Oh what have we been up to?

Oh where oh where have we been?

We have been counting our blessings to be able to enjoy such a wonderful life….

Many days have been spent on the beach soaking up the sun. I mentioned before that Melody Brown was coming over to help with the kids and what a help she has been. The kids are so happy to have her as much as Trent & I..

In Canada, Trent and I went out on weekly date nights that consisted of dinner & a movie… (our favorite way to spend our nights). Here in Thailand we go out for dinner & a massage, it’s great! Trent likes our new version of date nights better :-) ... I have many funny stories from the massage parlors that I just can’t disclose on the blog, ask Trent :-).

The other night we were on the other side of the island and I stopped to take this picture of Patong Beach. Here is where the tsunami hit the hardest on Phuket. When the waves came in they did not destroy too much in terms of breaking solid structure, however the amount of water that came up on the island was what did the most damage. Stores, hotels and restaurants all had water damage and took months to clean up and almost a year to complete their renovations.

Trent and I took Em & East to a show a place called Phuket FantaSea “the most touristy thing you could do on this island” Thank goodness for Melody, Everett stayed home with her because the show started at 9:00pm. Phuket FantaSea is an amusement park in a way; it has lots of games and food to keep you entertained as you walk around.

We ate at the buffet and we were overwhelmed by the size of the buffet hall. The arcitechure of the building on the outside was stunning; my pictures don’t do it justice.

It held around 4000 people and the hall was at least the size of the round up centre that holds the ventures at the stampede.

Trent and I thought the food was ok but the kids could not get enough of the sushi (they love sushi)… so it was worth it in the end.

Em & East played a few games around the park and won some stuffed toys.

The best game was the wind tunnel; they went in to this tunnel and had to put ten balloons in a bag, they had great team work and far exceeded the amount. They had a lot of fun…

The kids fed these fish in the pond; I have to say it was pretty gross. The fish were all piling on top of each other and pretty much flipping them selves out of the water splashing everyone. The kids thought it was wild.

Here is an elephant made of all Pepsi cans, it was pretty cool! Any guesses on how many cans it took to build this elephant?

We feed elephants everywhere we go. It is funny to watch people who have never been around these amazing animals and watch their behaviours for their first encounter with them.(like we were a few months ago) People are timid and scared to get to close and don’t know how to act or walk around them. Our kids are now immuned to the WOW factor and just walk right up to these enormous animals; wrestle with their trunks, put bananas on their heads so the elephants grab them… it's great.

I was talking to Ginger and we laughed because when we come back to Calgary and go to the zoo (which the kids enjoyed ) they will say “the Calgary zoo is boring, what do you mean we can’t touch and ride the elephants and all the other animals”

About Phuket Fantasea…it is a theatrical production with a combination of a Vegas, circus & broadway show. It was an hour and a half of wonderful entertainment. The show was about a boy and his magical elephant and they explained the history of the highly respected elephant. The kids really loved the show, the singing and the costumes were beautiful. The theatre was over the top and was a real treat.

The kids had a chance to see a baby tiger and feed him a bottle right before we went into the show, Trent was more amazed than the kids I think. We also had our picture with some woman in traditional Thai dress and a warrior that Easton loved. (the warrior was pretty scary I thought)

The kids were fast asleep by the time we made it home. The theatre is 40min from our house and the show ended at 10:30pm.

Emma says about Phuket Fantasea:" it was really really neat because of all the people all dressed up, I really liked it. The fish were really crazy they were gobbling all the food and going on top of each other".

Last Sunday we headed back to Friendship beach, a hangout for expacts… We had a great time. I put a picture on the blog last time showing a boat stuck in the sand at low tide. Here is a picture with the tide back in, it’s amazing how the water moves like that.

Here at the beach Emma & Melody went on a seashell hunt. They went down the beach for about half and hour and collected over 350 seashells. A few they picked up had little creatures in them and they saw many walking seashells… Em thought that was pretty neat.

