Happy Halloween!

Believe it or not, Halloween was a bigger deal here than it was in Phoenix! The Thais don't celebrate Halloween but here in Nichada, the community where we live, Halloween is HUGE! Starting about 3 weeks ago, there were big wooden cutout Halloween decorations hung on all the roads throughout Nichada - ghosts, pumpkins, witches, vampires, devils, gravestones...you name it, it was here! Then on Halloween night, there are, literally, thousands of kids (and yes, adults....many Thai maids, drivers, and security guards from the community all trick or treat with their kids - and have their own candy bag so they don't have to share with their kids!) trick or treating here. Lucky for us, we don't live in one of the neighborhoods that gets hit really hard....we only have about 15 houses in our neighborhood. On the other side of Nichada, where the houses and neighborhoods are closer together, they get hit hard! Kids are actually bussed in to trick or treat. There was also a big Halloween party at the club here in Nichada as well as haunted houses, etc. I heard today that in the busier neighborhoods there were 'treats' for the parents, too - beer, jello shots, etc.!

Given all the festivities, we kept Halloween pretty low key. One of the other expats that works with Rick brought his two kids over (ages 1 and 2) and we went out for maybe an hour trick or treating. By the end of that, the kids were all tired and we now have more candy than we ever needed! Funny thing about the candy...I don't know what most of it is! American candy is really a prize here....there were very few Snickers bars and Milky Ways....and the only Reese's Peanut Butter cup (Rick's favorite) that was to be had in our kids' trick or treat bags was eaten before we ever even knew it was there....all we found was the wrapper! (Smart kid...we would have swiped it for sure!) Now we are left with a lot of weird gummy candy, wafer cookie things, and strange gum and chewy marshmellow like candy - yuck!

Our pictures aren't very good but here's a few shots of the kids! Tim was Harry Potter, Caroline a mermaid, Leah a fairy princess, and Nate a construction worker.

October was a busy month!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted…we’ve had so much going on this month that I kept waiting for everything to be done to post. The result….a bunch of monster posts on the blog site….sorry about that! To start, October was our month for visitors. Mary, Rick’s sister, was supposed to come out early in the month. Unfortunately, she was flying standby so she could get a free flight here (she’s a pilot for a US commercial airline, for those of you who don’t know) but she got as far as Japan and then couldn’t get on a flight to Bangkok. We were all bummed out but we’re sure Mary will make here at some point! Next, Rick’s parents came. We had Dennis and Nancy here for about two weeks. It was really nice to have some family around for a change. We did a TON of sightseeing and also managed a quick trip to Singapore with them while the kids were on fall break from school. I think they enjoyed seeing us and learning a little about where we’re living now, and I’m SURE they were glad to go home so they could get out of the humidity! We’ve been here for a little over 3 months now and we actually must be adjusting to the humidity (it’s pretty bad) because even on hot days, Rick and I don’t just pour sweat like we did when we first got here. You definitely don’t realize how much you probably sweat in Phoenix since the minute the sweat comes out, it evaporates. Here, it seems to just multiply and before you know it, you’re dripping wet. Gross! Some of the places we managed to see while they were here in Thailand are the Royal Palace (really neat place…too bad it was so hot!), Ayutthaya – an ancient city that used to be the capital of Thailand (known as Siam back then) from 1350 until 1767, when it was sacked by the Burmese and also where we got to ride elephants, the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, Chatuchak market, Muang Boran – a huge park where there are miniature (well, not that small since you can walk through them) replicas of all the major sights throughout Thailand, the Grand Palace, and Ko Kret, an island in the middle of the Chao Phraya River, about 15 minutes from where we live, where they make a local type of pottery. The highlight of all that sightseeing for the kids was definitely the elephant rides (not the most comfortable mode of transportation, I now know this! Also something that terrified Nate – he wasn’t about to get on an elephant!) and for the adults, well, it’s a toss up but I’m guessing that Ko Kret ranks pretty low to the bottom since it was just flooded with nasty, yucky water and we didn’t see much of it. Here’s a few pictures of our adventures. The first batch here is all Ayutthaya. In the next post there are shots of the Ancient City (Muang Boran) and the Grand Palace.

More Pictures!

Here's a few more shots of our day trips to the Ancient City and to the Grand Palace.

Singapore

Keep scrolling down to read about our adventures in Singapore....I ended up posting these backwards so you get pictures first, description later! Here's some shots of the kids at the beach by our hotel, Tim and Caroline in the jungle on Sentosa Island, and a very silly shot of our family taken just before we left!

More pictures of Singapore

Ok, I'm posting this backwards....I meant it to go under the Singapore post, below...but you get the idea! Here's a few more shots of our time in Singapore. These are mainly taken in Little India (and one shot at the hotel pool, I think!)

Look out Singapore, here we come!

Now to continue the October saga….a lot went on so we have to break it down into a bunch of posts so that I can add pictures! While Dennis and Nancy were here, we also got to go to Singapore for four days (about 7 for them – they stayed a few extra after we left,) which was a lot of fun! We stayed on Sentosa Island, which is a resort island that is just south of the main city. Our hotel was right on the water (South China Sea) and had great facilities for the kids – nice pools, a waterslide, etc. It also had an excellent breakfast buffet – maybe one of my favorite parts of the trip?!?! In addition to the pool stuff, we went to the beach (we were surprised by all the ships and oil tankers right off the shore…it wasn’t all that beachy….there was also oil in the water – not what we expected from Singapore, where everything is pristine and there are big fines for any kind of littering at all – we didn’t let the kids chew gum at all while we were there!), to the aquarium, to a neat dolphin show with pink dolphins (really and truly pink – they are a certain breed that is born gray and turns a really pretty soft pink color as it ages), rode the monorail, cable cars that go across the bay high in the sky from the island to the city, the subway, and plenty of busses (great public transportation – all the “things that go” were Nate’s favorite part of the trip, I’m sure!), went to Chinatown and Little India, and Rick and I even got to go out to dinner one night without kids (thanks Dennis and Nancy!)

The following are a few pictures of our time in Singapore. There's a shot of the girls riding the tram ride over the bay from Sentosa Island, where we stayed, to the city. There are also a couple of shots in Chinatown - one of the whole family, one of a neat building, and above, one of me and Tim on Mosque street. The other picture was taken of Tim at a Hindu temple in Little India.

Happy Birthday Caroline!

Caroline celebrated her seventh birthday this month! Her actual birthday was on October 15th. She turned seven! For a seven year old, she is incredibly well spoken and really really tall for her age!!! We’re not sure where she gets her height since neither one of us is anything more than average (and that might even be stretching it for me!) On her birthday we didn’t do anything too crazy. It was International Week at school (a big even for an international school, as you can imagine….it was pretty cool – food from all over the globe, kids in costume, presentations about different countries in each class every day, etc.!) so I joined her for snacks from all over the world since that was what the second grade was doing that day. She also brought in a treat for her class and opened presents and had cake (strawberry cake with chocolate icing – her idea, but surprisingly, not bad!) that night with us. Thank goodness Aunt Mary (who was going to hand carry all of her presents we had ordered online for her and sent to Mary in Washington) was able to FedEx everything to us and it got there in the nick of time! (We did learn that import taxes are HIGH though!!! Ouch!) Then Dennis and Nancy arrived the next day, so we had more cake and presents, and now next weekend Caroline is taking a friend or two to Build A Bear downtown in Bangkok and then for ice cream, to have her “friend” celebration (too much going on during the month to fit it in so her b.day is lasting about a month instead of a day…lucky her!) Here’s a few shots of our seven year old!