Our Star Student!

Leah was chosen as the Star Student of the Week in her first grade class! Isn't she cute???

Kanchanaburi, October 2009

We took a 3 day trip up to Kanchanaburi, which is about 2 hours west of Bangkok. It’s known mostly because it has the river Kwai running through it – which is well known from the WWII movie, The Bridge Over the River Kwai. We traipsed over the bridge (it made me nervous – it was very open to the river, below, which was running fast due to the rainy season), saw some interesting WWII cemetaries and memorials, trekked through the jungle, saw some neat Wats (temples) – one of which was in a cave, hiked up what must have been 1000 steps straight uphill to go in another neat cave (through Leah and Nate chickened out when they saw that the entrance was a two foot wide slit in the rocks, entering into a dark dark cavern), and visited Erawan Falls, a beautiful 7 tiered waterfall in one of Thailand’s big national parks. It was fun to get out of town for a long weekend and see some different parts of Thailand!

And, as you'll see, we took a lot of pictures! These ones are of some neat temples right near the river - one is even in a cave, and another is on a hilltop looking over the valley - pretty! There's also a shot of the monks' laundry hanging out to dry - I just thought it was funny to see that side of monks!

Kanchanaburi, October 2009

As you can see, we took a lot of pictures on this trip! :) These pictures are of the bridge over the river Kwai, a floating restaurant right next to the bridge (we ate there - good Thai food!), a buddist cemetary from WWII, and some nice scenery shots.

Kanchanaburi, October 2009

More of Kanchanaburi...these pictures show the drive up to Erawan Falls, some of the waterfall, itself, the kids playing in a cloud of little white butterflies (there were hundreds of them - they'd land on you and you could just catch them in your hand!) and one of the funny signs in the park (not meant to be funny, but you just don't see warning signs for monkeys in the US!)

Kanchanaburi, October 2009

Still more pictures of Kanchanaburi! These have the entrance to the cave (1000 steps straight uphill to it - 800 meters of stairs, anyhow!), some really pretty pictures of the lake in the area as we drove up to where the cave was, and one of my favorite shots - an elephant crossing sign that was posted on the side of the road! :)

Fall Break, October 2009

Just when it seems like we were back in the swing of things with school, the kids had a week off for fall break! We would love to have traveled that week, but Rick is running out of vacation time, so we spent the week pretty close to home. The kids swam at our neighborhood pool, played with friends, spent a day at Funarium (big indoor playground in Bangkok), and then at the end of the week we took a trip to Kanchanaburi for a long weekend.

Happy Birthday, Caroline! October 15, 2009

Caroline celebrated her 8th birthday in style! Much like Leah, she had fun taking cupcakes to school for her class, and having cake and presents at home with the family. Her favorite present was the remote control tarantula she's holding below! She also chose to have two of her friends from school, Maggie and Emerson, over for a sleepover. Funny thing was, it was Caroline’s first big sleepover and she was the first one asleep! :)