Happy Birthday to John

So last week was John's birthday (yay! Can anyone say 'terrible 2s?' That's kind of like saying World War II was a border skirmish) and he got some sweet presents from G&G Weist as well as Aunt Hilary. We've now got a couple more cool books to keep him quiet at church (something I'm sure the rest of the congregation will be thrilled at) and John had the grand experience of blowing out his own candles for the first time. (We had to re-enact that part over & over & over... sigh, I have to remember that he's a boy and will always think that fire is cool). And in return for the awesomeness that was his birthday (that's funny, my spellchecker didn't mark awesomeness as an incorrect word) John decided to show his appreciation by suddenly turning into a monkey and attempting to climb on every available surface in our apartment.

It started when he got a time-out and I put him screaming into his crib. After about 20 seconds the screaming stopped and I was mid-way through asking Michael, “Did that sound like a door opening?” when the plonking of 2-year-old feet was heard banging down the hall and a little head popped around the corner. We were so shocked we couldn't even be mad at him, and instead got the video camera and made him re-enact the escape.


Apparently he learned to pull himself up to the top rim, balance somewhat precariously while he swung his legs over, then slowly lower himself until he was low enough to plop down to the ground. The whole exercise took him about 8 seconds. I noted while watching this escapade that “he's going to topple over and fall right on his head” which is exactly what he did the next time he tried it during his afternoon nap. That's one major problem with having tile floors everywhere. Ouch.

Unfortunately the large purple goose-egg on his forehead did nothing to deter his enthusiasm for this endeavor because I woke that night at 2am to the pinging of DVDs on the ground next to our bed. The little goober had climbed out of his crib, retrieved a DVD from our room, taken it out to the living room to try to watch it, climbed up on a table and took a picture frame from a shelf on the wall, and who-knows-what-in-the-world-else-he-did or how long he had been awake at all!!!!! And because he was having so much fun climbing everywhere he decided the next day to climb on the kitchen counter to retrieve snacks from a shelf that's about parallel with my head.

Of course he didn't know how to get back in his crib or get down from the counter, so needless to say we've been a bit worried about the little monkey's safety. So, back to my main point at the beginning of this post, which was about John's birthday... the main present he got from mom & dad came 2 days after his birthday when we took a trip out to Ikea and bought him a big-boy bed.

He has been excited for naps and bedtime ever since and takes up chanting “new bed! new bed!” at regular intervals. He still gets up and plays for a while sometimes, but at least he can get himself back into bed when he gets tired (which, since he turned 2 is, basically, never).
Oh, and Emily is growing like a weed (6 weeks old and finally fitting in 0-3month clothes instead of just newborn stuff) and, of course, she is just as beautiful as ever.

Happy Presidents Day

Things have been more up-tempo lately as we've returned somewhat to normal life... I've started going back to teaching Institute with Michael on Friday nights and I'm also getting back in my Primary calling. On top of that, Emily decided she wanted to start getting enormous, so she eats about every hour of the day. Thankfully she gives me a respite at night when she sleeps 3 hours at a time like clockwork, but it still means that we have fallen behind on some of our usual routines. However, John has been remarkably adaptable to everything, taking it in stride when he has to wait for something because mom has to feed the baby. He still insists on kissing his sister at least a dozen times a day and has started sharing his toys, food, pacifier, etc. Anything he enjoys and thinks she would want as well. The other day I left Emily on her changing pad and went to get a diaper. When I came back, John had lined up all of his rubber ducks next to her so she could play with them.

Another relatively new development for John is his desire to talk on the phone. He sees us use our phones and, naturally, wants to copy what mommy & daddy are doing. However, he doesn't quite understand the concept of non-face-to-face communication so he will sit with the phone at his ear not saying a word for minutes at a time. However boring this may seem to me, if Michael is out somewhere and one of us happens to call the other, John will insist on “talking” to his daddy on the cell phone. And by “talk” I mean he wanders around the apartment with the phone up to his ear while he listens to Michael tell him about his day.

