Snake Saga part 2

I did a search on the web tonight to see if we could identify the snake. I found out that it was a Golden tree snake and it is not very dangerous. It is considered to be in the non-poisonous category. I think they do bite if provoked but are harmless. Nice to know.

Here are a few action shots.

Snake Saga

The Snake Saga continues at our house. As I was washing dishes today I saw a snake slithering through our backyard where Gracyn planted a little pumpkin patch. I quickly scooped up Aidan, put Gigi in the house and went to find our security gaurd/snake handler. Of course he was out on rounds. So I waited and waited, hoping he would soon come back. I kept checking on the progress of the snake to make sure this one didn't get away like last time. He was still there moving around in the garden. Finally, a security gaurd came by our street on his motorbike and I was able to flag him down. Then, our regular security gaurd came back to his post. They armed themselves with my rake and went to find him. He wasn't there! I was starting to wonder if I might develop a reputation for crying snake. The security guards did a quick search aided by Gracyn telling us from a watching window where the snake went. He was up in a tree. Our back yard neighbors came out to see what all the fuss was about and saw the snake. One guard went to their house to help knock the snake out of the tree into our yard so that the other guard could club it with my rake. They were successful and said snake is no longer with us. I then asked my guard to pose for a photo shoot! He didn't know what kind of snake it was but said it was not a run of the mill garden variety!

Welcome Henry Family!

We'd like to extend a warm welcome to Paul, Crystal, PJ and Calvin Henry on their move to Bangkok! The Henry's have been in Thailand since June 2005, but have been studying the Thai language in Lop Buri. Today, they will move to Bangkok to be with the team. They will continue to study Thai and work part time. We give thanks for their arrival.

More of the same.

These are for my Mom, so indulge me please. My Mom bought this dress for Gracyn's Easter. She's been dying to see these. Have fun Mom.

Stir Crazy

I'm feeling a bit stir crazy. Maybe it's all the rain we've been having. Maybe it's because Jack threw his back out and I'm pulling more of a load than I normally do. I don't know what it is, but I'm sooo in the mood to be laying by the pool of some beach resort flipping through magazines and watching the kids frollick happily. I want to swim in some beautiful ocean waters and drink some froo froo tropical fruit drinks. I want to walk on the sandy beaches and see beautiful sunsets. I want to build sandcastles and collect seashells. I want to snorkel and see rainbow colored fish. I want to eat amazing seafood and be carefree for just a few days.

Welcome Mills Family!

We are thrilled to welcome Tim, Rhianna, Emmy and baby Mills to the Thailand team! They will be arriving in Thailand in about 15 hours. Thus begins their adventures in "The Big Mango".

Gracyn by the pond.

These guys grill over discarded Shell oil drums.

Let's feed the fish!

This place sure is interesting!

Bung Ma Ruay

Near our house there are several outdoor restaurants on bung (ponds). We decided to try out a relatively new one. There are about 10 near our home. We went to Bung Ma Ruay...the "come get rich pond". This is the literal translation of the restaurant name! This bung had some of the best Thai food we've had in a long time. Thais love to eat at these bung for the atmosphere. You can sit at a traditional table or eat in a thatch roofed bungalow by the water's edge. Kids love to buy loaves of bread to feed the fish. It is quite an experience. Some of these places even host Karaoke parties, but we normally eat too early for this fun.

The finished product

For dinner I also tried to make Cashew Chicken. It turned out well. We were all pleased, except for Aidan who thought it was a tad spicy. I actually made it pretty tame. After dinner, we had our mango and sticky rice dessert which also turned out well. Cooking Thai food is fun!

Making sticky rice

Today we decided to try to make the sticky rice. We started the series of rice washes early this morning. After 5-6 rice washes, we let the rice soak for 5 hours so that we could have it for dessert . Here is Gracyn helping me wash the rice.

