Thailand 2010

This blog will mostly consist of pictures of our annual trip to Thailand. This year we spent a whole three weeks there and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We did not take as many pictures as we would have liked but here are some to give a flavor of what we did.

The first Saturday that we were there was "kid's day" in Thailand. There are all sorts of festivities, free air shows, free rides at various places and many other things. When we arrived at the place where they had rides we not only enjoyed the rides but to see Thailand in true form again. Here are some pictures of what we saw. You will notice some of the things like plastic oil cans used for fuel for the various motors as well as electrical cords all over the place lying on the ground and no guard rails or fences anywhere. One picture we didn't take was of a redundant gas engine sitting next to the one being used just in case. However, the kids enjoyed all the rides and no one was hurt. Here is a video of Isaac "driving" the train. Notice he is steering, an engineer the whole way, must be in his genes. Here is another video but of him waving this time.

Talking about the Thai way of doing things, here is a picture of bamboo scaffolding lashed together with rope. This was a house being built in the development that Adam and Cindy live in.

Cindy has been running three dance classes per week, all different ages. A week after we got there Cindy had a recital for her students. Here are photos of the recital and her classes.

Emmett Blue, a friend of Adam and Cindy's from San Diego, was staying at their house while we were there. However, he was on his way to Africa so we went with the boys to see Emmett off on the train to Bangkok. For $15 USD he took the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, an eight hour train ride. Here are photos of Emmett getting on the train and then his train leaving the station.

Our two little three year old grandsons are now attending preschool in a co-op. Here are photos of the school and the boys in the school. They absolutely love it. Speaking of school, Cindy home schools the boys and Sean and Prang's two year old daughter each day. Here is a video clip of Cindy teaching the kids.

One day we took the boys to the elephant farm to see the show and to ride elephants. Here are some photos of that adventure. Here is also a photo of a proud nana and her grandsons at Adam and Cindy's house. Here is a video of our boys feeding an elephant.

Adam and Cindy are in the process of trying adopt a new little girl. She is two years old and was born premature. As a result a couple of months ago she had just begun sitting up and apparently is blind because of being in an oxygen tent too long. Believe it or not, her Thai nickname is Pancake. Here are a couple of photos of Pancake. From watching her, we would say she can see something because she was reaching out directly and grabbing things and was not just responding to noise. She has started standing with help. Here is a video of her actually walking as she pushes a chair around.

One of the last nights that we were there, we went to the Christian Communications Institute, CCI. They had a display of various dances from Northern and Southern Thailand. Here is a video of part of the program. There is narration along with this video in English. It is about five minutes long but it is interesting to see the Thai culture through dance.