His affinity for this cell phone thing was emphasized by the following experience:
One song that I am requested to sing several dozen times a day is “The Daddy Song” from the Primary Children's Hymnbook (actually it's called “Daddy's Homecoming” but John has shortened it for easier reference-- the link for the song is HERE.) John loves to follow along, interjecting a word here and there and doing actions along with me: clap hands, climb on knees, hug, cheeks, kiss.
Anyway, I was getting tired of daddy always getting the forefront in the song department so I decided to throw in “The Mommy Song” from the same book (HERE) and subsequently made up some more actions for our mommy song. The first line begins “When my mother calls me,” at which point I put my hands up to my mouth to amplify the word, as if hollering out to someone in another room. The other night we were trying to entertain John and I began singing “the mommy song” with usual actions. At the end of that first line I had my hands up around my mouth “calling” out as usual and I asked a busy little John, who was happily running in circles around the room at the time, “John, can you 'call' with momma?” To which he stopped suddenly and put his hand up to his ear as if holding a cell phone and looked at me expectantly like, “ok, now what?” It was so unexpected that Michael & I just burst out laughing. John just realized we weren't singing anymore so he continued running happily in circles. Just one small way technology has changed the way we interact with each other.

OK, so here are a few more web albums:

More Jan 2008

Feb 2008

monkeys & more

And let me leave you with a parting thought... we had rented a car for 2 months (hallelujah, it has been heavenly!) but we are on our SECOND rental because the first one failed to live up to my standard of not containing any disgusting, filthy, disease-carrying vermin. That's right, we started finding little cockroaches IN THE CAR. And these suckers were FAST. We would try to kill them (OK, Michael would try to kill them, I would try to keep from squealing with horror) but they would dive UNDER the seat and hide somewhere in the nether regions of the "boot". Thankfully the rental company agreed that this was a less-than-desirable attribute for a car that someone actually wants to SIT in, so they brought us another one. Even now it gives me the complete willies just the think about it. And now I've shared it with you. You're welcome.

You know you're a parent when...

Ahhh remember when certain songs, smells or tastes could instantly take you back to a certain place in your life. For me when I smell nice and ripe peaches I can close my eyes and I'm transported to Okayama Japan where I tasted some of the best peaches I've ever tasted. Or when I listen to Bruce Springsteen sing Blood Brothers I am back in a tiny little apartment at BYU with my roommates. Imagine if you will an "oldie" on the radio, instead of taking you back to a memory of younger days (and I know we're new at this parenting thing), is switched to a new and.....uh different memory.

So Erin and I were driving to teach Institute on Friday night (Feb 8) and when we pulled into the parking lot an homage to the Spice Girls and their current reunion tour was playing on the radio, now what does the Spice Girls singing "Wannabe" bring to mind to you?

Is it this:


Or is it this:


If it is the second image, of Abby and Runt doing some karaoke then well you too watch WAY too many kids movies and have seen Chicken Little as many times as we have.

Here's to the memories, the ones that were associated with our pasts B.K. (Before Kids), and how quickly they're replaced......

GONG XI FA CAI!!!

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! We are celebrating today by sitting around in our pajamas, taking pictures, and eating Chinese food (stir-fry beef with snow peas... mmm...) Michael bought this adorable little dress for Emily and even though it sort of drowns her we couldn't resist putting it on her to celebrate Chinese New Year. The official holiday lasts 3 days, but really it's the whole month leading up to it, even afterwards. It like saying Christmas is celebrated on Dec. 25, but really it's the month leading up to it that we consider "Christmas".

