Ladies and Gentlemen...

What a blast we had last night. We have a routine that Sojo plays by herself while Dale and I finish dinner, and while she was doing so, we heard rumblings of something going on and then watched her climb the toy shelf. Then she shouted out, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN..." and said something else random about an audience. "Can I do a show?" she asked us. Uh, you bet you can!

What started out as just cute ended up being her putting on a 'show' for us for about an hour. Mainly, the show consisted of her climbing up the toy shelf, shouting 'Ladies and Gentlemen!,' singing twinkle twinkle little star with a few added lines of a random invented song, and then jumping off the middle shelf... ...over and over and over, like most of everything in our lives right now. But it was so much fun. "Can I do another show?" she asked us again and again.

Dale joined in the show for the grand finale (it's starting to look like a 3 year old version of Cirque de Soleil) and this gave her the chance to do the big jumps off the top. I already have visions of shows as she gets older with signs and tickets and all that fun stuff. And perhaps even some small parts for the parents as well. Great childhood memories of our neighborhood shows in New York running through my head. Such fun, that whole kid thing.

Catching Up

It's been busy around here, and somehow the blog hasn't kept up with all the stuff happening. We are settling back into our own rhythm of things and enjoying a bit of cooler weather here in sweaty Bangkok after about 5 weeks of having my family with us. My brother suggested this 'overlap' family visiting idea last summer, and it's fantastic. It means we have some time with all of us here, and then some extra time with just one part of the family. It translates to lots of good quality time with everyone. Making me homesick for them just typing this....
Loy Krathong has passed again, the lovely Thai holiday of sending all your yearly baggage down the river, metaphorically speaking, with your krathong.

And someone is still fully in the robot phase, even posing for pictures that way now and riding around on a new-ish robot bike. My favorite part is when she walks up to a random person and begins acting like a robot. She's definitely quirky, and we so love that.

On a different note, I have had the extreme pleasure of working on a library project for an amazing place called the Mercy Center, located in one of the poorest slums of Bangkok. This labor of love was started by a teacher at our school, and we are now in the final stages of getting ready to open the library for the children who live at the orphanage (many of the girls in the circle with me live at the center) and for the surrounding community. I found myself in awe most of the day as we unpacked boxes of donated Thai books and sorted them. What I loved most is that the girls were supposed to be putting them on the shelves, but when I went to see how they were doing, most of them were fully absorbed in reading. Powerful stuff.

One More Adventure

Before Matt and Cathy leave this week, we wanted to have one more adventure. At the last minute, we decided to take off to a nearby city called Ayutthaya. It was once the capital of Thailand and is filled with gorgeous Khmer ruins from the 14th century.
After walking around in the blazing heat taking a gazillion Buddha photos, we headed to an elephant farm for a ride in the fields around the pagodas. These orange umbrellas over our heads made me feel as if I were in colonial India. But the highlight of the day for Sojo (who did a rockin' job all day of being a trooper!) was when she met a 4-month old tiger cub and got to feed him a bottle. I know, crazy, but it was beautiful to watch her experience this. She talked about it all day, and it was the story she asked for tonight before going to bed.
We topped off the long day with a small trick-or-treat excursion. Such a great day.

Goodbyes

It was inevitable. Vacation had to come to an end, sand had to be shaken out of our shoes, and my parents had to go back home. I did mention more than once that Thailand is a very popular place to retire...

Our last few days were spent in the beautiful river town of Kanchanaburi, about 3 hours from Bangkok. We did a few touristy things like the tiger temple and Erawan falls. The tiger temple sounded like a good idea: a refuge where monks have taken in orphaned tigers and raised them to be somewhat tame. Was a bit too contrived for me, plus Sojo kept talking about how funky the whole place smelled, and we were outside in the wild. Whoa! I did manage to get another great tattoo photo of a monk. The tattoos here are so intricate and often done with a piece of sharpened bamboo.


We've a few days left with Matt and Cathy before more goodbyes. Soaking up the time together until then.

Time In Paradise

After a few days of absolute paradise in Phuket, we are back in Bangkok only for the day to do laundry, rest up and do some shopping before we are off again tomorrow. This time, we're headed back to Kanchanaburi but doing some more exploring of the area.

The fabulous Mojo found us a gem of a hotel at the end of a one-lane road at the southern tip of Phuket island, and we each stayed in a bungalow that had jungle behind us and that dreamed-about blue ocean to the front. Needless to say, we were thinking of ways to all move there (and of course get Seanie Boy, our brother, to come join us!) We spent hours on the beach, found piles of sea glass, chased hermit crabs and soaked up the sun. Dale and I even had the chance to head out on a scooter adventure with Mojo and Cathy since the grandparents offered to babysit. Good, good times.

My Two Libras

I love that Dale and Sojo's birthdays are only four days apart. When we first saw Sojo's life information written down, it made us smile so big to know that they were so close in birth. Selfishly, I love the balanced nature of my two Libras.

To celebrate Dale's 42nd (how is that possible?!?!, says his much younger wife), we were gluttons--his favorite 7 layer dip and a carrot cake were on the menu as birthday treats.

And in reading news, how much do I love when I bring home a book that Sojo totally connects with? Sojo has a thing for robots, and often acts like one, so I knew that this book would be a hit. Dale, or super baba, quickly took the fan box and turned it into a robot costume. We read the book over and over and over...and over.

Quality Potty Time

We stayed close to home this weekend so Sojo could get used to wearing underwear. Boy, did she do a great job once she decided that the potty is her friend. Note the accoutrements needed to sit on the potty--true Sojo style there. She even went to preschool today in underwear and didn't have a single accident. Still wondering how this determined nature will pan out in the teen years...

And as you can see, my folks are having a good time. Truly one of the best things about Thailand, at-home massages make it easy to impress guests and make them feel relaxed.