Our Last Day

Today is our last day here before we start our couple days of travel back home. We are definitely going to miss the friends we have made and the friends we already knew but got to know better. Keely will definitely miss her little friends! She has had so much fun playing with them! Keely will also miss our helper. Keely doesn't always warm up quickly to people, especially Asians, probably because they are always touching her and trying to pick her up. Our helper would come when Keely would be taking a nap and then we would get her up so she could clean Keely's room. (I was normally at class, but this is what Jacob tells me) Keely will just follow her all over the apartment until she leaves and I guess she actually wouldn't let her put her down yesterday!! When someone like that finds a place in Keely's heart, it is hard for all of us to say good-bye!!

Our friends will be traveling with us tomorrow morning for the 3-hour drive to the capital of the province. We will be meeting up with some other friends there and are hoping the hotel is having a Thanksgiving dinner we can partake in. It sounds like they did last year, so we'll see if they are this year! Then we will fly out early in the morning to BJ, where hopefully weather permitting, we will have most of the day to shop and go eat at Peter's Tex-Mex (YUM!). Then that evening back on a plane heading for Bangkok, where hopefully a couple hours later we will be met up with by my mom and aunt! The next morning we will all head to Chiang Mai! Fun times!!

Life will be crazy busy and hectic once we get home...both Jacob and I will have to dive into AGM planning (after my mom and aunt leave of course)...so it may be awhile until we post more. But hopefully not!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!

Treasure Hunt

Keely has always enjoyed pulling toys out of a bag or a bucket and then putting them back in. Last night when I came home from class, I just dropped my purse by the door without zipping it back up. A little while later, Keely started coming to us with "treasures" she would find in my purse...it was mainly money at first though the game ended when she found my Ipod and lipstick! So, this morning I am on the computer and she is playing when she comes up to me and gives me a crisp bill and I was like where did you find this? So, of course in 1-year-old fashion she toddles back where she had found it and she had opened the drawer where we have been keeping our money and passports. So, I locked the drawer (and kept the keys in the lock) and went back to the computer. A few minutes later she brings me one of the little red books, which are not just laying around, so I'm like Keely where did you find this? I discover the stack she found and went to put them in the locked drawer but the keys are gone now! So, Keely had to help me find where she had put the keys...then I put the keys where only I can reach them now!! Fun times!!!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

It's snowing! I would like to declare a snow day, but then I have to cancel class. Hmmmm what to do? Though the lack of taxis outside might help make up my mind!!

In High School...

...I was on the speech and debate team and did 2-man policy debate. Every 3 or 4 years they would choose a foreign policy for us to debate that year. My sophomore year it was China and people chose just about any topic you could ever imagine that had to do with China. Traveling around this area has been really interesting, especially when I think about the different things we studied and debated.

When you debate, you have to take notes really fast while you are also preparing to speak (we called it flowing). Our coach taught us what I thought was a shorthand way to write down China to save time. Our language books has both the characters and the pinyin in it and something made me look at the character above the word China and I discovered that we had really been using the Chinese character for China. Everyone else may have realized this, but I didn't realize it until like 10 years later!! HA HA!! While I'm being nostalgic...(and I'm showing what a geek I was in high school) the debaters all spun their pins over their thumbs (I could never learn how to do it) but my language teacher does it, which made me want to laugh really hard the day I realized it!!

Okay, enough down memory lane! Just something I wanted to share! HA HA!

Walk, walk, walk...

I know I keep saying this, but it just keeps amazing me how Keely just enjoys walking and it doesn't matter what she is doing as long as it contains walking! Our friends make a tunnel on their couch for their kids to crawl through, and Keely thought it was fun for a time or two but her attitude was pretty much why would you crawl when you can walk! I was trying to figure out why her clothes seemed more cute when I realized I was seeing them in the vertical position now!!

Since it is pretty cold here, Keely can't enjoy her dress too much but we can't resist once in awhile!

This straw cup leaks when it is poured straight down like Keely is demonstrating. I took these pictures when Jacob wasn't home and when he saw the picture for the first time he gasped! Then he magnified the cup and we could see a trickle of water coming out of the cup to the floor! Now I do remember hurrying to take the picture so I could clean up her mess. She does look like she is having fun pouring the water out though!!

Trip to the Capital

At about our halfway point, around 3 weeks ago we took a weekend trip to the capital of our province. The trip seemed to come at a really good time, because it was nice to get away and be able to buy some things we couldn't buy here. The trip takes 3 hours by bus and Jacob woke Keely up early from her nap and they picked me up at McDonald's where I have language and off to the bus station we went. This was our first trip around this country (and we both have traveled quite a bit) where we had a better grasp on what was going on around us language wise!

The main reason for our trip was so Jacob could help some folks with computer issues. We did eat at Subway several times and went to Metro (a Sam's like store) and bought cheese, spread butter and spaghetti sauce! Those were nice finds (I was getting tired of microwaving the butter before we could spread it)!

We only took a few pictures of Keely in the room on our trip though. Keely is more clingy when we travel and so when Jacob was getting ready in the bathroom she wanted to keep her eye on him. So, I set her up in front of the bathroom with a bowl of animal crackers, her milk and some toys.

Jacob and I couldn't believe who we thought we saw in Keely in this picture. Does anyone else see it? (Hint: you will need to know our families to guess who we are thinking of, but you may see someone different) I do think when her hair is like this she looks like she has a haircut from out of the 70's (especially from the side view)!

"Oh, is that how you do your hair Dad?"

Happy Birthday Sara!

Today is Sara's 28th Birthday. I can't tell you all how blessed I am to be married to such a wonderful woman! Happy Birthday Sara, I love you!