Ten cent tour

Our first year in Thailand we lived in the commercial building, on-campus apartments. Living right on campus was very convenient, but it was hard to ever feel like we 'got away' from ICS, especially since kids would sometimes hang out at school until 5:30-6ish. Additionally, when there were school events (dramas, lock-ins, worship evenings, and so forth), we felt a little trapped. We had the option of living on campus again this year since there were enough rooms to do so, but we would have had to give up our two studios and [gasp] move to an actual 2 bedroom apartment. We decided that if we were already going to have to move, we might as well move to a place where we could stay for a while to minimize the moving. Plus, we wanted a place that we could really call home... we hardly decorated or did much to our on-campus apartment, knowing that we would probably have to move at the end of the year. So we made the big move down the street to the "Parkland Apartments," which is still conveniently only a 5 minute walk to school (nothing really can beat the 30 second walk from the commercial building though)! Our new apartment really does feel quite homey, and I think it feels like us too. :) We were happy to find a place that has a washing machine, 2 bathrooms, lots of storage space, and a more western style kitchen. Best decorating decisions ever: a) bought sheets to cover our couch and b) instead of buying prints from the store, we had our own photographs blown up!

Here's the ten cent tour:

Welcome!

Entrance

Massive amounts of storage in the entrance area

Main living & eating area

Kitchen/main bathroom

Main bathroom

My very western looking kitchen (lots of cupboards and counter space... not just a hot plate)

Yes, that's a washing machine in the kitchen... dishwashers are practically non-existent here, and since I have the washing machine in the kitchen, that means we have 2 functioning showers!

Kitchen and second bedroom

Yes, those are bunk beds! (single bed on top and double bed on bottom)

This bedroom is currently acting as a storage room. I guess we'll have to clear it out a little bit more when we have people visit this Christmas. :)

It also doubles as the tie rack room

Looking back into the main living area from the kitchen... you can also see part of the master bedroom. We have a funky curved wall... at least our funky curved couch matches our funky curved wall though!

Master bedroom and balcony

The bedroom storage area wraps around curvy wall. Most places don't have such amazing storage... we are blessed. That funky shaped thing on the balcony is my eliptical; it's just covered by a sheet so that the birds don't poop all over it. :)

Kind of an awkward cupboard in the very back, but it's a good place for putting things you don't use very often... like suitcases.

Our bathroom... it even has a shower door, which is rare to find in Thailand!

We are so happy to live where we do and feel blessed to have a place to call home!

Oh no, not you too!!!

Mike and I went to Kanchanaburi with a few friends for the 4 day weekend that we had. One night, in the wee hours of the morning, Mike must have woken up to go to the bathroom. He came back to bed and I must have stirred enough to make him feel bad about waking me up a little bit, so he said, "Khor toht krap" [core tote cop], which means, "excuse me" (or I farted... depending on which tone you use). Anyway, I found it rather humorous that he was speaking to me in Thai and thought he was just trying to be funny so I asked him about it in the morning. He denied all claims to being conscious and simply said, "I guess I must have thought you were Thai." Seriously honey... not you too!!

From the mouths of babes...

Q: When you think of the word "Spanish," what comes to mind?

• Cowboys and tacos
• Spanish people with big hats
• Salsa (I'm pretty sure this student meant the food, not the dance...)
  
• Mrs. Karly
• Guitars and giant sombreros... oh yeah, burritos too
• Spain... Madrid...tap dance
• Hola & uno
• Mexicans
• Flamenco dancers
• Those singers with big hats, banjos, and maracas
• Something beautiful
• Food
• My name because it means something in Spanish (Sol)
• Taco Bell
• Soccer/FIFA/2010 World Cup champions
  
• Passion & red colored dress wearing women dancing
• Quesadillas
• Dance-y, happy people & Mrs. Karly
• The colors red & yellow
• Love
• Flags
  
• Festivals & food
• Upside down question marks & stuff
  
• Guitars and sombreros
• Fun
  
• Music that Mrs. Karly plays in class on her i-pod
• People who talk really fast
• Bulls
• Adiós
  
• Doritos

Yum

Look at the yummy pizza I made in my rockin' micro-griven!
Can you guess what these are? I had never eaten them until I came to Bangkok... and now they are one of my favorite things!

Worlds collide

When we were home this summer there were a couple of things that really took us by surprise:

1. Obesity
2. Price of food
3. Portion sizes of food (refer back to #1 now)
4. Green grass and trees everywhere (we were finally out of the pavement jungle)
5. Fresh(er) air, particularly in the BWCA
6. Cost of gas
7. Driving on the right side of the road
8. Drinking water from the tap & not having to have a water bottle in the bathroom to use for our toothbrushes & rinse water (I can't tell you how many times I looked around for a water bottle in the bathroom)
9. Actually having to drive everywhere instead of being "chauffeured around" by a taxi
10. People's names weren't objects, places, or movie characters ie) Pop, Top, Ice, Jar-jar Binx, Sand, Land, Guitar, Candy, etc.
11. Lack of humidity, despite many Minnesotans complaining about how hot/humid it was (as I was wearing jeans and long sleeved shirt... it's all relative)
12. Name-person confusion... read the following phone conversation:

Me: Hello?
Friend: Hey, this is James
Me: James? (thinking: James, the MS computer teacher in Thailand??) Uhm... how'd you get this number??!? (we had just recently bought a temporary phone)
Friend: From Eric
Me: Uhm, ok. Wait, James who?
Friend: James K. Is Mike there? We want him to play softball on Sunday.
Me: Ooooooooooooh! Softball MN James!
Friend: Uhm... yes.
Me: Yeah, hold on, here's Mike.

