Adventures from this weekend

Yesterday on our day off we traveled out to Khao Yai once again. Since the temps are getting so high here we thought we would spend our day in a cooler place…and Khao Yai provides that for us!
Anyway, we didn’t get to see an elephant this time but we did see several deer and some hornbills, and of course, monkeys. It actually rained while we were there and cooled it down even more! We were even a little cold…if you can believe that. Paul thought the temp had dropped to around 70 degrees after the rain.
The things kids say…PJ came into the kitchen and asked me to teach him how to read a book he had in his hand! I was amazed! I thought Paul had put him up to it, but he didn’t…PJ just came up with it on his own. So, I chuckled and said, “ok, let’s go try.” Of course the first word was “A” but he didn’t want to read it so I read him the story and he listened in. It’s a start though…as little as it may seem!
Calvin is starting to inch his way around while lying on his belly. When he ends up in bed with us, I am usually pushed over to the very edge of the mattress because Calvin has moved himself closer and closer to me. He is really getting big. It seems that each day he’s a bit bigger. The other day I stopped in to see a new Thai friend I’ve met. She just had a baby girl last week or so and she is SO tiny. Anyway, I had Calvin in the sling with me and the Granny asked me if he was eating rice yet? I didn’t understand at first but then quickly realized they thought he was because of how big he is! At two months old, Calvin looks like he’s four months by Thai standards!
As for me, well, Phii Lina has come over a couple times this past week to teach me how to cook some yummy Thai dishes. We’ve made cashew chicken, yam wun sen (VERY good!), and chicken and basil. The dishes are SO easy to make and quick too. The yam wun sen basically is spicy glass noodle salad with pork. The glass noodles are a special type of “sen” or noodle. And the the dressing is made up of garlic, peppers, vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, a sour orange that I have forgotten the name of and cilantro. You also add fresh tomatoes and onions. It is one of my favorite dishes here in Thailand, but of course now that I have Calvin I can’t eat the onions! O well. It’s been fun learning how to cook some Thai dishes…I just have to keep practicing. Lina just adds stuff by throwing it in…she doesn’t measure anything out so I have to learn how much of each thing to add just by looking and tasting.

Monkey Business

This monkey is a wild one. We saw him and some others hanging out on the road and so we stopped and threw them some food. This guy is the head honcho... if any of the other monkeys got close to our car he would chase them away. It's quite a production! 

Calvin

Eight weeks old yesterday! Here's the little guy holding his head up high. 

Me and my boys

 

waterfall at Khao Yai National Park

This waterfall is the easiest to access with two small chidren. There is a viewpoint just a few yards down a path. As you can see there is not much water falling but during the rainy season there is much more water coming over...remember we are in the hot season right now! 

Election Day and more

On Tuesday of this week the Erawan shrine (a plaster of the lord Brahma with four heads) in Bangkok was destroyed by a crazed man. He was beaten to death soon after. For an interesting look at how Thais view this check out the Bangkok Post's article http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/24Mar2006_news21.php. I think it will give you some great insight into the Thai way of thinking. The article alludes to some politcal tensions of which I will not be going into detail because I don't fully understand what is going on. I will ask for prayer as Election Day approaches here. I believe it will be April 2nd. I am not a political person and I don't claim to understand all the outworkings of politics in this country or my own so I won't comment but please pray. I do know that the Lord is not suprised by these events and He knows what the future holds here.

In other news, I had my module four check today! I left feeling encouraged with my reading and writing of Thai. As always there is still much to learn but I thank you for your prayers for me. Paul's check will be coming up next week. Please pray for him as he prepares for his check.

Temps a'rising

I thought it would be fun just to show you how hot it is according to our trusty little thermometer (thanks James and Hilary!). It reads 99 degrees fahrenheit...but we have discovered that the thermometer is five degrees off, so it was really 94 degrees today at 4:30PM...this is in the downstairs of our house. I am sure it was a lot hotter in our thai kitchen (because I had the oven on.). We are told the temps will climb even higher. We sure thank God for our a/c units in our bedrooms!
Tomorrow Paul heads to BKK to get the baby's passport...please pray for his safety and that the passport will be ready. They told us to pick it up three weeks from when we filed it so it SHOULD be there..but you know how things sometime go. 

My boys!

 

I got it!

A smile from Calvin that is! 

The Lord's Prayer

I am getting ready to go to class (in about 1 1/2 hours). Today, I get to read the Lord's Prayer in Thai. This is a picture of some of the phrases of the Lord's Prayer. In Thai, one writes in phrases instead of individual words...and you're thinking, wow that sounds hard! Yep, it is! You have to know where a word ends and where the next one begins...which if you don't know the vocabulary you are trying to read makes it virtually impossible to read! Oh well, we keep on keeping on.
Anyway, I am excited about learning some of these new words. In Thai there is the common language and then there is what everyone seems to call "the royal language." This language is used only when talking about the royal family or when talking about God or other dieties. I won't be learning more of these words and phrases until a later module but I am SO excited to at least learn this much. I think it will help me out tremendously at church! I got so excited about it that I bought a Thai New Testament yesterday (with the English translation next to it.) I will be taking this new Bible to church and have someone find where we are in the Bible and TRY to read along! 

