B.E. #5 Weekends

Friday night came and we planned an outing...but then remembered it was Friday night. In Bangkok. Unless you want to be in a taxi for an hour just to get down the road you really should just stay in. That was when I proposed the idea to David for him to work on Saturday, or make Saturdays a work day for him and take Sunday/Monday as the weekend from here on out, so that on Monday we could get out and about easier. Great, he said. And so he worked on Saturday and we planned a trip to the zoo on Monday...it was perfect. Perfect weather, cool, just below 70 degrees and threatening rain. We almost canceled, but we decided it would not be this cool in another week so we went.

This is by far the best family outing for the price in Bangkok. You can travel two hours outside the city to farms and other big attractions. But for a 20-30 minute taxi ride (under $4.00), and the entry fee for our whole family was under $10, you just can't beat it. The place is huge, has lakes throughout, wandering Monitor lizards (watch out), and everything a zoo needs. It also has play areas, a great Thai food court, a KFC, 7-11, and snack kiosks throughout the whole place.

We were so thankful for the cool weather, and the place was not busy, it being Monday and all, just a few school groups. We set out early and made it back in time for the girls' naps.


Hungry Hippos


Bella stayed in the stroller a lot, we even brought the Buggy board, but Sophia did not use it too much.


King of the Jungle.


He is just a really big Cat, girls...


Snack time


David thinks these things are cute, I said they looked like huge water rats, gross, but then he said they reminded him of the nice guys in 'the Lion, the witch and the wardrobe,' and I couldn't disagree.


quite the mangy miniature horse. He really wasn't mangy, just dirty.


'wait one minute and I will feed you' says Sophia. And she did.



she said this was her favorite part of the zoo outing.



Giraffes really are amazing creatures....


and of course they got to go on a few 'rides.'


Bella is waving to daddy.


the zoo is near the capital area and palace, it is a busy place, I really don't know what this building is, but it looked really cool.

B. E. #4 Little House in the Big Woods

One of the first things I always do upon arriving in Bangkok is go to Dasa books, it is a great little used book store. I found some abridged versions of the 'little house' books that seemed appropriate for Sophia. I was not sure how she would do with a real 'chapter book ' that had about one picture per chapter, but so far she loves them.

Then I went to another 'resource room' and checked out some other cool books and the real book 'Little House in the big Woods'. Sophia is liking this too. Though David advised me not to read the story about the wolves surrounding the house howling right before bed, like I had the night before. Sophia would call and say: 'do the wolves want to get in the house?' 'don't they want to eat the girls?' And David would reply with things like: 'I am like 'Pa' I am here to protect you' and 'Bangkok doesn't have wolves.'

B.E. #3 towards the weekend

This is outside of our back door, the weather has been AWESOME, so uncharacteristically cool for this time of year in Bangkok. Breezy, overcast, some days in the low 70's. We are enjoying it while we can.


Gator gal. I did not watch the game they lost, could not drag myself out of bed at that hour...but we love our gators anyway!


It had rained, so Sophia was making mud pies. Yes, with a white shirt on, I let her play in the mud some. I even let her dig her hands in it. I am relaxing as a mom, I guess. And I remember making my own chicken soup when I was her age with bark and dirt and grass...


And here is our little river. The girls and I went out to the bigger part of the river and watched small boat taxis go by. You can take these to some pretty convenient places, but you have to be quick and agile about getting on and off. As a family this may be hard. David may try it with Sophia one day, who knows.


Our little swing set, we do this every day almost, weather permitting, this day Daddy was with us!



"Daddy, you be the big bad wolf and this will be my brick house, try to blow it down." (David did try to blow it down, to no avail and to many giggles from Sophia)


Here is our pool. The bubbles were on which makes it looks like there is sand in the pool, it is really a stone bottom, for this little part.



Bella loves to just sit and play like this...



She tells everyone that she meets: 'I can swim all by myself without any help' (she is overlooking the use of floaties as help, she means without us holding onto her).

B.E. (Bangkok Edition) #2 Daily life

We have gotten into somewhat of a routine. Nothing spectacular but it is working well so far:
It is hard to get up before the girls here because they have been waking as early as 6 a.m. , but the day goes something like this:

• 6:30: the girls start calling (we are usually up reading the word, but not always) David sometimes is working out/running at this hour
  

• 7:00: we let them play in their room quietly

• 7:30: breakfast, we do cereal some, but still are sticking with oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, David usually does a green protein smoothie. I could buy my love: bagels and cream cheese, but have avoided it so far, instead I bought whole wheat English muffins and a light butter spread.
• 8:00 or usually a little later: family devotions, looking at Col 3:12, trying to clothe ourselves daily with these things (compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience), easier said than done.
• 8:30 ish, David starts work, (his office is a desk in our bedroom, which is big so it works great) the girls play while I clean, Sophia likes to help with the dishes, so I let her. Bella 'sweeps', or at least thinks she does.
• 9:00 I try to take the girls outside, we go over to the guest house (40 feet away) to look for friends to play with, either way if it is not raining (which it has been for two days), we go to the swings and just play while it is not too hot outside. Today because it was raining, we just went and played with all the legos in the main area. This is just a daily change-up from staying in our apartment all day.
  
