Primary program

Jumping into leaves after running down the hill.  Then flinging them in the air.

Then raking the pile up again.  We also did this during learning box school

Cute E

E just makes me laugh when I see him pulling this wagon around

big kids balancing on the rock

E loves to say cones and stack them

Sometimes I find E in his "boat" when I can't hear him.  He is the one that said boat

E put the dog in the wagon and gave him a ride around the driveway

I love this pic because E is working so hard with his friend Thai.  Thai is already 5.  E loves to follow Thai around and do just what he is doing and Thai loves it.  They were working on drilling holes in the yard

 

The big kids were in their first primary program ever.  I was so enthralled!  Had a blast watching them.  Since I was watching the kids I realized the younger ones wiggle in their seats more, but are generally pretty good and the older ones don't wiggle as much, but whisper and make faces a bunch since they have done it lots before and are kind of done with the whole thing, so everyone is evenly irreverent.  But it seems so much more reverent to me because the noise isn't next to me any more. 

Anyway, the big kids knew the words to the songs and remembered their parts even though they hadn't ever practiced.  They were gone during the practices.  The leaders didn't know it, but T told them.  One of the sisters started helping him but he leaned way away from her and said "I know my part and can do it myself!"  Right in front of the microphone.  And he did!   He said it clearly, evenly and into the microphone without getting too close with the biggest smile on his face.  It was a surprise to me because at home he didn't want to practice much and would say it really fast and loud to get it over with. 

W remembered hers but stood too far away from the microphone so no one understood her.

And of course there is always one funny event, if not many. The kid that got everyone laughing was saying his part and somehow started saying "and then I will be able to grow up and marry a beautiful girl that knows how to cook"  then he pauses, looks out into the audience, and gets this silly almost apologetic look on his face, laughs, and says "my dad wrote THAT part".  He is 9.  Everyone was dying.

I thought having just E during all of church would be easy, but E was super grumpy and noisy.  Not so mom!!  It 's ok.  He ended up sleeping during all of YW, so it worked out for the best for me anyway. 

W decided to show me how she can count to 100.  What?!  I don't think I taught her that.  Something she must have figured out with all the pattern stuff in preschool with numbers. 

Preschool is also doing this thing with sight words, something all the other mothers that have kids in kindergarden know about.  But both T and W are remembering them and when I point them out in books we read, they know them. 

W also is getting the concept of spelling.  She asks me how to write a word and can do all the letters, even asking me if they are lower case or upper case.

Nothing earth shattering but it still amazes me that my children get these milestones seemingly suddenly and without help.

E is doing it too with talking and copying.  J and I keep asking each other if T and W talked this much, and especially this early.  We don't think so.  We are guessing it is because E has a constant stream of conversation between two, and sometimes three, people all day long.  It never ever stops.  So he gets lots of practice listening and mimicking.

He says all sorts of words.  Nothing anyone outside the family can understand for sure, but just lots of words and corrects himself in pronunciation.  Book, shoe, sock, more, food, no, bye, side, poop, done   It is getting more and more clear every day and he continues to express himself well with emphatic no's by shaking his head and yeses with sounds of supreme contentment, like when he sees his fuzzy.

It looks so cute to me how he carries his huge fuzzy down the hall to W's room in the morning to wake her up.  He is always excited to see her.  T he can see as soon as he wakes up, but it always surprised and happy to see W.

I love how he picks out his favorite books (animal or train books) and brings them to us, then settles himself down into our laps for reading it at least 5 times in a row.  He never did this before being at grandma's for two weeks.  I got a good picture of him very intently studying the pages of a train book while Papa read to him.

Another fun skill T and W have is that when we face time with my parents, T holds conversations with them without any help from me.  He now has a bond.  W continues to ignore people unless it is convienent for her to talk, so I don't see it as much as I do with T.  E smiles pretty big when he sees my parents on face time.  And then promptly pushes that bright red huge END button and hangs up.  Whoever invented face time doesn't have kids. 

I was still really struggling with jet lag this week, even though it has been over 7days of being back, my anticipated end time of this body craziness.  It is a huge struggle to stay awake.  T and W have made games out of keeping me awake and I tell them to help me out.  Ridiculous.

So I haven't done much else other than teach pre school and keep food coming for the kids this week purely for lack of energy.  I don't want to be driving around during any sleepy times either.  But the benefit has been that I have mostly watched the kiddos play.  And they are so cute.

E is just being cute.  I have thought many times of getting out the video camera and just videoing him, but then I look at the situation and it would be a very boring video of him just being a kid.  Why would someone have hours of video of a kid repetitively running up and down a hill with his preschool friends?  Or pulling a pull toy turtle behind him?  Or pulling a wagon around the yard and picking up balls and cones and saying the words?  No reason except mommy is in love. 

T is a bit jealous of this toddler love I think. He has been trying to get my attention more even though we do mommy time each day.  Poor T.  He just doesn't remember when I did the same thing to him when he was this age.  Fascinated by just watching all the miraculous things he can do all by himself.

