My life just stays busy, what can I say.  I went home from Thailand in June to get ready for our family reunion and work on finishing the addition and remodel.  Jerry came home the end of June and stayed for a month then he told me to stay home and finish the addition so we could be ready to move to Bangladesh in October.  When he left for the next 6 weeks there was no kitchen upstairs and no flooring in any of the upstairs except for the old bedrooms and baths. The 3 bedrooms got new carpet and trim a just before I left for Thailand last spring. The fireplace and ceilings were in place when we tore out all the flooring.

Dining room with family room behind.

Dining, Kitchen, Living to right

Kitchen

Couldn't resist putting this cutie in!
Noemi

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Master shower

Master Bath

 As soon as Jerry left I had knee surgery. Not a big deal part of my bursa was torn it was taken out so I would be able to kneel on it again.  We started with new tile throughout the kitchen, dining, entry ways, and office area.  Then we had new kitchen cabinets installed, since the kitchen was pushed out 2 feet we had the counter tops remodeled.  It was nice not to have to buy new counters and still get extra room in the kitchen. Then the carpet and trim all before Jerry got back 6 weeks later the beginning of Sept.  Now the push to do a refinance so that we could lower our interest rate and get it paid off sooner.

We had Christmas in September and took all the kids and grand kids to California.  Pictures to be added later. Everyone was able to go except Mikes family.  We went to Disney Land, the beaches and sea world.  We had a great time despite the trip home for Jerry to fix the sewer system in the basement that was botched 2 years early but didn't show signs of it until just before Jerry got home. Jerry flew into Salt Lake, picked up my car that was at my sisters house and drove home.  He fixed it and was back down to California the next day.

Jerry and I started the process of moving to Bangladesh as soon as we got home from California.  Physicals in SLC were a joke and we could have had better ones at home but they wanted specific doctors to do them.  We were waiting for the refinance to get finished to leave. It was supposed to be ready to sign on October 8th so Jerry left to go back to work on September 30th.  He signed over power of attorney to me and I was supposed to follow a week later.  Things don't always go as planned and it was a month before I could leave.  I didn't get to Bangladesh until November 9th.

Thanksgiving was a lot different than I thought it would be.  We had planned on going to a family's home but they canceled because there was a going away party for someone.  We were going to go to BFC (Best Fried Chicken) It is decorated just like KFC. They mostly serve spicy fried chicken.  Jerry got a call from a member of the church that is from the US but currently working in Bangladesh and his family is living in Florence Italy.  He was looking for something to do and I had heard that there should be turkey at the Weston hotel so that is where we went.  They did have turkey and cranberry sauce but the rest of the dinner was definitely not a traditional American Thanks giving dinner. This Guys name is David Evertsen. He is a really nice guy and I was glad to have someone else to share thanksgiving with.


Today is December 2nd and we are still in a hotel.  I have had a lot of people ask me what I do all day to stay busy.  Well I have been so busy that this is the first time I have taken to work on my blog.  I have a friend here that invited me over to her house to quilt. I went a lot until she left to go to the US for Thanksgiving.  Other than that I usually get up at 6 and go have breakfast with Jerry then get ready and go exercise then I come back down stairs and I pamper myself more that I have ever taken the time to in my entire life.  I really enjoy having as many minutes as I want to just primp for the day.  I don't forget to take my vitamins or say my prayers.  I have been doing some reading and working on scrapbooks. Besides that the ladies here had a ornament exchange one day. I made this ornament to exchange.  It was one of the coveted gifts. It was really great to get out and meet more people.  They have all been really nice.  they did't know I was even in town until Friday after Thanksgiving.  We went to a craft fair at the American school and I met up with one lady that I met when I was here 4 years ago and before long I had about 10 new numbers in my phone.  Included in the people I met the lady that lives in the floor above me.  Her name is Wendy and she invited me to go shopping with her and another lady one day.  We went back to her house for tea and I made toffee to take to a going away party.  This is my apartment.  There is already a maid that works there and I am thinking I will keep her on.  There is also a little old guy that will come to my apartment and bring all the pots and dirt I want and plant a patio garden for me.  He will keep it watered and make sure the plants get protected from the birds.  All that for $20 a month.  I though I was going to have a lot to do once my stuff gets here but it looks like I will have all the help I need.  Tomorrow, Dec. 3rd I am going to supervise the packing of the guys stuff that is in the apartment that we will be staying in.  As soon as it is clean and any renovations done we will be moving in.  We are hoping it will be a short week.  The hotel is nice because they have all the food and stuff done for you but it would be nice to be in our own place.  Rachel requested some apartment pictures, I guess that is what got me working on this blog so here they are.  I will post new ones once we have all our own stuff in there.

Probably the Master bedroom

Soon to be a sewing room

Kitchen

One of the 4 bathrooms I don't have a good picture of the whole room.

