Thankful Thursday

Maggie ~ Thankful that my dad is okay after his surgery on his heart!

Andrew ~ Thankful for a chance to raise money for the phillipines while having fun. 

Jack ~ Thankful that I get to leave for Chiang Mai early Monday morning for a week. 

Walter ~ Thankful that my meeting this week with the big big BIG dude in the big K went well. 

Erin ~ Thankful for my parents

Whatever you desire for yourself, affirm it for others, and it will help you both. We reap what we sow. If we send out thoughts of love and health, they return to us like bread cast upon the waters; but if we send out thoughts of fear, worry, jealousy, anger, hate, etc, we will reap the results in our own lives. 

~ Charles F. Haanel

Thanksgiving is almost upon us. One of my very favorite holidays. Missing the opportunity to be with family but hoping to make the best of it. 

Count down:

24 days until Ryan.  Yipeeeee!

30 days until my parents!  Yahooooo!

Cheers

😘 M

Weekend #2

Ever have a weekend that when it's over you step back and say wow did that really happen?

Sometimes life throws opportunities at you that you don't even realize how much it will effect you until it's over.  Was asked to go on a volunteer weekend teaching English at an English camp provided by the American Woman's Club (AWC). Not giving much thought of course, yes was my answer.  Thank God I did. 

Walter and Jack were left to hang out for the weekend by themselves. Erin and Andrew were off to Phuket for a football tournament with the school and me to Chiang Mai. 

Jack and Walter got to do some awesome dad/son bonding. They went to the golf course, The Garage and even the Old Lady, all their favorite restaurants. When Jack sends me a text and says "MOM you missed it", then I know it was a good weekend. The Golf course had a party and a Real pig was roasted. (Jacks words) Walter also took him to the Ripleys Haunted House ( very scary says Jack)  the Infinity Maze and some shoot-em up ride. It was a Jack kind of weekend. 

Erin and Andrew were off to the island of Phuket.  (Lucky kids, I never had a school trip or soccer tournament at a very popular beautiful island) An early morning plane ride got them to the island to start their tournament. Many many matches were played and Andrews team ended up 8 out of 20 teams and Erin 12 out of 20 teams. They had an absolute blast got to stay in a pretty resort near the Andaman Sea play football at an amazingly beautiful international school (Erin's words) run around with their friends, fly on a plane without their parents and even carry their own passport (Andrews words). Andrew was extremely happy with his level of play. Guess he got quite a lot of good feed back from his coach. (He hasn't played football (soccer) since he was 8). He played every game and most games never came off the field.

This was Andrew's first real independent travel and of course he loved it. 

The camp I went to was in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a province in northern Thailand. It is about 10 hrs away from where I live but is a quick flight from Bangkok. It was a weekend of firsts for me too. Samoeng was the district were I was. It is a very small town but don't worry it had a 7-11. Every corner in Thailand has a 7-11. Who ever started the 7-11 was a very smart person. 

Samoeng is known for their strawberries, hill tribes, gorgeous scenery and seeing the "real" Thailand. In February there is a Strawberry Festival with a strawberry pageant.  I can't even begin to describe the beauty of the landscape. It was Wow!  

The camp is a tradition of the AWC (see above) scholarship program. 125 high school girls mostly from hill tribes, 23 teachers from 12 schools and 48 volunteers with about half being from the Peace Corps all attended this camp. The volunteers stayed at a gorgeous organic natural setting resort. It was extremely basic and very Thai, so beautiful. We worked from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon interacting with the students and playing school. The local school donated their facilities for us to use, actually the school had 12 girls attend the camp too. 

Each girl receives a scholarship to stay in school. Most of the girls receive their scholarship from a private donor connected to the AWC in Bangkok. Shockingly it is only $200 USD to keep them in school. The girls are taught English in their school every week but it's like the US students learning Spanish maybe only 1 or 2 times a week for an hour. Plus they are not learning English from a native English speaker so this camp is a way for the girls to be around native English speakers so they can learn proper pronunciation. 

Girls and teachers were broken into 8 groups and they rotated through classrooms that were set up in fun learning type games where the girls could practice their English and have fun at the same time. The Peace corps volunteers were the group leaders and the other volunteers ran the games. I was in Game Quiz (much like jeopardy). It was so neat seeing these girls through the course of the weekend become self confident in speaking even just a little bit of English. The games were designed to push them past their comfort zone and practice what they know. It was amazing to see how smart these girls were and with just a little bit of encouragement they would really try to speak English and read it. This camp is designed to give these girls a voice and encourage them to use their knowledge so they to can be somebody. Teaching them English empowers them to be able to do what they want in this world. It amazes me that something that I take for granted is such a powerful tool and makes their world so much bigger. Being able to speak English will allow these girls to have a greater income. 

