Vacation pics.

Okay, I finally have the pictures up from our finale trip in Thailand -- check them out here.

Something to Do

Well, it's now after midnight and I was thinking I ought to catch up on blogs that I haven't read in a while and then thought that I should probably post myslef and save the catching up for another day. Still loving being back but I don't really have a whole lot of exciting things going on. We're still looking for a car although we're hoping to buy one on Thanksgiving day. We've been in contact with a guy in SLC selling an Accord. He's been out of town but will be coming down to Provo on Thanksgiving so we'll check it out then.

I know that most of you that read this already know this but I'm going to repeat it -- Craigslist is awesome. Thus far we've gotten a dresser and desk for FREE and a lot of other things we need cheap. I bought two TVs for $45 - one a 26" and the other a 19".

I finally have some work to do -- a temp job for 2 weeks starting on Monday. I'll be working with Prometric (the company that does the GRE) working on their website. Should be fun!!

Trea turned 3 on the 4th of this month. Doesn't seem like she's been with us for three whole years. She keeps wanting birthday cake. Shortly after we moved in at my parents' home Trea became familiar with The Sound of Music and has watched it about 400 times. She loves all of the songs and tries to sing along. It's so cute to watch her sing and dance. She wants mom and dad to sing too. In the car she asked us to sing one of the songs and then said, "go ahead, sing." She's such a trip.

Kristen's parents are in town for Thanksgiving so we are having turkey dinner twice. We just figure it's making up for last year in Thailand. It's been really nice to see them again. I feel really lucky to have awesome in-laws.

Well, yeah it's kind of boring ramblings -- I'll have to try and post sometime when I'm not half asleep.

Land that I Love

We're back. Our last few weeks in Thailand were quite hectic as you can imagine. The last few weeks before a move are always that way but going around the world kind of adds to it. You know, as happy as I am to be home there are some people that I'm going to miss a lot. We had some wonderful experiences in Thailand and hope some day to have some more. I really don't miss the ants.

Having my parents come and vacation with us was sooo much fun. What makes it so great is that my parents are so laid back and easy to travel with. We had asked them what they wanted to do and see and they were pretty much of the mindset that we knew the country and they would be happy with whatever we planned. So we did just that and planned everything out. It was kind of fun playing travel agent. We planned it so that we were through by about 4:00 most days and had the evenings free so the kids could take it easy. That worked out really well. The one difficult thing about travelling with my parents is that they ask so many questions that I can't answer. They want to know what all the plants are, everything about Buddhism, dates, and stuff like that. I can't say I blame them wanting to know but I just did a lot of shoulder shrugging and said, "I don't know." I should have just made a bunch of crap up -- they would have believed it :-)

We have a ton of pictures that I still need to get off the camera and post so look forward to another Picasa album from the trip.

It is really nice being back. We've only been back four days but I'm really enjoying it. Mostly there are just so many little things that you don't even think about that make living here so great -- clothes dryers, hot water, potable water from every sink, warm home-made bread, ovens, carpet, and the list goes on and on.

The girls did great on the flight back. We really are blessed with good travelers. Now the problem is getting their little internal clocks to do a 180. Yesterday Trea slept from 2:00 in the afternoon until 11:00 and then was up all night until 6:00 this morning. Luckily Grandpa (bless him) took her outside all day. She really wanted to be outside so he let her "help" on things he was doing around the yard, and played too. It really wore her out and she was a beast when she came in this evening but hopefully she'll sleep a good sleep and make a good step toward adjusting.

Now that I'm not sleeping when you're awake (or vice versa) feel free to call or IM and we can talk (all three of you readers).

Homeward Bound

Seemingly back from the dead. I'm still bogged down by a bunch of paperwork but I've got some serious senioritis (can you still call it that when it comes to things other than school?) and can't focus on working so I'll finally blog a few random things. Also taking up some time and preventing me from blogging: I reformatted the hard drive and re-installed Windows. I think I'm just going to plan on doing this every 9 months to a year because it works wonders for a sluggish computer.

We are now in our last full month here. I've loved Thailand and will miss a lot of things about it but not that the decision has been made to go back home I just want to get there. Although I love it here there are so many things I'm looking forward to when we get back to the US -- hot water from every tap, washing clothes in hot water, pulling hot clothes out of the dryer, snuggling up in a blanket and enjoying some hot cocoa, home-made bread, and the list goes on and on.