I get a huge kick out of E carrying this huge blanket down the hall in the morning to wake up W.  Or saying "no no!"  to himself when he isn't doing something quite right.   Or saying poop!  and then giving his diaper a tap to tell me he just filled his pants. Or watch him stack blocks.  Or see him drag the kitchen play toys box over to me again so I can open it and he can scatter everything around.  He also watched the neighbor's gardener for quite a spell today.

T and W have also been amazingly good and so fun to be around.  All the leaves are down and pine needle season is just about over, so I am finally cleaning up the debris.  T figured out how to use the snow shovel and dump the leaves into the wheelbarrow.  He helped me with it for an hour.  It was a huge help.  Then we would run the wheelbarrow back to the compost pile where the wheelbarrow would "go potty" and run back.  E walked up and down all those hills and uneven surfaces right along with them.  Then we celebrated and jumped in a huge leaf pile over and over.  They played raining leaves and burying the toys.  E jumped too, although his feet don't leave the ground yet.

T pushed E in a "train" (box) around the house for about a half hour today.  T was so very cute, gentle and thoughtful about it.  He went slow enough for E, not playing too wild.  E would whoo, whoo like a train whistle intermitantly.  One time E was crying and T said "Oh! you need fuzzy?" and found a turn around spot to go get E's fuzzy for him.  T also got him laughing really hard by throwing the baby wipes into the train over and over.  I'm not sure what was so funny, but it was.

The stuff they practiced saying for the program sunk in.  That is good, because that is the point of the program.  But it came in a funny way how I know this.

W was crying a bunch and getting impatient one day lots.  So T informed her that she needed to say her lines again to "help her remember to be kind"  Her part was "I use my body to be kind and follow Jesus's example.  When E cries or is sad, I go get his big fuzzy.  This helps my mommy to be kind"  Then he quoted his part just to help her out.

They are soooo excited for Thanksgiving and Grandma to come for it.  T kept asking when she was goining to get there.  He kept asking where her plane was and said " I bet grandma can't wait to be here because she I can't wait for her to be here.

back to real life! And excited to be there

Boy was I so excited to see my kids again!  They were a lot less enthused than I was when I picked them up from the airport.  Can you blame them after being with Grandma so much?  I'm sure they feel like we all do after going on a cruise.  They know life can't always be that good, but missing it for sure.

When I saw them, I wanted to run up and give them hugs and kisses, which I did.  But no response.  Ok.  Fine.  W did finally tell me the next afternoon that she missed me the first night I was gone.  But she didn't say anything about the rest of the nights.

My mom took us all the way to the train part of the airport, which included an elevator ride.  E apparently has a deep seated fear of elevators that developed from this trip.  He screams as if something is biting him when he gets in them.  Same with the train.  Same with the airplane.  Even when we walk by the elevators in the airport and didn't

E got up here himself.  He was very impressed with himself.  So was I.

E is very intently studying the pics in this book.  I think he is also trying to read along

We got E minion socks.  He loves them.  He points to them and says minion.  We showed him the minion banana mini movie on You Tube.  Aunt H's influence lives on.  She showed this first to T and W

I am not particularly a huge fan of the dark and rain of winter.  However, I've finally come to realize there is nothing I can do about it.  So I have started to think of things I can look forward to doing just because it is dark and raining.  This is one of them.  Using our umbrellas.  They like to use their umbrellas. I rarely let them use umbrellas.  It is hoods or bust.  T invented a game where his frog umbrella was eating him

It's ok Mom!  Here is my cute face again!

get in them.  I'm guessing that it is because it triggers his last memories of what he was doing before Mommy left him in the car with Grandma without getting in.  Maybe that is why T is so afraid of toilets.  One time I left them with J for 5 days.  That was when J was potty training W.  Maybe all that toilet flushing reminds T of when he was left.  Who knows.  Only theories.

Anyway, when we all got in the elevator, E turned toward my mom for comfort.  W kept saying "Grandma, I mean Mom" for a day and T didn't really want any snuggles from me for about a day.  Slowly recovering.

W was such a huge help getting around the airport.  She pushed the stroller and her booster seat all the way back to the car.  It was a long way, but I couldn't have done it without her I couldn't balance the stroller or that last booster seat on the luggage cart back to the car.  Two suitcases, two carry on bags, three car seats, one stroller and one baby.  We went very slowly. 

W remembered our gate number and helped find it with T.  The plane wasn't there when we got to the gate, so we had a great time watching it park on the lines, the man directing it, the poop truck hooking up to the belly of the plane, the baggage truck and the food trucks.  All of the kids had lots of comments about it. The next day T used these ideas in his play by lifting a big box and moving it up and down like the food truck to dump in "food" (toys) into the "plane" (E's crib).  They had so much fun they dumped all the toys they could find in E's crib.  They only got to play that game once.