Trent and I went to an “Abalone farm. Prior to this visit I had never heard of an abalone before. The Abalone are farmed in three stages and are considered a delicacy. The price of abalone is very expensive I read somewhere from $74/kg. Trent and I each had one and the taste was a mix of a mussel & a scallop, not something I would want all the time. It cost over $2.75/abalone for us to try…

So if you ever wondered how many people you could fit into the cab of a small truck we found the answer... This is a sight we see daily when we are driving around in a day. I wonder what they think of a family of white people driving beside them wanting to take their picture? CRAZY!!!!

We went to the zoo again so Melody could experience what we have talked about. The trainers let the boys sit on the tiger all by themselves, I was quite nervous about this. Easton of course held a few snakes…

The best part of the day was Melody volunteered for the elephant show the elephants walked over top of her & checked out her buttocks... she said all she prayed for was that one of them did not poop or pee on her (they pee like a waterfall and their droppings are like a very large coconut) neither happened.

The elephants also paint a picture during the show and last time I missed the bid on one. This time I was not going to miss the opportunity and I bought three paintings, each painted by an elephant. I know for sure I have one of a kind art for the kids :-) In Calgary the elephants paints pictures and they are sold for hundreds.

Easton this day wanted his picture taken with everything; it was his day to be in front of the camera. He makes me laugh so much.

Emma says about the zoo: "the guy at the alligator show, he stuck his head in the alligator. And at the elephant show we fed the elephants and we got three paintings the elephant’s painted".

We have been going to a tailor for Trent, he has had a few custom-made shirts made for him and the quality is great and they fit Trent perfectly.

Rogue is the tailor and he is a great guy. Here he is measuring Trent up for a suit and it was so funny because he thinks Trent is so big and he could barely reach around Trent to grab the tape measure.

Obviously Trent is quite large compared to a Thai and it is a topic of conversation; what makes a Thai man so small and a western men so large. I welcome your take on it!

Rogue laughs because he needs to use literally double the material for Trent’s shirts and suit than he would need for his personal clothes.

Off for an adventure with the kids again. Everett the poor kid is at home sleeping and we are checking things out, next year he will be bigger to join on our adventure quests. We took the kids on quads on trails through the jungle, high above the island for some beautiful views. The kids thought this was the best thing ever. Emma came with me, East with Trent. Our guide was named Yaya and was from Phi Phi island (tsunami hit the worst there) Yaya stopped to ask me if I was ok and I said fine, he said ladies are all “ooo and eee and girly” Then later on when we were stopped he said to Trent “she is really good” I kept saying to Emma, it’s great to be one of the boys not a whiney girl :-) ...

Em & I raced Trent & East and well what can I say we REALLY left them in our dust… Emma loved that… she would yell GIRLS RULE!!!! she is growing up way to fast.

Emma says "it was really fun, because we went over hills and mommy daddy went really fast. It was fun going over lots of hills and stopping to see the beaches, it was amazing".

We all really liked quading except for my quad stalled everyting I touched the brake. It was interesting coming down hills… welcome to Thailand… :-)

Took a visit to the seashell museum. We were amazed at all the thousands of shells on display. One of our favorites was this Giant Clam that weighs over 500lbs. The selection of shells here were amazing, I could have spent hours here looking and reading about all the different kinds of shells and how they use one another to protect ocean creatures.
So many things have became normal to us that we have forgot how different our cultures are at times. I was looking for a cultural point for this blog which was staring me in the face.

Here in Thailand ones head is the most sacrad part of your body, you never touch a persons head and not usually a childs. You never wave to a child with your fingers pointing up you always point your fingers down and wave with your palm facing down.

Before you enter a store you always take off your shoes, not the grocery store or restaurant but almost all other stores. That is why almost everyone wears flip flops, and they are cheap.

Now I could not resist showing everyone what they are missing out on here in Thailand… a squat toilet… this is quite clean actually, you can not flush an paper products down one of these, you put your toilet paper in the basket if a basket is provided, but most likely not because no toilet paper is ever in one of these.