So, we leave Khon Kaen (for Bangkok) on the 3rd of October and then my parents will arrive in Bangkok on the 4th. We will do some vacationing with my folks for about eight days and then we're all flying back together (that will be wonderful with the kids)!

Teaching KG has been great for me. I really love my kids (most of them) and am going to miss them. You get to see so much improvement when they are so young (3-4). Not only with their English but the things that they can do -- gross motor skills, fine motor skills, behavior, social skills, etc. It's really wonderful. I wish I could have been in KG last year. Oh well.

We've sold most of our large things except the car. We're getting down to crunch time with the car and I'm starting to get a little worried.

Did you notice the favicon for my blog (it's the tiny icon to the left of my blog url)? I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do it. (I used this article if you want to try it too). It's a picture of Trea if you can't tell.

Speaking of Trea, this morning she wakes up and says out of the blue, "Jesus is coming." I'm like, "okay." Then she says, "I talked to him." I questioned her, "You talked to him?" and her response, "Yeah, I talked to Jesus."
Okay, so how's that for a kind of weird start to your day -- not bad, per se, just a little weird.

Anyway, don't have a lot for now other than to say I'm alive and I'm homeward bound in just over a month.

Pictures

Well, I know you're all anxiously awaiting a new post but all I've got is a link to some pictures of my two precious little ones. Hope you enjoy them. I hope to post again soon -- things have just been a lot busier this semester than I had anticipated.

Back Home Again

Where do I begin?? We just returned from our family vacation (one last hurrah before going back to work). Actually there was a purpose to our excursion but we decided to make a trip out of it as well. Our goal was to get a passport for Adia and get her citizenship (as she was a non-entity before that -- no citizenship). I'm happy to report that she is now an American and a passport is on the way.

Our trip was scheduled as follows: 1 day traveling to Bangkok (via train), 1 day getting the translation of her birth certificate (yeah, her birth certificate is entirely in Thai -- how cool is that?) certified by the Thai government and then a train down to Hua Hin, 5 days in Hua Hin laying on the beach and eating great food, 1 day back to Bangkok, last day getting the passport and then on home.

Day one: The train ride went extremely well. Trea really liked it. She had a whole train car to run around in and tons of people who were fascinated by her (she's getting a little too used to this). The kids sitting directly behind us entertained her for most of the trip. We even got her to settle down for a nap. Mind you she hardly ever takes a nap outside of nursery. We checked into our hotel and then went out for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was great!! Day one had turned out quite nice.

Day two: Got up, took a shower, slipped and fell on my elbow. After a long saga of drs., waiting, x-rays, and rides I was back at the hotel with a half-cast on right arm. (and Kristen was worried about a little scab on Trea's nose in the pictures) So, vacation agenda just went right out the window. People look at me funny when I say I slipped in the bathroom but the floors in this place were that polished granite and the floor sloped about 4" over the span of about six feet (that Asian style bathroom where they expect you're going to get water all over the place so it slopes toward a drain). I'm not the type to sue but this place would have a lawsuit were they in the states. What really ticked me off was the apparent apathy from the hotel staff. We had a special internet rate for the night (about $35 for this normally $130 hotel) and they said they couldn't honor that rate again. Okay I understand that but could you at least pretend that you care that I JUST BROKE MY ARM IN YOUR HOTEL! At this point we're seriously considering just throwing in the towel and going home but we decide to stick with it (I talk Kristen into going on). We drag the kids with us to get the birth cert. legalized (originally Iwas going to do this while Kristen and the kids hung out at the hotel) and just get in before they close. He at dinner (which was an interesting event) and found another hotel.

If you haven’t yet thought about it, yes I’m typing all of this one-handed (LEFT-handed no less).

Day three: We get up early and go straight to the train station to get tickets to Hua Hin. At this point I'm thinking the sooner we get there the better. The only train is regular class (no reclining seats and no air-con). You do what you gotta do. At first the windows are all open and the breeze from outside is quite nice and refreshing but as we get further south the rain begins to pick up and we have to close the windows. At this point the train becomes a sauna. Trea did well on this ride too but she had some moments. When we get to Hua Hin it’s raining and the roads are flooded. “Why did we go on vacation?” I ask myself. Fortunately we can get to our hotel all right. To top things off, the portable DVD player that was going to keep Trea happy in the hotel room broke and wasn’t working. Throwing in the towel came up again in the hotel room as this was beginning to look like a cursed vacation.