They did amazing on the plane ride back home.  They were telling me all sorts of stuff about their time with Grandma.  T was telling me about playing with Madison and how she is too big for him to pull in the wagon because it makes him go backwards.  W asked me about Thailand and wanted to hear stories from the trip.  She asked me if Papa taught me any words in Thai.  I taught them all 10 phrases I know to date.  Badly pronounced I'm sure, but they did remember the word for 5 and have incorporated it into play. The word is ha.  So T says "hahaha!  That means 555".  Yep.  They all fell asleep around 9:30 pm, but got up right on time the next day.

Fighting jet lag is an interesting experience.  It feels like I am in the very early stages of pregnancy for half the day.  I am exhausted and can't keep my eyes open if I am still for any length of time.  But only for part of the day.  For me it is from 3-9 pm, the time I was sleeping while in Bangkok.  And then there is the bit that, even if I force myself to stay up until 9 pm, I can't sleep past 2 am.  Whatever.  I have no idea how to make it stop sooner, but I think it will be like any other time change.  One week.  I am so exhausted and don't have energy and I also can't remember much or concentrate on any conversation of any intelligence during the afternoon.  Thank heavens I teach preschool in the mornings. 

The kids have said so many cute things and done so many cute things, but I can't remember them for the life of me.  Silly jet lag brain.  I have no idea how my husband is able to go to work and get anything done.

I have noticed that E is much better at pronouncing some words.  Like bath and more.  He also is better at showing laughter.  He laughs more animatedly at things, especially when he thinks he is being funny or silly.  He is continues to be good at clearly saying no.  He also clearly said bye to Mina and waved at her.

We got him a pull snake.  He thinks it is funny.  The first night he couldn't decide between his push vacuum and his pull snake, so he walked backwards pulling both.  So cute. He is also better with his animal sounds and wants the stuffed woof woof to be his stuffed animal, not T's.  T is conceding.

E is also better at copying.  He wants to join in at preschool.  He puts his hands out for hand sanitizer when all the other kids line up.  T was playing "give mommy hand sanitizer" in the tub, filling up old shampoo bottles and giving me just a bit.  E showed me what I was supposed to do with the hand sanitizer once it was on my hands, since I didn't do it right away.  Then T asked E if he wanted to give mommy some. So E filled up his bottle and gave me some. 

E has figured out how to open bottles that snap open and shut.  Like toothpaste.  Careful.

E has also figured out how to get on the couch by pulling a chair over.  He is always so impressed with himself when he does that.  He did it during pre school in our lazy boy and then proceeded to rock with glee, impressed that he got up and then that he could have so much fun rocking.

During preschool we were reading a book and all the kids were sitting in their chairs looking intently at the pages.  So e did the same.  He pulled his chair over really close and peered closely at pictures, just like everyone else.  Except he was too close and someone started yelling that they couldn't see.

E does lots of copying.  W has noted it and quoted the Olivia book.  In the Olivia book, there is a page that says her little brother is copying her all the time and it bothers her.  So she has to be firm.  W remembered that page and quoted it the other day.

W was super cute with T at lunch.  Everyone wanted their manderins peeled.  The big kids are big enough to do it, but often forget.  So I told T that he could wait until E's were peeled and then it would be his turn.  W stepped up and offered to peel all of T's orange peels.  T encouraged her by saying that she is better at peeling oranges than him and if she could peel them all.  She was happy to help. 

W can count backwards from 60 by herself.  I have no idea how she suddenly has that skill.  She also has noticebly improved on how she writes her name.

T got a pair of wings from the flight attendant.  It is a sticker that has the southwest heart on it.  He gave it to me so that I "can remember that I love you Mom!"

T got out the smaller of his bikes, the ones without training wheels.  He rode around the driveway a bit without training wheels!  Very exciting.

I have no pictures of this week with them.  I think it was because I was snuggling and hugging them instead of trying to capture the moment.  Just enjoying the moments.

Vacation is fun but being with family is more fun.  I told J no more long vacations without the kids.  I'm sure my mom would second that.

their trip

"Snack" at Penelope's

While we were in Thailand, my kids went on a cruise.  Not really, but they might as well have.  They went to Grandma's.

This was E's first plane ride.  He watched everything with a keen eye.  Our flight was at 6:45 am on a Wednesday morning before Halloween.  It was a perfect flight.  We had the whole back half of the plane to ourselves.  E had paid so much attention, it must have worn him out.  He fell asleep in my arms for half the flight.  I couldn't believe my luck!!!  W and T were very well behaved playing games and eating meal bars.

T was paying very close attention because when we got off the plane, he informed me that "if someone needs to smoke they should do it outside the building"  He was just repeating the announcement made over and over to me, but with such seriousness.  Yep.  You are right, T.

W was sooooo excited to go to Grandma's.  They told their learning box school friends every time they saw them, two weeks in advance.  W was awake when I came to get her at 4 in the morning to get dressed and go potty.  She usually only does these tasks if fully supervised and at a very, very slow pace.  But I think she had everything done and wanting to get in the car in about 5 minutes.