We've learned about some fun Chinese traditions while we've been here but the most interesting have to be regarding post-partum traditions for new moms. They are not allowed to bathe or wash their hair for 30 days after giving birth... they also are encouraged not to consume cold drinks or food for 100 days. It all has to do with yin & yang, which, to be quite honest, I still really don't understand. But I actually found some illuminating websites that gave overall views of these post-partum traditions, referred to as the Confinement period, and they included avoiding excess sweating, staying out of the wind, etc. Personally, I find it too much to think about when you're already trying to adjust to having a new baby. Also, I'm afraid I would go stir-crazy staying in the house and have already found myself desperate to get out occasionally. When Emily was one week old, John went with friends to the zoo and Michael took Emily & I out for a $4 hot chocolate at Starbucks.
My internet connection isn't that great today, so I'm not going to post our web album just yet... but we did want to add some pics of our little cutie. She's eating a lot and starting to fill out her newborn clothes & diapers... she's also opening her eyes more than those first pictures so we thought you'd want to see them.

I know I'm biased, but MAN she's beautiful!

I also took some "point of reference" pictures so you could see how perfectly tiny she is... here's her next to my cell phone...

...and my tweezers...

...oh, and that's right, this is her projectile vomiting. Honestly I can't believe she did that RIGHT when I snapped the picture. Nice timing.

Finally... BABY PICTURES!

OK, so we're a little more updated now and I've finally got a good connection on my computer so I can post some pictures of our new baby girl! Emily Anne is doing very well and all the Weist family here are so happy. Without dragging out a long delivery story here are the basics: I woke up with contractions around midnight, we got to the hospital by 2:30am, we managed to wake up our friends the Rhees and Michael rushed John over there where he slept for the rest of the morning, I was still in labor by 4:45am (BAD contractions, no epidural again because we had no idea how long it would take, or if she would come super-quick like John did) so the doctor broke my water and 10 minutes later at 4:56am Emily was born! Phew! She pretty much slept for the first 24 hours of her life so most of these pictures show her with her eyes closed.

She is a tiny little thing that has filled up our hearts so quickly and easily. Even John adores his baby sister and he is having fun being a big brother. He helps me get diapers when we need to change her, and anytime he sits for more than 2 minutes next to her he has to give her a kiss on the forehead. :) It's really so adorable. We've also seen a new side to John since Emily came home with us. He always recognizes when a baby cries, if we hear one in our building somewhere or maybe one a church, and he'll say "Baby sad" looking all concerned, but not making much ado about it... but when he's in the room when his SISTER cries he'll get very quiet and still, put his head down and burst into great big heaving sobs with fat teardrops running down his cheeks. We were honestly astounded the first time he did that... he has NEVER cried like that about anything else. He is such a tender soul he simply can't stand to see his sister sad.

Thankfully, though, she is not a crier... in fact, she is a remarkably easy baby-- eating well, sleeping a lot (she's already got herself into a regular 4-hour schedule, which I think qualifies her as a certified genius), looking around at everything when she's awake, never making a peep... she's a nice change of pace after dealing with a whirling dervish of a son every day. :) SO... the first set of pictures are of her first day (JAN. 18) and our brief time at the hospital. I could only stand one night there after I realized the hospital bed was probably made with petite Asian women in mind... not only was it about 4 inches too short, it felt like I was sleeping on a board covered by a sheet-- NOT exactly the most comfortable way to spend your days after you've had an episiotomy.

The second set are from our friend Eric Oh... he and his family came to visit 2 days after she was born and he took a TON of pictures. Our branch here has been SO ridiculously good to us-- visiting, bringing us meals EVERY day (at one point we ran out of room in our tiny fridge because of all the leftovers), even taking John to the zoo so he could get out of the apartment for a while (and we could have some peace... we took the opportunity to take Emily on her first outing to the mall and got some hot chocolate at Starbucks.) There will be plenty more pictures to come, but this should give you a general idea of our beautiful little girl!

Emily Birthday

Emily (Eric Oh's pics)

New Years 2008

OK, so I know we need to post about the biggest thing to happen recently (I mean, a baby is a pretty big deal) but since this blog is the only form of scrapbook we have right now I feel this obsessive need to keep things in order. Thus, I'm entering a quick post about our visit to Singapore over New Years where we met Grandma & Grandpa Snow!!! We spent a lovely 10 days with them in KL and now almost 3 weeks later John is still asking for "Momma & Poppa Snow" (he can't say the "S" so it comes out like "Hnow"). I've sort of narrated our time with them by the captions on the pictures in the web album, so click on the link below for all the details.

