Fun Fruit

There are so many fun fruits to try here. A kinds of fruits are in season throughout the year (duh), but unlike at home, we really can only get the fruit if it's in season. Orin is really missing strawberries right now! So we've been trying to sample new and fun fruits as they show up in the market. Recently we been seeing Rambutan everywhere. It's just a fun-looking fruit! I think the Thai word for it is Ngaw. The kids had fun feeling and smelling it and trying to guess what it would look like inside. We've tried a lot of fruits and I think they liked this one better than most.

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Stuffed

People around here really like to stuff their trucks! Every day I see quite a few but I can't never get my camera out in time. The crazy thing is that people are always riding on top. This first picture was taken as we were gong 50 down the highway!

Garbage anyone?

This guy on the bottom looks like he is going to sleep.

If we ever move I'm going to find a truck like this and raid it!

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Random in CM

So many random things that I find interesting around these parts. No one else might but I don't want to forget these things. :-)

I love the "Auto Cook" options on our microwave. It's in both Thai and English, but you can definitely tell it's made in Asia! If I don't know how long to cook my Tom Yum Soup or my Cabbage w/ Oyster Sauce it's good that I have the auto cook buttons to help me out!

So parking is a huge problem here. Thank goodness so many people ride motorbikes and take public transportation or the traffic and parking situation would be out of control. One way they deal with the problem is by having people park perpendicular to the other cars. When they park like this they just have to remember to put their cars in Neutral. So when the people come to get out of their parking spots they can push the cards out of the way. Most places have security guards that help. And the malls have people all around the parking garages pretty much just to help people push cars. I took this picture when we were still living at D-town. There is nothing like walking to your car at 7am to bring your kid to school and the security guard being no where in sight and you having to push a big truck out of the way to get to your car!

One of the foods that Chiang Mai specializes in is Pork Rinds. At the airport you'll see quit a few people flying with HUGE bags of them. Even people who are up here from Bangkok will bring them back with them. I guess this woman was REALLY hungry!

I was able to help out at Field Day at Orin's school. I have to say, it wasn't his favorite day of the year. Sports don't seem to be his thing at this point, but he was happy that I was there. :-) I love this picture because he looks like he's doing so well. But about 5 seconds later he probably fell. But he looked cute doing it!

One of the grocery stores here (the one that has the most imported stuff) has the cutest little baskets. Micaiah loves when we go there...but he only wants his favorite things in his basket so it's not like it's much help!

I like this sign that's in one of the mall parking garages. It seems a little over exaggerated to me. :-)

I love that people wear coats in 90 degree weather.

There are trees like this all over the city - and country for that matter. If a monk thinks a tree is in danger of being cut down (to widen a road for example) they they will put an orange sash around it which means no one can cut it down. And people actually DON'T because of it. We have a road here that could really use widening but it's lined with beautiful old huge tress that have all been "roped" so it won't ever happen.

We've had so much rain here the streets by us flood almost every time it rains now.

The gas station down the road.

So, I always wanted an ash tray on the top of my toilet paper holder. You know, because when I'm using the bathroom and my cigarette is getting - uh, whatever you call it when you need to tap the ashes off - I can just reach over and do what I need to do. Wow, and this came with my house! How lucky am I!

It's even got little holes to rest your cigarettes in and it comes out so you can dump the ashes into the garbage. Who thought of this?

A little girl in Orin's class had a birthday party. I took a picture of the food table. You can't really see much, but I promise, it's not the kind of food you'd have at a kids birthday party in the US. But it was yummy....well, most of it. :-)

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Yet another thing I never thought I'd experience

So I knew when we moved to Thailand I was in for a whole lot of new, exciting, and most likely unusual experiences. But what I find funny is that some of the things we've experienced are not necessarily the type of things I had in mind.

A few weeks ago we went to a Drift Competition. Yes, it was voluntary, and no I never in my life thought I'd be at one of those. Outside the mall they are often having some sort of event going on. We were going to the mall one day and Micaiah (my car-lovin' child) noticed that there were race cars everywhere. After some investigation we realized it was a Drift competition. Micaiah, upon hearing that cars were racing really wanted to check it out. Since it was $3 for adults and the kids were free we figured we only had $6 dollars to lose.

Wow, what a blast. These drivers were either really good or really crazy. Maybe both. I have to say it wasn't my best moment as a mom since the cars were driving and "drifting" out of control about 50 feet from us with only a cement block between us. But it was so fun to see Micaiah's face as he watched them race.

Here are some videos. It was incredible how close some of those cars came to hitting the barricade but always somehow skirted past!

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I may be completely biased...

I may be completely biased (at least Damien thinks I am) but I'm totally impressed that my 4 year old can go into his room with an instruction book and hundreds of Lego's and come out an hour later with things like this! Of course, maybe everyone's 4 year old can do it, but I'm still completely in awe! :-)

He is truly obsessed and spends hours just putting together sets and then taking them apart a few days later to put them back together. I've obviously been giving him a little too much praise because now he just says, "It's easy mom because I am a genius!" Hum, I think we need to work on humility with this one.

These are just a couple of the many he's built. Even though he's built a bunch he's always so proud when he finishes.

This child is so goofy. For some reason he wanted a picture of him with his leg up next to the Lego's.

What a silly child. And he's so cute sometimes I want to burst!

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