Days 4-7: At this point things finally started looking up. The sun came out and we were able to visit the beach and have an enjoyable time. I was able to get into the water up to my waist. As Kristen said later that evening, “It was all worth it to see Trea discover the beach.” She would just giggle and scream in delight as the waves came and hit her. She played in the sand, of course. Along the beach there they have horses that you can ride and I wanted her to go on one but we weren’t sure that she would. At this point in her life she is fascinated with animals AT A DISTANCE. They start coming close and she starts to freak out. I talked her into going and the two of us rode together. I think that she really liked it. We also took her to see monkeys and she got to ride an elephant. She really liked watching daddy feed the elephant which is rather different from our last experience feeding elephants at the zoo last October. Kristen and I had a great time watching Trea have fun. Not that we didn’t but there’s just something about seeing your kids happy. I got the good international food that is lacking in Khon Kaen (Italian, Seafood, gelato, spare ribs, etc.) Oh yeah, Trea got really sun-burned due to my poor parenting.

Days 8 and 9: The last two days were pretty uneventful – a bus ride back to Bangkok (both kids slept half the way). Another night at my favorite hotel (the one where I broke my elbow), appt. with the embassy, and then killing time until our train left. Trea liked the night train and slept really quite soundly most likely due to lack of sleep over the past week. We must have been quite a sight most of this trip. Here I am with a cast on my right arm and holding a baby in my left because Trea’s insisting on being held.

Now we’re home and trying to get back into the groove. I can’t drive so that really sucks. I’ve got a week of prep before school starts back up on the 21^st. I’m going to be teaching 3 and 4-year-olds!! Kristen has had some contact with a few places about part-time work so we’ll see what happens. We had fun in the end but it’s nice to be back on regular speed again.

Check out Kristen’s blog for another take on this trip.

Also, I’ve made a few slight changes to the blog. Hope you like them.

How do you say that in Thai?

Being the fantastic linguist that I am I figured that I would share some of the linguistic aspects of the Thai language with you (there is sarcasm there). Actually, after sharing some interesting words and phrases with Kristen she suggested that I blog about it. I'll have to say some of these are quite funny but most of them are just interesting. Then again, maybe they're just interesting if you're a linguistic dork like me. Anyway, here goes.

First, here is a handful (of the many) words that Thai has borrowed from English. I'm always surprised by which words are borrowed.

-- free, pack (a pack of something), style, fluke, foot (unit of measure), romantic, sexy, bacon

Additionally Thais have borrowed "dictionary" from English but have shortened it to "dict" and there are a lot of shops that sell the little hand-held translators that will speak the word for you to help you with the pronunciation -- this is a "talking dict" I'll just leave it at that.

So, on to the actual Thai words:

English -- followed by the literal Thai

to understand -- to enter the heart
diarrhea -- to lose your stomach
pregnant -- to have a stomach
jaundice -- yellow body (or "yellow eyes")
thunder -- the sky crying
hippopotamus -- water elephant
starfish -- sea star
honey -- bee liquid
credit -- faith money
savings -- sleeping money
crosswalk -- zebra path
boogers -- nose crap
snot -- nose liquid
sad -- lose your heart
diabetes -- sweet urine
cavity (tooth) -- tooth pimple
elevated train -- fire vehicle in the sky
pedestrian bridge -- floating bridge
sleepers (in your eye) -- eye crap
leader -- head face
ice -- solid water
slang -- market language
neighbor -- house friend
interest -- flower money
lustful -- head of a snake
tear -- eye liquid
sympathy -- heart liquid
to feel inferior -- small heart
to feel inferior -- small face

And a few phrases:

to go to the bathroom (male) (colloquial) -- to go shoot a rabbit
to go to the bathroom (female) (colloquial) -- to go pick a flower

One of Kristen's favorite Thai dishes is:

"stir-fried vegetables together as friends"

Hope you all find it interesting (maybe not as interesting as I do but that's okay).