It has to be an emergency to use on of these. Krista Koole/ Friesen could never use one of these :-)

You will notice the bucket of water to the side of the toilet… when you are finished your business you take the bowl out of the bucket of water and dump a bowl full of water down the squat. Nice and primitive…

Emma is becoming a pro standing like a boy.

I know I have been saying I would send a picture of our car, well here it is a Honda Jazz. We are definitely cozy in this car… I MISS my truck :-)

Here is a funny sign on the side of the road. What this means is that on even days you have to park on the opposite side of the road. You better know the date when you are driving around or you get a big ticket.

It is Chinese New Years and there is a huge market at the temple five minutes from our house. It is like the stampede in the way; there is games, shops and concerts happening day and night. The food is very interesting and local.

Here you see a cart with a wide selection of yummy cockroaches, grasshoppers, magots and ??? others all prepared differently for your personal tasting pleasure. You pick what you want and you get a bag full for only 10bt. We passed on it but all the Thai's walking around with bags full seemed tobe enjoying them.

Here are my handsome little army men. We went to the market and found some great deals on some kids clothes for the boys. Emma is in the in between stages so I found a few things.

The boys shirts say Army full time. The swirl character on the shirt means full time in thai. Even matching flip flops... I could eat them up!

The kids are doing great but sure miss Monty. There are alot of dogs here in Thailand so he is a constant reminder.

We are on the count down to coming home, making sure we do not miss anything we want to do. Trent and I are going to go away next week again, we were just on Phi Phi island but that is a blog all by itself, I will start working on now.

All our love to all, keep in touch.

xoxoxoxo Love Jody, Trent & munchkins

Living life like a Thai...nice and slow

Long time no blog…
We have adjusted so well to the Thai life we are now moving a little slower. I realized time is flying after I started receiving emails asking where our update was..haha..

I did not realize so much time has lapsed as we are now living a regular life here. The kids go to school three mornings a week and those days we pick them up at noon and head to a beach. Everett sleeps two hours each morning and we head to the pool every other day. I don't really want to write and say how hot and beautiful it is here all the time :-)

The other day we went to Surin Beach Resort for a change of scenery with a girlfriend of mine and her kids. It was wonderful as the resort had two waterslides that the kids must of went down over 100 times. Everett escaped from Trent and came flying down head first. Ev wanted to do it over and over... we have to keep a close eye on our little dare devil..

Emma has a friend Aleigha the same age as her only days apart and she has a 9yr. old sister, it is really nice for Em. Easton of course is the little boy chasing the girls since he has no little buddies here his age yet, only girls. I have always said Easton will make a wonderful husband being surrounded by girls all the time..

Since we arrived Em asked to have her hair braided and we were out one night and she sat in the chair for over an hour. Three woman worked on her hair and she was so patient and loved to watch the progress in the mirror. The woman all flocked to touch her soft cheeks and her light skin. Now when we go somewhere with Emma we scream tourist :-)

After we left the salon Easton aquried a new pet iguana(for a minute) I am not a fan of any creatures that are bright green but this guy was quite cute. Everett was playing with it like it was a stuffed toy.

Trent and I took the kids to Race speed way so we could race some cars. They have a double car which it was so funny to see Trent try to fit into. He was Chris Farley "Big man in a little man's car & he squeezed his head into a little man's helmet... love you honey.

These cars fly! You sit in the car, they pass you a helmet and tell you this is your brake and this is your gas.. bye bye off you go. Easton went with Trent and Emma came with me, we had to switch so one of us was with Everett who was so patient to watch us go around and around in circles. These cars go about 70km/hour! You fly around the corners.. when Trent came in I asked him if he was concerned as he was ripping up the track... if Easton was going to fly out? These cars had no seatbelts and Easton was hanging on for dear life (Thailand, why would they think of seatbelts)

Emma and I went and all I could hear was her laughing. Our kids love speed, it’s in their blood, here's hoping they drive like me :-)

There is another race track here more for crazy locals and these cars go 120km/hour, Trent and I are going to go race eachother there.. I will keep you posted on how I leave him in my dust... NO kids of course.