• 10:00 snack back at our apartment and 'preschool' time, we are on the letter 'Y' which is a little hard for sophia, she thinks it makes the 'wh' sound, because as you know 'y' is the same as 'why' and it just makes sense to her. English is hard.
  
• after preschool time I let the girls watch a video in Chinese. Yes, this is their tutor, cheaper than the alternative, I am not sure it helps, but I think so.

Here is Sophia under the desk watching 'the three little pigs' in Chinese.

• 11:45-lunch: the girls and I do sandwiches of some sort and fruit or carrots,
  
• after lunch is free play and then reading time, I read them books before nap time
• 1 p.m. girls nap, I sometimes nap, David meanwhile, is still working. Sometimes I go out to the store or something. I plan to restart reviewing language during this time, like I was doing at home.
  
• 3:30 or 4:00ish, for two days now we have gone to a hotel pool, we bought a membership, we hope to do this as much as possible. The girls LOVE it. We do this with daddy, of course. This membership includes use of their nice gym, which is where David works out.
  
• 5:30-6:00ish, dinner, and then getting ready for bed at 7:30.
  

this is some semblance of our day. On the weekend we hope to do things like possibly go to the zoo, or just venture to Carre Four (a huge target like store), which has a great Thai food court and kids play area.




The girls found these glasses and other fun things in the trunk of toys in our apartment. Fun Fun.

Bangkok Edition, #1

We have gotten settled in and things with the baby are looking good. We have appointments every Monday, and the delivery (C-section) scheduled for April 12th, unless of course I go into Labor before then.

Our neighbors brought us chocolate chip cookies our first day in the apartment, warm and delicious! This from a family who just had their first baby, the baby was born at 30 weeks and was Medi-evacuated here. Their baby is doing much better but has some surgeries to go...what a difficult time, we are praying for them fervently and we have only seen them once, receiving their generosity and joy. what a testimony.

We met our other neighbors too, or the mom rather, who was rumored to have four kids, including a newborn. We have heard NOTHING coming from their apartment, so we did not believe it. But she told us they have been staying at a hotel with their grandparents and were coming back tonight, so 'get ready for the elephant herd' (they are upstairs from us). She was so sweet, and later dropped by a bag of brand new maternity clothes for me. Crazy sweet. She also has a girl Sophia's age, I know Sophia cannot wait to meet her!

Yes, blessing upon blessing. We love staying at this guesthouse, always great people to meet and good friends to be made. What a provision from our Father!

Not Our plans...

Our plan was to spend the whole week catching up with our closest friends here, who just returned from the States. Our plan was to finish things slowly and methodically and coast into leaving for two months relaxed and ready. Our plan was to leave Friday, the 25th and have under two months of being away...

But again we are reminded of WHO is in control. We welcomed our friends back Thursday night, and on Friday morning I started having some serious stomach cramping, consistent but not regular. It is so hard to tell if it was a stomach bug. The clincher for me, that really made me stay on the couch most of the day was the periodic low back pressure, or cramp that was so reminiscent of my hours and hours of back labor with Sophia. I didn't feel it much, but the few times I did, made me wonder. This is when we started consulting our doctors. All of these 'symptoms' tapered in the afternoon, though I still didn't feel well. At dinner time I had some more pain, but basically after that nothing. Just tired and scared to eat much.

By ten o'clock that night (Friday) I was still on the couch and David and I were finishing a movie, taking my mind off of things (The Fighter, which was a very good drama, true story). Our doctor called and as we talked through things she said she would feel much more comfortable (since I am just about 36 weeks, have had two C-sections, and the clincher, the low-back pain) with me getting closer to Bangkok as soon as possible. We talked through lots of scenarios, and everything she was saying made complete sense. Originally just I was going to go, but since we were so close to leaving we decided to see if all of our tickets could be changed without cost and all go together....

And God has proven himself so faithful through all of this. After the ten o'clock phone call and decision to leave David stayed up LATE finishing all he was going to do for work in the coming week. I finished up packing. Can I just say Praise Him, that the packing was pretty much done already. Though we were 'rushing' we were not panicky, Our Father still gave us calm reserve about the whole thing. I tried to rest and not do too much, our helper was awesome. And K came and we spent an hour talking and crying and praying, it was SOOOOOO good. I am thankful for that hour, and that I had it to spend. Our flight left that afternoon to the capital and we knew there was no Bangkok flight that day but we would at least be one step closer. We (the doc and I) decided that if I had even one more cramp then I would get checked out in the capital, but if no more symptoms occurred then we would just get to Bangkok as soon as possible.

