November Thankfulness

Many of my fb "friends" have taken the opportunity to post one thing they're thankful for each day during November.  It's really wonderful to see what they post and even though the goal is to be "thankful" every day of the year, I get why they choose to do it publicly during the month of November, since it's the month during which Thanksgiving occurs.

I've never participated in the growing tradition--not because I'm not thankful, but because I'm lazy.  But I've been convicted and instead of boring everyone on fb with 30 days of "thanks" at once, I decided to make it my blog post.

So this is kind of long, but I did not elaborate on most of the entries, so I think it's pretty easy to read through.

These are not in any order of significance or importance except for the first one, which is always uppermost in my mind--so much so that I often don't think I need to express it. Then I remember that other people need to know where I'm coming from.  The rest are just "thanks" as they pop into my head and at any given time might be more or less important according to what's happening in my life.

So here goes---I am thankful for:

1)   God in heaven who chose me before the creation of the world to become His child

2)   a warm house

3)   a great church family

4)   all of my awesome friends

5)   my 5 wonderful children

6)   my 4 exceptional grandchildren (I think they take after me, hahaha)

7)   my husband who maintains the house and cars and can fix anything that doesn't run away from him first

8)   the food in my fridge and cupboards

9)   my computer

10) my camera and all the fun I have taking photos

11) my photo buddies

12) living in a rural area where crime and fear are at a minimum

13) having the blessing of going to Hawaii every winter

14) having just spent a month in Thailand working with a missionary organization

15) my health and the health of my family

16) the fact that all of my family is working

17) my daughter and son being such good parents and raising such exceptional children--see #6

18) God loving me no matter how I mess up

19) the clothes in our closets

20) being able to see, hear, walk & talk when I wake up in the mornings 

21) my "in-law" (in-love) children

22) a pastor who will not compromise the Word of God when he preaches/teaches

23) my hip surgery last Dec and how well and completely I've recovered

24) the opportunity to work at the Pregnancy Care center and the great people I work with
25) my brand new car--the first brand new car I've ever had in my life
26) my 3 hiking buddies that keep me motivated all summer

27) my YMCA membership
28) technology that allows me to instant-message friends that live far away
29) pizza
30) scented candles

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that the upcoming Christmas season will be a blessed one for you and your families.

A Really Boring Post

It's been a long time since I posted.  I haven't been very photo-motivated, so here goes.  

In light of the fact that yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I didn't have to cook anything except whole berry cranberry sauce, because we were invited elsewhere and I was told that I didn't have to bring anything, I decided to bake some French bread today.  Company for dinner, so I decided to play Susie-homemaker and do something domestic.

I've been pretty slack on vanity license plates too, but that's not my fault.  They seem to be more rare these days, except as I'm driving down the highway and can't photograph them.  But these have been collecting on my camera, so I finally decided to process them and share them with you.

I actually have an unfinished "thanks-giving" post saved in my drafts folder that I will be posting soon.  It may be one of the only posts I've ever posted without photos--unless I can knuckle down and get some older photos to accompany my I-am-thankful-for items.

Last Full Day in Chiang Mai

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Today was my last full day in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  We only had three of the children this morning, so we walked to the park with them.  Of course it was the sunniest and hottest day that we've had in the past two weeks.  But we needed to get them out of the "community room" so that all of the supplies could be packed up for the move back to headquarters.

We returned in time to cool them off a little by rinsing their feet with water in the tub and having a few minutes in the a/c.  Then it was time to head off to the River Market Restaurant where we were all treated to a lunch of Caesar Salad and pizza.

While we were there we saw a sign for Sky Lantern lighting that would begin at 7 pm.  During the month of November, the Thais celebrate a festival and the lantern lighting is part of the festival.  There's a fee to light one, but it's minimal.  Nel & John, and Leah and I decided to go back for the experience as a farewell gesture since Leah was due to leave later tonight and I'm due to leave tomorrow night.  Nel & John will stay until Nov. 7.

Nel holding her lantern while it's being lit.

Leah getting ready to let her lantern go air born.

Cooking Class

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Tonight some of us attended a Thai cooking class.  I wasn't too excited when we were signing up for which day we wanted to go.  A lot of Thai food is spicy and I don't like/can't tolerate spice to any degree, so I didn't think I'd enjoy learning how to cook food I didn't like to eat.

We were, however, assured that cooking the food is better than ordering it in a restaurant because you can control the amount of spice you add, so I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity whether I enjoyed the food or not.

IT.    WAS.    SO.    AWESOME!!

The school sent a cab, or what they call a song-tau (I don't think the second word is spelled correctly) to pick us up at the hotel.  