G&G Snow Visit 2008

Christmas Day 2007

The table laid out with our Christmas feast! (That's John's little head in the background).

Most of the gang gathered in the living room... they are on the 11th floor and have an awesome view!

Anne's friend Sheila was visiting (they were friends at university) so we got some pictures of just the girls. Sheila -left, Anne - right, Me - back.

The End is Near

We can hardly believe that the end of 2007 is upon us! I really need to think about posting more than twice a month because we take too many pictures and see too many things to write about in between. We hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas festivities and we're happy to post some pics of our celebrations online for you. We were actually pleasantly surprised with John on Christmas day... being not quite 2 years old we assumed there would be some screaming and end-of-the-world tantrum throwing. But John really enjoyed opening all his gifts and playing with each thing (even the toothbrush) so it was a tear-free morning. Actually, our whole week was quite relaxing and lazy.

We spent Christmas Eve at a friend's house (Mark & Tracy Friend) helping make an amazing seafood dinner with three kinds of shrimp, hush puppies, flounder, sushi, pasta with red or fresh mushroom sauces... more food than I can even remember. We all agreed the best part was helping to prepare everything (and of course the eating, that goes without saying) and thankfully they have kids who could entertain John while we busied ourselves in the kitchen. There are plenty of pics in the web album of the festivities.

Christmas day we enjoyed a visit with Michael's family on the web-cam and lots of lazing about doing nothing in the morning. After John got up from his nap we headed over to another friend's house, Anne & Tiny (he's our branch pres.) for yet another feast! Unfortunately I was neglectful in my picture-taking duties on that day, so we don't have any from their home! But I will get Anne to email me a few and I'll post them as soon as I can get them. This was an awesome traditional feast with ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, veggies, sweet potatoes... all the comforts of home. Anne is from the Philippines but her husband is American so she is used to cooking traditional American fare, especially on the holidays, for her husband. They had invited quite a few people from the branch and we realized that between the 10 or so people attending there were 6 nationalities represented: American, Philippino, Malaysian, Chinese, Nigerian, and Egyptian. Quite a diverse group! We had a lot of fun just relaxing and talking, and ended the evening (perfectly, in Michael's opinion) watching "Napoleon Dynamite" and grazing on the table full of desserts.

OK, OK, so aside from the obvious gluttony of our celebrations (we all ate WAY too much food) our Christmas was really perfect. We weren't overly-bombarded with commercialism that began right after Halloween, we didn't have a lot of pressure to share gifts with every neighbor in our apartment building, we don't even have a lot of seasonal decorations that need attending to... there was simple gift-giving among a few people, there was time spent with friends, there were quiet moments of contemplation to remember the birth of the Savior and read scriptures of the prophecies announcing his coming to the world. Now, I am a sucker for traditions... I love playing in the snow and drinking hot chocolate, I love caroling, leaving cookies on people's doorstep, wrapping presents... the whole ball of wax. But the most palpable thing missing from this year's Christmas was literally the spirit of the season. I've commented about this before, but because this is a Muslim country there is simply a different feeling in the air here. There is just no other way to describe it. And I have really only noticed it lately because there has been something lacking at this time of year that usually I count on as part of tradition. I think that because a vast majority of people in the US are Christian and are celebrating the Christmas season with basic religious principles in mind, it creates a truly tangible feeling that comes from the Holy Ghost. Admittedly, possibly most people include Jesus Christ in their celebrations only momentarily or even superficially, attending mass or some sort of religious ceremony and not making much more effort than that. However, regardless of the amount of time spent or the depth of it invested in spiritual matters, I still believe that most people at one point or another will have their thoughts directed to the Savior of the world at this time of year. And because of that, people truly carry the Spirit with them. On top of that, people are more prone to service than probably any other time of year, which means they are obeying gospel principles taught by Jesus Christ, regardless of whether they recognize it or not, and the Lord is bound to bless them, usually causing an increase of those good feelings, i.e. the Spirit... THAT is the true spirit of Christmas. I think that is why there are so many wonderful memories, so many songs written, such a big deal made out of this particular season, because we all love that feeling we get. Truly, Jesus Christ is

"the light [that] shineth in the darkness...the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:5, 10).

