See? I told you!

I had a bunch of ideas backlogged in my notes app. I kept my phone near me most of the time on vacation so that I could "jot down" moments and thoughts while we were in the moment. This is from Dec. 21; the first day trip we took. We did some sightseeing and then rode elephants. I will have to scan in the family elephant pics. As much as I *didn't* want to buy the gimmicky photo that the travel place takes & then tries to sell you at the end of the trip; I did buy it. Only because it was a great picture. Really! I was stunned.

- Playing "Find the Shrine" is a good car game in Thailand.
*At every place of business or home, there is a shrine to Buddha. They leave offerings of food, water & such and light incense. The shrines range from super-fancy to kinda shabby. You know one thing I observed? Most of the super-fancy were mostly bereft of assorted offerings and were at nicer houses & establishments. The not-as-fancy ones were usually overflowing with offerings and at more humble homes & businesses. Hmm, interesting. I can't believe I didn't get a better picture of a shrine. But then again, I was a bit unsure of the acceptability of photographing a shrine up close; there are signs to take off your shoes before approaching them.

- Any day that ends with a camera strap burn on your neck has been a good day.

- Truly finding the balance between capturing the moments and living the moments is a delicate tightrope to walk. I don't want to miss a thing but I want to be in the moment. Photographing is enjoyable, but sometimes I come back from an outing and feel like I was looking through a viewfinder the whole time. Kind of like tunnel vision.
*When making a memory or having a new experience, you feel like if you don't photograph it, it didn't happen. The lesson I learn over and over again --> Guess what? Even if you don't have photographic proof, it still happened.

stop and think about it.

DBA (Delinquent Bloggers Anonymous)

Hi, I'm Lydia.

Blogger: Hello Lydia.

It's been 16 days since I last blogged. I have been bursting with ideas and material to blog about that whole time. It's just, you see, I had to move.

Blogger: I see. Go on.

I mean, we had Christmas vacation. We actually took a vacation over Christmas, which we'd never done. It was wonderful! Then we got back and were dropped with a bombshell of news. The Embassy had made the decision to move the families in the "danger zones" to safer places. They said they wanted to get it done in 60 days.

Blogger: Yeah, like that would happen. It probably won't be done before April.

I know! That's exactly what I said! So we unpacked, readjusted to our schedule and all. Then on the 4th, they wanted us to look at some houses. Ok, I can do that; I've never been consulted on housing while overseas. I tell them my preference and they say they'll get back to us when the housing board has met and made a decision.

Blogger: Oh, a meeting. That'll take a week or so to come together.

Nay no, burrito! 24 hours later, they say we've been approved for the housing I wanted and would it be possible to send the moving company to do a pre-move survey on Sunday. (it was Thursday)

Blogger: I don't believe it!

Believe it, bloggy baby! They came to do the survey and 48 hours later, they had the move-out day scheduled for the 16th. So I had the rest of that week to kind of get some things in order before the moving crew descended. Monday rolled around and the crew shows up an hour and 15 minutes early. (they said they'd be there at 9:30 am; they show up at 8:15 am) The crew swarms in and has the living room, dining room, office & half the kitchen packed by noon.

Blogger: When was the first night you spent in the new house?

17 January.

Blogger: So how long from the first day you knew you were moving until the job was done?

13 days. And if you count from when we actually knew when movers were coming, just 6 days.

Blogger: That's not a lot of time. Not that anyone's complaining about efficiency.

Oh no, I'm not. Yeah, what kind of odds would that bet have? An efficient move executed by the government? Of all the things to complain about, who'd have guessed it?

Blogger: Definitely not me!

Thank you for listening, Blogger. I appreciate this open conversation.

Blogger: No problem. Come back anytime.

I plan to come back. I'll be here tomorrow, same time, same place.

Blogger: I'll be here.

Beach bums

The first few days we weren't in any rush. The hotel had it's own stretch of beach for guests only and it was nice. There are plenty of "have to see" beaches, but those are also the most crowded ones and the ones booming with discotech music all day & night. Not my kind of beach. The Capri Beach Club, as it was called, had beach chairs & loungers, shade, beach, grassy area and a cafe where you could order meals & snack AND charge it to your room. That meant not having to bring our wallet to the beach. BIG BONUS!

Where the waves break, the sand is literally chock full of every kind of shell you could want to find! And that spells heaven for my little hunters & collectors; mainly Grant & Mairyn. The beach was lined with coconut trees and all of them had coconuts at some stage of development. The club said they monitored the trees on our beach so that there weren't any in imminent danger of falling to the ground. Grant found a coconut further down the beach, just laying in the sand. He hauled it back to me and wanted to shuck it. Aw shucks, Grant, why don't you ask me to do something hard? Fortunately, it was a bit waterlogged and part of the husk was pulled back. So we husked a coconut right there on the beach. We got our own brown, fuzzy coconut! The part where the husk was pulled back, there was a crack in the shell, so we pulled that part off and got to peer into a newly opened coconut, all white and fragrant inside.