Bedroom to be a office or guest room

The main room

Bedroom we will probaby us a office or guest room

I'm obviously not very good at keeping a journal.  I am working on getting better at it though.  Jerry has to go out of the Thailand then reenter to get a new work visa every 2 weeks.  When I first got to Thailand he had just had a hernia surgery and he wasn't going into the office. Then there was Songkran holiday so he still wasn't going to the office. I had a visitor visa that works for a month. I guess what I am getting at is after being here for a month Jerry and I both had to make a trip out of Thailand then come back in so we would be here legally.  We chose to go to Cambodia (it is pretty close and the tickets are not too much).
We weren't sure if we should go to Phnom Penh or Siem Reap.  Jerry chose Phnom Penh and we had a great trip.  Here are some of the high lights.  When we got there we changed some money over so we wouldn't have any trouble paying for things and that was a mistake.  In Cambodia they don't care if you pay in US dollars.  I think of all the places we have been all over the world this is the first time that the US dollar was used as much as the local currency.
                         

This is how we got around Phnom Penh.  It is called a tuk tuk.  For $20 a day a driver will take you where ever you want to go and he will wait for you while you are there. Then set up an appointment to pick you up in the morning. I just don't know how they can afford to live on that.  The Tuk Tuk is powered by a motorcycle and there were motorcycles all over the place. I would guess there was 1 car for every 4 to 6 cycles well maybe it is more like 1 to 10. The motorcycles are not big they are like the little 90 we had when we were kids.  Or they are like the vespas that are becoming more popular.

 Don't worry if your family doesn't have a car because a vespa can fit several people.  I know! I saw whole familys riding together. No need to strap your kids in either, even if they need a nap you can find a way to sneak that in too. Just make sure they wear a hat so they can keep the sun out of their eyes.

Your family will never out grow your vespa.

I didn't get a good picture of how over whelming it is to have that many motorcycles on the street around you.  I will try next weekend when we go to Seim Reap.  Actually I think it would be a really good idea to have motorcycles for everyone but at the same time I think we would have to have a different road for the cars.  By the way you never have to worry about being stuck in traffic on a motorcycle.  You can drive on the sidewalk if the traffic is too bad.  The other thing that is nice is.... if you are going down a one way street and you need to go the other way you just get on the side and turn around, people won't hit you. In Thailand there are a lot of large buses I don't remember seeing any buses in Cambodia but we did see several vans (mostly mini vans) on the side of the roads loading up with people.  I think it was their mass transit system.

Our tuk tuk driver took us to see the killing fields and a high school that had been converted into a prison during Pol Pot's regime. It was the most sobering piece of history I have ever experienced.  The regime lasted 4 years 8 months during the late 1970's. While I was in high school, I heard bits and pieces about it I am sure but I really had no idea this was taking place.  In less than 5 years 3 million out of 8 million people in Cambodia were killed.  We walked around an area where mass graves (the largest 450 bodies) were found and the stories we listened to on a headset were awful.  I have decided I don't want to be around for the second coming. I just ache with sadness when I think about the anguish some of God's children have lived through.  Somehow I feel that I will be able to deal with all that is going to happen better if I am on the other side. As we walked around the area we could see pieces of fabric, bones and teeth that had surfaced in the walkway since the last time someone had collected them.  A building has been erected that holds the skulls and some of the bones.

There are a couple of things that I have realized while I have been traveling that might not be important to some people but to me they are things that really mean a lot.  The first is: all my life I have been taught that I am a child of God and that he loves me. My testimony of this grows stronger every day.  It is not just for me.  All these people I meet and get to know just a little bit are also God's children. Each of them really have the same goals, wants and needs.  They all want to be happy and they want their family to be happy. I think everyone I have ever met feels like their family is important.  They all seek to have happy family things happening. There are only a few people in the world that have agenda's that don't involve their family.  It is those few like Pol Pot that try to take our happiness away.  People all over the world are good, friendly, and   they want good things.

Another thing I really realize is how blessed I am to have grown up in America.  I can say the main reason I am feeling this way today is because I can't speak 2 languages.  I have been in several different countries in my lifetime and in each there have always been people that I could talk to in my native tongue.  The first time I came to Thailand I thought I was seeing quite a few Americans but as I listened or tried to talk to some of them I found out that I was seeing a lot of people that look like they could be American.  Most of them are Russian.  As we were taking a 10 bot down the road the other day a family got on with us.  They were Russian, the father was quick to show off his little boy and speak to us in English.  The pride in his voice for his little boy and his knowledge of the United States was evident in his enthusiasm.  Again I was reminded that: we all want the same things in our lives.  And I am blessed to be an American.  

Can you read the sign?? I can and I didn't have to learn a new language in order to do it.

Our Tuk Tuk driver also took us to a prison that was made from a high school.  During his regime Pol Pot eliminated education because he felt like only the elite would need knowledge.  There were thousands of pictures of prisoners displayed and some pretty awful pictures of torture.  One 20' X 20' room had wall to wall people shackled at the ancles.  Heads to the walls on two sides then feet to feet and head to head in the middle of the room.  So there would be a row of maybe 18 people with their head to the wall, ankles shackled, the next row had their ankles shackled with the first row.  Their heads were next to the heads of the 3rd row and their feet were shackled with the feet of the 4th row who's heads were against the next wall.  So over 100 people in one room.

