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.