Red Cross Snake Farm!

 The Red Cross in Thailand is pretty awesome.  I mean, aside from doing blood stuff like most places, they also have the task of maintaining a supply of snake anti-venom.

 The site in downtown Bangkok is beautiful, an oasis of calm like so many parks and temples are.  There are several dozen species of snake on display, both inside and outside the main building.

 Here, Coryn is cheering on the Burmese python as it appears to be trying to escape.

 They also have two shows daily to display the awesomeness of snakes.  The first showing, which starts at 11 am now, is a snake milking display.

 Performed in English and Thai, they give a lot of anatomical information about glands and teeth.

 Lets not forget the actual milking, they did 8 cobras of different species, with several close calls in terms of bites.  The snake handlers got away this time!

 With this much venom!

Snakes!  (some of them are pretty too)

Christmas Shenanigans pt 2

 I got all creative too... aside from making my advent calender out of paper, I also made stockings for the kids.  Jackson says "look like casts"

 Christmas Eve tradition lets the kids open one gift of my choice... (pjs of course)

 We were given a complimentary dinner at the restaurant in our buildings which we decided to make our special Christmas Eve dinner.  A delicious four course meal, and fancy... just look at the beautiful smoked salmon appetizer

 Pumpkin soup in a bread bowl, Jovey's favorite, followed by a turkey dinner with all the fixings

 and Christmas stollen to finish it off.  we were so full we took it home for Christmas breakfast!

 We followed dinner with the Studio C Christmas episode in our new pjs

 And enjoyed opening presents in front of the dual 'fireplaces' (thanks netflix!)

 Lego minifigures and hot chocolate all around!

and Coryn with his binoculars from Santa (he spent all day carrying them around in the accompanying satchel)

Christmas Shenanigans in Thailand pt 1

 They have a love of Snoopy... at least at the Central mall chains...

 Coryn is chatting with a few new friends from church at a Christmas party

 Jovey and Carter are freaking out over the abundance of toys they have been missing...

 And we sang some Christmas carols with our new friends.

 Unfortunately our shipment of household goods is too late for Christmas, so we had to get a 2 ft tree to supplement.  I already know where I'm going to put it next year if we are still here.

 As part of our advent calendar the kids got to do some winter crafts, like make snowflakes.  Carter's phrase of the night: "wow, its prettier than I thought it would be"

 Our new home had a caroling and hot chocolate get together, we were able to get to know some neighbors

and as far as I can tell, they didn't have any santas to talk to, but the malls all had fancy setups like they would if they could find a santa to sit there... elderly bearded gentlemen of the world might be able to find a job here...

Jovey loves and misses her friends

Song for Mina

A video recap of Ayutthaya

In case the wordy telling of my Ayutthaya misadventure scared you off, here is the video recap.

Jovey's 4th!

 Jovey got a year older, and started the day with a walk to A&W for lunch (we found a short cut across the highway too!)  Good fries, good beer. Did you know that they do waffles in Thailand?  with ice cream?

 Then we headed to the mall for some fun, and happened across a roving performance group of kids show or mascots.  No idea what they are, but Jovey tells me "hehe, they are people in costumes!"

 Then Jovey got to choose between bowling and ice skating, because thats what malls have here, and because theater in the mall didn't have any kids shows at the time.

 She had an awesome time and only got bored and started running around at the 7th frame because she had to use the bathroom.  Finished a whole game.  Jackson got several strikes (though I got the first), and the boys started bowling in normal styling.

 Then Jovey got to pick out a cake at the cake store in the mall (we chose at random where to purchase from, went with S&P, not getting a butter cake again... they really mean butter, with a basically straight up butter frosting, salted butter) and chose Doraemon.

and finished with her present, a Hello Kitty home with furnishings and Hello Kitty and her mom.  "Just like the one I saw in the store mom!"

Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong is a Thai holiday in which people make boats to float down the river carrying prayers to the river gods.  like any good party, it started with some food

 Then we got to try our hand at making a boat, or krathong.  the circle is a section of bamboo and we added banana leaves for decoration followed by flowers and candles and incense.

 They had some traditional costumes on display and had some dance performances as well.

Here are the boys' finished floats, Coryn had some help from some Thai ladies and they didn't have any flowers left when Carter was finished.  We didn't feel up to floating them that evening, so they ended up as table decorations for a week or so.  Next year I plan to be up in Chiang Mai for their version which includes lantern floating akin to what you see in Tangled.