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!