MMMMM Dessert

Josh and Danielle came over for dinner on Monday and Danielle brought a dessert. There was white chocolate on the top so she somehow thought she would lick the top clean. After about 5 mins it looked like someone had cleaned the top in the sink! There is no doubt she loves chocolate!

Kayleigh Washing Dishes

This afternoon, Kayleigh wanted to wash dishes while mommy cooked dinner. So, she got her little stool which no one else can touch, and she took it over to the sink. The following video shows it much better.

Morning Dishes

This morning Kayleigh got up and started playing with all her toys she hadn't played with in about three weeks. So, after 30 mins of that, she decided she wanted to wash the dishes (really just play in the water). Alisa got her little stool and put it up to the sink so she could wash like mommy and A-Yi.

Airport Games

As we were waiting for one of our flights today, Kayleigh found some friends that she made during our time in Thailand and wanted to play hide-and-go-seek with them. So after running around the gate area, not too sure of the rules, she finally started to get the fact that you do not want to be found. So, she hid with one of the older girls and decided she liked the game. After she was found, they told her she was "it". Then she proceeded to go and hide with the rest of them until the older girl helped her be "it".




Kayleigh learning how to cover her eyes and count at the same time (Hopefully without peeking)


This is Kayleigh covering her eyes and counting (She likes to give herself a good chance of finding the other kids hiding)

Breakfast Club at the Juniper Tree

This was a great picture of our normal routine for breakfast at the Juniper Tree each morning. All the kids and their parents sat at one table while enjoying the blessings of good bread and incredible pineapple and guava. Breakfast was at 8 so everyone had been up and about for sometime before eating. This was a fun time of enjoying our friends at a meal.

Crayon Lipstick

We caught Kayleigh applying crayon to Zeb's face and lips this morning before breakfast. Kayleigh was so excited when Zeb had on lipstick of different colors. She kept saying "baby" over and over again while applying. Zeb was surprisingly compliant during the whole process.

Airport Museum

Today we had a great time at the airport museum here in Chiang Mai with our friends Julianna, Lydia, Wendy Jane, and Vera. As you know, Kayleigh loves planes and this is one of her favorite pastimes, to watch planes taking off and landing.


This is Kayleigh telling me that there was a big 747 taking off on the runway behind me.


This is the 747 that took off.

Our First Day At The Juniper Tree

Yesterday we moved in to the Juniper Tree to have a couple days of relaxing and rest before returning to China. Well, today has been not as restful has I thought it would be! Before I tell you how our day has gone I need to give you some back ground information. While we were at our conference here many of our friends were sick. Two of our friends ended up in the hospital. Don't worry both are fine and recovering. Also, most all the kids got some sort of fever and others got pink eye. John and I were commenting on how we were really blessed that none of us had gotten sick the whole time we were there. Well, it just now caught up with us. The day we moved to the Juniper Tree John realized he was getting the pink eye that was going around. Fortunately, he was able to get some drops for that. This morning John woke up with a fever and chills and has been in the bed all day. John has decided to rename this virus going around as the "kick your butt" virus. He says he hasn't felt this bad since he was little. And to top it off he decided to throw up before I put Zeb to bed in the the bathroom! So today hasn't been the most restful day for me as I have been trying to handle two kids by myself. It took me half the day to realize that the reason Zeb wouldn't sleep past 45mins was because the room we had him sleeping in was freezing! Then when Kayleigh woke up from her nap she was running a fever. Lets hope and pray that she doesn't have what her dad has. However, she has manged to enjoy herself and ask me about a million times to go swing. She remembers that we lived here two short months ago because she told me today that her Papa pushed her "high" in the swing. Well lets hope tomorrow is a better day. I think we are all about ready to get back home. I am sure Zeb is tired of sleeping in the bathroom!

Final Night Banquet

This was the last night of the conference that we attended in Chiang Mai. We had a banquet to celebrate our time together and encouraging one another in the years ahead of us. Alisa looks as beautiful as ever, and I look the same. We had a great time celebrating with friends that we will probably not see again for a long time. We had a great time and learned a ton.

Pals

Julianna and Kayleigh are pretty much best buds. Whenever they get the chance they like to hang out and play. Chase is a favorite game of theirs with added screaming. We were in the hotel lobby one evening waiting to go out and they decided to play in the middle of the downstairs lobby area. A friend of our took these pictures for us and sent them to me. Enjoy!

