Happy Birthday my beautiful Daughter!

It seems hard to believe that today you are celebrating another birthday. It's been 27 years since you made your speedy entrance into the world, crying at the top of your lungs before you were even totally born. From the start you were my sunshine girl, content to sit for hours on end in the playpen as long as your big brother or sister were around so you could watch. I cherished every moment, knowing you would most likely be our last baby and you rewarded me with smiles, smiles and more smiles.

After graduation from High School, you followed your big brother and sister to a little bible school in Texas and it was there when we came for a visit that you hopped out of a truck and introduced us to this cowboy we could hardly understand! 

Instead of coming back to Canada you now call Texas home, and your love for animals and the great outdoors make it seem like almost a perfect place for you. I often have to chuckle because I see myself in you(who wants to stay inside when you can be outside?!)

God has given you and Darin two beautiful little girls, and you are an awesome and amazing mother! Thank you for making time in your busy weeks to skype with us so we can get to know them too even though you live in far away Texas.

I love watching you interact with them, and we check your blog several times a day for updates! Thanks for giving us a window into their lives so we can watch them grow up.

As you said at Christmas, you are being 'southernized'.....your girlies have ribbons and bows, fancy dresses and tights! Who knew that our tomboy had that in her? I wish that we could be there with you today in person, to treat you to a birthday dinner and celebrate together. Thankfully we will be there soon though...so for today have a wonderful Birthday and we will see you soon!

We welcome the world to Vancouver! Go Canada Go!

It's hard to believe that this day has finally arrived! The Winter Olypmics opening ceremony is happening right now as I type!

It is so exciting to think that the Olympics are right here, well in the big city anyway! It's only an hour away!

I remember watching the Olympics as a little girl -- skiing, figure skating, ski jumping, hockey -- any one of them was worth watching on CTV's Wide World of Sports(used to come at 4:30 pm on Saturday afternoons and I worked hard to get my work done so I could sit down and watch).

So here we are....welcoming the world to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada!!! Go Canada Go!! As always I will be watching enthusiastically and addictively(is that a word?!). In our family we just love watching the Olympics every two years...but this year it is different because we will recognize the city that is showcasing the world!

Flowers of Thailand

The first time I was in Thailand we went to an Orchid Farm and it was so neat to see orchids just growing around the hotel and the city. I just had to share some pictures of them with you!

There were other flowers too....I remember these from my trip to the Philippines.(I don't have a clue what they are called! Anyone out there know?)

There was Bougainvillea everywhere...all different colors!

The Thai people do interesting things with flowers....like floating them in a planter! Who knew?!

These aren't flowers but they were in a 'bed' in front of the hotel and I couldn't get over them.... these bushes were manicured into elephants, peacocks, rabbits and turtles!!

With the heat and high humidity everything grows really fast. I can't imagine how many times each year these have to be trimmed to keep them looking so neat and tidy!

Memorable Moments

There are so many pictures but I wanted to just post a few of my most memorable moments......after Karen and I led our session, we were presented with coconut drinks. It was delicious!

It was so fun to take Dave back to the Grand Palace!

Having some fun with Karen.....

The Dinner Cruise down the river was definitely memorable!

It was so neat to see the Grand Palace by night from the river.

I took loads of pictures as we went underneath the tension bridge!

  So many wonderful memories...definitely a week to remember!

Getting Around Bangkok

As I looked at our pictures again tonight this one made me smile! I love swimming and the hotel we stayed in had a great pool that was mostly unused! Except by me.....I managed to fit in a swim 3 afternoons while we were there and it was fun to look out over the city from here.(it was on the 14th floor of our hotel)

Getting around Bangkok means traffic, and lots of it! Sometimes it moves fast, but other times it hardly moves at all which gave rush hour a brand new meaning!

I loved sitting by the window in the van as we drove thru the city. This particular day I couldn't believe my eyes....there amongst the booths along the sidewalk sat an older lady on her Singer sewing machine, just like the ones my grandmother and mother had! You just never know what you are going to see.

The taxis are all in bright colors, like bright blue, green, yellow & green, and pink!! I couldn't resist taking a picture!

Another evening the Thai staff treated us to a Dinner Cruise down the river. To get to the boat we had to take the subway, the skytrain, transfer to another skytrain, then take a water taxi like the one below before arriving on our boat of choice.

It was definitely worth it as we cruised down the river and enjoyed good food, great company and an awesome lightshow all around us!

But probably the mode of transportation that I think of most when I think of getting around Bangkok is the scooters! They are everywhere and you can even find motorcycle taxis.  People transport everything from computers to microwaves on the back of these scooters! I loved this gal all dressed up for work!(and yes, it is law that if a woman rides a motorcycle taxi she MUST ride side-saddle!

To Thailand and Back

This past week we literally flew to Thailand and back! Crazy I know but we were on a ministry trip and for the first time, Dave travelled with me to Thailand, the land of the smile!(Thai means 'smile' in their language). We left last Sunday and tonight we are back at home(not sure what time zone we are in, but we are back!)

One of the things that I remembered from my previous two trips was the elephants of all sizes everywhere!!! But this three-headed elephant was the biggest I have ever seen....it weighs more than 200 tons!!! You can see from the buildings around it how high it stood above the city skyline.

We passed the elephant on our way to have dinner with our old friends, Ken and Grace, who are now teaching English in Bangkok. We were soooo excited that we were going to get to visit with them! Here Grace is standing in what she calls her 'Barbie kitchen'! No stove, no running water(even though the sink has a tap), but showing us great hospitality just the same by having us over for dinner.

Ken and Grace live in a 2 room apartment which was a great reminder to us that life really isn't about things, but about being where God wants us and loving one another. Thanks so much for opening your home to us and giving us a dinner to remember! It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!

Special Visitors

Last week we had two very special visitors!! What fun it was to have Heather and Kai fly down for the week.

Kai had changed so much in the month since we had seen him. He doesn't hate 'tummy-time' anymore, and even enjoys it for a few minutes at a time anyway.

We have a lot of baby paraphenalia including a high chair and exersaucer and it all came in very handy this week. Kai loves being upright, whether sitting up or standing .....so much fun!

Kai has the most amazing big brown eyes....we had fun doing a couple of 'photo shoots' with him this week.I love his expression in this picture.

Friday morning my sister and mom came out for coffee, and Megs and the boys joined us. Kai had fun playing with Ev and Megan.

On Saturday we took some pictures of Kai in his Canucks jersey in honor of Hockey Day in Canada! Who wouldn't love this smiley little boy. And I am sure that his cheering helped the Canucks come back and beat Toronto.....Go Team!!!

Thanks for the great week!! See you again real soon we hope!