Captions

A picture from our car port (no we don't have a car) assessing the rainfall. Taken on Saturday (9/19).

Patty next to (of course not in) her bed.

Steven and I in Pranburi.

Us at a Thai teachers house. Our boss Joe is in the middle (the only other white person). The hostess is in the back on the left. Lots of fun, but we left when they broke out the karaoke.

Patty this morning. She doesn't look pregnant....right?

P.S. You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

An anniversary post

Hello, there. A year later seems as good of time as any to update you from Thailand. A few highlights:

We have a cat. She had lost her mom when we found her. We listened to the Thai doctors and waited to get her spayed. Now she's pregnant (Note: not that the thai vet was wrong, but I knew better than to wait...). Her name is Patty and she's a lot of fun. There was a brief attempt to toilet train her, and she was really close, but she is much happier now that we are allowing her to do her business like a cat.

We're teaching at the same school, same grades. Steven teaches 7th and 8th and I teach 1st and 2nd. The girls are cute as ever. They too know about Michael Jackson's death.

We have moved since we came back in April. We now live near school, on the opposite side of town from last year. We live between Ari and Saphan Kwai BTS stations, just in case you'd like to look up a map of Bangkok.

Our friend Mark was here for a few weeks. He was here in January also, it was nice to have him back. It's funny to think we've seen him more than most of our family in the last year. While he was here we went to Pranburi. Beautiful. It's 25 minutes south of Hua Hin (a popular tourist destination in Thailand), which was nice as it was really quiet.

Steven took the GMAT and did awesome!! He's now receiving letters from multiple schools including Notre Dame and Baylor. Applications are in the making.

We're learning more Thai and have become mildly conversational. We recently got a copy of Rosetta Stone for Thai. My prejudgment about the computer program was nothing less than miraculous. A legitimate copy of it (of course we don't have it, we live in Thailand) is around $500 (we paid $6). Due to this outrageous cost, I figured it would be pretty awesome. It is.

I tutor on Fridays and Saturdays now. Friday is a 1st grader named Ci. We live on the same street and she's a smart cookie. I also tutor 2 adults on Saturdays. They can speak fluent English, and we're working on their reading and grammar abilities. We recently did a few lessons on phrasal verbs. Until about a month ago, I had only a passing knowledge of these. I then googled "phrasal verbs" and discovered there are hundreds and hundreds of even the most common ones. Examples of phrasal verbs: the plane took off (took off being the phrasal verb - nothing is being taken off, but those two words together make a new meaning). I have to brush my teeth (have to together means must). The list goes on and on. How about "break in" as a forced entry but also as "breaking in" new shoes!?!? Yikes. Ok teaching rant over.

Today we aren't working, as students are at home from testing on MWF. We are due at Immigration today for our 90 day visa extension. This is the first time we've had to do this, and, to be frank, I'm a little nervous. I've never been there by myself, we've only been with a thai-speaking staff member from our company.

Rainy season is here. A picture from Saturday when our place semi-flooded. Not standing-water-in-the-house flooded, but we didn't leave due to the ankle-deep water.

Lots of love from Thailand,
Audrey