Zoo and More

Okay so, this post was actually written on the 28th of Oct. but I had saved it to my computer thinking that I would add to it. I completely forgot that it was there until just now. I'm up at 1:30 AM -- can't sleep. The Philippina teacher across the street has the chicken pox (undoubtedly caught them from Kristen's class -- they've had five or six kids get them) and I keep dreaming that I've got them. I've never had them so I really, really, really don't want them now. I'm going to try and go in to get a vaccine for them tomorrow. Anyway, here's the post.


Well, I did promise a post about our recent mini-vacation so here we go. As mentioned previously, over the semester break we took a mini-vacation to Korat. We would have loved to take a vacation to a more exotic place – beach or island but decided that we ought to take things a little slower and easier since Kristen is still recovering from her bout with morning sickness. Therefore we decided on Korat because if things weren’t going great we were just a 2 ½ hr. bus ride from home. The bus ride down was really nice. We went on a VIP bus. They served a small meal and the seats were really big and comfortable. While in Korat we splurged and stayed at a nicer place ($35/night). It was really sweet because we were on the ninth floor and had a corner room so we had these huge windows that opened out and looked over the city – although the skyline in Korat isn’t quite what it is in some cities :-).

The Mall in Korat is huge and we had a great time just walking around and seeing all the different shops. We ate a Sizzler which was another nice treat. The highlight of our trip was the zoo. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Trea had a lot of fun too although I’m still not sure if she enjoyed the animals or the small playground more. The funny thing about the zoo was that we were taking pictures of and looking at all the animals while most of the Thais were checking out Trea and some even wanted to take pictures of her. I guess that to them she’s kind of like an exotic animal. They had a couple of elephants (an adult and a baby) out along the sidewalk that you could feed sugarcane to or you could ride the adult. Anyway, we stopped to feed the elephants. This proved to be a hilarious event. Trea FREAKED OUT (FROKE OUT). Even watching daddy feed the elephant freaked her out. Kristen held Trea and tried to feed the elephants. I know it’s bad to get so much laughter out of your child freaking out but it was really funny!

We had decided to stop and see some ruins on the way back to Khon Kaen. Little did we know what this would involve. We had to take a 2 ½ hr ride on a non-air-conditioned bus packed with people and our child was tired and cranky. The ruins (Pi Mai) were nice but once you’ve been to Angkor Wat no other Khmer-style temple is going to really inspire awe. Fortunately, on the way back to Khon Kaen we had air-con on the bus but this time no seats (they were all full).

The ultrasound went well. The baby is doing well and appears to be healthy. Unfortunately, the baby was too small to determine the sex. So, we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully we can go and get another ultrasound done because I don’t like surprises. It won’t break the bank at $15.

Kristen and I purchased our first car together this past week. Last Friday, Nuansri’s son brought us a car at school to look at. It was a white European car (manufactured by VW but under a different name). It looked all right and we decided that we would think about it. After we went home and had been hanging around for about a half hour we got a “knock” at the door. Nuansri’s son had sent a friend of his over with his car that he was trying to sell – a 1992 dark blue Honda Civic. We liked the way it looked and took it for a test drive and were sold. So, we actually bought the car on Tuesday. I’ve only driven it a few times but it’s SO nice to have a car.

Also, I am now officially the elders quorum president of the Khon Kaen branch. I actually was a bit surprised by this. At first they told me that they were going to call me to be the pres. but then a while later they said that I was going to be one of the counselors so when I got interviewed again and was called to be the elders quorum pres. I was a bit shocked. I am excited to be serving but I’m really in the dark a lot here. I think that I’m going to have to get to know the missionaries really well.