Hi Friends and Family - due to the slow speed of photo upload on blogger, we now send our photos to people via picassa. If you have not been receiving our photos and you would like to, please send an email and let us know! We will most likely put a few of our favorite pics here on blogger and write about them, but if you want to see more, just ask. We hope you are all having a wonderful 2010. We will go to Nepal in April with Mark and Gwen, and then to Colorado this summer for a visit. We will spend some of late July in Europe, before returning to Bangkok for a third year.

Kiwi Land

FRESH WATER EELS!

We have to post some of our amazing shots from this summer. Yes, our blog will be out of chronological order, but we will go back and fill in someday! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy some or our summer of 2009 photos. Our trip to New Zealand was full - we traveled all around the North Island and loved the wonderful family time. It is a trip that we will always remember......

Trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In February I went to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, also known as Saigon, for and Understanding by Design conference given by Jay McTyghe and hosted by Saigon South International School.  Fellow 5th grade teacher Dan D. and I created a new Fantasy unit at the conference.  Pictures that follow include street scenes in Ho Chi Minh City, including the backpackers hotel region where we stayed for $11.00 bucks American a night, street vendors, some of the 3 million motor bikes in the city, a rehabilitation center for physically impaired local that sold fine arts, pictures from the war remembrance museum, and shots from the Cu Chi tunnel area 45 minutes outside of Saigon.  Nothing like being in a pitch black tunnel, no lights, no chance to turn around, and B-52's carpet bombing ten feet above you.  OK, so the B-52's were either a singing group or were in my history books.  Pretty amazing stories of survival and sacrifice abound in this region.  The tunnel pictures shown were from the more touristic places to visit.  We went into a couple of tunnels that were much smaller, and totally dark.

CINDERELLA

Guess what Isabel was in the play, Cinderella.....After the show with our Mae Bahn (which means "House Mother" in Thai - in other words, our helper) Khun Long and our friend, Joom.

Khao San Road

A funky tourist area with lots of craziness and tons of Thai whatever.....  

A very local beach

A bucketful of creatures! 

 

C J's 7th birthday (February 2nd)

CJ celebrated at school with cupcakes. His classmates sang the "Happy Birthday" song in 10 different languages.  He also had a bug party at our house, complete with bug hunts and swimming.