Elephant Camp

We had a big day at the Mae Sa Elephant camp the other week! We went with some friends from work and it was really fun. The elephants gave us lots of fun pics AND it's amazing all they have trained them to do. They played soccer, painted pictures (good ones), hula hoop on their trunks, played the harmonica, take the hat off their trainer and put it back on, danced, played dead etc... It was amazing!!! Take a look...

Corinne's Birthday

I have been SO bad at updating the blog. You can know how busy we are by how often we update the blog, but August actually was a very exciting month! On August 10th, Corinne turned 4 years old and she had a fun birthday party to celebrate! We invited friends from our neighborhood and others from our company. Games included: musical chairs, picture making, necklace making, and eating cake (well, actually, the westerners were the only ones who wanted to eat cake at 1o:00 in the morning). Here are some fun pics...


Then, that evening, we took her to a place in Chiang Mai called Night Safari. It's basically like a zoo but more exciting. They have tram rides through the "jungle" at night and animals are everywhere! Corinne had been dying to go and it didn't disappoint!

Thailand... the land of a thousand...creepy manikins

Manikins have always been kind of strange to me. I think I understand the thought behind it... The idea is to help people envision what a dress/shirt would look like on you if bought it. "If I bought that shirt, maybe I would look calm, cool, and collected like that manikin is..." But they are still kind of strange. Well, here, let's just say the manikins aren't quite as calm/cool/collected... What do you think?

Top 10 Ways You KNOW You are Running In Thailand...

10) Instead of a sidewalk there is a big ditch next to you that you can jump in if a car comes by...
9) Everybody looks at you like you are crazy for subjecting your body to such torture early in the morning. (and they are right)
8) Chickens/ Roosters look at you with really mean looks on their faces...
7) In addition to focusing on running, you have to focus on every blind corner to make sure you will not be hit by a motorcycle.
6) You come in to take a shower and you are just as hot as you were outside.
5) During my 3 mile run, I saw 2 temples and probably 20 spirit houses... a great opportunity to pray for our neighbors...
4) Almost stepped on a millipede
3) "Speed work" is defined as "dogs running after you to make you pick up your pace..."
2) The smell of Thai breakfast along the way... fish balls and fried chicken

1) ( drum roll please): You know you are running in Thailand if... This thought actually crosses your mind "I better bring my ID, b/c if I get injured and a rabid dog bites me, nobody will know who I am..."

Tea Party...

Enough said... by the way the "someone else coming later" was her friend Nua from our neighborhood!

Jesus loves...

Today we decided to visit one of the largest temples in our city. It is located near the top of a large mountain and it overlooks our entire city. The view of our city from the temple is absolutely breathtaking. But, among the beauty is extreme emptiness as thousands of people a day flood into this popular Buddhist temple to ring bells, bring gifts, or participate in some sort of ritual to cleanse their sins and end their suffering. It was such a good reminder of why we put ourselves through the process of learning language, living in a strange place, and missing family and friends. All along the path to the temple were people selling goods, food, shrines etc... kind of made me think of "the money changers"... Here is a glimpse of what we saw walking down from the temple along with some background music that Corinne thought was appropriate. Awesome! Below the video are a few beautiful pictures of our city.

A weekend of fun and celebration

Last weekend, Lynn and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary! Hard to believe time has gone by so fast (and I'm so old...) We had a wonderful weekend celebrating here in Thailand. Last Friday night, a friend babysat Corinne, and Lynn and I went to eat at a nice restaurant then went to a movie. Then, on Saturday, the 3 of us went to a resort outside of our city. We spent the day swimming, enjoying "free" AC, and just relaxing. Then the next day, we got to see an elephant camp near our hotel. Corinne loved it! She kept calling it the "anniversary place" and thinks that we went to the hotel b/c of her! :) Here are a few pics of our time.

Signs of the Thais!

I LOVE looking at funny signs in different countries... it can be a word misspelled, a phrase that just doesn't sound right, or just something that catches my eye. They all make me happy! I am hopefully going to have frequent installments of Signs of the Thais but here is the first one... What's your favorite?

Candidate #1: I must admit, they were bags, but I don't know how funny they were...

Candidate #2: For all your orders regarding space...
Candidate #3: Want a free house? (background... the land here is expensive and building a house is cheap so they are selling the land and giving away a free house...)

Candidate #4: The staff never did ark for it...

Candidate #5: I am not really laughing at this after a billion straight days over 100 degrees!!!

Food and drink... Thai style

Restaurants in Thailand will many times serve Cokes in glass bottles. Now, they are always more than happy to give you your food "to go" but I was curious what they would say if I asked for a Coke to go... Well, they made it to go alright. I think it's a very practical solution... don't you think?



Here are some pics of one of the restaurants we like here. Most of the restaurants (at least the ones we go to) are outdoors and has 5-6 tables... Meals normally run about 30-40 baht per plate (about a buck) and we've found some awesome food!!!




There are also really good food stalls that many times will just set up one table behind their grill for people to enjoy their food. Many times the best food can be found at these little food stalls... for cheap! (less than a buck for a heaping chicken fried rice!) This is a little place we found at the night market. We had chicken fried rice and it was awesome!

Then, this was us eating at a Thai family's house. They made us a soup dish with all different types of meat. Many times the tables are set up close to the floor. This was one of our favorite meals because of the company and the experience! We pray that we will have these types of meals more and more often as we build relationships and live life with the wonderful Thai people!

A look out the window...

We thought we'd give you a quick glimpse of what we see out the window while driving down the street in public transportation...

Sunday Night Market...

We have decided to make a new tradition... Every Sunday night we have decided to go to the Sunday Night Walking Street Market in our city. We have been 2 weeks in a row now and don't plan to stop. What's the Sunday Night Market? Well, basically there are a ton of people walking down a street that has been blocked off. All along the path there are vendors with great food, cool little gifts, fruit smoothies, and street performers! It's just a fun Sunday evening tradition and a way to get out in the community. Here is a glimpse of what it looks like:

1) We take a songtaew to the market b/c there is no parking! (or very little parking) A songtaew is a pickup with a roof over the bed and two wooden benches in the back that people can sit in. Corinne loves riding in them!
2) Rotee- our favorite dessert! It's a lot like a crepe w/ banana and chocolate... it's awesome and Dustin's addiction!
3-5) Sights while walking the market...

THE ZOO...FINALLY!!!

Last August, we decided for sure that we were moving to Thailand. When we first told Corinne, we told her that we were going to move to Thailand and that there was a zoo in our city with a panda in it!!! This thrilled Corinne and anytime we would mention Thailand for the next six months, she would say, "And in Thailand I'm going to see a panda"... So we knew that we needed to make it to the zoo quickly to keep our promise to Corinne. When we got here we found out that there were 2 prices for the zoo: the foreigners price and the Thai price. However, if we got a Thai drivers license we could get the Thai price. Well, on the second week we were here, we got our Thai drivers license and that Saturday we decided we were going to head to the zoo! (in the 100+ degree heat) And it did not disappoint! Corinne got to feed a giraffe, stand within a few feet of an elephant, and of course see her beloved panda!


Another funny part of the zoo was that there were 4 different people that asked if they could get their picture with Corinne. Most of them had never seen a blonde girl before.


Also Corinne transformed her Minnie Mouse phone into a camera phone and you could hear the click of a camera like a photo shoot as she was looking at each animal. (pictured below)
It was a great time at the zoo! We are now officially in Thailand!