We really wish you all the best at the end of this year and hope that the Spirit of the Lord stays with you throughout the coming year as well. We could probably all use more of those good feelings during more months than just December.
With love from the Malaysian Weists...

erin, mike, john & baby

Dec 2007

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Dec 2007... so far

So it is already the middle of December and we can hardly keep track of where the time is going! We're measuring time mostly based on how soon the baby is coming and it seems like it's bearing down on us like a freight train at the moment. We have been keeping busy by getting ready for Christmas, getting involved in our branch, getting ready for baby... it still feels strange to not have the usual accompaniments to the season (snow, eggnog, a piano to play Christmas carols...) but we have been pleasantly surprised with the apparent celebration of Christmas here! There are Christmas trees in all the shops, they play American-style carols over the PA systems, (it was hilarious walking down the aisles last time we were shopping, singing along to "Santa Baby"), and there are twinkling lights all over downtown. The traffic is even reminiscent of home during ridiculous jams from holiday shoppers... I was even coming home last night from a Visiting Teaching dinner at 11:30pm and sat in traffic for almost 20 minutes because the roads were jammed! (That's something we had to adjust to here-- the late schedule... people eat dinner after 8 or 9 and then shop afterward. Some of the streets look like the middle of the day with people thronging on the sidewalk... seriously, who buys luggage at 11:00 at night? Apparently Malaysians do.)

But Michael & I agree that by FAR the best Christmas moment we've had here was on December 1st, we went to do our usual grocery shopping and about DIED when we walked in the store... there, in the check-out lines, each cashier was wearing a jauntily-placed traditional fir-trimmed Santa hat... which would have been great in itself, but the icing on the cake was seeing the young girls wearing their headscarves underneath the santa hats!!! Seriously. I've never kicked myself so hard for not having a camera, although it may have seemed slightly offensive to take their picture. We were so disappointed when we went the next time, armed with camera, the hats were nowhere in sight. It was just such a hilarious juxtaposition that I will never forget that image as long as I live. So, we hope the rest of you are having memorable Christmas experiences. Sometimes we really do miss the snow, so go play in it a little for us.

It's December already!!!

Time has seen to fly by here and we can hardly believe that the end of the year is so close! We had a great November with some fun activities, although they were slightly curtailed by Erin's attempt at novel writing. Thankfully it is December and she can take a breath to begin to enjoy the Christmas season! But first we'll recount you with some short tales of our Thanksgiving adventures.

On Thanksgiving Day we decided to treat ourselves to a very non-traditional feast (really, when will we get the chance again?) and we went out for lunch at an Indian place our friends had raved about. It's called Mumbai Grill and it really was excellent - we can hardly wait to go back! We feasted on 3 kinds of naan bread (butter, garlic & cheese), John enjoyed eating mound after mound of rice with his hands, Michael ordered Butter Chicken Tikki Masala, and Erin had chicken with a thick cashewnut paste.

And of course we had to get a couple of mango lassi to drink! Woo! It was a serious Thanksgiving dinner. I, for one, enjoyed not having to cook anything, just enjoy time with my boys (and I'm sure baby-girl enjoyed it in my tummy), John loves it anytime we can get out and he can show off for other people, and Michael wanted something exotic and different, so we all had a really great time.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we went to a REAL dinner with other Americans at our church and seriously pigged out on turkey, ham (real ham in a Muslim country is a rare treat and we were embarrassingly thrilled about it), sweet potatoes, salads, rolls, pumpkin pie, the works! We don't know how people got half of the stuff, but most of them work for the American Embassy here so they can probably get things shipped that we can't.

John hardly ate a thing... he was just so excited to be around a gaggle of screaming kids. This is a pic of him with his favorite friend Zach. He's the only boy at church close to his age (they're about 6 months apart).