The Journey begins

So, we went to Thailand for Christmas. It was about the furthest I was willing to go; just 4 hours ahead of us. I did not want to deal with serious jet lag. The flight was, um, longer than expected. The itinerary we'd been given said we would fly Bahrain to Doha, change planes there, Doha to KUALA LAMPUR (oh yes, i'm serious) stay on the plane in Malaysia for an hour and a half, then *finally* land in Phuket. Blerg.

The kids were excited to finally be leaving for Thailand. We couldn't decide whether to surprise them the day before or include them in the plans. We chose the former. The flight left at 11pm. Huge, huge thing to remember --> don't *ever* do a transfer in Doha. The bus from the plane dropped us off at the mail terminal and left us in the exhaust. Going through the sliding doors, it was mass chaos somewhat on par with the mobs in the Ataba souk in Cairo. No direction, just a huddled group of 4 random airline employees right before the cordoned security check area. Not that they were any help, they gestured to their right and left. Crap.

We elbowed our way to a place in the crowd to see where we needed to go. I'm not shocked at the chaos or the inability to form a line; I just wanted to get through it. Traveling with a group of people is, in some ways, a bit easier than on my own. I can be Mama Bear and part the seas, keeping my children close and cutting off the people who weren't taught manners in Kindergarten. With Spence as my wing man, we jockeyed our way through the snaking line and, after an hour and a half, finally made it through the joke called security. You know how long our layover was? One hour and 40 minutes. Racing through the airport, we hear, "Thees ees the final boarding call for flight XX!" That's us! They closed the plane door behind us. Whew!

Now we've got a 10 hour flight. Poo. I was beginning to rethink this brilliant idea. But Qatar airways rocks. They are superb. We finally made it into Phuket at 4pm local time. Only took us 13 hours. I think Grant and Jacqui illustrate how all of us felt.

I was so tired, I had to do a double take when I looked in the front seat.
Maybe I sound ignorant, but I didn't know they drove on the left hand
side of the road. Go figure. It was so disorienting, I had to find other ways to
distract myself while in the car. Especially when we made a turn across traffic.
It was all I could do to not scream, "STOP! You're turning the wrong way!"



But this balcony view was worth the journey.

In the beginning

There was Eliza.
Firstborn - creative - irrepressible - smart - caring
She is 12 years old today.
I'm in denial.

Derailed

At least I'm blogging today. It's one of those days. How does the saying go, 'The best laid plans, something something. ' The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. That's a good summary of the day so far.

We got back from Thailand Friday night. The same night, we find out that while we were gone, the Embassy made the decision to move all the families in our area for safety reasons, which I completely understand. But there is a timeline and it's chugging right along.

This morning, I went to wake up Grant and Jacqui for school. Jacqui rolled over and her cheeks were speckled with bright red dots. Those dots continued down her neck, chest and tummy. Ok, guess she's not going to school. I got the kids off, got ready and waited for the Health Unit to open. They had an opening first thing, so we got in the car and took off. Right before we got to the Health Unit, the management head walked by in the hall and asked if I had a few minutes after my appointment to talk about the move. Oh yes, I have all the time in the world for that! We saw the doctor who prescribed some antibiotics, (he thinks it's a strep rash, will know more after tests confirm/deny). Then my little buddy and I headed across the hall to discuss our future housing.

Fortunately, they are being extremely accommodating, considering the amount of families to move and the time frame they have to do it in. In about an hour, I found myself driving to two different housing complexes to see what could be our future residence. I'm torn. It's going to be a tough decision. It will be smaller, in comparison to what we have right now, but there are other pluses. So that's how it got to be noon and none of what I had planned to get done is done yet. I have to decide by weeks end. Wish me luck!

Oh, and not to leave anyone hanging, here's another Thailand picture!

These are little statues at the Big Buddha shrine. I likey.

Back to Back

We're back. Back from Christmas break and back to school. I've got a memory card with over 1300 images and videos just staring at me, needing to be weeded through. I have this plan to break it down into manageable chunks. I jotted down little notes just about every day, so that when we got back, it wouldn't seem like this huge, unmanageable memory of a dream to conquer.

It was a great vacation. We've never done anything like this; go somewhere for Christmas. But I'm glad we did it; I think the kids are finally starting to appreciate and remember these kind of experiences. Last summer, when we camped in the Redwoods, visited great-grandparents, and exposed them to all things wonderfully Southern Oregonian, something sank in. It is the first of the shared memories by all of the children, from oldest to youngest.

So, I'm going to sort through the photos and notes and get 'er done! Tomorrow, "The Journey to Thailand".

First stop on one of the day tours: Kata View Point, Southern Phuket Island