Trent drove with me in our car the other day and told me I drove very well (that’s a first for him) He told me he was a little concerned though because I was not driving my super aggressive style, I was taking it easy here. If you saw what we saw on a daily basis you would be extremely cautious… I worry about one of the 40 people who are riding in the back of a pick up falling out and me running them over.

What would our trips be if we did not make a visit to the hospital? Dr. de Sanctis Everett has developed a fungal infection on his privates but we have it under control... I was at the beautiful hospital today and it was so nice to be in and out in less than one hour. Like I have said before they escort you from your car to the entrance in a golf cart.. five star treatment.. then when I walked in hospital there was staff there to ask me questions. I told them the problem and they said we will go see the Pediatric doctor first and then possibly the skin specialist if needed. We waited a few minutes for paper work and played in the fancy kid’s area and were then called. When I opened Everett’s pamper the doctor and nurses said “OH MY” it is not a pretty sight. As I talked with the doctor the nurse took Everett and played with him so I could concentrate on what the doctor was saying, great system(normal procedure) ...I was given medication, paid my $20.00 and off we went.

Everett also fell the other day and could have had a few stitches behind his ear but its fine now. There is a lady here and she is always at the pool, she is expecting her first child in a month. I tell her everyday as she is following Everett around everywhere “He’s a boy, boys are boys” I can say that now since Easton has worn me down quite a bit with his trips to the hospital.

On Sunday we went to this great little place called “Friendship beach” the kids went out and found so many seashells on the ocean floor. In the picture you can see the boats sitting on the sand, by the end of the day the tide will come in and the boats will be afloat again. Trent and Everett found a crab with in some coral.

We went back to the resort and played in the pool for hours. There was a band playing and the atmosphere was breathtaking. Alex (my German friend here) laid back and said “don’t we have a hard life” I wish you were here to see what we see! We were having such a great time I did not take as many pictures as I would of liked, next time.

Easton has been asking since we came here if we could go to Dino Park, a place in Kata to play mini golf and see all the dinosaurs (he loves dinosaurs) Melody stayed home with Ev and we took Emma and Easton.

It was a great night; the golf course was great, alot better than Scandia in Kelowna, it has tunnels, lava, and great dinos everywhere, pretty neat. We stayed for supper and beside our table was a pond with turtles and catfish. Trent and the kids had a great time feeding the water creatures some of their supper.

The kids love their school and have adopted some puppies. The house behind the school had a litter of puppies and they come to the school and take the shoes all the time. Em and East love playing with the dogs. They sure miss Monty though, they say they want to stay here but Monty has to get on the airplane and come here. Last year they did not mention him at all, this year he is all they talk about. Here's hoping Monty holds on a for a while longer, he is pushing 10ys and we hope he does not have a heart attack from being so overweight. Every time we come home his is nice and plump thanks to all the love Dale gives him (dale is our wonderful neighbor who is so good to us and cares for Monty)


Here in Thailand in January they celebrate children. Last week there were festivities going on everywhere. At our club house they had a kids day and it was alot of fun. Again I thought this was crazy!!! They had a game of "throw a dart at balloons" for the kids. The balloons were more or less in the open around people and if one missed the board who knows what could happen. All the thai kids were playing but I would not let Easton even though he kept begging. These were real, metal, sharp darts... Needless to say I made East stay clear but Emma twisted her daddy's arm (nothing new) and she popped a few balloons and won a prize!

I am sure I have mentioned that Emma is taking dance class ballet/jazz. She likes the jazz part best, she is great at shaking her booty to the music. Kathy, her dance teacher is tough on the girls, expects the best and they are doing great.

Emma loves to have her picture taken so I have alot of great shots of her. Easton it depends on the day if he wants to be in front of it but loves to be behind the camera and take pictures, he asks all the time. Everett has mastered his CHEEZE when he will sit for more than 1second.