I think he got tired of it eventually, though. At one point I went to check on him (the apartment of the family that hosted the dinner was HUGE and I had to wander a bit to find him) and eventually I walked past a darkened bathroom and started to walk away and I heard him whimpering for me in there. He had apparently wanted to play hide-and-seek but no one knew it. I have absolutely no idea how long he had been waiting in there, poor thing. Sometimes it's so hard being a kid when you can't talk yet.

All right, that's probably enough adventures for one day. Although it is probably worth mentioning about the HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force) rally that went on a few weeks ago. Consisting mostly of Indians that gathered, some media outlets reported as many as 10,000 supporters came, hoping to deliver a petition to the British Embassy on a Sunday afternoon. The Malaysian government was not happy about their plans and had vehemently forbidden them from gathering, suggesting something about inciting racial tension. People gathered anyway and the riot police were called in, eventually using chemical-laced water hoses and tear gas to drive the rally away. Honestly, we were hardly aware of the goings-on, except for the fact that our apartment (and our church) are located about a mile away from the British Embassy. The street where it is located was entirely blocked off and anyone (especially Indian) attempting to enter it was immediately arrested. Wisely, our church leaders decided to cancel meetings that day and instead encouraged us to worship in our homes. Not the least of their concerns, I'm sure, was the fact that we have quite a few Indians in our congregation who would have had considerable trouble just getting to church, regardless of whether or not they were participants in the rally. As we watched and read about some of these things unfolding, we were reminded how grateful we are for the country where we were born. There are many rights, responsibilities and blessings that we often took for granted in the United States and we recognize more and more that it really is a promised land. Just another thing to add to our growing list of things to be thankful for.
As always, click on the picture below for our family photos. Once again, they're mostly of John... it's a good thing we're having another kid soon because we need someone else to liven up our photo albums.

Nov 2007

Late October Pics

Nanowrimo has completely taken over my life this month, and Michael has been extremely supportive in helping with housework and taking care of John (well, he's always like that, but this month it's more apparent) so that I can make a mad scrambling dash to the finish as we near the end of the month. I'm something like a ridiculous 8,000 words behind right now, but I wanted to relax and update the blog instead of stressing about writing, so here we go about some of the cool things we did this month. (Granted, they are few and far between because I've mostly been writing.)

One pretty cool thing that comes to mind was a recent visit we made to the Cultural Craft Complex on Jalan Conlay, near KLCC. We posted pictures of it on the first visit we made a while ago and we wanted to go back to see our friend Fauziah who was making us some batik Christmas cards. We took a taxi to the complex and when our driver pulled in, there were guards standing in the road who wouldn't allow him to pull up to the front of the building. We thought that was odd, knowing there hadn't been a problem before, but noticed several buses standing by and assumed they needed the room to accommodate some large groups. The taxi pulled off to a side driveway and we went over to see Fauziah, letting John run around for a while. Before leaving, we decided to step into the main gift shop, something we hadn't done the first time around. There were still a few odd things we noticed, like that fact that there were a few members of the press wandering around with badges, and that there was a small group surrounding the front entrance playing instruments. Not giving it much thought, I left Michael in the gift shop to wander around while I found a bathroom where I could change John's diaper. When we came back, Michael grinned at me, saying

"I figured out the reason for all the security, and why they wouldn't let us pull in the front." I was confused because I really hadn't given it much thought, but he quickly explained,
"Uh, the Prime Minister is here."
Blank stare from me. "What? What do you mean?" Pregnancy makes me sort of slow.
"I mean the Prime Minister is here. Of Malaysia. He and his wife are right over there."
"Huh?" I still didn't believe him.
Sure enough, glancing in the corner of the store, I saw a small entourage of about 10 people gathered and I only assumed the Prime Minister of Malaysia was one of them because I had absolutely no idea what he looked like. I felt like I was intruding on some sort of private ceremony and wanted to get out of there. Honestly, I was surprised they even let us in the building. I think having John with us makes people think we look harmless.

