Slices of Life in Paradise: April

By the time April rolled around, we were starting to feel settled in, more comfortable with the rhythms of life in a new place. We still did lots of fun things and got out to do touristy things, but we did a lot of normal things too--family games, neighborhood walks, lots and lots of swimming in the neighborhood pool, and school and church activities. Here are some highlights.

 

Young Man went on a campout with his scout trip to a mountain up north near the border of Burma. They enjoyed a great bon fire the first night, then went on a 10-mile hike the next day.

We are so grateful for such a great scout troop here.

 

Lots of evenings, as the sun is going down, we head to the neighborhood pool where My Man and I swim laps and the kids play. It's probably my favorite part of Thailand.

If I am lucky, as I'm handwashing the dishes, I will look out and see this cute little guy running up the tree outside. His bright blue head surprises me and makes me smile every time.

The consulate put on a party to celebrate Songkran (Chiang Mai's water celebration) a few days early. The kids had a blast waterfighting with everyone.

Even better, they had a watermelon eating contest. The kids all competed enthusiastically with Young Man beating even all the adults! Darling Daughter and Funny Guy were right behind him.

After the watermelon eating contest, there were other games including wet tug-o-war and lawn skiing (harder than it looks!).

Another Consulate activity was a behind-the-scenes trip to the Chiang Mai zoo for Wildlife Conservation month.

After a meeting with the zoo president and several scientists who shared information about the zoo's conservation efforts, we climbed on a zoo trolley to see the animals. We got to see the zoo's two pandas, some endangered chivets, and the sunbears.

We also stopped by the elephants on our way and got the kids got to feed and pet them.

On our way out we stopped to use the restroom where we found this gem. Funny Guy pointed and exclaimed, "They don't look like they are in a happy room!!"

The boys were excited to receive a few more birthday presents as the mail caught up to us over here. One of them was a solar robot they got to put together.

They enlisted My Man's help, which resulted in a side project of sorting through all his tools. How many screwdrivers does one man need?  Not this many!!!

I guess that's what happens when you move a lot and stuff keeps getting put in storage. But at least he had the tools he needed to successfully make an awesome solar robot.

Funny Guy was extremely excited!  And he also lost another tooth!

Another exciting thing that happened near the end of April is that My Man's foot stopped hurting so much. It's still not back to 100% but we started going on a few neighborhood walks. Perfect timing. The flowers are absolutely amazing. Here are just two examples.

Another project we finally had some time for was sewing. Darling Daughter has been wanting to get her sewing machine out since it arrive and finally talked me into it. She's a natural and is working on an apron for our housekeeper. It's almost done. 

And before we knew it, another month in paradise was over and a new one was ready to be filled with new adventures.