13. The 80's apparently being back in... stretch pants, side ponies and all.
14. Bathtubs... not that I took a bath or anything, but it was nice not to have water go ALL OVER the bathroom floor and then have to squeegee it down the drain
15. No one thinking that I'm Thai and never getting some foreign language menu handed to me.
16. People putting the emphasis on the same syllable as me. For example, I would say "tower" with the natural emphasis on TOWer. Thais, however, would say, toWERRRR (and really draw out the "ER" part.

How to make a Thai person laugh...

1. Looking Thai but not actually being Thai
2. Looking Thai, trying to speak Thai, but thoroughly botching up the Thai
3. Looking Thai but perfecting saying "I am not Thai. I do not speak Thai" in Thai
4. Looking Thai, not being Thai, and being a Spanish teacher
5. Making faces when Tong Soo, the fruit dude, gives us pieces of fruit we've never had before... only to realize how sour they are.
6. Stomping on a cockroaches outside our apartment tower
7. Paying for 16 baht worth of water in 1 baht coins
8. Pretending to force open an elevator door from the inside as it opens, not realizing that there are people on the other side of the elevator waiting to get on

Safety first

3 things...

... that make us laugh about Grandpa John:

1. He dominated at cribbage, but tried to cheat all the time by throwing in extra points or points that don't even exist in cribbage rules. We always had to double check his hand... sneaky fellow. ;)

2. When we would say goodbye, he would kiss you smack on the lips if you didn't dart out of the way and turn your head at the last second.

3. The last time we saw him, he had [accidentally] shaved off half of his mustache without knowing it.

Grandpa John

Rest in peace, Grandpa John. We'll miss you.

Born in the USA

Well... I wasn't born in the USA, but it's been home to both of us for 25+ years. So back to the USA it was for a month long visit this summer. Here's a re-cap of what we did during our visit:

** Sorry if we neglected to take a picture of you while we were home...

Tempted small children with our hamburgers

Graciously accepted rock donations

Hung out with some wonderful SGF people


Said goodbye to the Thompson Family (they're moving out of state)


Held small babies


Booped small babies on the nose

Went to a few baseball games at Target Field, the new outdoor Twins stadium




Went fishing, canoeing and camping in the BWCA with my dad for a week





Had lunch at Cafe Latte with family & friends

Caught up with some TLO friends



Saw movies

Visited Pete & Sarah in Colorado (and sucked in as much fresh air and cooler weather as possible)




Went to a Rockies baseball game (which was the longest [time-wise, not inning-wise] in Rockies history and went to 15 innings)

Ate at Chick-fil-A (an unexpected, yet delectable surprise)

Met new family members

Visited Grandma

Had good times with awesome friends










Helped Ian with his fashion sense

Bought awesome, awesome burp rags for the plethora of babies being born at ICS. They were made by Dana, a friend from MHS

Other:
Played games
Ate at many different restaurants we had missed
Stamped/made a lot of cards
Played volleyball, basketball and softball
Went shopping and loaded up on things that we can't get or are too expensive to get in Bangkok
Enjoyed worshiping at SGF

It was a crazy month where we literally ran from one thing to the next most days, but it was good to be be back to catch up with family and friends that we hadn't seen for a year. We were blessed to be able to see so many people. Please forgive us if we didn't have the opportunity to see you... we would have loved to see you all, but we were limited on time.

I prayed for three things for myself during our time stateside: 1) That I would have good conversations and times with people 2) That I would feel refreshed (despite the busyness) and be ready to dive into school week upon return and 3) That I would not become overly attached to things or people, thus making it hard for me to want to go back to Bangkok joyfully. God was gracious to me in our time and home and all three prayer requests were answered. However, I was most blown away by how He answered prayer request #3: He confirmed and affirmed time and time again that Bangkok is where we are supposed to be. Places I missed and wanted to eat at didn't taste as good as I had remembered... people encouraged and affirmed us in our ministry... we were reminded time and time again about how technology (skype, blogs, e-mail, FB, chats, etc) makes it so easy to stay in touch...and MN didn't quite feel like home in a certain sense either.

Anyway, all this to say that we're back in Bangkok now, have moved into our new apartment (and are loving it), and are getting geared up and excited about the new school year. Thank you for supporting us in this ministry, for praying for us, for sending us encouraging packages/letters/e-mails/FB & blog messages, for spending time with us while we were stateside, and for being a part of our life. We are grateful for you.