Anyway, we sort of crept out, thinking we'd go see some other parts of the building, but right behind us came - lo, and behold - the Prime Minister himself with his wife. And their entourage of course. Well, at least now I sort of know what he looks like. After wandering a bit themselves, the PM and his posse left, quickly swept away in several plain, black cars.

The whole place seemed to relax after that and I noticed several large groups of brightly dressed performers swarming toward the buses we had seen at the entrance, chatting noisily as they boarded. Apparently we had missed a great cultural show of some kind, although I'm not sure we would have been allowed in anyway. John could not have possibly cared less. He found a small pond full of goldfish and he happily busied himself pointing at them making fish faces and exclaiming about the bubbles they were making. So that was our big experience that day. We went out to buy Christmas cards and ran into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Go figure. Oh, and as is standard fare, we didn't have our camera with us.

OK, honestly, that's the only exciting thing I can remember to write about now. Pregnant Erin needs to remember to write things down quickly after they happen otherwise they are lost to oblivion - or else I have to rely on Michael's memory, which is just as bad as mine. Below, I've posted a link for some Halloween pictures we managed to take. On Halloween day John still hadn't recovered from the cold he got while we were in Thailand and he had developed a pretty nasty chest cough, so we didn't want to take him out. Which was really too bad because one of our friends was having a trunk-or-treat at their apartment complex (they live in a large American ex-pat community) and a bunch of kids from church were going. But John had to miss out (good thing he's too young to care) and we stayed home making cupcakes and eating frosting instead. His pathetic "costume" consists of a sheriff badge I made him that says "Woody" and a plastic gun we got from friends at church. I love the fact that he's only 21 months and was totally enamored with his sheriff star. Kids are so easy to please.


Oh, that reminds me of another funny thing to report... a couple of weeks ago we were at the swimming pool of our apartment and we noticed an ENORMOUS rat climbing around in the bushes next to the pool area. For such a large sucker he sure could move fast, skittering around like... well, vermin. We finally scared him away, but I refused to go push the button to start the bubbles in the "jacuzzi" (just a small section of the pool that happens to have jet streams) because it sits on the wall where the rat was slinking around. John just got really excited, pointing and shouting about the mouse. Now whenever we go back to the pool, he looks over there, saying "mouw! mouw!" because he wants to see the adorable little rat again. Ick. (That was also the same day I saw a young girl, maybe 14 or 15 years old, in a full-body swimsuit covering all of her arms and legs, and some sort of waterproof veil on her head. At least she didn't have a face-covering... I'm sure that would have posed just a small drowning threat, don't you? Just when we think we've seen it all...)

Well, even though it's Thanksgiving, we hope you had a good Halloween. I'll try to be more on top of things once November is over. (And we'll post some pics of BOTH of our Thanksgiving dinners... one of them traditional, one not so much.) Being away from home will actually relieve a ton of stress that I normally feel after Thanksgiving once it is officially the Christmas holiday and we might actually just get to enjoy the spirit of the season! What a novel idea. Happy turkeying everyone!

Halloween (& more)

