Brief Recap...

So what’s happened over the past few months? Where do I begin. Without going into too much detail I’ll recap where we’ve been.

- July 20^{th -} we left Dallas for good! Over the next 14 days we drove over 60 hours (yes 60 hours in the car with 3 children) to North Carolina, to NOVA and back to North Caroline. We tried to see as many friends and supporters as we could but not as many as we wanted to.

- August 6 - we started a month long cultural training class at JAARS called ICC. We learned a lot about living in another culture and all that comes with that. It was a tough, busy 4 weeks.

- August 27^{th -} we sent the boys to New Orleans for a week to stay with grandparents. Eek! It was a little scary to be away from them for so long but they did great (and so did we) J

- Sept 4^{th -} Damien, Sora and I arrived in New Orleans and reunited with the boys. We spent a whirlwind 16 days putting the remainder of our belongings in a 5x12 storage unit and packing the rest of our bags for Thailand.

- September 16^{th -} we drove to Gulf Shores, AL for a mini vacation with the Daspits.

- September 21^{st -} we said a tearful, difficult goodbye to our family at the airport and got on a plane with 16 bags and flew to Seattle. We spent 36 hours there just resting before our final leg of our trip.

- September 23^{rd -} we left the US and began a 21 hour trip to Chiang Mai. We had a layover in Seoul and it was fun to be back in Sora’s country of birth…if only for a few hours.

- September 24^{th -} at 11:30pm we landed on Thai soil! The 5 hour flight from Seoul was grueling but we made it. Customs was an ordeal in and of itself – the officer made us open all 16 of our bags. But he let us through and we were met by 4 of Damien’s co workers who got took care of us.

- September 25^{th -} at 1am we arrived at the Juniper Tree to spend a week just resting and getting over jet lag. It was much better than I had expected and we all got over it faster than we had expected – and much faster than we did in Korea. But let me tell you, it’s hard to get over jet lag when you have three kids who wake up at 4am and think it’s time to start the day. The Juniper Tree was such a blessing and all we did was rest, read, swim and play with the kids. The accommodations were rustic (I felt like I was camping in a cabin) and we only had two rooms, but all of our meals were provided there (which was probably the best part of it all.) And after a week we were ready to go!

- October 3 - we moved to where we are stay for this month. It’s called D-town Inn. I think it’s sort of a hotel/apartment. I will write a little more about it later, but let me just say it’s not the nicest place we’ve ever lived. But after some DEEP cleaning I think it’s bearable and I’m thankful that we have more room. Lord willing it’s only for a month and then we will finally be “home!”

- October 5^{th -} CLI (Cultural Living Internship) began. It lasts for 4 weeks and we’ll learn how to live in Chiang Mai and also learn more about the work our group is doing in this part of the world. We’re looking forward to it.

The adventure begins (or continues)!