I went to put everything in the car as it was ready.  Luggage, E, and W ran in the car.  Poor T.  He was having a hard time coming out of a dead sleep.  I went to go back in the house to help him and found him literally running out the door, crying.  He thought I was going to leave him.  I was surprised at how fast he got ready, so I just locked the front door and helped settle him down in the car.  But when I got home, I realized how much he really thought I was going to leave him.  His pj bottoms were in the front entry hall.  He is meticulous about putting his pjs in the laundry hamper.  Not that day.  No time.

They went everywhere with Grandma.  First they went with Grandma to vote.  Why my mom didn't send in a mail in ballot is beyond me, but she didn't and dragged all the kids with her.  They had a blast.  T got down and looked at the voting booth's legs, shook them a bunch to see if they were sturdy.  They all got stickers at the end that said they voted, so it was worth it.

I facetimed that evening with them.  I was thinking E would have the hardest time being left.  I've never done it overnight, and definitely not for 12 days in a row.  I thought everything was good.  On Facetime, he brought the ball over to show me and didn't seem distressed or uncomfortable.  Seemed right at home.  Probably helped that we had been there 2 months previous.

I didn't realize how hard it was for him until I brought him home.  He screamed as if something were pinching or biting him every time we got in an elevator or walked by one.  The plane door also looked closely like an elevator.  He is still very nervous in elevators.  He has never shown that before.  My guess is that the elevator must be the last thing he remembers before being abandoned by mom.  Who knows. 

W settled in with a craft.  They made glitter pumpkins.  W's had every inch of the pumkin covered in glitter.  No pumpkin skin showing. 

T was in charge of the wagon at the pumpkin patch.  They got really good at checking for squishy pumpkins.  Good thing.  Second to last day to buy and those pumpkins were in the end stages of life.

Oliver loves it when they come to visit.  He gets lots of food from rejected items.  And so he shares his food, too.  E likes Oliver's dog food.

My mom put what my dad calls "decals" in the house.  There is a ladybug painted on the wall in each room.  W is finally old enough and noticed the ladybug painted behind the TP in the bottom bathroom.  So she did the hunt.  They didn't find all the ladybugs painted in the house, but are now on the lookout.

Grandma took them gardening.  She was very surprised at how many gardening skills they already have.  They pruned a bunch of bushes, T hauled away the branches, they planted tulip bulbs and T used his mini wheelbarrow to move stuff around.

They also picked apples from the tree and fed them to the horse that is there.

They might be asking for an animal when they get older.  They all got a turn snuggling with Oliver at least once, until Oliver fell asleep with his head on their lap.

My mom's dad came to visit.  One morning T popped his head into his great granpa's room and yelled "it's morning time!" and slammed the door shut again.

E adjusted well to his private suite.  One afternoon, he had had it and ran into my parents closet and cried to be let into his crib.  It was time for a nap.

My dad thinks it is so funny how vehemently e says no.

They had slinky apples for snack everyday.  And then made a pie too.

They love the book "Owl Babies" and "old black witch"  My mom changed the names in the Owl Babies to their names.  They ate it up.  E came home saying owl and making the noise.  They made a whole pie the next day.

They loved having new play mates.  Neighbor Maddie and Penelope kept them entertained with sharing so many toys and new games to add to their repertoire

W showed Grandma that she already has planting practice.  She knew which way to plant tulip bulbs and how to get the pansies out just right.

T noted that "at Grandma's house we pray for rain and at our house we pray for sun"  I guess we all need a lesson in gratitude and to pray for that.

They picked apples of course.  How could Grandma leave that out of the activity list in the fall?  They also fed the horse at my mom's friend garden place.  And ate a slinky apple every single day for snack.  Even E.  Who loves variety.  Can't get tired of slinky apple apparently.

They also played "tormento" every day. It involves swinging up wildly in the hammock just like a regular windy storm

They visited with Grandma An, too.  Of course they played outside!!  On the swing.  I asked them about being with Grandma An.  All W could remember is that she got two different kinds of drinks.  Apple juice and grape juice.  And she had a grilled cheese sandwich.  That was all very, very exciting, let me tell you.  T just noted that Uncle E wasn't around.  I had to get more reports and pics from Grandma An.

T working hard

Penelope in her playhouse, with T and W to the right of her

Grandma snuggles

Uncle R and E play time.  Oliver supervising

E, T and W awaiting the plane that would take them to Grandma's.  I believe this is E's first plane ride.  He was fascinated by the plane.  And terrified of the airport

First day at Grandma's.  Having a blast without you mom!  T liked the gas tank cap

Picking out pumpkins at the patch

Working in the yard at Grandma's

Chowing down on fresh picked apples.  Even E.

E and T fed Oliver like this every single day

End result of the pumpkin carving

Made an apple pie together

Working as a team to make their leaf pile bigger

Little bro in training

Snack time at Grandmas

This is serious raking that needs to be done

With real rakes needed

If they only remember this tire swing from Grandma An's, it is for a good reason.