Sticky rice

Now that the mango rains have arrived, it is now mango season. During this time of the year you can get some very delicious mangoes. It is also the time of the year in which our favorite Thai dessert is abundantly available. Our favorite Thai dessert is khao niow ma-muang or mangoes and sticky rice. Sticky rice is made from glutinous rice. You serve the sticky rice with coconut cream and sliced mangoes. It might sound strange to think of eating rice with fruit but this dessert is incredible! I have decided that I'd like to learn how to make mangoes and sticky rice myself. To do that, you need a special sticky rice steamer like the one shown. To start, you must soak your sticky rice grains in water for about 5 hours. After this, you give the rice a clean water rinse and place it in the bamboo basket. You then add about 2 cups of water to the metal pot and place the pot with bamboo basket directly on your gas burner. You bring the water to a boil and then cover the top of the bamboo steamer with any lid you have. You steam the rice for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, you make the coconut cream with coconut milk and sugar. When the rice is finished, you pour the coconut cream over the rice and serve warm with fresh mango. It is such a treat and this is my new project for this week!

Mother's Day and Mango rains

Happy Mother's Day. Today isn't actually Mother's Day in Thailand. Thai's celebrate Mother's Day on August 12th, the Queen's birthday. However, since we are American we celebrated today. As I woke this morning, I came down stairs to find part of my present in action. Jack bought me a waffle maker, which is something I have wanted for a while. I'm not that great of a pancake maker, so I thought let's give waffles a try! Instead of wrapping my gift, Jack was busy making a waffle breakfast for the family. After breakfast, we headed off to church. In the middle of church, a huge rain storm came. It was actually hard to hear the sermon due to the volume of the rain falling. The rains were so heavy that a heavy plant in a clay pot was knocked over outside and caused another distraction of shattering pottery. These rains that come in May are the beginnings of the rainy season and are often dubbed "the mango rains" since they coincide with the mango season. After church, as torrential, "Forest Gump" like rains were falling, Jack had to run to get our car parked very far away just to help keep me and the kids dry. He was soaked! We've gotta remember to start carrying umbrellas! We then went to eat lunch at one of our favorite places. We ate at a Chinese restaurant that serves Shanghai style cuisine. We feasted on Shanghai noodles (like Lo mein), spring rolls, and Chinese chive pancakes (nothing like breakfast pancakes) and Chinese tea. We ended our meal by going to get Ice cream. After all this, we headed home in the rains. When we got home, Jack gave me another gift. This time is was a Thai cookbook that I had asked for. He actually forgot that he bought this gift weeks ago and that's why I also got the waffle maker! I sat down to look through the cookbook and thought about all the things I intended to learn to make. Then, I got one more gift...a nap! I feel rested and the rains have stopped and it's only 2:54.

Visakha Bucha Day

May 12th is another holiday. Today is Visakha Bucha Day. This day is one of the 3 most important religious holidays in Buddhist countries. Today is regarded as perhaps the most "holiest" of days. Today marks the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. Worshippers go to the wat (temples) to listen to monks give sermons, give alms and make merit. Making merit is giving offerings to monks and to the Buddha relics. The people also try to keep the 5 precepts of Buddhism on this day. After dark worshippers can participate in a ceremony in which people carry 3 incensce sticks, a lighted candle and a lotus bud. With this in hand, the people walk in circles 3 times around the temple. The number 3 is significant for birth, enlightement and death. People are given the day off of work to participate in ceremonies.

Ploughing Day

Yesterday was another holiday in the month of May. It seems like there are so many! May 11th was Ploughing Day. Ploughing Day is an ancient Brahmin rite used to mark the beginnings of the rainy and ploughing seasons. The rite was held at Suan Luang which is the park near the Grand Palace. Sacred white oxen ceremoniously ploughed the ground and were fed many types of grains, seeds, grasses and alcohol to determine the forecast for the growing season by the oxen's preference food. Astrologers on hand predicted a fertile growing season with an abundance of rain since the oxen ate grass. Ploughing Day was reinstituted in 1960 by the King as a day for promoting agriculture. Yesterday's event was presided over by the Crown Prince. Farmers will now begin to plant the many rice fields around Thailand in expectation of a good harvest and wealth to come.

