Surprise Ending

Well, Sorry I haven't posted a blog in so long. We have been really busy in our new location...AMERICA! That's right, surprise! We came home early. We had trouble get our visas approved in time to move on to our last location, where we were supposed to stay for one month before heading home. Its great to be back home. But I also don't have so many cool new interesting things to blog about. The blog will go on, but not daily. So far since being home all we have really done is spend time with family and try to recover from jet-lag. Its not easy having to completely switch your sleeping schedule, Thailand was 13 hours ahead! This weekend we will be moving into a new apartment. I will post pictures when we are in and settled. Sorry there are no photos on this post, I am not on my computer, so I don't have any pictures.

Tribute

Well, today is our last day in our new favorite place. Yes, that is right, our time in Thailand, like all good things, must come to an end. So this post is a tribute to one of the small things that I will miss most: fruit smoothies. You can get them anywhere here. Just walking down the street at a stand, a to-go one from a coffee shop, or even in a nice restaurant at dinner. They come in all flavors, I almost always get pineapple. And they are CHEAP $1-2! Made with real fresh fruit- you see them chop it up in front of you- none of this thawed out frozen, pre-packaged stuff. I have had one (or more) almost every day we have been here. In other news, stay tuned to find out where we are going next.

Mae Taeng Elephant Park

So for part of our "special offer" for our hotel, we got a free pass to an elephant park. We got to ride elephants, watch them do tricks- the most impressive was an elephant that pained a picture of an elephant and wrote his name on a t-shirt with paint brushes, I wouldn't believe it except that I saw it happen, we got to ride in an ox cart, and go bamboo rafting down a river. Here are some of the pics, I might put more later because its not everyday that you get to take tons of pictures of elephants.













(I know this picture doesn't fit in this post, but isn't he the cutest?!)

Weekend Retreat

For Valentine's Day/ Vacation/ Fun Michael and I left out $10/ night hostel which has been comfortable and adequate for the past 2 weeks,




Please notice that the sink is outside... and we had to go walk outside to use the toilet or shower, I was just happy we weren't on the ground floor.


And upgraded to something a little nicer,




















...and it was barely more than staying in a Holiday Inn back at home! But even more- it came with a free 5 course dinner, 2 free breakfasts, free bicycle rentals, free transportation, and a free day of entertainment that you will have to wait until tomorrow to see...but for a little preview, you can checkout my new facebook profile pic. It was strange the things I realized that I miss while staying in somewhere a little more comfortable, and here they are: a lamp next to the bed so you can turn off the light without having to get up, a room that isn't your bedroom so you have someplace to sit that isn't your bed, a little space outside so I can read in the morning without waking up Michael, A.C. (its really hot here), and (not so surprising) an indoor bathroom!
Tomorrow we are back to the old hostel for a couple of more nights before leaving Thailand...

Sunday in Thailand

Well, Happy Valentine's Day! I tried to post a really cool blog with video, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work. I might try again later. Today Michael and I went to our first church in Thailand. It was a church of Lahu people. a tribal based people group that lives in Thailand, Burma, and China. They are about 40% Christian. Then we had really fun plans for Valentine's Day/ just taking time for holiday. Stay tuned to find out more. I would try to make this post more interesting, but I have already spent more time than I want trying to get the videos to work. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, until then, here is a picture from our time in India last month. Just to hold you over until tomorrow, and because I wouldn't feel right about posting a photo-less blog.

Happy New Year!

This weekend Thailand is celebrating the Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the tiger apparently, although I don't know what that means. The new year, we have discovered is a significant religious day. All of the stores have burning incense, food, and drink placed right outside of their doorways for a kind of peace offering. But today the amount of food placed out was much bigger, there were huge offerings of food. We even saw people burning money, literally putting their bills into fire. CRAZY! We visited a temple today, but my camera was dead. Oops. However we have visited a lot of temples, and they are all similar. So here are some pics of some that we have visited.

The people of Thailand

I don't have any new and exciting pictures or stories from the day, but I wanted to share a few pictures of some interesting and beautiful people we have seen here. It has been really easy to love the Thai people, they are all so warm and friendly, and yet, remember the condition of their souls. Under their warm smiles and friendly faces, they are lost and need the Lord.