The next day's flight to Bangkok was overbooked by five people. No way our family of four was getting on. My words were 'barring a miracle...but God can do miracles,' David and Sophia prayed right there at the airport, out loud, asking for provision. Not ten minutes later the guy came to get David. We were all on the flight. What?!!! And while David checked us all in, Sophia and I prayed out loud again, a prayer of praise and thankfulness.

So here we are, in Bangkok, a little earlier than expected, but resting in His will and all that He has for us. We will see the doctor tomorrow, I have had no more cramping, though I still don't feel completely 'well.' Could have been a stomach bug, could have been weird braxton-hicks contractions, who knows? But we are comfortable with the decision to come out early, and so thankful for all of the blessings of provision along the way....we will keep you posted.

And yes I know, we better get on the whole 'name' discussion.

8 years of marriage

Time has flown by! Nine years ago (actually summer '02) we sat in this same town and discussed life, love, and our pursuit of God's glory and what that looked like in our dating relationship.

Rats ran at our feet as we sat on the curb of a cobblestone road and spoke of our impressions of Asia, and spoke of difficult things too as we got to know each other better.

We were impressed by a family here living it all out (life, love and the same pursuit) so well. We had been dating two months and talked of marriage, the words were spoken, out loud, it was real. Marriage, and a return to this place, and we were giddy with what our wonderful Father had in store for us... and we laughed as a young girl in the house I was staying brought a candle in the room for 'mood' lighting as David spoke of a true committed love, lifelong, and he gave me a necklace with the Chinese character for 'love' on it, that I am wearing right now. The following March we were married. March 15, 2003.

So tonight, we had already planned we would do nothing special. We said we would keep our regular 'dumpling' night out with others. No cinnabons, no krispy kreme donuts, no chicken parmesan. David already said, wait until Bangkok, we will go out and splurge a little, and at almost nine months pregnant those words served me well.

So we went out for Jiaozi, like we do every Tuesday. It just so happens it is the same restaurant, those nine years ago where we watched the world cup and continued to fall in love. And so we reminisced. The two young ladies who were with us asked us our story. And we told it. And we laughed, and they laughed, and we marveled at God's goodness to us. I told of what impressed me about my man so long ago, things that still impress me that would take a book to write...

We did not plan to tell our story but it was a perfect evening. And we just got done rereading our vows, discussing our successes and failures in our marriage in the past year. A wonderful, healthy, God-blessed conversation. Man, am I in awe of the God who gave me David, so undeserved I am, but loving the gift and giving the gift-giver all the praise!

We had planned nothing 'special.' But it was such a special evening anyway. Simple and real and full of praise for our Father's tender mercy and love toward us.

Ps 16: 11: You make known to me the path of life: you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Starting my 35th week

In about a month we will be a family of five...
On our way home from our Sunday family outing, Sophia asked: 'whatever are we going to name our baby?'
'we are still working on that honey, have you thought of anything else besides Pooh Bear or Leo (this from a 'little einstein' video)?'
'hmm....Adam'

I told her Adam was a good name, but we are still praying about it...
We actually have talked about names in passing but have not quite settled on anything yet, especially a back up girl name....oh my....

This is just one of the many ways this pregnancy has been different, here are some more:
1. less than a month to go and have not had a 'sit down' discussion about names
2. I had morning sickness almost daily the first trimester (no real throwing up, just REAL nausea), zero morning sickness with the girls
3. HORRIBLE varicose veins, and painful. These developed with Bella, went away, and came back with a vengeance, my right leg is pretty much dark blue. Not pretty.
4. I am definitely carrying higher than the other two, making my belly Stick OUT there. This too has made for #5:
5. worse heartburn, indigestion, nightly, as I am trying to lie down to sleep. And sometimes the inability to take real deep breaths.
6. Gained less weight than the others (so far). Though with the others I BLEW UP in Bangkok, heat, humidity, water weight, and the daily pastry from Au Bon Pain, all made me gain way too much weight with them. I am holding steady at average weight gain so far, though I started at about five pounds above my ideal/average.
7. Sleepless already. I do remember the hip pain in every pregnancy but not keeping me awake this much and so early (starting the past few weeks), an extra pillow has really helped though.
8. I have not yet reread 'babywise' definitely had read it at least once per pregnancy by now. oh well. I have only looked at 'what to expect' 2x for reference.
9. I drink a little caffeine daily and rarely nap. I drank zero caffeine with Sophia, maybe once in a blue moon with Bella, and definitely napped more regularly during those pregnancies.
10. left for Thailand earlier. This is the longest we have waited to leave, we are giving ourselves a 2 day cushion on the 'requirements' for flying while pregnant. With Sophia we were already gone, and with Bella, because of visa stuff we went out almost two weeks before the end of the 36th week. We hope to be gone less than two months this time, since the C-section will most likely be scheduled within the week prior to the due date.

