Loy Kratong

Thai people have been celebrating Loy Kratong lately. It's a festival of light, and all through out this month you can see these paper lanterns floating into the sky. A couple weeks ago, our family went to an event here where they release hundreds of these into the sky all at once! It was really amazing and beautiful! Buddhist people believe that their cares or sins float away with these lanterns. It was interesting to see the Buddhist ceremony, but we were praying for all these people to know the one way that sin is truly taken away, the blood of Jesus. Here's Evie and WInnie buying us a lantern. These women are making loy kratong boats to sell. These are floated down the river with a candle on it. This barbeque was one of the many food options while walking to the festival. Cotton candy & balloons for sale, some things aren't so different. This is the group of friends we went with. The front "stage" area had a huge buddha idol and monks sitting all around it. When entering the gate, they made all foreigners register at a table and then wear these "Foreigner Guest" stickers. We thought they were pretty hilarious. Like you can't already tell we're foreigners! Getting the lantern ready The girls holding the lit lantern waiting for the order to release them. Off they go! The girls loved the evening, but we were still getting over jet lag, so they crashed as soon as we were in the car, and left Mommy and Daddy to handle the traffic getting out of there.

Winnie's Birthday

Thanks to everyone who sent cards and gifts to Winnie for her birthday.  She felt very special! She also got a new haircut!

Happy Easter

We had a such a nice day celebrating Easter.  Earlier this weekend, we had friends over to decorate eggs.  We actually emptied the shells before we dyed them, so we could turn them into little ornaments.  So after church, we hung our easter eggs on my favorite tree outside.  It's been bare ever since we moved into this house in November, until the last few weeks.  Now, it has beautiful pink flowers on it, perfect to remind us of the new life we have because Jesus conquered the grave.

Here's a glimpse into our Easter celebrations:

We also spent part of the afternoon making a red, white, and blue paper chain to count down the days until we come back to America!  We bought plane tickets, and will be flying out on June 16th!  The girls and I had fun making it, singing songs like The Star-Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle, Grand Old Flag, and God Bless America, the whole time!  It's funny how patriotic you become when you live outside the US.

Our Family now has 16 eyes

If you refer to a person with glasses as four-eyed, than our family is now complete with 16 eyes. Winnie became like the rest of us today when she got glasses!  She was very excited because she's been asking us to take her to the eye doctor for months and it finally happened. 

Valentine's Day Party

Our homeschool co-op put on a Valentine's Day party for the kids from an orphanage and foster kids in the neighborhood. It was a great experience for the girls to play with and show love for these kids. The kids from the orphanage are all special needs children, and I think it's great for the girls to feel comfortable around people who God made different than them. I was proud of the kindness Evie and Winnie showed. (This was at a private park that a Thai pastor built for these kids. It even has a trampoline and two ponies!)

Winnie helping a little boy make a valentine

Evie playing with a couple kids

Evie & Winnie bouncing on the trampoline. They would lay some of the disabled children on the trampoline one at a time and as the other kids bounced around, the child would just laugh and love it!

Winnie by one of the ponies

All of the children were play fighting with these balloons on sticks. This little guy would hold the sticks between his toes and swing them around. If someone took them away, he'd start to cry! He was having such a good time!

The park

These kids were so precious. It breaks my heart to think of how many children in this world don't have parents to take care of them.

Got your tickets?

Planes, Umbrellas, and Worms

Yesterday we went on another field trip with the co-op group. This one was to the Chiang Mai International Airport where we "followed the luggage." Evie found it interesting, and was excited to wear the special security badge that let us go behind the scenes. I thought there was a little too much standing and waiting around the airport, which we've had plenty of in our travels! I didn't want to miss the opportunity though, because I know you could never do this at a US airport anymore!

Back in November, we went to the silk and umbrella factories that are right next door to each other. This was much more fascinating to me. At the umbrella factory, we were able to see how the make "sa" paper (mulberry paper). And then how they actually make the thai umbrellas and fans. Then the people that work there paint incredible pictures on them! The girls each got to paint their own little umbrellas too.

   

      

   

Then we walked next door to the silk factory. This was my favorite! We were able to see the whole process of how silk is made from the eggs, to the live silkworms, to the cocoon. Each cocoon is wound from a single continuous strand, and It takes 50 cocoons to make one silk thread! We also saw silk moths. They make sure to only harvest a certain percentage of the cocoons, so that the silk moth will never die out.

Next we saw how they die the thread different colors, how it is wound onto spools, and then how they weave it into silk cloth. There were many women working at weaving looms all packed into this factory. Some made solid color cloth and could go pretty fast. Others wove very elaborate designs with the silk and only made a few inches of cloth in a day! No wonder silk is so expensive! They had many beautiful items available in there showroom, but none that we could afford!