I can't even begin to describe the feelings that I had being a part of this camp. 

Interacting with these girls who have basically nothing but were all so happy. It was funny, many of them were around Erin's age but had never done the Hokie Pokie, duck duck goose, tug of war, Simon Says, played with a hoola hoop. Many of them wore Mickey Mouse and Donald duck stuff. Hello Kitty is huge. 

The last night we were together was a cultural show. Wow. The most fantastic thing about it - it was real. What do I mean? I did not pay for it. It was not Disney, no paid actors or fancy custom made costumes. These were girls who participated and learned these dances in their hometowns where a mother or grandmother made their costumes. These girls were so excited and so proud to show us their traditional dance. It was like watching your own child's recital. As we sat and watched these girls perform you realize how different our lives are until the very last performance when a groups of about 15 girls get on stage to perform to the one an only Village People YMCA and then you are see how much we are the same. This performance got us audience members to our feet as the dance party began. We all continued to dance together as the music played. A great night was had by all.

 

The weekend was over and we head to the airport. Having about 3 hours before our flight 3 of us (me of course never wanting to miss out anything) leave to go shop. We check our bags and grab a taxi and head to some stores in Chiang Mai. Me never having been there my girlfriends want to show me around.  We shop have a tea and now head back, another first a tuk tuk ride. 

Get back to the airport my girlfriend grabs her bag pulls out a bottle of wine and we proceed to sit on the airport floor drinking red wine out of paper cups. Celebrating our weekend together. Another first!

What a weekend!

Cheers

😘 M



If interested check out a few of the clips from the cultural show, including the dance party.

 

Thankful Thursday

Maggie ~ Thankful my Thai teacher is so very very patient with me being a terrible student. Lol!

Walter ~ Thankful that I get to go out to a party with my wife on Saturday night. 

Jack ~ Thankful that I go to this really cool school which provides really neat opportunities. 

Andrew ~ Thankful that we have Central Festival here so I have something to do on the weekends. 

Erin ~ Thankful for Thailands "winter"!  ☀️☀️☀️

Thailand Fun Fact:  This Sunday is a Thailand festival called Loy Krathong which means "floating Crown" or "Floating Boat".   This takes place on the 12 th month (Thai lunar calendar) during the full moon. A lotus shaped "boat" is constructed of natural materials usually made out of a banana trunk or banana leaf. Inside the boat flowers, incense and a candle are placed. You place this boat in the river at the rise of the moon releasing your bad energies and asking for good luck in the future. The floating of the boat is followed by a celebration of fireworks and concerts. 

Of course the Elms family will be participating in this festival!

I have to give a huge shout out to my daughter and her extremely kind and giving self. She just recently turned 17 and a couple of weeks ago told me that there really is nothing that she wants or needs for her birthday. She asked if I would be okay with her donating any money she received for her birthday to an orphanage that she volunteers at every Thursday after school. With all the generous money she received from her extended family ie: grandparents and aunts and uncles plus she threw in her own money she was able to donate today $9000 baht this is equivalent to $300 USD. The woman who runs the charity was quite taken back and almost speechless.   

The Mercy Center helps provide educational, moral, social and spiritual training for poor children and the destitute. The children's home where Erin volunteers provides for abused or abuse by severe neglect to children by providing a clean safe home, good food, medical care, clothing, education and lots of love to all the children. 

Erin says thanks to all who sent her money. She could not have done it without your birthday gifts. 

Seriously if I am thankful for anything it would be this opportunity of living in Thailand and what it has done for my kids. 

On a lighter note: 

Today I went to a very beautiful but interesting place for lunch. The name of the restaurant was Cabbages and Condoms, nope that is not a typo. :). It was actually a very beautiful small boutique resort here in Pattaya. The resort is called Birds and Bees and the restaurant is called Cabbages and Condoms. The idea of the name is to promote better understanding of family planning and safe sex. To say the least it is a very interesting concept. I can't say I've ever eaten lunch surrounded by artwork made from condoms. To bad the brothel house bar was not next door to this restaurant. They might be able to work together and help each other. Lol. 