Thailand Trip

This picture wasn't actually taken in Thailand... it's a flowering bush outside the train station across the street from our house. We just think the flowers are cool, so we had to put the picture somewhere. As usual, most of our pictures in Thailand are of John, so we are sorry to those of you who actually wanted to see pictures of the country but you'll just have to visit yourselves if you want a better glimpse. And we highly recommend it, too. Thailand is by far our favorite thing we've seen since we've been here. Both of us remarked, on our first day there, that for the first time in a while we actually felt like we were in ASIA. Somehow things feel different in Malaysia... maybe just because we're growing accustomed to the surroundings here, but really it felt like more than that. The people, the architecture, even the temperature was more of what I'd expected when we first moved here. Especially the people-- I can't remember the last time we were surrounded by so many warm, accepting, friendly people. Of course, it's a tourist town (Phuket) so they usually wanted to sell us something, but you could see it in their eyes and in their smiles that they were so open and wanting to help.
On our drive in from the airport, our taxi driver wasn't exactly sure where our hotel was located, so he apologized profusely and asked if he could stop and get directions from his friend, who was a travel agent. She came out and chatted with us, suggesting things we might like to do when traveling with an infant, and when our driver came back he was still apologetic (even though he spoke almost NO English) and brought us a bag of goodies to make up for the wait. They were a warm pancake-like treat, some with a sort of custard-ish filling, some with a combination of custard and sweet corn. (Sweet corn is a very popular treat over here... they have stalls selling things like coffee, donuts, and sweet corn-- just serve it up hot in a cup!) We though they were delicious and happily munched on them for the duration of the drive.
In Phuket, we stayed near Patong Beach, which is the largest and most popular spot, but thankfully we visited right at the end of the off-season, so there really weren't a ton of people there. Our hotel definitely wasn't busy, and we thought it was sort of a little tropical paradise.

The hotel staff certainly seemed to enjoy our visit and we couldn't get past the lobby without one of them reaching out to grab John and show him off to everyone else. It was fun to watch him with them, although admittedly mom got a little annoyed at mealtimes when we were trying to get him to eat he had 4 or 5 hovering waitresses as an audience. It was only frustrating because John got a cold the last 2 days there and we couldn't get him to eat anything. He just wanted to share his bread (or whatever he was holding) with the entourage standing around, and they were more than happy to take it from him, laughing at the cute American boy. sigh. We really did like our place, though, and would recommend it to anyone. Here is the website-- it was called Hyton Leelavadee.



Admittedly, we understood why it was still considered the low-season for tourists when we how bad the rain was. The pool pictures were taken one afternoon when I was sitting in a beach chair, relaxing under an umbrella, reading The Bourne Identity, while John & Michael splashed around the pool. Without warning, someone began pouring giant buckets of water over my umbrella... at least that's what I thought until I realized that it had started raining. Big, fat, warm drops drenched everything in sight. Thankfully the umbrella was large enough to keep most of me dry while I took pictures of John & Michael, playing in the pool, in the rain. John just thought it was cool, pointing at where the drops were landing in the water and saying "bubbles!" The locals there seemed used to it. We learned you just had to watch the shop keepers-- they could tell when it was going to rain and started pulling in their merchandise, or covering it with plastic. That wasn't nearly as educational, however, as DRIVING with the taxi or tuk-tuk drivers in the rain. (A tuk-tuk is sort of a flat-bed truck with the back covered by a roof and plastic down the sides where people can sit. You negotiate with the drivers how much you'll pay for a ride and hop right in the back. John thought they were pretty cool, and by the end could recognize them, even learning to enunciate "tuk-tuk" really well.) But apparently they are used to driving in the rain because they would TEAR along roads at break-neck speeds with a torrential downpour virtually covering their windshield. It about gave me a heart-attack, but I guess that's what seat belts were invented for, right?
OK, we'll close with a list of our favorite things about Phuket, although the list really could be a lot longer. These were just the things of note that will stand out on our trip.

• fresh pineapple is heavenly... and fresh pineapple JUICE is nectar of the gods
• the 2 things john liked most about our hotel: the resident cat and the hotel safe in the room. we didn't even need to bring toys.
• michael & i learned that john talks in his sleep. i've never heard anything more cute in my life.
• there are TONS of european tourists in phuket. tons. they catered to them in many ways, including crepe stands, reminiscent of several western european countries. they offered the traditional fare (nutella, banana, lemon & sugar... mmmm... remember paris, jared?) but also threw in some local variations, including pineapple & coconut, which i tried. the guy just hacked open a fresh pineapple and sliced it right off. can you just imagine?
• the beach is always more fun when you have a bucket and NO shovel to make sandcastles because your hands get much dirtier. this was john's first time at the beach EVER and he had a blast!

OK, the picture link below shows the rest of our trip, mostly spent at the beach. Seriously, plan a trip right now. Go to Thailand. You will NOT regret it.

Thailand Trip