A Little Make-up Never Hurts...

No it's not raining.

The woman holding the umbrella is blocking the sun

because Thai people believe that the whiter skin you have,

the more attractive you are.

The entrance of the park I run around! I love it.

The Fish Bowl Gals and the Thai Teacha's!

The Make-Up Party Begins!!!!

Office lady putting make-up on Kel.

Georgie and me showing off our new, pink eyeshadow!

Harold the Hippo!

Swine Flu Masks and the 4th graders...

Reminded me of a ballet recital...

Two little cuties who performed

during the English Camp at school!

Imagine teaching this song in a place where

only a few kids speak English...

Seems simple, doesn't it?

WRONG!

How weird is this mannequin?

Yesterday, I was told to prepare a song and game for an all day English Camp for the 4th graders. I asked, when is the English Camp and what exactly am I doing? I was told the Camp was today and was supposed to teach a short song about a hippopotamus. Um....what? So, I googled short songs about hippo's and found one that would be easy.

Today I sang the song to 6 different groups of 70 kids and it was a smash! I actually had a great time singing about Harold the Hippo and it gave me a lesson plan for next week! Not to say I wasn't exhausted at the end of today with my head on my desk moaning about the 10 minute bike ride home but it was better than being in the classroom.

Just another normal day in the land of weird.

The Newest Item

Georgie's bruise from the freeway fall!

Bargained this beauty down a couple hundred baht and

couldn't be more excited to take her on

the trip!!!!

(and no Dad, I didn't get it off E-bay or at Goodwill)

Cool Chair.

Locals

Inside the Spa.

Our English Director is on the right, name: On.

We LOVE her. Don't know the woman on the left.

Think she just popped in the picture.

I have to say she's one of my favorite's.

Nick-name: Noodee.

This picture was taken at an English competition that we were the judges of and had to ask questions at the end. I usually asked if they liked to play tennis because it was all I could think of and of course they had no idea what I was saying.

Any-who Noodee won the competition for her grade and level, maybe it had something to do with the high marks given by her English teacher. ;)

The new room in our retirement community.

This has got to be a joke.

This piece of artwork showcases all the teachers in 3rd & 4th grade.

I walked by it one day, marveling at the teachers in their formal wear when I spotted a familiar face in the bottom right corner...

Our patio with the clothes line, yep--we are livin' in the 50's!

Kel and me in our Chiang Mai backpacker's guesthouse called, "Same Same."

We are tough...or something.

How awesome is this??

Got a little piece of home when Cam & Sarah came to Chiang Mai!

Just your average Friday, giving speeches to a bunch of people

who barely speak English and taking pictures for hours after the event.

Who's the guy on my right and who's the gal staring at Kel??

Our first party in Thailand for Tuk's 38th birthday!

After having the Buddhist holiday, then getting 3 days off for Swine Flu we have had a lot of time to ponder this town of over 60,000 people. Found the best coffee shop, (Wawee); rode our bikes to the local Tesco Express to purchase just about every kind of grocery you can imagine; spent a couple hours at the spa getting a hand, foot and leg massage while Kel got a facial; rented a bunch of DVD's last week that are in English for 15 baht each, (not even $1). We made friends with these boys at a bike shop and they fix ours for free!
It's been a relaxing couple of weeks.
If anything, these last couple months make for a funny story.
9 weeks left and SE Asia Tour 2009 begins!

River Rafting, Motor Biking, Mud Baths & More...

Chiang Mai

Doesn't get much better.

Motor-Bikin'!

The 12 hour rafting journey!

Kel, Brenny, Lauren, Muah, Brigette
At the bar, Say Hi!

Trying to look like high hippies in our hippie gear.

One 2 Bed room for 5 girls.

Nothing like saving $$.

The 5 day vacation was quite a treat and I'd like to thank the Buddhists for letting us have it. Our vacation started last Thursday when Brenda (Brenny) came into town and we decided to get some grub and drinks at Riverside.

Woke up Friday, wandered on down to our favorite spot, "I Love Coffee." Grabbed a drink and hopped on the bus to Chiang Mai. We waited for almost 2 hours to get our Visa's renewed and darted off for some yummy Mexican food. I hadn't tasted the spicy taste of a jalepeno in almost 3 months and was due for a veggie burrito!

We made it to Pai after a 3 and a half hour drive, consisting of 762 turns, literally. Georgie and I opted for some car sickness pills and wound up sleeping the whole day. My body felt like it had been sown into the seat of the car and I felt like I was drooling. We're thinking they gave us muscle relaxers. After the psychedlic pills wore off we were walking towards the mountain in a hippie town surrounded by nothing but tall, green trees and people scooting by on motorbikes.

The excitement started Sunday morning when we woke up early for a river rafting trip. 2 hours of windy roads and we arrive at the river. Our guide tells us that his name is God. Already, a great start. He tells us that there are spider webs that go from one side of the river to the other and when he says, "Down!" that means, put your head down. I am re-thinking this whole adventure already. There's 5 of us girls on the raft and we see this HUGE spider with web and all of a sudden we stop paddling and lunge towards the middle screaming! Long behold the small pancake size, white, jumping spiders that make their way into our raft!!!!! Then comes the horse flies that God politely slaps off my leg with his paddle. So after all the initial shock from the Thai bugs, we sail through the Level 3 rapids only to see a python snake wrapped up in a tree. Now, as frightened as I was the thing had the most beautiful, bright colors. All this was happening while God keeps repeating, "Forward Babe-eez." He usually said this when we forgot to paddle.

After an hour of paddling, we stop to go for a swim under these pretty cool waterfalls. Now, the river has a bit of a current and as I'm trying to swim to the waterfall, I see Kel heading down the current trying to keep hold of her sandals that have fallen off. Thankfully, God grabs her hand and pulls her to the waterfall. Kel and I had a moment where we just looked at eachother not knowing what to do but keep staring.

The waterfall break was awesome, we got lunch and then we logged another half hour of paddling until we got to the "amazing" hot springs. So, we pull our raft over and strap on our hiking sandals ready for the hot springs when God looks at us like we're nuts. He says that they are right in front of us. We laugh. Hard. Then ask how far the hike is to the springs. He is confused. He tells us they are right in front of us. We look down and sure enough there is a small little stream of hot water. We laugh uncontrollably. Yes, the little stream was the amazing hot spring and here is where God tells us is the mud bath. He starts putting the mud on our arms and tells us to put this mud on our face. Being the smart, college-educated woman that we are, we do as we are told and proceed with his directions. After our bodies are covered in mud we look at eachother and say, "what the hell are we doing?" I honestly think I laughed for 20 minutes straight looking at Brenny, Kel, Bridgette and Lauren covered in mud and knowing I looked the same as them.


We rinse off and onto the next hoorah! The rock jump! We jump off a rock a couple miles high and float down stream. The rapids were awesome at the end and we think God ran us into a few rocks on purpose to frighten us but we cheered and gave paddle high 5's 'til the very end of our 12 hour rafting trip!!!! We sang songs, ate snacks while raging through the rapids. I think it was 45 meters to be exact. My arms still hurt. The next day we took it easy, rented motor bikes, explored Pai and took a swim in hot spring pools at this hidden, luxury spot.

Kel and I moved into this cute 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment next to 4 of our other friends and have been loving drinking tea and watching movies. Only a couple bad things have happened so far, so we're happy. Bad things come in 3's right? First, a black and red spider/cockroach, then our water faucet upstairs wouldn't turn off and our kitchen flooded. Can't wait to see what 2 more months will bring!

Sometimes I look at my life and wonder how I got here. ;)