Settling in

Happy New Year!!!

(Jesse & Trent)

We had a fun New Years; we had a babysitter for the kids so out on the island we went. Trent and I went for dinner with a couple from Finland and with our Canadian friend Jesse, his wife Dow and her sister. Also joining us was… (excuse me) but a rude know it all American, joy to be around guy.. ( we have many great American friends but this guy gives Americans a bad rap) For some reason 🙂 he did not spend the whole night with us..

For dinner we had a dinner that Trent enjoyed; ribs, chicken, steak, potato salad and deviled eggs.. yummy and FREE if you can believe it. The catch is: food is so cheap here so this Swiss guy offers a free buffet and he makes his money on the drinks.. He made good coin that night… for the people who received late night phone calls you know what I mean…right honey

We headed to Patong on the west side of the island; from our house it takes about 30min. This is party central for Phuket. I was the driver and it was crazy just trying to drive down the street and find parking.

Found a parking space to squeeze into and headed to the main strip of Patong. The noise was so loud I was concerned that the kids would hear it, and wake up scared. There were fireworks lighting up the sky and so many people on the streets. Trent estimated about 4-5 thousand on this one road. Firecrackers were going off everywhere with people running in all directions to not get caught in them. There were a few moments Trent and I didn’t know where to run to as there were blasts going off on either side of us. The picture here is the street and alot of firecracker debris. I took this picture right around midnight, you could not even see the street when we left around 2:30am.

It was completely crazy! The group of us headed to a club to play some pool and listen to some good music. The clubs here have back rooms where girls dance in bathing suits and they have numbers on them. If a suitor so chooses he writes the number on a piece of paper and she is then brought to the suitor for a meeting… Very interesting… Jodie and Jackie would know…

I have seen my fare share of girlyboys. Some are so obvious, they do not make beautiful woman yet others you almost can not tell the difference. Girlyboys for those who do not know are basically transvestites or they have had a full sex change. Trent and Jesse went and talked to a group of dancers just so Trent could hear them talk in there very deep voices, wild is all I can say.

Trent was starting to fade late in the night so we hit a pizza joint and made our way home. After I drove our babysitter home I finally laid my head down on my pillow at 3:30am and the nice wife I am I let my husband sleep until 10:30am the next morning… I am saving up my brownie points..haha.. I have a shopping trip coming up soon..

Emma and I headed back to the dentist. The hospital caters to expats and it is very nice. Emma’s dentist is wonderful, she loves Emma. Emma’s back teeth are spaced very close together and she has a few fillings. In Calgary the dentist wanted close to one thousand dollars to fill five cavities. We filled two at home and I was sick at the cost. Here we had three filling and sealants put on her teeth for $60.00can. Em’s dentist went to school for six years in Hong Kong and specializes in children. It still amazes me how the world is so small in ways and in others eg (healthcare) we are worlds apart. You have to love the splash guard glasses. Em you look cute xoxo

My check up and cleaning cost me $25.00. When you park in the parking lot at the hospital a golf cart picks you up to drive you to the entrance which is about 200 feet away. Talk about service.. The hospital is very clean and very efficient; Canada could learn a thing or two.

The kids are doing great. They are going to a Montessori based kids club. It’s not a certified school but a great place for them to play with other kids and do some activities for stimulation. They are going three mornings a week which still gives us our time at the pool and beach.

Our little fish are always in the water. Everett amazes us everyday, he now kicks and swims on this own with water wings. It is a lot of fun with the kids, Emma and Easton are jumping off a ledge that is about 12 feet high, it’s great.

Easton likes searching for frogs around our place much to my dismay. We also have a pet gecko in the house somewhere. I saw it one night and we have not seen it since, maybe Easton can catch that for me also..

There is another family in our compound that have six kids from American, they home school their kids while they are here. Great bunch of kids.

For all of us who were at the lake this summer and Jodie so kindly assisted in helping with the removal of the hair follicles on my legs…. well I had almost the same experience again here in Thailand. It took this woman over two hours, I was grinding my teeth. However my legs are nice and smooth now…

I found a lady who is our one stop Thailand Booster Juice for $1.25/shake. It is great all fresh fruit and it all comes in my portable bag. Trent would not try it the first time because he thought it looked like vomit, it tastes great though… The only tricky part of this shake is driving on the left side of the road with a shake in a bag. Makes for an interesting drive home, but I wear my seatbelt 🙂

I want to say to our friends the Drews.. Have a great time in Disneyland and take lots of pictures.. who am I kidding of course Jodie will takes hundreds…

Our prayers go to Linda Day and her team that are now on their way to Africa for a month long mission. All the best Linda and look forward to hearing from you when you get a chance.

Congratulations to Bryan & Bonnie Whelpley they are expecting their second bundle joy. Madison will be a big sister in July.

Also congrates to Rob & Tori Richards who are expecting their second and awaiting the results ( could be twins). Jaymee will be two in May.

Jennifer Newman, thanks for dropping us a line, its was wonderful to hear from you. I hope you guys all had a great New Years at Bakers. The kids said to say “Hi to Jax please”..

Here is picture of Everett saying “baby” to Thomas, he is such a cutie. I opened the picture and Ev was all over it. Thomas is Harry & Ginger Andersen’s little man.

I sign off with some pictures of Trent and I out one night for a few cocktails. Now that gramma is in heaven she knows (haha, family) Trent loves his girly drinks!

This is a Jamaican restaurant over looking Kata beach and is prime property. The view of the sunset is breathtaking. We had a really great night here and the food was delicious, nice and spicy like we like it. We are having a great time and appreciating every moment we have. Life is short and we intend to live it up!!

We have many plans in the weeks to come. I was getting quite stressed out seeking out childcare and Trent and I want to head out exploring a few other places around Thailand that are not so conducive to children.

Some of you know Ms. Melody from Sunshine playschool or the lady who few years ago came to Mexico with us to help with the kids. Melody has been house-sitting for us and now her sister will take her place watching Monty. Melody will be here next week and we are excited to have her and the kids are counting down the days for her arrival.

I am really excited because Melody is wonderful with the kids and the kids adore her. I have complete trust in Melody and I feel very comfortable leaving her with the kids for a few days here and there while we check out some surrounding islands. This will be Melody’s first time to Thailand and she is very excited about coming.

So I promise my blogs will get more exciting once she comes and we do what we do best. Explore, live it up and of course take pictures!!

Auntie Pat thank you for printing these off for Ken, I love and miss you Ken and I think about you all the time. Xoxoxooxox all my love…

I want to say a BIG thank you to Tom for making our stomach muscles sore. We sure do get a good laugh when we read your blogs, thank you…

Now we finally have a faster internet at home which is wonderful, until today it has seemed like we were back in the stone ages of computers on s-l-o-w dial up connection. Love hearing from everyone and glad to hear all the wonderful stories about Christmas and New Years.

I hope you all have made your new years resolutions and are sticking to them…

p.s. One thing I forgot to mention. We have been shopping and keep finding “skin whitener” we have been told the people like for their skin to look as white as possible. If you are tanned it means you do manual labour and you are not of higher class. I would say Easton is royalty and the rest of us are slaving away…

p.s.s Also it has been brought to my attention that some of you don’t know you can read or leave a message on the blog. Under each of my individual updates you will see a line that says “comments” you can click on this link and read what others have wrote and leave a message yourself. We love reading these…

Until next time. All our love …
Jody