Firsts

We successfully moved into our home and unpacked our clothes. We still need quite a few things but it is so good to have a home! Hopefully soon we will have a maid because the laundry thing isn't working out too well. Andy tried to learn French (because that's what language the machine is in) and the washer ran for 12 hours straight. Needless to say that load was very clean. That isn't the only problem with the laundry. There is no such thing as a dryer so we have to hang our clothes to dry. Which makes them smell lovely, IF the monsoon for the day doesn't get to them and if they actually dry in the humidity before they mildew. Nicole also had a very scary mosquito incident the other day with the laundry. Did you know that mosquitoes like to breed and multiply in drying clothes??? Either did she. She went to take the clothes off the hanging contraption used to dry clothes, and swarms (no really, SWARMS)of mosquitoes buzzed around her. She shook off the ones she could, ran inside and asked Andy to try to deal with it when he got home. (He doesn't have as delectable blood as Nicole).
We have been cooking dinner every night which has been very nice but it is extremely time consuming as it takes at least 4 hours at the store to get all the ingredients needed, even then, you never leave with the right thing really.
We have plenty of pets in our new home. Bedsides the mosquitoes, we have Geckos running around wild. Last night one ran by Nicole on the stairs and she yelled and jumped off the stairs into the living room. This morning he was still waiting for her to play the same trick. They have a funny relationship like that.
This little (Humongous) guy was chillin when we moved in. You may not be able to tell from the picture but he is the size of Andy's head. At least that's what we used to measure. (We think it is a snail.)

School has been exhausting for Nicole and every day so far she has fallen asleep on the bus on the way home. Getting to the bus in the morning is a bit more exhilarating. We have to take motorcycle taxis to the BTS each day. Even though he comes and gets her when he sees her, Nicole was thankful that her motorcycle guy wasn't there this morning and that she had to walk a bit further to get a car taxi. It doesn't seem to get less scary taking the motorcycle the more you do it. Especially with all the rules! You have to sit side saddle if you're a girl and you're not allowed to touch the driver. Yeah, it's a balance thing, especially over the speed bumps and plain ol' holes in the street.
The kids are cute but they don't understand her. That's ok though because it's a mutual thing. She asked them to answer questions about their first day and she was pleased to find that she is "not too fat, not too thin and beautiful" and that she is, "dark with yellow eyes" (Pretty sure little Yo-Yo meant brown.) Before school started Nicole was very excited to be able to teach barefoot. She was very disappointed when she got to school the first day and none of the 5th and 6th grade teachers nor students took advantage of this ingenious Thai tradition. She is still considering making it a classroom rule and extremely jealous of her barefooted 1st grade teacher friend Diana. Oh, and all those pretty pictures posted of her classroom, disregard them. Nicole walked into her classroom 5 minutes before the kids to find EVERYTHING had come off the walls and were on the floor. Apparently the humidity even takes off industrial strength double sided foam tape.
Since Danielle is begging for posts, but we haven't had time or energy to do anything or take any pictures, and we don't have Internet yet, we are posting a few older pictures.
This is Sinai and Golan, two of three of Guy and Lek's kids.




Golan was friends with us right away, but it took Sinai a while to warm up. Andy had to blow up balloons over and over and over for her to like him, and Nicole had to pretend she was a monkey (Sinai is STILL telling her mother, "Nicole Monkey!") and let her put hot pink blush on her cheeks before going out to dinner.
Nicole was asked to make Mexican food for a dinner party which was extremely intimidating but went over well. We had Israeli, Thai and Mexican food.

Guy and Lek also have 2 dogs. One is obviously a soi dog rescue and it took Nicole (of all people) about 3 days to touch it. As you can tell in the picture it has a very bad design. Every time it wags its tail it wears away at its fur.


Eventually Nicole got over this defect and they are now best friends. The other dog is much smarter than she looks. For two days that dog figured out how to open the gate when Nicole left for work. Halfway down the street she would hear pat, pat, pat, behind her. Each day Nicole had to lure her back to the house where she would sit down just before entering the gate. She's a lot heavier than she looks. Not wanting the dog to follow her to school one day, Nicole outsmarted it and locked the gate.

The days before Nicole was working and Andy was slaving away at his computer trying to figure out what work meant, Nicole went to one of the zillion 5 story malls in Bangkok and came across a "Tarot for Charity" event. After finding out the charity was to raise money for the King's chosen charity, education, Nicole jumped at the chance to find out what Thailand had in store for her.

Turns out Thailand is her oyster. She asked about Andy, but after the death card, destruction, and defeat turned up, she decided to stop asking questions. Don't worry, her friend the tarot card reader just said it means "change."

This blog has turned out to be very long. Look what one can accomplish during prep time!