The Catch-Up Post

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted what seems like a lifetime ago. Well, actually it was quite a bit more than a lifetime ago – my second daughter’s lifetime that is. Yes, those of you who occasionally click over to Kristen’s blog are already aware of our newest arrival but for those of you who haven’t – SHE finally arrived. She was an early birthday present for her daddy. Her due date was the 13^th of March but she didn’t make it until the 29^th. Many people (myself included) were convinced that she wanted the same birthday as her daddy – the 30^th. She is a sweet little baby and a welcome addition into our home. When she was born she was 3,570 grams (about 7 lbs 15 oz). We had her two-week follow-up appt. this past Tuesday and she had put on nearly 400 grams (about 13 oz) in just 13 days – nothing to worry about as far as getting enough food. After a few days of indecision we decided to call her Adia Nicole. It’s a little different (not too different) but it fits her perfectly. Kristen and I were a little concerned about how Trea would deal with having a new sibling in the house but she has done wonderful. She is kind of testing mom and dad a little bit about boundaries but doesn’t seem to resent or want to hurt the baby. She always wants to help with the baby – change, burp, feed, swaddle, etc. Yeah, you feel bad telling your two-year-old who only wants to help that they can’t but sometimes you just have to. We try to let her help when it’s something that she can do. It didn’t take Trea long to say her name and now it’s “Adia this and Adia that.” For the full details of the birth you can read about it here.

Prior to Adia’s arrival in our home Kristen’s sister, Erin, and her husband came to visit us. I think the plan was to come and visit us AND to see the new baby but it just didn’t work out that way. Their trip to Thailand was kind of a graduation celebration as Chris finished his two master’s degrees. They spent a few days in Bangkok and then came up to see us for about four days before going to a beach down south for a week. I couldn’t help but laugh when I had picked them up from the airport and we were on the way into town and they asked, “So, what is there to do in Khon Kaen?” I think I laughed and promptly answered (truthfully), “nothing.” They had a good time in Khon Kaen just hanging out and seeing the “real” side of Thailand (versus the tourist areas of the south and Bangkok which is a world unto itself). I think Erin was kind of bummed that Adia decided to come THE DAY AFTER they left.

The timing on the new baby couldn’t have been much better. The last day of school was the 16^th of March followed by two weeks of wrap-up and planning for next year. So, we were just finishing up those last few days when Adia arrived and I’ve been able to stay home with Kristen and take care of her. This past week has been pretty dreadful; we’ve all been sick with a cold and are still fighting it.

Yesterday was the beginning of Songkran, the Thai New Year. There are a lot of religious ceremonies and other things that go along with the holiday but really it’s just a 3-5 day water fight. I’ve been told that everyone drinks a lot. Yesterday Kristen and I were driving around and saw people already along the sides of the roads throwing water at passersby (mostly the motorcycles and songtaews where you can actually get someone wet). This was Thursday when most things were still open, Things will be interesting over the weekend. We’re planning on being home most of it but if we feel up to it I’d like to just drive around (with windows up and doors locked) and see how it is.

Well, I have all these things that I want to get done over the break but between having a new kid, a two-year-old, and being sick I haven’t accomplished many (as this is only my first post). Well, that’s a lot so I’ll wrap it up.

Engrish Post 2.2

If you aren't sure "begerry" is supposed to be "bakery." Not that I asked but I just know Thai Engrish well enough by now. Stop by this place for an apple joice or two.

"Please don't make the noisy" - is this a sexual reference? - that from Kristen. This from our hotel in Laos.

For some reason some of the best examples I've seen are beauty related. Unfortunately I only have one picture. A beauty shop that we have here in town is "Porn Beauty." It's too bad but the word in Thai means "blessing" or "happiness" but for some reason they chose to romanize it p-o-r-n. Additionally, while in Laos I saw a "Beauty Salorn" and a "Beauty Saloon." Wonder what it was like in there? "Assy Nail" is one that I see fairly regularly and I just love it. I had to get a picture of it.

Engrish Post 2.1

Well, after a long hiatus another Engrish brog is here!!

This is the packaging from one of Trea's toys. It's true, you can indeed develop intelligence with the muscil that this toy plays. Listen to muscil as often as you can! What's your favorite type of muscil?

From a menu:

This was taken at the zoo on our October trip. Welcome to the Honnbill Ganden. Take a stroll through the ganden.

This is one fine specimen of Engrish. Seems like some of the best examples come from China where someone just looked things up in a dictionary and pieced them together. This is from a set of a geometric rulers (protractor, angle ruler and ruler). "Needed the paterfamilias accompany, if the children haven't 3 years." I love it!!

This is Criminal!