Checkup

Zeb just got back from the doctor where he received his two month shots. At that time, they also weighed him. His current weight is now 15lbs! We can't figure out where he gets his huge body from!?!? Anyway, his little legs were sore for a couple of days and he didn't feel very good for the next two days. Here is a picture of him in one of his Polo's. He look just like his daddy!


Zeb in a Polo

Zeb in the Bathroom

When we stay in a hotel for an extended period of time, almost 3 weeks, we have to be very creative where we put our children's beds. Kayleigh got her own room, but Zeb got the short end of the stick so he got stuck in the bathroom each night. We also wanted him to have his own room so he could sleep soundly. This made for some interesting late night bathroom trips!


Zeb in his travel bed (the only bed he has ever known his whole life)


Our beautiful bathroom layout

Waiting at the Gate

We were waiting to board the plane (which is in the background) and Kayleigh and her friend Cameron were running around the airport because they were as bored as we were! We are almost on our way to Thailand! Here are a few pics of Kayleigh and Cameron playing around at the gate.




Cameron causing trouble!

Leaving for Thailand

We have about 3 and a half hours until we leave for the airport to go to Thailand for the next 3 weeks. I am not sure how much we will be able to blog in Thailand because the internet is limited but we will try to write as much as we can. It will most likely be sporadic posts here and there in stead of everyday as it has been the last few weeks.




Kayleigh eating her last lunch before we leave for the airport.




Our luggage receiving last minute items before departure.

Bath time with Emma Grace

Last night we celebrated July 4th with our good friends the Huffman's. We had steaks, twice baked potatoes, salad and bread with peach cobbler for dessert. We tried to have the most American meal possible! The Huffman's have a little girl named Emma Grace. She shares the same birthday with Kayleigh only a year later. They had a great time taking a bath together. Kayleigh decided to revert back to being a one year old by crawling on the floor with Emma Grace and eating her bath toys!

Vegetable Bath

Alisa was getting ready for dinner tonight and Kayleigh decided she wanted to help her clean the lettuce. During the cleaning, Kayleigh thought she would then clean herself with the vegetable wash water. She got it all over herself, the counter, and Alisa's clothes. It was a mess but she absolutely had an awesome time! Our little baby is no longer a little baby!

Flood of 2008

This morning, my friend and I went to the north part of the city to buy some groceries and look into some other stuff. I should have known something was up when it took me about 30 mins to find a taxi. It was raining but not too bad so I thought it was a little long to wait for a cab. I finally snagged one and went to meet my friend at Metro (A German Supermarket). The traffic was unusually bad once we got to the north part of the city. After seeing the problem, a huge flood, I knew what was going on. So I met my friend a block away from Metro and started to cross the road. The road was about chin high full of water in some places as we crossed. I could smell the faint stench of sewage as we trudged through the mess. We finally got to Metro and did the shopping, then we left, and the real adventure began.

Upon leaving there were many empty taxis driving around empty. We tried to hail them down, but to no avail. They said they were not leaving the area right now because they couldn't. They physically could not drive their cars through the streets as they were submerged in water. We were trapped. Then we tried the bus. Bad idea. We waited on a bus, stopped for 15 mins, then we left.

We decided to walk a ways before we came upon the big reason why we could not go anywhere. Since there was no one coming down one side of the highway, we took that opportunity to walk down the middle of one of the busiest highways in the city. We walked over a hill and saw the reason why nothing was coming. Mass flooding. We could not even cross on foot! It was waist deep water in some places crossing the highway. We ended up walking to another part of the northern section of the city to see if we could bypass the flood waters. We walked for a good hour or so, all the while I am hauling around the groceries, until we found some police that directed us to a three wheeled bicycle that could get us through a deep section of water and onto a dry section of land where we could hail a taxi and go home.


This is the main highway through the city

This trip to the grocery store, which usually takes only an hour or so, took us about 3 and a half hours to complete. We will never forget this experience of the Flood of 2008, and we will always remember the adventure that we unknowingly undertook!


A truck full of cabbage waiting to pass


A side street that is only passable by bike


Local residence quarters flooded


Truck full of old bikes waiting to pass through the water


The city river swollen almost to capacity

Zeb Cooing

Title says it all.

Bad Mood

Today Kayleigh got up on the wrong side of the bed. She really wanted me to take a picture of her and Zeb together, by the way, she calls taking a picture "cheese". So all Alisa and I heard this morning was "cheese mommy", "cheese mommy", "cheese mommy"! By the time I got the camera ready, Zeb was not in the picture taking mood so he went down for a nap. This made Kayleigh even more angry and every time I tried to take her picture, she would say "No Dada!" So these are the few pictures I got of her saying "No Dada" each time.