The view from our song-tau

We went directly to market to purchase some of the ingredients for the dishes we would be making.  Our teacher did a great job explaining what everything was and after making the purchases, we had a few minutes to wander around the market on our own.

Below:  our merry band.

Nel and Leah getting ready to chop some of the ingredients for their dish choices.

One of my choices was "spring rolls".  So yummy.

It was such a great afternoon.  I even brought home leftovers for dinner tomorrow night.

An Amazing Day

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Today was really an amazing day.  We reserved a tour for one of the local elephant parks.  I had no idea that it would be as wonderful as it was.  

We were picked up right in front of our hotel & shuttled in an air-conditioned van to the park about an hour away.

The first thing we saw was a row of elephants with their handlers beckoning to the visitors.  Everyone could have a turn being hugged and kissed by the elephants which were in turn glad to receive offerings of bananas and cash.

Our new friends who are working with us. 

After the hugs and kisses, some of the elephants were bathed and scrubbed in the river.

Then off to the arena where the elephants put on a show which included playing soccer, basketball and painting.

About 6 elephants each had their own easel and they painted different scenes.  It was pretty amazing to watch them and see the final product.  The paintings were for sale in the gift shop.  

We were then taken to the area where we got on the elephants for our elephant ride.  

After the ride, we went to the tiger park. 

Leah spent some time snuggling with the tigers.  

We had a wonderful buffet lunch, then went  up the mountain to the most famous temple in Chiang Mai and then off to visit the silk factory where we got the story on how silk is produced from the silk worm.

We were all significantly tired by then, so we opted to head home.

What a day!

Visit to a Village

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Today we visited a small mountain village.  As we began our trip, this was our view out the van window for about the first hour and then randomly throughout the next hour of our ride.

When we arrived, it was still raining, so we went back down the hill a bit and went to lunch a little early.  After lunch we made the drive back up the mountain and by the time we arrived there the rain had ceased.  

The people of this village grow coffee and rice.  We were treated to a cup of delicious coffee and then the group of us proceeded to buy all the pkgs of coffee they had available at the time.  Very yummy!!

After our coffee break, we began our guided tour of the village.  Most of the houses are built above the ground on stilt-like poles, and everyone has pigs.  Why pigs?  

Doesn't everyone know that pigs eat snakes, and and that prevents the snakes from getting into the homes.  

And they only keep black pigs.  Why? you ask.

So they don't get sunburned, of course.

School was done for the day and these children were making their own fun. 

But it looks like they're up-to-speed with some technology.  Apparently most of the house had electric, and there were quite a few of these satellite dishes scattered around the village.

Just as we were getting ready to get into our vans, this momma came by with this adorable baby.  I asked if I could take their picture and momma agreed readily.  It was a great way to end our village tour.

More Street Shots

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Just some random street shots from our excursion to the old city in Chiang Mai this morning.

This is the colored version of the bw image I posted in the previous
post--which I posted again below this one.

A familiar and welcomed sight!

Better in B&W

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Leah and I took an excursion to the old, walled city in Chiang Mai this morning.  There are a huge number of temples in within the walls, so monk sitings are very common.  There were two different color robes that I saw.  One was a beautiful bright orange and the other was a more subdued, but also beautiful orangy-brown.

When I was processing these images I put them into photomatix to process them as 1-image HDR pics. I thought I would leave them in color, but when I experimented with the Artistic BW preset, I decided to leave them as BW.  

It was hot and even though we enjoyed walking around for a few hours we decided that once you've seen one, or maybe two, temples you've pretty much seen them all.  (that's a little tongue-in-cheek)  So we decided to head back and find a place to eat on the way.

The Juniper Tree

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This post is a little out of order, but better late than never.  When we first arrived in Thailand we had to spend two nights at an alternate location before moving into our permanent hotel in town.  This wonderful venue is called The Juniper Tree.  It's a Christian Retreat center located not too far from the center of town.  It's run by a great Christian couple from the UK.  We not only met the people we would be working with, but we met some really interesting others who have been all over the world working in God's service.

Our stay there was only two nights--much too short!

Each night we were there, we heard loud & boisterous cheering and shouting at around 11 pm that continued for quite a while.  I finally remembered to ask the owner, Tim, what was going on.  He said that right outside the back gate, the locals held beetle competitions during the mating season--which lasts for about 4-5 months each year.

Two females are confined in a tube and two males are placed on top of the tube.  The males fight each other until one of them falls off the tube.  The remaining male is the winner.  Obviously the men bet on who the winner will be even though betting is illegal.  Tim assured us that there is no harm to the beetles, one just gets knocked off the tube, and they are only doing what they would be doing in the wild anyway--fighting for dominance over the females.

To hear the cheering you would think it was a world championship prize fight.  Maybe to these locals it is.