The Earth Shakes

(this post was written before the devastating Earth quake that just rocked Japan)

Again, early in the afternoon the other day, the Earth shook. It is always unsettling. Except that I wasn't unsettled. I barely noticed. I was in between rooms, I heard a slight little roar and rattle and shake. David came out of his office and said 'it is an earthquake.' And 'worse than the other week.' We were not sure what to do really, go down four flights of stairs? This is what we usually do, but we know stairwells are the worst place to be in an earthquake. So we went on with our lives. I sat on the couch and read aloud to the girls before their nap.

Meanwhile, not 50 km from us, buildings had fallen, lives had been lost, many had been injured. And we find out through phone calls of worried friends, checking on us.

In the aftermath I become more contemplative, of course. And am reminded of the zero control that I have over this life. The allusion that I sometimes live by that I am an independent creature is torn down with those buildings. What an affront to the creator of the universe, who shakes the Earth, who protects and provides, who gives and takes away. Solely dependent on HIM, I am. And what rest is found there. Rest, not worry. In His Word I reside, for if I don't I would be as unsettled as this shaking ground, frantic with fear and worry, troubled by what the next moment may bring. But I rest and do not worry. And I trust, and ask for greater trust, greater faith, greater peace. And he gives abundantly. "Keep me safe my God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord, apart from you I have no good thing."

Packing...

Once the bed came I had a place to spread things out and start the packing process.
How do you pack for two months for a very hot climate, cold indoors, and all the things that 'may' be needed for a newborn? Not to mention the things needed to keep the other two kids happy as well.
We have slowly become more and more minimalistic in our packing. I love to 'be prepared' for every situation, but with our crazy lifestyle we really break it down to what is really necessary, if we forget something that is essential, we may just have to buy it. And since Bangkok has everything (except Graham crackers, apparently) from Krispy Kreme to a mall with a maserati dealership, we will not be 'going without.'

We also have to be prepared to bring back almost twice as much stuff, possibly. This because we are becoming a family of five, we have family visiting and bringing things, and we will buy some things too.

Our goal is to pack four bags about half full, and come back with them stuffed, if need be.
As I laid things out and figured in my mind what is not packed yet, I think it is completely doable, and we could pack less for sure. This is what it is looking like:



Well, the girl took off with the swimmy diapers and wanted to take them all out.


clothes in piles, gear in piles, even a few bottles, just in case, though I rarely used bottles at all the first month with either of the other two, maybe one time, but I am still going prepared in this realm.




we haven't decided what swim gear to take, this stuff is bulky, but we will swim, since it feels like 100 degrees by 8 o'clock, we will need some refreshing.


So far, the bag on the left is empty, the middle one less than half full, and the right one a little more than half full. Progress.

didi's room almost done!

The single bed finally arrived and the room is now pretty much ready. Here are pics with the pack n play, which make it look crowded. I still plan on adding some accents to make it a little bit 'kid-like' and to add some color. But it is done pretty much! With two weeks to spare!

Dress up

As I was packing for Bangkok I had to have the girls try on some swimsuits and other things, to make sure they fit. They LOVED this, and wore them for over an hour, and kept switching hats too, it was so fun and our helper thought it hilarious. Yes, it is this warm now in our town. We slept with the window open last night, and it was still 74 degrees in the morning.





And then we did real dress up. Sophia had a friend over and we played dress up, danced, and then played a few games of candyland.

Our 21 month old

helping mommy pack for Bangkok


Isabella Hayil is 21 months old. She and Sophia have quite distinct personalities. Bella is a 'go with the flow' kind of girl, I am sure that is a product of being #2. She has her opinions and can throw a good fit, but her spark is different. Such a joy, and always keeping us laughing, and on our toes.
Her English vocab is increasing, though she can't say many sentences.
her longest one yet is:
'may I get down...please?'
Her Chinese vocab is also improving slowly. At this stage we had a friend come and spend good one-on-one time with Sophia 3x/week. This helped her tremendously. We have not done that with Bella, mainly because we haven't found the right person, but our helper does help some.

She loves:
-watermelon
-curry rice
-noodles, of almost any variety and flavor
-oatmeal
-coffee (decaf, of course)
-lemon drink (both sour and sweet
-to draw with markers
-her little monkey (curious george)
-pushing the stroller around
-playing in her kitchen
-to dance
-almost any animal (and is not scared of them)
-Sophia

She dislikes:
-when mommy leaves to pick up Sophia from school (great crying involved here)
-papaya
-watching videos (without Sophia)
-I am sure there are other things but I cannot think of them now

I finished her first year scrap book, and will probably not do another, I am posting some pics of the pages, though not all of them. I went with very simple layouts.