They do this the whole time they are there

No E in the leaves.  Ohhh!!  He was busy taking an Aunt H snuggle nap

Ready for the party.  Do I really have to wear this??!!

our trip

View of Mt McKinley and a glacier from the airplane window

I attempted to do this, shucking bamboo.  She made it look easy.   It is, but not for me

Bananas growing

The banana flower.  The petal of the flower is as long as my foot and as wide as two of my hands next to each other

This is someone working in J's uncle's field.  I liked how J captured this picture of him working

Guava trees on J's aunt's farm.  Every day she goes out to see if the guavas are a certain size and then covers them in a small bag with newspaper  in it to wick away the humidity.  The bags are for insect control.  When I first walked out here, though, I thought it looked like a lot of work to bag all that fruit. 

Bamboo shoot.  These were harvested by his aunt to cut and sell to add into dishes.  It is very supple and tender once you take off the skin

This was by far one of my favorite dishes in all of Thailand.  J's aunt made it for us the first day we came to visit, so I thought all food was going to taste this good.  She also used the left over veggies to make a fabulous omlet.  The way she cooked the veggies was a great compliment to the fish and eggs.  I kept ordering the omlets thinking I would get this again, but no such luck.  I couldn't speak enough Thai to ask for the veggies again.  She also introduced to me the fabulousness of lime juice and fish sauce together as a sauce.  yum and yum

A view from a wat nearby Nakon Sawan.  I liked how peaceful it was at this wat.   It wasn't in a huge tourist center, so lots of the people that were there seemed to be locals with some tourists.  I liked looking out

I've never seen a pineapple field in real life.  The tropical vegetation was so fun for me to observe.  I had no idea I liked plants so much until I left the USA and found that I was drawn to the same variation. 

Lotus flower.  These seemed to be popular to cultivate at the wats

I don't know what this is but it smelled really good and was very beautiful

This was  in the old international airport that is used more for domestic flights now.  It was a display of a krathong, or what is lit and put in the river.  Traditionally a banana tree slice is used and leaves to decorate.  Then it switched to Styrofoam and most recently bread ones that dissolve.  On Nov 7 we saw lots of burned out lanterns floating in the river

 

Part of the procession of the Chaing Mai festival.  These are high school students for the most part. 

Part of the parade.  They were not too strick about the crowd following the people and walking in and throught the procession itself.

far away pic of a lantern display at one of the chaing mai cinter gates

I started taking pics of all the ways a pick up truck is used.  This one was stacked high and had a plug coming  out of its engine to power the float lights.system is stacked and covered in plastic behind the floats

Up close of one of the lanterns at the gate displays

The red car is another pick up truck that has the basic frame and a hard shell perfect for making for a small bus

We saw a few old ruin places.  For me this is the oldest building that I've seen to my recollection.  It wsa built in the 1700's I  believe.   

This might have been at the orchid farm or the insect zoo.  never been to an insect zoo before, but our guide was excited about her job so we learned tons of cool stuff.  j even released 3 hour old butterflies into the exhibit.  We were the only ones there.

This is on a wat grounds.  The dots are lanterns up in the sky

This is  my favorite picture of the lantern festival because it captures the size of the lanterns and the lights the best.  They were setting these off in the middle of a huge crowd! 

The lanterns on the water in addition to the lanterns in the sky

The view from our hotel balcony.  We thought we had left toward the end, but they kept streaming up for another hour, four about 4 hours total. 

best view of being underneath the lanterns.  The bright lights are up for the festival

Another truck use.  Utility truck

Another truck use, mini bus

The closest I've been to an elephant ouside the zoo.   They smell just like horses.  The guy drove them with his feet on the ears.  The elephant was grumpy and hot.  That is me just behind and to the side of the elephant

A famous place in Thailand.  This is in the old capital's ruins.  I loved being at the ruins just because it was so old.  It was peaceful there too

I stayed standing looking at this as long as J could stand it.  I don't think I have been to such an old place

Me trying to get a pictures of how brightly colored the semi's were painted

Many buses were also this brightly painted

I never did get used to such variable velocity in such a small space.  That was a family riding on a small motor cycle while we were driving what seemed at least 80 on the freeway

That budda is far away, resting on a stand seated above the tree line.  They are really big.

We went to tourist traps in Chaing Mai too  Orchid gardens and a butterfly farm.  But this one was taken on J's aunt's property

This is the standard rack on a pick up without being used to stack crops or people yet

The truck in front of the blue car is stacked well

Elephant on a truck being transported.  Haven't seen that in the US

An origami shop in the Narita Japan airport.  Just a shop display of flowers.  They are each about the size of a finger.  Crazy!

Taxis come in all colors.  Pink, yellow, green, orange and blue.  This one is magenta for W

J driving for real in Thailand like a real Thai.  On a motor bike

J with Uncle in their family kitchen

Orchid farm.   The orchids in the wild have their roots in the grooves of the tree bark exposed.  I think they get the moisture they need from the rainfall.  They would do great at our house, except for the minor detail of freezing to death

 

Best part of the trip:  being with hubby.  He was finally able to turn his brain off to work after 4 days.  I have no recollection of being with him for 12 days straight ever.  Even our honeymoon was shorter.