Stats on Calvin

Yesterday, Calvin had to go see the doctor for his one month shot. He received Hep B shot #2 yesterday. While we were there (at the clinic...there are clinics everywhere here!) they weighed him and measured his head cicumference and length. He weighed in at 5750 grams and his height is 58 cm So there you have it! Just kidding, the conversion is roughly 12.5 lbs and just over 23 inches. He is in the 90th percentile for both height and weight. Whew, what a BIG boy! Compared to PJ's records at 12 weeks, PJ weighed 13lbs.2oz. and was 24 inches long and was in the 50th percentile. I wonder how much Calvin will grow in the next six weeks! 

My Sweet Pea

And here's big brother, always the perfect angel (I hope you hear the sarcasm in my voice!). He's two and a half and he lets you know it too! He is turning into a little boy...no longer my baby. 

Six weeks old!

My little Calvin is already six weeks old. I can't believe it. I was trying to get a picture of him smiling but to no avail. Hopefully, I'll get one before long!

Back to Class

So how did my first week back to “school” go? Well, three out of five days Calvin woke up right in the middle of class and started crying. Thankfully Paul was around to take him and comfort him while I continued studying with my teacher. Saturday, thankfully Calvin slept thru the entire class and it was a good thing too! Paul was not there to call upon. About an hour before my class Paul cut his finger at school on the school paper cutter! He nipped it and there’s a nice indention at the tip of his left index finger but thankfully he didn’t hit any veins or arteries or anything.
As far as my Thai goes…well some days went well and others not so well. It basically depended on how much I studied before I walked thru my teacher’s door. I am supposed to have my module four language check next week! Yikes! I still have seven lessons left so I am not sure if this is feasible. Please continue to pray for both Paul and I as we learn to read and write. There is much to remember as far as tone rules goes...remember Thai is a tonal language and the tones much of the time aren't written it just depends on the letters and vowels. So, you just have to know, ya know?!
Nothing really exciting happened over the weekend (aside from Paul 's finger). But it has been SOOO hot! We ask Jan and Jose if the hot season is here yet and they say, "Oh no, it gets up to 40 degrees (Celsius) which is around 100 degrees fahrenheit (maybe even hotter, I am not sure). That is a little scary to think of! On Sunday it was 92 degrees in our house! OK, before I say anything more about the heat let me just let you know that it is perfectly ok to complain about the heat while in Thailand. The Thais complain about it and therefore so can we but we have been told not to go on and on and on about it...then it would get offensive! (There's your culture tip for the day!).
Well, I need to get some studying in before class today.

our drying machine

This is where our clothes are hung to dry. We do have a few clothesline but the ants like to walk upon them. 

Fresh Water

This is a water jug. Here in Thailand, the water is not safe to drink from the tap so we have to go and buy good water at a nearby store. This is about a 5 gallon jug (I think). It costs 10 baht...about 25 cents! Anyway, we keep the jug sitting in our thai kitchen and add water to another jug that we keep in the fridge. 

psshhhh....got 'em

And this is another one of life's necessities for the farang living in Thailand...ant/cockroach/mosquitoe spray. It kills all of the above and probably some other things too. This is the ONLY thing that will kill the little black sugar ants that live in our home, but it only kills the ones you spray. Nothing seems to work to kill off the colony. Oh well! Some people spray down their rooms with this spray every night before heading to bed. We don't do this but we tried it for a few nights when we first moved here and it just seemed like a waste...and now we have the mosquitoe nets...so we don't have to worry about it. 

Tennis anyone?

No, this is not what it might appear to be to your western eyes. I think that this little bat brings some of the best fun here in Thailand. It's a mosquitoe raquet. Yep, you charge it up (ours in rechargeable), turn it on and push a little button and go to town killing off a small portion of the large mosquitoe population. The best part is when you hear it ZAP the mosquitoe and you know you've killed it! I still always jump though. 

The Ants go marching...but not here...

This is an ant cup...at least that is what I call it. I don't know what it's real Thai name is but "ant cup" will do for now. You are supposed to put these at the bottom of your food cupboards and then put water in the outside ring to keep the ants from getting into your dry foods. We have been told (by Phii Lina) that baby powder does the trick too. So, instead of adding water every other day because it evaporates, we have powder in ours...much easier and you don't have to remember to add the water! The only draw back is when a baby gecko gets stuck and suffocates from the powder (we've had this happen twice now!). Did I mention ants are a problem in Thailand? (Ok, a problem for foreigners, like ourselves!) 

Pass a "napkin" please

This is a Thai napkin holder...and if you're thinking that looks like a toilet paper holder...you are precisely right! VERY rarely will you see an actual full size napkin in this country. Mostly, at restuarants and in homes you will find toilet paper rolls to use while you're dining...or really, really small pieces of napkin (like 1/4 the size of an American napkin.) This happens to be our "napkin" holder.