These two buildings are the High School/Prison

All in all we had a great visit for two days.  There were 10 monkeys climbing around our hotel.  The hotel had been doing some renovations to their water supply because the monkeys were getting into it and causing havoc. The monkeys came down off the roof and they were taking fruit from a little spirit house where the local people had put their fruit (part of a religious ritual). This coming weekend we will be going back to Cambodia. This time to Seim Reap where there are lots of ancient ruins.

I saw almost all of my Grand children today on Skype and I loved every minute.  I promised to put pictures of the Spiracha zoo so they could see what I saw, so here they are.

Elephant on tight rope.

Showing off on the tight rope

Songkran Festival

So I'm not so good at writing maybe I'll just plan on starting slow.  We just experienced Thailand's New Year celebration and what a celebration!!! I've never seen anything like it in my life.  The holiday lasts for longer than a week.  It starts in Bangkok and moves through the country.  From what I hear there are certain areas in Bangkok that are blocked off and the celebration consists of huge water fights.

We were told that the celebrations would start in Bangkok and move through the country to different cities.  On the 6th day the celebrations were to be in Pattaya where the celebration encompasses the whole city.  What actually happened was starting on day one, when we went out people were walking around with squirt guns and familys were loaded in the back of trucks with a barrel of water and buckets. Anyone that looked like they might be hot got wet.   This picture was taken in the back of what we call a 10 baht truck.  These trucks drive up and down on one road and you can flag one down, jump on and ride until you want to get off then you pay the driver 10 baht. It's 10 baht as long as you stay on the same road.  You can see how wet you might get in the back of one of these when someone with a bucket of water drives by.   Or if you drive by someone with a hose.

This picture is kind of hard to see because my camera was in a ziplock bag. On the left is another 10 baht truck and in the middle a truck full of a family throwing water.  I guess I should mention that the water wasn't limited to squirt guns and buckets.  There were water hauling trucks with hoses, fire trucks and fire hydrants opened up.  We are staying in the Marriott, next door is an Irish pub called Diceys. Diceys has an agreement with the Marriott and  it was the designated place to hang out if you are a hotel guest or employee. On the 19th Diceys went all out.... they put a stage out on the sidewalk, Huge speakers and plenty of hoses. Anyone that wanted to could go stand on the stage and spray down the traffic. The music started early in the morning and continued until midnight. In the video below I was sitting at Dicey's filming the action.  I was far enough back that I didn't have to bag my camera.

In the video you can see people coming up and smearing the faces of the girls with something.  This is a soy powder mixed with water.  The paste is thrown at people and smeared on faces.  It gets everywhere.  You will see cars parked with paste all over them and the 10 baht trucks have been rubbed down. The paste isn't  too bad when they first put it on your face, kind of gritty.  As it dries it doesn't feel so good and it feels good to get sprayed down to get it off.  Actually this is the hottest time of the year and it has been extremely hot so it felt good to get sprayed just to cool off.  It was just annoying when we wanted to go shopping or out to dinner and were drenched before we got there.  Then if we went into an air conditioned restaurant we were freezing while we tried to eat. I asked one of the hotel girls what the paste symbolized thinking there must be some deep meaning to it and she said it was an excuse for people to touch each other.  Someone else told me that they used it in ancient times at weddings too.  It is hard to say if there is any deep meaning to the paste.  The water was used to pour over the Buddha. It still is today.  You will see little ceremonial places set up along the streets and on the grounds of the hotels.  People go there to pour water over the Buddha and place flowers and fruit.

Jerry left for the day,  I could call him chicken but he really did need to go get a work permit so he could continue working.  After all that is why we are here.  He flew to Malaysia, spent the day in the airport, and came home late that night.  I met up a really nice girl that works at the hotel. We walked down the beach road that was closed to traffic.  Most of the celebration is along the beach road which is blocked off from traffic. It was crazy, packed with people, venders, squirt guns, bands, food............We walked quite a ways down the road and met with some other hotel staff and another hotel guest.  We ended up at a shopping mall right next to to hotel on the beach road.

In the video you can see a guy holding a bucket.  There were little drink stands set up, they are like a cart with bike wheels.  They could wheel them where ever the action is at the time.  They just filled your bucket with your favorite drink, ice, and straws and away you went.  There was a lot of drinking, dancing, etc going on.  I can't say what was happening all over the city because I only went out on 2 streets (the one in front of the hotel, and the beach street behind the hotel). It was crazy whereever I went. The video shows a bubble machine pouring bubbles out on the crowd.  People on the stage have a hose spraying down the crowd and at the end of the video along comes a fire truck on the other side of the street and hit the crowd from the rear.    

Well I think I have done enough writing for one day.  I have figured out a lot about posting pictures and videos along my way today.  It has been a busy day. If you have questions or the video doesn't work post them on here.  I did the two videos in different formats so I'm not sure if they will both work or not.

Let's get started!

Here I am in Thailand and starting a new chapter in my life.  I am not really sure what to write about but I know I want to get started with some sort of history and I want my kids to know me better.  I thought this might be a easy way to get going.