Holiday bowling party with Rob's finance team. Yet again, girls were treated like rockstars
Probably because of adorable techniques like this....that ball is creeping ever so slowly, and just did not have momentum to produce the strike that appears could have been
Another day during time off, girls & I checked out one of the cooler zoos we've ever been to... picking parasites out of an unhappy snake
This man appeared to be using everything he had to hold the snake head for a good half hour. Girls were fascinated and asking gads of questions that somehow mostly got answered by teamwork & piecing together English tidbits from the super friendly staff. Walking around this zoo was a bit eeery at times, as it is very laid back & open in style. Don't know if Thailand has an OSHA officer inspecting cage locks for cobras or wall heights around tigers
Inside an elephant trunk, fed many bananas to get this shot
I love this pic from our week up in Khon Kaen, outside the landfill slum. When we leave here and reflect back on Thailand, I think one of the first images coming to mind will be all of the pick-up truck beds full of people arranged in creative ways, sometimes smiling, often appearing tired & heavy-hearted
Show offs
Saturday night at Jomtien Beach
The power of the Sea... they spent a chunk of day at home bickering with each other, then to our surprise, we found them hand in hand in the ocean. Much truth in the old parenting advice to put unhappy children in water
I just love this guy.
Helping Ry find her own sand dollar. She was getting so bummed cuz Al was finding all the goods & it was getting dark. Love the skies here
Finally found one... shhhh, don't tell her, but I do believe big sis helped plant it
Girls headed back to school this morning after 3 weeks off. Rob's in Singapore for the first half of this week. I'm home catching up.
I just heard another cool call of a bird that I've been trying to spy. I think it's a bird. I hear it, but I've never seen it make its monkey-like sound.
For the first month we lived in this house, I thought we had a squeaky belt in our dining room air conditioner. Heard it maybe a couple times a week, no big deal, had enough other problems with our house so it was least of worries. Then we started opening up windows more & I was hearing it outside. Ah-ha, a bird. We must have one perched right outside that air conditioner, seemingly calling into our house, or so I thought for the next month. Then we had Jeff & Lisa over.... that's not a bird, Tam, it's a gecko! Still have a resident one in that dining room air con, and occasional ones skittering on walls or ceiling. I miss seeing squirrels. No chipmunks, raccoons, or other little mammals scurrying here. Their equivalents are the geckos & frogs.
Still no neighborhood snake sightings, happy to report. When running this morning, I realized I wasn't on edge about snakes like our first few months. I will now walk right across our lawn with hardly a thought about them, instead of tiptoeing wide-eyed as I did this fall. I'm still vigilant in terrain more than a few cm tall, but it's a step in the direction of living at peace in my new world.
