surprise...another post about Grace

It appears that while here in Thailand it will take waaaay too long on blogger to post photos, so that will have to wait until we return home in a few days. We've gotten done almost everything on the checklist. Today was shot day and Grace had a doozie with the japanese encephalitis shot and then the MMR vaccine. I remember being super-cranky after I had the japanese encephalitis shot because it makes your arm sore, but today Grace's cranky factor was kept to a minimum. (Maybe the fact that she got the shot in her bum made all the difference!) She's really enjoyed having tons of kids to hang around. Today she kissed a little Thai boy at the dr's office. Actually, he kissed her first then she thought that was fun and kissed him back. She's really trying to imitate us a bunch now. Then at other times, she imitates herself. Today when she... um...how to say nicely, "passed some gas," she thought it was funny and made the same noise with her mouth. Silly kid. When Grace was being measured at the dr's office, I got a good look in her mouth and saw that her molars have cut through the gum line. The LAST time she cut teeth we were in Thailand, too. Not much other news to report, but if you have any requests for something from a Thai night market, let me know. One one more shopping day until we leave!

random thoughts from Thailand

We're having a great time here, and I have to say this is the best travel experience we've had with Grace since she was born. I guess it truly does get easier to travel with kids as they get older! It encourages me to do this child-bearing thing again, should HE be willing! Actually, since we're in the same room as Grace at night, we put a sheet around her bed so she can't see us, and it's working out well. Ok, enough about sleep... If you need dental work, come to Thailand. It's cheap, cheap, and state-of-the-art. I had my top wisdom teeth out yesterday in about a total of 15 minutes. For real, the process took 15 minutes and they didn't even put me under. I was awake the whole time. Who knew? I have a little bit of the chipmunk look today, but if I knew this would be so easy I wouldn't have put it off for so long! Grace has started to say some new words this week. I can't quite remember all of them, but she can now say her first intelligible word in Asian-ese. When we ask her "hao bu hao?," which literally means, "good not good?" she answers "hao" or "good" every time. She also really enjoys saying Amen "ma-men" after night prayers. I'll try to take and post a few pictures in the coming days.

off to Thailand

Tomorrow morning we're off to Thailand. We usually enjoy our time there, though this time we're hoping Grace sleeps much better! ("we have a plan" were her famous last words...she sleeps so well at home now; how do things so easily go awry while traveling?) Grace will be getting a bunch of shots, I'm having my top wisdom teeth removed, and Kevin will have dental work done also. Depending on how all that goes, I may or may not remember to take and post pictures on the blog! In other really exciting news (ok, not really), Kevin and I joined a soon-to-open gym today. Turns out our city's getting more and more developed all the time. We snatched up a good deal, with earlybird memberships 60% off the normal price. They supposedly have air conditioning and everything! It's good timing for a gym membership since we've added a few pounds lately, not counting all the pounds we'll add with wonderful western food in Thailand. Yay for Starbucks... And Happy 37th Anniversary today, Mom and Dad!

fun with fish and fountains and friends

After dinner, we like to walk nextdoor to the new Bird and Flower market to let Grace watch the pretty new fountain with fish inside. We're hoping this fountain is here to stay since most fountains here are only run on special holidays. This is a great place to meet folks and let Grace walk around without getting overwhelmed by a big crowd of people. Until recently, Grace loved getting touched and held by any stranger with an Asian face. But she's no longer cool with that. She likes to be the one to approach others. I guess it's just another sign of her entry into toddlerhood.

Squealing with delight at the fish, or "ish, ish" as she says.

It's common here for adults to take babies' hands and have them shake hands with other babies they might meet on the street. Grace has recently learned how to do this on her own and follows this command when we tell her in Asian-ese.
Tired and heading for home...

tea shop grand opening

Truly, you can never have too many tea shops in a country...

The other day, our friends invited us to their friends' tea house grand opening. (That's how it goes in Asialand.) I had no idea how many different kinds of tea existed until we moved here a few years ago. Now, I'm not a huge fan of most of the teas here. Drinking bitter, hot green tea in the heat of a summer afternoon isn't something we foreigners generally relish. However I was pleasantly surprised the other day to encounter pu-erh tea. It's a kind of red tea, and they even had lemon-flavored!

Below you can see the tea-making presentation we were given. This lady took the greatest care and made such delicate, slow movements with her hands. After the presentation, we were asked what our favorite "hand movement" was. And, being the dumb foreigners we are, we had the look on our faces like, "duh...were we SUPPOSED to have a favorite hand movement?" But we said something to try and fake it.
Note the raised pinky finger. Also note the super-cool glass hand holding the tea strainer. :)
These folks were kind to us and gave us some free tea. So, now we're obliged to go back and buy some. But, I actually like this kind so I'll be glad to buy more! It's also supposed to have the health benefit of helping you lose weight. Bring it on!

just for grins, some truly bad Engrish

In preparation for a major sporting event coming to this country next year, the gov't is working to clean up its plague of bad English. For us expats living here, we don't see that practically happening anytime soon. Maybe it will happen in the capital city...

Here's a sampling of greeting cards that I found at a local store:

For those of you who can't read microscopic print, here's what the cards say word for word:

"For the best fried: we all llke havlng you as our teacher You have our respect and gratefulness"

"I pray for you: A beautilal night sky feels so close to me. In my slul and in my heart."