Victory Pizza

We finally saw the doctor after being in the hospital for 2 hours. Gracyn was cleared of any risks! The doctor said the skull fracture had healed and that all her brain functions were completely normal. She is cleared to participate fully in life as a child should. We give thanks to God for His healing. We celebrated this great news with a Victory Pizza!

Waiting for results

After the scan we were told we'd have to wait and hour and a half to see the doctor for the results. Normally this would be boring, but not in Thailand! Hospitals are like luxury hotels here. Thailand is well known for its health care industry and is now one of the world's top destinations for medical tourism. While we waited, we played at one of the indoor playgrounds. Gracyn had a blast.

CT Scan in progress

Here she is during her scan. They gave her a big bear shaped comforter to cover herself with and a stuffed bear to help relax her. Gracyn laid still the enitre 5-7 minutes it takes to complete the scan. Way to go Gracyn!

CT Scan day

Today was Gracyn's appointment with the neurologist to see how she is healing after her fall. It has been 2 1/2 months since she fell down the wooden stairs of our home. This is Gracyn preparing for her scan. See how relaxed she looks?

Ta-Da

Gracyn asked me to post this for her Grandmothers. Here you go Ena and Mimi...enjoy!

Exhausted

Aidan fell asleep right in the middle of his lunch today! He never does stuff like this. Can you see the PB &J all over his face?

White Frangipani

Here's a pretty white one from the beach. I took this on last year's vacation when my Mom was here.

My favorite tropical flower

Frangipani or Plumeria is my favorite tropical flower. Thailand is full of these trees. It is called Lilavadee in Thai. My friends tell me this is a pretty name for the tree. The name of the tree was changed to Lilavadee some time ago because the name it used to have meant death plant or some other unfortunate meaning with death in it. I guess the plant wasn't too "lucky" to have around with that name. You can see these plants in yards and you'll also find them at the beach in droves. They have the most beautiful frangrance. Sometimes as I ride my bike in the evenings, the air will be so sweet with the smells of Frangipani. These trees can get quite big and be full of blossoms which fall to the ground. Gracyn likes this so that she can collect them. This past Valentine's Day Jack bought me a sapling in a pot. It is growing like crazy! There are many colors to choose from. Most have white flowers with yellow centers and these are the most fragrant. Some are light pink, some are fushia and others have white, pink and yellow. Here's a picture of mine. I wish this blog was scratch and sniff!

New stuff

I've been adding things to this blog as the thoughts come. Check out the two new links. One is for Thai music where you can listen to local radio stations and hear some Thai pop songs! The other is a link for some Thai recipes if the mood stikes. I've also added a way for you to be alerted when I have new blog postings. See the bloglines icon at the bottom of the page for details.

Pee Wee Herman

This is my Pee Wee Herman bike! I love it. Many Thai people have bikes like this. There is even a passenger seat on the back so you can load up the family! The basket is for trips to the market. It reminds me so much of a 1950's style bike. I don't go to any markets with it, but I do ride it around the neighborhood and before buying this bike months ago, I hadn't been on a bike in years! It's fun to be childlike again.

Aidan and Kom

This is Aidan with his friend Kom...pronounced Comb. Kom means smart or intelligent. Kom is the 15 month old son of my friend Yaa. Aren't they cuties?

You can call me Ice

This is Gracyn with her friend Ice Cream. You can call her Ice as many of her friends do for short. Ice Cream is 8 years old and comes by to play with Gracyn as time allows. Gracyn and Ice Cream love to play in the sand together, play kitchen, make crafts or draw pictures.