Worst part of the trip:  not being able to speak or read Thai

All the rest of the fun stuff:

The Chiang Mai Lantern festival is definitely for tourists.  The best comparison J thought of was comparing it to Santa and Christmas.  The lanterns are lots of fun, but are not a good demonstration of the real meaning of the holiday.  The lanterns are part of a Chiang Mai only tradition as part of the the holiday Loi Krathong.  I'm probably spelling it wrong.  But the holiday is to have one day of the year to give an offering in thanks for use of the water and river the rest of the year.  The rest of the country make something to float down the river as a symbol of their thanks, but no lanterns.  Although since the lanterns are so much fun there are other areas that are starting to do it on a small scale.

Traditionally the krathongs are made of banana trees.  A part of the banana tree trunk is cut and then the banana leaves are twisted and bent into different shapes to make a float.  Insense and a light is put on top.  There was a time when styrofoam was used instead of banana trees, but that makes a big trash mess in the rivers so there are bread ones that are also made.  These are usually shaped into something with dough and then cooked.  We saw some turtle ones of those.  In case you don't have a banana tree on your property.

When we went to the lantern festival for tourists, we didn't see a mass release done all at once like we saw pictures of.  I think the mass release must be done by the locals the week before.  But we saw so many lanterns being released it was plenty cool.  It looked like one big long river of lights being let off in the sky. For three solid hours.  The three hours is what was so crazy to me.  We thought by the time we had looked around and watched tons of lanterns being released into the air and the procession was over, we wouldn't see anymore.  But then we got back to our hotel after walking an hour AND IT WAS STILL GOING!  So we got to watch it from a distance until we fell asleep.  Crazy, right?

This lantern festival would be banned in America in a flash.  Too dangerous I'm sure.  There were hoards of people and everyone would kind of just move around each other to make room for someone to blow up and release a lantern.  This is not a small amount of space.  The fireball part is on a disc about twice the size of a hockey puck.  Not a small flaming orb, but a rather medium sized flaming orb.  You have to gently hold open a lantern made of PAPER and coax it open while the flame is going.  Be careful to not let the paper get too close to the flaming orb.  Amazingly we only saw one person catch his lantern on fire.  Good thing the streets were soaking wet from the rain the past two days.  This is probably why it is done only in Chiang Mai.  It was cooler and wetter up there than in Bangkok.  It is closer to mountains.  Then you have to hold the lantern until the smoke/hot air starts to slightly come out of the bottom of the lantern so that it goes up fast enough.  We saw a couple of lanterns come back down in the crowd because someone hadn't filled it enough.  Thank heavens this is all a slow floating speed process so someone in the crowd can catch the flaming orb and re release it.  You also have to take into account windspeed and not release it into any branches of any trees.  We saw one person do that.  I have no idea how that lantern released itself without burning up.

The glowing of all the lanterns is actually fairly bright and most of them go up without a problem or incident, very slowly and calmly.  The lights on the river are also calm.  I was very surprised at how relatively calm the crowd was for how many people there were.  The music in the procession is happy but kind of a reverent tone at the same time and I think it helps.  The boys that were drumming were having a great time, but it wasn't wild and out of control, just fun.  We were both really glad we went and could enjoy it together.  Finally.  A new experience for both of us, instead of for just me.

One thing I really liked was how Thais eat.  They use a fork and spoon.  But not like us.  Usually together.  They hold the spoon in their right hand and the fork in the other.  The spoon is used like a knife for cutting and taking fish bones out as well as eating rice.  The fork is used to push the food onto the spoon.  After eating rice with chop sticks and forks up to now, this seems like such a great, less messy way.  Brilliant!

I have discovered I love fish sauce and fresh lime juice mixed together.  My most favorite dishes included this sauce.  J's aunt gave it to us as a sauce for some of her dishes and it was fabulous!  I have no idea why I like it so much, but I do. 

We had so much delicious food.  I thought I would loose some weight while I was there.  You know, eating lots of rice, drinking lots of water because of the "heat" (it is the beginning of their winter time there) and not having my secret chocolate stash to dig into.  Not so.  We got pumped full of so much food.  J's aunt fed us like a grandma would feed us.  She made us so much stuff to eat and set up a mini refridgerator stocked with water, choco milk, juice and fruit on top of all that.  She made some fried fish that looked really gross to me watching her cook it.  Fried the whole thing.  But it was really really good tasting.  She had made up a veggie slaw like thing that she cooked just a bit.  Some combination of some sweet peppers, celery and I don't know what else, but it was very delicious over top of that yummy tasting fish.  She also made a pork and orange vegetable dish that had a different but yummy flavor.  The next day she used the rest of the veggie stuff that we hadn't been able to eat and put it into what they call a thai omlet.  Oh!  It was so good.  I'm not really sure what a Thai omlet is but I kept ordering it off the menus thinking it was what his aunt cooked for us, but it was never as good as how she made it.

