Digging Out

I know this isn't "apples to apples" but while my family and friends in New England are digging out from Nemo, I am digging out of piles and piles of laundry. We had such a busy weekend and I certainly didn't want to spend the little free time that I had doing laundry. Now I am paying the price...over the last couple of days, PeePorn and I have done about 10 loads of laundry. 

Rebecca and Gary, friends of ours from Virginia who now live in Shenzhen, China stayed with us for the weekend on their way to vacation in Phuket. They have three young children - almost 3 years old, a kindergartner and a 3rd grader - probably the best behaved children that I have ever met! They flew into Bangkok late Thursday night and spent Friday touring the city with a wonderful tour guide (email me for her contact info) and stopped at the Flower Market in Chinatown to buy me this beautiful  bouquet of water lotus flowers...

 The lotus were so big and full - they looked just like peonies.

They also bought me some bamboo in celebration of the Chinese New Year. The bamboo has grown about three inches since they gave it to me on Friday!

 

This is one friendship that has been renewed largely thanks to Facebook. Rebecca and I met in 2001 - she was the founder of Girls on the Run of Northern Virginia and I signed up to coach the first season that the program began. That first year, we had 27 girls at two schools in Northern Virginia participate in the program. Under her direction (and then after she moved on), the program has expanded and now 7,500 girls participate each year at more than 200 schools - and that is just in the Northern VA area! Our families each left Virginia in 2005 - we moved to Australia and they moved to Ohio. Rebecca and I kinda sorta kept in touch over the years but it was only after we "found" each other on FB that we could connect on a more regular basis - or at least keep up with what the other was doing, including our move to Thailand and their move to China. Since we were now in the same part of the world, we couldn't not have a visit together before we moved back to the U.S. Having them stop over in Bangkok  and stay with us before continuing on to Phuket worked out perfectly!

Saturday evening, we all went up to ISB for the International Family Fair. There were food stalls featuring an amazing selection of food from countries all over the world - Japan, India, Germany, Israel, Greece, Bangladesh, Australia...so, with such interesting choices, what did we have? Rebecca and Gary had Thai food and I had a brisket barbecue sandwich from the USA booth! Yep, that is us - totally living on the edge! 

This beautiful display of carved fruit was in front of the Thai food stall...

Sunday morning, I drove us all to Chatuchak (the huge weekend market) for a bit of shopping. For me, even under the most perfect of conditions, Chatuchak is always a stressful experience - the market is incredibly crowded, dirty, and chaotic and, depending on where you enter (i.e., the animal section), the sights, sounds and smells are not always the most pleasant. Throw three young children into the mix and I thought for sure we had a recipe for disaster - or at least a serious meltdown. Fortunately, I was very wrong - the kids were great - the girls were fascinated with all of the stalls offering beaded jewelry, handbags & clothing and Nolan was content, for the most part, to hang out in the backpack. 

My latest acquisition from Chatuchak - because everyone needs a fuchsia dragon on their sideboard.

I know my friend thought I was crazy when I bought it but it just caught my eye.

Sunday evening, Gary and Rebecca went downtown for dinner and Christopher and I watched the three little ones. Christopher and Nolan (the almost 3 year old) kept each other entertained throughout dinner. Neither said a word to the other but there sure was a lot of laughter and giggling going on. 

I drove them to the airport yesterday morning and they are now enjoying the sun and sand in Phuket. 

Kevin left Sunday morning - this is a very long trip and he won't be back in Bangkok until the middle of March. Sniff. Sniff. Before he left, he did bring me a small gift... a thick packet of forms, information and checklists of everything I need to do to schedule and organize our move. After I finish my piles of laundry, I will dive into piles of paperwork. Not to mention that I just remembered that I need to get all of our tax information and documentation to our accountant. AGH! 

Have a great Tuesday!