Pictures!

Hey guys!

We have posted all of our trip pictures and videos thus far on my Google Plus account. You can view them by clicking on the link below. We will update it regularly.

Our Trip Pictures

Stop Go with the Kids

Interesting Street Vendor Items

We will have a formal day update later!

-Isaac

Friday: Frenzied Fun

Hello from warm and sunny Bangkok! Today it is Susan's turn to write the blog update.

Andy insisted that we needed to get up at a decent hour today and avoid napping to push through the worst parts of jet lag and time zone confusion for our bodies. We trusted him, so although we did not get to bed until well after 4:30 AM Friday morning, we tried to rise and shine at 9AM this morning. Well, ok, there was not much shining, but rise we did. Poor Andy and his friend Lamb were kindly waiting to meet us on our delayed flight at the airport, so none of us got much sleep. We hope to make up for it tonight.

Today we got the short version of the "2 things to never do in Thailand" lecture ( we will tell you those later upon request. Right now I can only remember one of them. I am sure that is no big deal, right?) and had a chance to ask our ignorant questions about important things like drinking water and toilets. Next we took our first showers since Chicago (ugh) and were then whisked off to a very fancy lunch with "the Doctors" who are the pastors of the Muang Thai Church. Isaac took lots of photos of this place, which was surrounded by beautiful gardens and fountains and featured very fresh seafood. Some of us took the hot pepper challenge; some of us lived to regret that decision (Isaac paid the price for his pride). I opted to push those little fiery peppers aside since the food was already hot enough to keep my nose and eyes running without biting directly into a whole pepper.

After lunch, the kids and Jen walked to the local bank to exchange some money and take a look around. Meanwhile, I joined Andy's afternoon English class. 5 elementary students came in for their English lesson with Andy after school. We practiced English prepositions by playing several games. These kids took the challenge seriously, racing across the floor, even throwing an elbow if that is what it took to win. At one point, they took turns giving me directions: Stand next to the chair. Stand in front of the chair. Sit on the chair. Stand on the chair! I obligingly did as directed. Sadly for you, dear reader, there is no video evidence of this.

We walked over to Big C,(Jen and Andy call it the Walmart of Bangkok), in the evening for a quick supper. Surprisingly in Bangkok, most people do not cook at home; it is simpler and cheaper to eat from street vendors than it is to cook for yourself. Also most Thai people do not have kitchens with stoves as we do. Jen and Andy recently purchased a new stove and oven and have been cooking for friends and neighbors, which is a rare and unusual thing to do around here. We plan to do some serious cooking tomorrow for the 2 Christmas parties we will be helping with. Jen was excited about some of the Christmas treats we brought with us to share. Andy was glad to see the beef jerky-something I noticed on their webpage as something hard to find here.

The church building reminds me a lot of Ernesto's church building in Saltillo, for those of you who remember that building. This building has more floors (5 I think), is cinder block and concrete and has many things going on during the day. Yes, there is a roof and Reuben and Jude have promised to take us up there soon for roof races. Isaac and Caleb are sleeping on the 3rd floor in a small apartment. Hillary, April and I are sleeping in Jude and Reuben's school room in Jen and Andy's apartment on the 4th floor.

Everyone started fading promptly after supper. I may be the oldest one here, and I am pretty certain I got the least amount of sleep on the trip, but I am the only one still awake at 9PM tonight. Does that mean I am the strongest or that I am not as good at sleeping away from my own bed? Maybe it is both!

We closed the day out by playing Jude and Reuben's favorite pre-bedtime game: Stop/Go. This involves turning on some music and dancing crazily around the kitchen table. It reminded me of my own kids' preschool years, racing around the dining room table and making our own fun at home. Yes, I am afraid there IS video evidence of our Stop/Go revelries!

Tomorrow will be very busy and we expect to meet many children as we share Christmas Eve with them. Please pray we recover from jet lag quickly and that our bodies adjust to the unusual food and water. We will keep the pictures and the updates coming as best we can. It promises to be the most unusual Christmas Eve ever for us!

Susan

We're in Japan!

Hey everyone!

We thought we would give a brief update on our trip's progress. So far we have had a really great time together. We all enjoyed a nice night at the hotel eating Giordanos pizza before getting up at 4AM to catch our first flight. So far we have had absolutely no problems getting through security and getting seats and everything on the planes. For the record, flying is not like a roller coaster. For the most part, you forget that you're on a plane once you're up in the air, unless there is turbulence (there was a TON on the way to Narita).

On the way to Seattle, we got to watch a movie and almost right after the movie was done, the clouds below cleared up and we got to look at some incredible mountains and scenery as we neared Seattle. We'll post pictures soon. :) Almost all of our trips have been shorter than anticipated, which gave us more breathing room for layovers. The flight from Seattle to Tokyo was really long, but they gave us two meals, snacks, unlimited drinks, and played movies. April and I were stuck in the middle section of the plane for this part of the trip, but we flew over parts of Alaska, the Bering Sea, and got pretty close to Russia. Turns out that I am not a big fan of 10+ hour flights.

Right now, we are in Narita International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. I still can't believe I'm out of the country, let alone in JAPAN! When our plane landed, we were all very concerned about how much time we would have to get through airport security and to get to wherever the next gate would be. Luckily, our flight got delayed by a few hours so we got some time to enjoy our time in Japan. April has especially enjoyed this, because she has hosted several students from Japan and has also studied Japanese for a very long time.

In a few hours we will be catching our final flight to Bangkok, where we will be picked up by Andy and then we can get some real sleep. It will be around 2AM when we get to the church, which will be about 2PM Indianapolis time. Talk about jetlag!

We will update again once we have all had some rest!

-Isaac

More Travel Prep

We're about 30 mins away from heading to the church for our send off to Chicago. April is here and is helping Hillary pack the Christmas goodies packed into our checked luggage. Can't wait to hit the road!

Travel Preparations!

Normally on a day off I would still be in bed hooked up to my CPAP machine, sleeping and enjoying a stress free morning. Everyone except Mom was up and about packing for the trip this morning. Hard to believe 24 hours from now I will be flying for the West Coast on the first leg of our trip. Prepping for a full day of flying isn't easy as any world traveler can tell you. Helping prep your brother and sister for their first time flying as well as their first time traveling to another country outside Canada isn't easy either. Getting there will certainly be a challenge, even for me and Mom who have traveled internationally prior to tomorrow. Mom has visited Mexico several times and was fortunate to visit Honduras on a Medical Humanitarian mission. I to have been to Mexico and was very lucky to fly to the UK to visit London in 2007. Despite all that our family has experienced so far, our biggest challenge will be getting thru the language barrier. Thai is not only a Tonal language, but also doesn't use the Western Latin style lettering that our Family is used to reading in English, Spanish, and French. Luckily Bangkok is a very popular tourist destination for Western travelers so that will help out for us.

I can't remember seeing the house this crazy with all of us busy preparing for the trip, Isaac is editing video footage for us to present to the Muang Thai Church congregation, Hillary is packing clothes, I'm trying to juggle writing this blog post, prepping my CPAP machine for the airport, tagging my bags, holding the mail, and whatever else Mom thinks of that requires the computer. It's also pretty messy, I admit I'm a bit of a slacker but there are times where I'm surprised by how much stuff has stacked up in the dining room.

It's a stressful venture for us and we haven't even left the house, but I expect the best has yet to come.

That's all for now! More to come later!

Caleb