So, after an extremely lengthy hiatus I will attempt to get all of you (the thousands of loyal fans) caught up on my exciting life. Time here has been passing by so quickly. Unlike most schools here in Thailand, our school has a two-week break over Christmas and New Years. They are able to do this because it is a private school and can do whatever they want. The reason that they do it is to accomodate the foreign teachers, many of whom like to go home and see family. There are EIGHT of us. I'm not complaining but it seems odd to change everything for a handful of people but whatever. Anyway, we went to Utah over the break to see family but more importantly to attend Kristen's younger brother's wedding. Due to the wedding we were fortunate enough to get some financial assistance from Kristen's parents, otherwise I don't think we would have made it back to the states quite yet. I am making really good money compared to most Thais but not nearly enough to fly home.

Our trip home was much to quick but was a much needed break for us. Chantrea was a great traveller, all things considered. Her worst leg was the first flight (one-hour) which was from Khon Kaen to Bangkok. There were about 20 minutes of complete meltdown (probably due to cabin pressure and ears that wouldn't pop). During those 20 minutes I thought, "What are we doing? This is going to be a disaster." As I said, that was the worst of it. She was restless and cried some but what kid her age wouldn't be. For a two-year-old she was wonderful!!

We arrived in Bangkok and had a about an hour and a half to claim our baggage and catch our next flight. We knew we would be cutting it close but it was absolutely insane. When we got to immigration the officer there informed me that were we to leave we would be invalidating our visas (which were good through the beginning of May). Kristen and I were both under the impression (obviouly incorrect) that we could leave and come back one time on our then current visas. He informed us that we could get reentry permits there at the airport which would allow us to keep our visas. Unfortunately, we didn't have any pictures, any cash, or any time to apply for those so we just left and figured that we'd get it figured out when we returned. More on this later.

Over the week of Christmas, Kristen's parents had rented a house in Salt Lake City in which the family could all stay together. It was close to the mouth of the canyon and was obviously a rental for skiers but it was perfect for us. We took turns on who cooked dinners. The house had a pool table and pinball machine in the basement, lots of televisions, and plenty of room to just hang out. Christmas was nice and the wedding was wonderful. It's pretty amazing that all of Kristen's siblings are now married in the temple. Trea remembered her cousins and had a great time with them. She impressed everyone with her Thai. They were always wondering what she was saying. Half the time she wasn't even speaking Thai. At one point her uncle Mark was repeating some of the words that he had learned from her and she corrected his tones. It's awesome. It was funny to see her with her older cousins. Their favorite movies are movies like Cars, and Cinderella. Trea -- she prefers Spiderman and U2 concerts. It's so weird. I think I figured out the other day what her first (and probably only) four syllable word is: "elevation" said like it's sung, "el-e-vay-shun."

One thing that made the trip really difficult was that she was up for 3-4 hours (more some nights) almost every night. She finally got just about on to Utah time a couple days before we headed back. Luckily, she readjusted to Thai time much quicker.

I'm really happy that we were able to visit my siblings and there families in Utah even though it was rather brief. We spent about three days with my grandma and it was great. My grandma is one of the greatest people ever! I just love sitting and talking with her. She is so interesting and has tons of stories to tell but even more impressive to me is that she is always learning something new. I feel really at peace at her place.

Interesting: While at my grandma's place the temperature never got above about 35 and then we back to Thailand and it was about 90.

We've now been back in Asia for two weeks. We got visas on arrival which are valid for 30 days. We then needed to go to Laos to try and get non-immigrant visas before those 30 days were up. I decided that since we had a school holiday on Tuesday of this past week we would go up on the weekend, apply on Monday, pick them up on Tuesday (it takes 24 hrs. to process) and could be back to teach on Wednesday -- I want to miss as little time as possible because I feel kind of guilty that it's our fault that we have to do all this. So, we had a nice trip to Laos and found Vientiane to be a very nice city. We enjoyed eating out. Because of the French colonization Laos has great breads (which Thailand does not) and you can find baguettes all over the place. We went out for Italian, Indian, French, and to a Scandinavian bakery. So, that was great but on the visa front we got hosed. Apparently Thailand passed a new law in December that requires that anyone applying for a non-immigrant visa to work in Thailand needs to submit a criminal record or background check. Of course, as with most Thai laws, this is completely stupid and nobody who needed to know about this did (ie the school). So, after a frustrating trip (and an extra day in Laos) we ended up getting 30-day tourist visas and are still trying to figure out how we're going to get everything settled.

I'm sure I had more to say but am hitting a wall after all of these ramblings. Anyway, I've been collecting some more Engrish gems to share with you and I'll be getting those up soon. Hope you like the new formatting but if you don't I don't care because I do and it's mine!