Gracyn's life

On Coronation Day we decided to go eat at the mall since we didn't have much else to do. We decided to eat at a Japanese restaurant since the kids really enjoy Japanese fried pork. It's kind of like a Japanese version of chicken fingers! While we were eating we looked over at Gracyn using her chop sticks to eat. Gracyn was using her chop sticks somewhat proficiently and it struck us how opposite our childhoods are with hers. I had the camera so I decided to capture the moment. It was a neat reminder that although her life will be so different that there are many neat and good experiences that she will have that we could never imagine as children. Her world is a big world. These little reminders are good when we may often be tempted to lament the "losses" of living outside of the States. To her this is just life!

Coronation Day

Today is Coronation Day here in Thailand. This is the day to honor and celebrate the day the King ascended to the throne at 18 years of age. King Bhumipol has been on the throne 60 years today. This King is much loved and honored because of his genuine love of Thai people. He is very much a "people's King". Today is a public holiday and many people have the day off. I asked my Thai helper what the average Thai does on Coronation Day and she said "do good deeds and honor and bless your elders." Some people will wear yellow shirts because yellow is the King's color. Others will wear yellow rubber bracelets. All of this is done in honor of the King for his kindness and goodness to the citizens of this country. Thai people say Song Pra Ja rern, which means Long live the King! Happy Coronation Day Thailand!

Wild Kingdom

Today was one of those days. It seems that life on the mission field is never dull. There is always some sort of unusual event that keeps life exciting. I started the day off pretty normally. On Tuesdays I meet with a single girl on our team to talk and study the Bible. I get a phone call from Jack at about 10:40 A.M. telling me that one of our Thai neighbors showed up to talk with me. I told him that I'd be home shortly to talk and hang out with her. When I get home, my friend and I settle in to chat. After about an hour or so, my daughter starts screaming that there is a tick on her. I quickly remove her shirt since she seemed to think it was inside her shirt. Sure enough, there was a tick inside her shirt. Our dog has had a tick or two but we've never seen one off the dog. About 5 minutes later, I notice a tick on our curtains. I pick it off and dispose of it. Then I see another. And another. Before I know it, my Thai friend and I are picking ticks off our curtains! We were moving furniture and going through curtains. All told there were 40 ticks! Yuk. After a while of doing this we felt pretty confident that we got them all. Meanwhile we have 3 children running around excitedly in the house. My friend and I finally settle back in to continue our chat, when I look outside the window and see a snake slithering around my back yard! I go outside to find one of our security gaurd-cum-snake handlers but no one is to be found. My friend decides to call one of the guys who cuts grass around here. About 3 minutes later, his truck comes flying up to our house and Tho and another guy come brandishing big sticks. They weren't able to catch the snake but offered to club the thing next time if I wasn't willing...umm...no. Of course the kids were all running around excitedly again. No one could identify the snake, but we know it is black with a yellow throat. Today really felt like a day in "Wild Kingdom"!

Clean Cut Aidan

Here is Aidan's after shot.

Gracyn's Hair cut

Here is Gracyn enjoying her hair cut.

Labor Day

Today is Labor Day here in Thailand. Many people go out of town to beaches, but we stayed home. We went to the pool today to give the kids something to do. On our way back to our house, we heard a security gaurd telling other guards that one soi (street) in our neighborhood was reported as having a cobra on it! Yikes! The gaurds rushed off on a bike to handle the situation. I guess they have to be snake handlers as well. We decided to head home instead of go watch the snake round-up.

Later in the day we decided that Aidan was overdue for his first hair cut. He had some really cute curls in the back, but his hair overall was getting a bit unruly and we also feared that he might end up looking like Billy Ray Cyrus before too long. Southerners know who I'm talking about. You know the "Achey Breaky Heart" guy. So we took the kids to the mall for haircuts. They have one shop that is especially for kids. They get to sit in cars and watch T.V. while getting the cuts. Gracyn loves this, but Aidan wasn't a fan! He cried the whole time. I did get to keep the curls as I brought an envelope to store them in!