhibits.

And now on to the unusual...

A few weeks ago, our friends who own a satay stand by the nearest Sky Train station invited us to a party. As is often the case here in this adventure of speaking Thai, we did not fully understand what was happening. We knew it was a party, we thought it might be in a hotel, we had no idea who it was for. (We have countless conversations during which we nod and smile, having very little idea what is actually being said). Anyway, we agreed to go because we love these folks and who doesn't enjoy a good party?

So when we arrived, we found a huge outdoor alleyway absolutely packed with people, and discovered it was a New Year's party for people from the Isaan (northeast) region of Thailand living in Bangkok. There was to be a concert, and these guys above are a couple of the performers, apparently big names in Isaan music. So it was quite a privilege for us to have our picture taken with them!

There was also food, and this woman is dishing out the green curry, which is a delicious dish but can be quite spicy. I was told it wasn't hot, but that was a Thai person speaking, whose definition of "phet" (the Thai word for spicy) is very different than mine. I took a bite and had to quietly abandon my bowl at the first opportunity. Emmy and I went hungry that night. Tim could handle the curry and Asa enjoyed some yogurt and a banana that I had packed away in my bag.

And on to the concert. There was a huge stage set up and an abundance of red plastic stools for the audience. When the music began, it was the Hawaii Five-0 theme song, and these ladies dressed in feathers came out and danced to it. This picture really doesn't do it justice; I only wish I had the power to transport you to this event- after Hawaii Five-0 the Isaan music began, with performers coming out and being given roses and leis by enraptured fans as they sang. I don't know if you've ever heard Isaan music, but it can initially sound pretty discordant to western ears. Add a high decibel level, brightly flashing multi-colored lights, and you're there! This music was pretty tough for me to handle initially when we came to Thailand, but it's grown on me.

And just in case you were still hungry when the curry ran out, there's always dried squid on a stick, for just 20 baht!

We had such a good time, wacky experience though it was. We're going to our friends' Isaan home for Songkran, the Thai New Year in early April. They assured us that this party was a little bit fun, but the party at Songkran will be a lot of fun! We'll be sure to let you know:).