I was also so glad she took good care of my health.  She always offered us bottled water, gave us some cabbage soup that really settled my stomach and always made us brown rice.  I felt the best when we stayed there.

They took us to a restaurant the next day and ordered some fried catfish that had that yummy fish sauce/lime/green mango combo sauce on top.  Oh!  Fabulous.  There was also another fish that had some sort of green chili that had been roasted that went with it that made it taste really good.  I knew that was a good one because we had two teenager somehow cousins with us and they pretty much only ate that dish.  There were two other yummy foods, but I just can't remember them.  But all of their choices were good.

We ate lots of som tam.  That is the closest pronunciation to English that I know.  But it is a green papaya salad that has lots of lime and you can order spice with it.  It usually has peanuts and cabbage with it.  You can find it everywhere and we ate it all the time.  Even though it is raw, I think all the acidity of the lime juice must have killed enough germs if there were any because I never got sick.

I was strict about my water usage, making sure I only put bottled water in my mouth when brushing my teeth, washing my hands before eating and drinking loads of it.  I wasn't always strict about raw veggies, but most of the time I was.  There were times when I knew some raw cabbage or fruit would do my body more good because I needed a green leafy veggie or orange produce to help me get energy and feel better from eating all that yummy food.  And it worked out pretty good.

I also really enjoyed staying with J's aunt because I had a better feel of what a real thai lifestyle is like rather than the on vacation lifestyle that we do when we go to foreign countries.  Some of this I also learned from my friend when I asked her about stuff.  So between watching and asking I had a small sampling of Thai life.

J's aunt lives on the family farm, the one her parents established.  I can't gauge the size of it very well.  Maybe 10 acres?  All of it is used.  They have a large field by the river that gets flooded with nutrients.  I thought it was corn, but am not sure.  Above the flood level are the trees.  They have banana, mango, and guava trees.  They also have dragon fruit plants and a bamboo forest.  When we were there, the guavas were ripening.  They were also selling bamboo. 

One day J's aunt was preparing bamboo for someone that had ordered it.  She cut the new shoots off from the base of the tree, peeled the tough bark off and shucked off the skin.  She let me learn how to do it, but it is harder than it looks.  Plus, it was the first time I've seen anyone do that, so I had no previous experience.  She kept giving me the smallest ones.  I was really bad at it.

Instead of spraying for bugs, they took really small plastic bags with a little bit of newspaper in it and tied them around the fruit.  It works, but is time consuming.  She checked for a certain size every day but when we there , it covered most of the orchard.

At J's aunt's house, there is a speaker on an electricity pole.  Every morning from 5-8 am is a radio show that is broadcast.  We can hear it from where we were, but over on the other side of the house, it isn't heard too much.  I don't know what is being broadcast, but it sounds like some of it is a religious type program due to the more reverent sound and chanting type quality and another program was the news based on that music.  J's aunt was worried about the dogs waking us up, but the program started before them.  I don't think the dogs like the radio.  They howled when it started up one morning.  It didn't really matter.  I was so tired I could barely stay awake until 7 pm, so I was already awake at 4 or 4:30, much earlier than the radio started up.  There were no speakers in Bangkok, nor did I see any in the really outlying towns so I think it is just where we were.

J's aunt let us ride her bike (me) and her scooter (J).  That was fun because that is more the mode of transportation around her town.  Lots of scooters.

Walking around Bangkok, Chiang Mai and the town J's aunt is in reminded me so much of walking around in Argentina.  Except I didn't understand the language in Thailand.  It amazed me at how similar it was, even though Argentina is not a tropical place.  The store fronts had a garage door grate like thing that went up or down if they were open or closed, just like Argentina.  The mold grows on the cement buildings just like Argentina (and here for that matter).  I never saw the floors cleaned, but J's aunt's house had tile floors, so I'm guessing water is tossed down, wiped with a squeegee thing and dried with a towel like argentina.  I saw one drying at a wat when we were there.  The brick and sidewalks were a lot like argentina.  The building materials for houses varied greatly and were similar like Argentina.  Corrigated metal is a popular roof, perfect for a wet rainy area.  And the water tanks on top of the buildings for water pressure just like Argentina.

When we drove really far out in the jungle, we found houses that had some banana leaf roofs, but most of the time it was corriageted metal.  Once in a while there were adobe brick roofs.

What I did notice is that there were not as many dirt roads in the areas of Thailand as compared to the areas of Argentina I was in.  More paved roads.  There were also a lot less dogs wandering around Thailand.  Much easier to walk around.

I noticed that Thais in general dress modestly.  Lots of people wearing pants and shirts with sleeves.  Probably because it is "winter" but it was nice anyway.  Going to a wat requires pants or a dress, but no short skirts.  Tank tops are a no no in wats, too.

There are so many wats around.  Like church buildings in Utah Valley.