"Love takes time: I most love the grass mildew"

HUH?

But I must say, at least they are making an effort!

Gracie had a little lamb...

And Lammie was her name... Please forgive me, for yes, I am posting about a stuffed animal. Very trivial, I know, but this is not just any stuffed animal. Not since Linus and his beloved blanket have I seen a child so attached to an object. Grace sleeps with her, drags her around the house, hugs her, kisses her, and must mention Lammie ("mammie") one hundred times a day, no exaggeration! Whenever I tell Grace that it's time for night-night, her next word is, yes, "mammie." Realizing that should said Lammie get lost or mangled we are completely up-a-creek, I went online to order two more. Kevin's folks gave Grace the original Lammie as a souvenir when they visited the Colonial Williamsburg area, and fortunately more were available through their website. Thanks, Mom Godin, for mailing Lammie #2 and for helping to ensure that Grace's most treasured possession has a back-up, should the unthinkable happen!



Feeding Lammie a snack...
the original "already loved-on" Lammie and the new, white-n-fluffy, not-yet-broken-in one
Thankfully, in between hugging on Lammie, she gives US a few now and then!

around town

We had some good friends stop by this week, so we decided to show them a few of the sights in our city. Here are J and J enjoying the beauty of our local park. (Yes, he is also graciously carrying Grace's stroller for us down all those stairs!)

This is a temple located inside the park. You can see people offering incense to this warrior god. It's extremely smoky (not to mention smelly) inside this temple.

It's very common to leave food offerings to gods. A couple had just left this fruit and oil at the altar.

A fun new addition to our city is the ginormous bird and flower market, which opened this week. Although half the stalls do not have vendors yet, its a great place to shop and pick up souvenirs, paintings, vases, flowers, etc. Our favorite aspect is that it's right by our house and has some much-needed restaurants moving in!

Here J is enjoying a strawberry smoothie at our favorite drink shop, David's. You can pick up any mixture of fruit shake, milk tea, frozen coffee, etc. Kevin's personal favorite is mango-banana and I'm partial to the papaya-banana.

Ode to Granna

My mom (aka Granna) came to visit this summer. Not only did she work summer school to help pay for the plane fare, but she also was a big encouragement to us while here. Kevin and I had some date time and I finally had time to get my hair done. Granna traveled to the countryside with us on a day-trip. Granna and Grace played and played. Here's a small Ode to Granna in pictures. (And a big thank you to Papa Jim for letting her come!)



Papa Jim and Granna come back in December, and Kevin's parents (aka Nana and Pappaw) will arrive in March. We are blessed to have grandparents who will travel!

countryside livin'

Here's our transportation method of choice in the boonies of Asia. There are cabs in the bigger towns, but 3 wheeled vehicles are so cheap! 1 RMB (12 cents) usually gets you around town.

Of course, sometimes your driver has to stop to let the pigs cross...

Ahh, the ubiquitous peace sign. This was taken at a friend's birthday party. On this particular night, Grace enjoyed (endured?) her first karaoke experience. It's difficult to describe how big a part of the culture karaoke is...but it's usually sung VERY loudly and with lots of reverb.

today the inevitable happened

We're no stranger to powers outages in this country. They happen frequently in the winter when it doesn't rain so much. Our city runs on hydroelectric power, so we rely on good rains to keep the power going. Winter power outages are annoying but something we can deal with. But summers? Oh, quite another story. We like our air conditioning thank you very much. These little concrete building can become ovens in the summer and refrigerators in the winter. Kevin and I had personally never experienced a bad power outage in the summer...until today. This morning our neighbor called and asked if we had the same sign on our building that they did...no power today from 9:30am-6:30 pm. Much to our chagrin, there was a sign. Now, we have many friends who do not use air conditioning here, and many Asians do not even own one. So, theoretically it can be done. No a/c is one thing, but no air at all is another. It's difficult for us to get a good cross-breeze in our house. Today the forecasted high was in the upper 90's. So, I hurredly filled up some buckets of water since, in our building, no power also usually means no water. We had planned a dinner meeting at our home, but it was moved to a restaurant. Most importantly, we packed up and went to Kevin's cousin's home!! Jeff and Amy graciously let us stay at their house. It was great to have a place for Grace to nap. Grace had her first incident with stairs while there. I guess it's also inevitable for every toddler, but oh did it hurt my heart. As I was in the bathroom (and failed to ask the others in the room to watch Grace), I heard a loud splat. Face first on the hard marble floor. She'll have quite the bruise...

a few recent pictures

Grace has recently found her belly button and loves digging at it...
This is what happens when you combine temperatures in the 90's, high humidity, and play time outside. Hairstyle by mom...
One of the few things Grace will keep on her head!
From our recent trip to Hong Kong. One of these days we'll actually walk on the beach, but that day it was extremely hot. HK has it all: ocean, theme parks, shopping, restaurants...we heart HK!

call me a bandwagon-jumper

Yes, friends, I'm starting a blog. I've debated doing this for quite some time, knowing I may or may not update it faithfully. But, since we live overseas, I like to send out pictures to family and friends periodically, anyway. This seems to make it easy! So, thanks to Rachel C. for encouraging me to do it. You can insert your comment about the corny blog title as you wish.