Out for a swim

Merry Christmas!!!

We have been getting settled more and more each day. I was asked about our house and here are a few picture of it. We have a gated three bedroom/three bath home in a complex called Land & House in Chalong. The boys are sharing a room here so we can prepare them for when we get back to Canada. Emma is done with sharing with Easton she said; she is ready for her own girl space. It has marble floors and has a lot of room; the spacious bathrooms alone have been worth the move from our first place here. In the master suite it has his & hers toilets (I’m loving it)

There is a man made lake that surrounds the complex. The population of the gated community is 80% Thai 20% western (European, American, Canadian) There is a lot of half and half living here, (western man with Thai woman).

We are at the pool in our complex for the day and it has two pools. The kids had a great time. We met a family from Italy and they have three children ages 15,6,3. they are also trying out Phuket for one year to see if they like it enough to move here full time.



The pools are beautiful; nice and big. Everett keeps going underwater because he loves it, Easton and Emma are on their own swimming all over. The boys have there trusty full brim hats to keep the sun off there super white skin. Our kids are always the only ones in hats and full sun suits (little nerds ..)

Easton is enjoying his Thai boxing and is the champion of the world. If he keeps this up he may have a chance against Everett who seems to take rounds out of him already. Easton likes this coach but does not like the "woman" as he calls her, she is not as fun and she makes him work hard.(it's good for him)

We went for supper to a restaurant called "Parlai" on the beach the other night. We watched all the fisherman come in and bring there daily catches. Easton ordered the catch of the day and then Trent went to picked it out of the tank. That is fresh fish! The food was amazing! One of our favorite dishes is chicken and cashews, at this restaurant is was delicious. However we had this other dish and we could not even hold our lips together they were on fire so bad. No one at this restaurant spoke English so we have no idea what was so hot but it sure was good. Easton loved his fish and ate the whole thing, not even sharing very much.

The food is so full of flavor I don't know how we will enjoy food back home. Our dishes are usually around $2.50/plate for chicken plates and are amazing. I am going to take a Thai cooking class so hopefully I can cook a dish or two when we get home.



Finally we have made it to the beach. We went to Naihar Beach which is on the south end of the island. The tsunami hit this beach; the devastation was not as bad as some beaches more up north which we have not been to yet.

We met a family the other night at the mini golf restaurant and they are from Calgary. This family has been living in Kazakhstan for the last four years and vacation at Christmas on Phuket. The dad and one of the daughters were on the beach at the time the tsunami was moving in. They said they noticed the water and things were not right, they ran and ran got in the car and drove until they were able to stop. It shook them up and they needed to come back this year for them, to heal. As you look at this beach you would never know that a year ago anything happened as it is beautiful and the sand is perfect.

The ocean is crystal clear and the sand is so soft. The beach front is huge and is the perfect play ground for the kids. The water is quite shallow for along way so we let the kids run free. Everett was unsure of the waves coming in at him and he did not like the salt water. Em & East of course were in heaven. It was not really hot or sunny this day, it started to rain when we left so it was a great day to be at the beach for the kids to not bake in the sun.

We dug a nice big hole for the kids at one point to keep them together for a picture and it was nice to have them in one spot for a while with out constantly counting 123,123, 123, to see three bodies.

Everett had to be buried at one point so Emma could try to build a sand castle with out Everett coming along to tease his sister.

Of course we found the answer to get the kids to sit of a few minutes, ICE CREAM! They are Trent's kids, like their father they LOVE their ice cream...

There is not alot of people here in Phuket. We have been told since the tsunami so many people had to move off the island because they lost there business because of lack of tourism. They project at least another two-three years before phuket is even close to what it was like in terms of tourism. It is beautiful and is so sad on how the media can destroy people’s lives with miss information. There is no doubt the tsunami did take lives and I don't want to be disrespectful but island wide damage is nothing to the extent the media made it out to be. The water did not take all of phuket under; it only affected a very small part of it. It goes to show how you can not believe everything you watch or read and you have to dissect information for yourself ( I of course like to challenge what I hear) no surprise to most..haha. hence our trip to Phuket, Thailand

Anyways, I went to an aerobics class last night and it was good, it was nice to be out. What seems to take us an hour to do back home takes three hours here if not more with the kids. So my class was very nice just to enjoy the warm breeze and not hear Mommy, Mommy, Mommy...

It is the 14th of December and we are going to get a Christmas tree soon which will be interesting trying to keep Everett away from. Santa is not to be found here on the island so I am pretty bothered by that, unless we find him Christmas Eve at a resort. I love Christmas at home with all the festivities and the sounds of it all, so next year I would like to be home.

Not much else is happening. We checked out a school for the kids but they want them to come M-F from 8:ooam - 3:oopm, no way will we do that to them so instead we are looking at other options. Before we know it Emma will be in grade one and going full time so we will savor this time with her as much as we can this trip.

Christmas Eve we are going to go sing Christmas carols and Christmas day we are going for a home cooked Christmas dinner at a pub owned by these Americans. Trent went to basketball the other night and met some great guys so we are meeting more people. There is a very high population of either European, American, or Canadian guys who have married or date Thai woman so alot of the woman don't always speak alot of English but we make it work.

It is funny; Trent and I both have said that without being aware we have both reverted to Spanish when we are trying to communicate with someone. I have said things in Spanish I didn’t even realize I knew, but the Spanish does not work here so we are working on Thai. There is not alot of words in Thai but there are different tones. You can say the same word but it will have a different meaning depending on the tone of you voice. The language is challenging.

Again a very Merry Christmas and we send all our love. We look forward to hearing from you.

Love Jode and my crew