We went to an ancient city that was so cool to me because it is the oldest building I know of that I've been to.  Built in the 1700s and left after it was destroyed by an enemy.  It is amazing to me how many stone buddhas there were left and were present in them.  Brick was used to make the basic shape and was what was left after the plaster fell off.  Very big.

At that old city they were giving elephant rides.  I walked along side one so I could be near it.  Closest I've ever been to an elephant.  They smell just like horses and these elephants were tired from walking around in the heat.  The driver sat behind the head and pushed the ears to move it around with his feet.

After staying at J's aunt's house for a bit, we went back to Bangkok and did the tourist thing.  We went to the reclining Buddha.  It is hard for me to gauge size, but it is just big.  And the entire wat is covered in ornate designs or drawings or something.  It looks hand painted.  Talk about a lot of work.

We went to a royal coin and jewel display.  I really liked the coin section.  It gave an overview of time frames, rulers, and geographical Thailand borders for each time frame and rule.  I liked it because it gave me a better idea of where the people were coming from.

Currently government is set up a little like England.  A queen and king, but a parliament to make laws.  What I was able to tell about what the king and queen  do all day is more social and welfare type projects. 

For example we went to the textile museum.  It is set up by the queen and it talks about her programs, so it is definitely biased.  Essentially the textile museum talked about how when the queen and king were young, they traveled around Thailand and made observations about the general poverty. Then they found some solutions to help it long term.  I loved their ideas.  They took something the people were already doing and gave them the resources and value to their work. 

The queen found that there were women in the villages that knew how to make their own silk cloth from the start of cultivating silk worms and making silk clothes.  She then essentially marketed on a global scale by asking the village women to make her clothes that she would wear to parties with other world leaders.  She also established a thai style dress to give value to their work and culture. 

The king helped figure out long term water control projects to help the farmers farm better and protect their houses from flooding.

While we were there, we watched the BBC a little.  There was a guy that set up a peanut farm in another country. He is a regular guy that works for a investment firm.  He pays the locals a higher wage, has a school at the work site for kids, day care for the kids and it is a crop that he has helped them sell on a global level so they are able to sustain themselves the higher wages and better education for their kids.  I told J he should do that.

Lots of the houses are set up off the ground, I believe to plan for flooding.  I also noticed that the benches seemed to be very multi purpose.  Wide enough to sit on for a meal as well as lay a mat down for sleeping but high enough for a table to work on during the day.  Lots of hammocks around, too.

J had me do a Thai massage.  It was very different than the massages I have received previously.  Very interesting.  I got a few ideas of how to stretch and massage the hip muscles much better than I have been able to do. 

I don't know why I was surprised by this but I was.  Most people have smart phones.  Just like here.

I think the number one thing I didn't like about our trip was not knowing how to speak Thai.  Grrr.  Amazingly it isn't really an issue in Bangkok.  I was amazed at how much the signs were written in roman charactors in English as well as Thai. I can't think of a place in the US that I have been to where the freeway signs are in anything but English.  Most  people that served us in the fancy pants hotels J picked spoke English.  Granted, these hotels cater to tourists so they probably have employees that speak English for that reason, but really?!  All of our signs are in English, not some other language. But I still didn't like not knowing what was going on completely.  I kept wanting to speak in Spanish since that is the foreign language I speak, but it doesn't work.  I did have a great time speaking Spanish to some tourists from Spain, though.  I didn't realize how much Argentine Spanish sounds like Spain Spanish until I spoke to them.  It is easier for me to understand them than Mina's Mexican Spanish

I also really didn't like Khoasan road.  Not a place I want to return to.  J kept asking me why, but I don't know.  I just didn't like it.  It is a place where people that travel using backpacks stay and that road is known for them to gather there.  I felt really unsafe there, unlike the rest of the places we went.

I didn't like fighting off the scammers.  Apparently this is a common problem reported in any thai tour book and the thai government is aware of it and wants to make the visitor aware.  There were signs in English outside popular wats to watch out for the scammers and a loud speaker announcing this scheme at the emerald Buddha site.  The taxi drivers also like to turn off their meters when working around the tourist areas.  The tuk tuk drivers also like to charge a bunch when working around that area.  A few taxi drivers were honest, but lots of them turned their meters off as soon as they saw our faces.  Grr.  The money is still a lot less but I just didn't like the dishonesty part of it and fighthing them off, even though J did all the fighting off.

Biggest adventure: J renting a car and driving us around Bangkok.  It was too big of an adventure trying to meet up with his uncle.  We got there 4 hours late  from going in circles.  But we are all alive and did get there.

All and all it was quite the adventure. 

I think this is the Rama V bridge.  A view from our fancy pants balcony.  I took this for Uncle R

This wat was in the middle of nowhere as far as I can tell.  But it is still huge.  Hardly any tourists.  Looks like a place set up for local weddings and funerals more.  I liked this one a lot.  It was beautiful

The code of modesty in a thai temple.  You c

The detail on the bodttom of the foot.

motre detail on the bottom of the foot

Some  believe.  It amazxed me how there were  many buddhas even afer destruction

size of the elephant and a colorful bus