Everett is growing up so fast, he reminds me more and more of Easton by his expressions and looks at times. Ev won't let anything get past him and is uderstanding so well. He is saying more and more words everyday. He is a really fun kid and we have such a great time with him, his personality is beginning to show more and more. He likes to tease and if I don't give him what he wants to goes to Emma whom he calls MA and tells her. I can't stop kissing his cheeks they are so soft and chubby. The Thai people love touching his cheeks. Ev always has a smile that truely lights up the room, he is a little charmer (like his daddy)

Easton my man is such a little man. He is so inquisitive for his age, this reminds me so much of my dad. Easton stayed with Jesse the other night and Jesse said he could not believe the questions Easton was asking. I love to just sit and watch him to see how he takes in the world. I love him so much. Out of the blue he will come and hug me and say "love you mom" my heart melts!

Emma my love is growing up. Em is wonderful with the boys and is becoming a little lady with a bit of a strong willed streak (thats my girl!) Em is flying through all her workbooks for school and is absorbing all the info from her surroundings. Emma loves hugs and has such a sweet heart. I get a kick out of watching her with the boys, she is one smart girl who seems to always come out on top while making East think he has the best... Sure glad to have another female with me as these boys can be crazy at times :-)

We truely have amazing kids and I love them soooooo much...
I have been asked many times about shopping. I know it's hard to believe but I have not been out yet. It is still high season and in a few weeks we will go. Dow is going to take me so we don't get ripped off and can buy lots.. I hope..

However we have been shopping for DVD's. Jesse said to me they bought "Two for the Money" I said how... We are in Asia the capital for the underground. Jesse took us to a taylor shop said a few words in thai and we were led through one door and then through another at the back of the shop. It was secret DVD store back there. We bought 25 movies like North Country, Memores of a Geisha, Good night... Good luck and so many more. $3.00/movie and perfect quality. Trent went back last night for a few music CD's also. We have entered the underground world... For all who don't know we love going to movies so I have been going though withdrawl knowing I have missed some great movies since we have been gone.

Trent and Jesse went out and chartered a fishing boat on wed. for the whole day. Trent caught a "whahoo" fish and it was about 25lbs. I was relieved that he at least caught something because he has been chasing this salt water fish since our trip with my parents to Hawaii in 1999 and the BIG one keeps teasing him. Trent was happy but not estatic about his catch, but it is better than the little tuna Jesse caught.. We dropped the fish of at Life's resturant for them to cook for a feast the fish was delicious... A Thai prepared the fish in two dishes, one dish was cooked in the oven with many flavourful spices and the other dish was deep fried. We also had a very spicy chicken soup to go along with it... Don't forget the rice... The fish was great. Trent has informed me he is going to go fishing again but has modified his plan to catch this fish. All I know is that if he does not catch this BIG fish soon we both may go crazy!

I think Tom asked about our underwater pictures, Yes I have a special underwater case for my camera that I love. My camera is protected from sand and water when we are at the beach or pool and I don't have to worry.
Tom I have to say you are building groupies, my aunt has now said you should be a writer for the paper, you could write a book and you would already have 50 and change copies sold!

CULTURAL update: I try to put something new about the Thai culture in each blog and this weeks is:
Did you know that in Thailand it is the year 2549. The Thai’s follow this calendar since the beginning of Buddha.. Our house bills come in and they are dated Jan 15, 2549. It’s very interesting!

Here in Thailand there is a fictional character called a Yack, it is a large animal and is quite scary. The Thai's call Trent a yack. Dow (jesse's wife) always says, "if we need something call the Yack" we hear thai's talking in their native tongue and then you here "yack" interjected within the conversation and of course the word falong always (falong- white person)

To Trent's family we send our thoughts to you as Trent's gramma, Elizabeth Leib passed away peacefully a few days ago. I had met Trent's gramma a few times and she was so warm and welcoming. Mrs. Leib was in her 90's.

Trent and I heading off the island next week for a few days, I am really excited.
Thanks again for your emails and blogs we love reading them. I wake up each morning and ask Trent “anyone email?” since I can’t walk in the door and ask “did any one phone?”
Bon give your belly a rub for me and Harlow a hundred kisses…. Miss and love you!!

All our love xoxoxo