Semester Award Ceremonies

I got to attend 4 different award ceremonies for the older 4 to celebrate their academic achievement.  Yippee.  I went, I clapped, I enjoyed my children's success.

The middle school does a fantastic job of making sure the parents can get a photo of their kids.

 And I guess middle-schoolers do a better job of cooperating!

Some with more enthusiasm than others.

 Plus, the middle school has smaller numbers of kids, and they break them down into manageable groups. (Callie is on the very left end.)

 Callie and her good friend, Sofia.

And she is not thrilled I made her stand for the photo.  

The high school did a dreadful job of situating the kids for photos. Stacking the kids in front of the stage on risers made it impossible for anyone with a last name at the bottom of the alphabet to get a clear photo.

But they were spectacular at moving quickly through the names and getting it done.  I did not get any decent shots of Marian.

 I forgot that Josh's AP classes are weighted differently, so it was a pleasant surprise to see he had a 4.0 GPA.  

And I didn't get much better photos of him.  After the Award Ceremonies were over, both of them bolted out fast enough I never saw them again.  Sigh.But they are still marvelous and I love them.

Lovely Ladies

 I bought some awesome dresses in Thailand and the girls were sweet enough to wear them.  I didn't have one small enough for Rylee, and she was sad to be left out.  But here are my lovely ladies in their awesome dresses.  I love how they all have kind of the same dress, but wear it a little differently.  I love these girls!

Thailand, Saturday: Chatuchak Weekend Market and the End

The ladies on this trip came to shop! Which is fine, because I did too.  Saturday's event was the Chatuchak Market.  We took the metro to get there.  You can look out from the metro walkway over the market, and all you see is tin roofs for what looks like miles!  It would take days to visit every shop in there.  And we just had a few hours!

I powered up with this delicious breakfast at the hotel.  Not pictured is the made-to-order omelet.  It was delicious. 

 At the market.  And you can't really tell how hot and crowded it was.  And SO MANY stalls of stuff! This is the outside portion.  I don't know if there were multiple outside aisles, or if this was the only one.  I was immediately lost once we went inside and if I hadn't paired up with my friend Julie, I'd never have found my way out!!

One of the entrances to the inside maze.  I took this photo because this was our meeting point.   

A fantastical find I needed to document for Delaney.  So next time she says she's bored, I can hand her a jar of buttons.

 We came out for fresh air and lunch after buying much loot. And this was happening.

All 10 of us at the Market.  We had tasty street vendor fare for lunch and dived back into shopping! 

 This guy was modeling the shirt to give an idea of its size, and so I could text it to Josh to see if he wanted it. Josh said no. But Julie got it for her son.

 I thought this was awesome.  I was pursuing earrings (I may have bought 4 for 100 bhat), and I saw the vendor, being a mom, helping her daughter with her homework.

We shopped till we ran out of money and the ability to carry all the loot.  I was pleased with everything I got.  But alas, I think all of us wished we had gotten more!

This is from the metro walkway.  Traffic is so congested!

Virgin pina colada for dinner.

And look!  I changed it up!  After green curry for lunch, dinner and dinner, I tried out red curry for my last dinner in Thailand! Green is still my favorite.

The adventure ended at 10pm Saturday night.  Mostly.  We took a private van to the airport and had plenty of time to get checked in and to meander to our gate for our 1:45am flight home.

This cool display was in the airport. 

I liked it! 

We arrived in Naha at 8am Sunday morning.  That flight was less awful than I expected, but still pretty dreadful.  Here I am, taking a selfie to send to Dan to let him know I was back in Okinawa and on my way home.  Well.... home once I got my luggage and took the shuttle bus to the terminal so I could drive home....

Thailand, Friday: Everything else

I think we made this stop to break up the drive. And also to check out some cool stuff.  It was a small attraction.  We got to tour a traditional teakwood Thai home and walk though the grounds, where our amazing guide pointed out the different plants that were growing for food.  We learned about the Thai royal family and lots of other random things. It was definitely fascinating! We saw coconut sugar being made as well.

We could climb the coconut tree, but I was not brave enough.  I do not like heights.  Wendy is not afraid of heights!

When you have a million coconut shells, what do you do with them?! Some rather clever things.

This handsome fellow was showing off, so I got a picture for Callie.

End of the tour!  We got a group shot with Pookie, the awesome tour guide.

And I ate the spiciest, yet still delicious, green curry I have ever eaten.

I wanted a night photo of the road.  But the traffic light was wrong for a good traffic picture.  Still pretty though.

And the air quality in Thailand was awful.  Awful enough that school was cancelled on the Friday we were there.  And someone had this fun app that compared it to smoking.  I definitely had a sore throat and gunky lungs from it.  It was bad. 

Thailand, Friday: The Death Railway Museum and The River Kwai

I had never heard of the Death Railway or the River Kwai.  So this was an interesting stop.  The museum was about the railroad that the Japanese decided to build through Thailand down to Burma so that they could better take over the world.  They used PoWs and pressed labor and contracts to build it.

Walking into the museum.

I got so involved in the museum I guess I forgot to take any pictures.

Group photo after the Museum.  

Next to the museum was this cemetery.

They reburied the men who died and had been buried along the route here.

It was really nice.  A good memorial.

I very much enjoyed the gravestones with their epithets.

There were some good ones.

We drove to the River Kwai, which was the starting point for the railway.  

 It is a big tourist spot now. But still neat to visit. 

Group photo I suppose I should document our group....

Liz, Wendy, Anna, Sherrie, Brook, Julie, Brooke, Me, Amy and Noele

Selfie at the river.

My new friend!  But not a very good friend because he wouldn't even deign to lift his head to say hello. (no he wasn't dead, he moved for something else, just not people!)

And yep, the train came through!  There were places to step off to get off the tracks, and the train moved very slowly.

Here it comes. 

 And passing by.

Me on the river. 

the river was beautiful.  And I crossed the entire bridge just to say I could.  then  walked back. 

 And this cracked me up.  There are Tourist Police who's job it is to make sure all is well for the tourists.  These two police in the green uniforms made me laugh because the group of ladies wanted a photo with one of them and the other is taking the photo.  And my friend Julie in the orange there has no idea that was what I was looking at and she thinks I'm just taking a picture of her.