Yep his outfit is completely made of condoms. 

It's a condom tree

Weekend #2 coming soon!

Cheers

😘 M

Weekend #1

Reading through my blog today, boy it seems like I lead a life of privilege and adventures, okay really there is some truth to the adventure part, here everyday can be somewhat of an adventure. The expat life is full of hills, valleys and mountains when it comes to ones emotions.  Who wants to hear about that stuff though. Way more fun to write about all the fun stuff.  😊

The isolation and loneliness can start to spread through my brain like a bad virus then a moment or weekend comes along and its the perfect medicine to make it all go away. 

We have had two very full weekends. Back to back weekends that were quite an experience in their own special way. First weekend in November, Erin's 17th birthday and a red carpet event. One of the best birthdays Erin has had in a long time said my daughter. Wish I could take credit but nope had nothing to do with it, just provided a house for sleepover and a driver to take them wherever they wanted to go. This is a clear example that she is fitting in nicely here and enjoying every moment. She has some pretty awesome friends. 

Walter, never one to disappoint me, after arriving from the US at 4am Saturday morning put on his dancing shoes that same night so we could pretend to be adults in the high society.  We dressed up like big people and attended a charity ball. It was a Red Carpet Gala event which raised money for a special charity called Women with a Mission. A charity since moving to Thailand I've come to know and love. Amazing woman that I fully admire. My dress was custom made by one of the local Indian woman for pennies. We ate, drank and danced and before long we were no longer acting like adults. Lol

Never knowing when to end a night we continued a smaller party at one of our new hangouts, Renedevouz.   This place is a small bar around the lake where we live. It is a strange place but most places in Pattaya are strange for various reasons. We go in to this bar and it's a simple regular bar with a pool table and stuff but the odd thing is a woman sits in a desk behind the bar and only pretty Thai girls work the bar and only white old fat foreign men are in attendance. Hello it's a Brothel!  Of course we stayed, well it was clean and they served a cold beer. At the time we just couldn't figure out why we were the only women customers and why they were looking at us like we were nuts. Nope they didn't bother our men at all though there might have been a few disappointed Thai girls. It was quite a fun night. Walter always the trooper after just arriving that morning hung with us till the end at about 3am that next morning. So much fun was had. 

A "little" bit of fun was had. I became a little over accessorized as the night went on. Lol

This was a very busy week. After the weekend was over I barely had time to recooperate LOL because Tuesday I was back on the party train at the Melbourne Cup viewing party in Bangkok. This was one of those events that my agreeing to something with no thought involved when making a decision just jumping in head first, some would call it impulsive I call it having fun, worked out for me. I really had NO idea what the Melbourne Cup was. I had absolutely No idea that it stops the entire nation, the entire work population of Australia gets off for a whole day to watch a 3 minute horse race. 

Fun Fact: Melbourne Cup is the richest two mile handicap in the world. Who Knew! 

Well actually I still dont know. Ha! The day started at 9:30am and lasted until 3:00 with a 3 minute horse race in between somewhere. The Bangkok viewing party is one of the largest viewing parties outside of Australia. What a PARTY. I have never seen such glamour. Fascinators galore. I didn't even know what a fascinator was until a few weeks ago.   There was a caberet show with the famous drag queen from Pattaya, a fashion show, dancing, raffles, 4 course luncheon and free flowing champagne. What a day. It was definitely one of those moments that I said to myself, is this truly happening and am I really here. 

Yes Walter works, the kids go to school and I try to have as much fun as possible. Isn't that why I moved to Thailand!  Wouldn't you?? 😜

Cheers

😘 M

The hospital

Well all good things sometimes can have a bad affect on people. No I'm not talking about drinking to much. Swimming and ear aches. Andrew has an ear infection. To much water from vacation and snorkeling and Andrews ear hurts. Since this being his second one in like 2 months I decide to take him to the hospital. We haven't been to a doctor here yet so I decide this is probably a good time with it not being emergency and we can really figure it out. 

When you go to the doctor here it's actually at the hospital. You go in go to the information desk and they take you to the appropriate area of the hospital, the nurses speak minimal English. .

 Andrew and I head to the ENT. We wait then it's our turn they take us to have his vital checks then return us to the waiting room. I HAVe to go to the bathroom. We sit and I tell Andrew I'll be right back don't move. I'm in and out 3 minutes tops and Andrew is gone. I go to the nurses station, now this is one major thing that bothers me about the Thais they don't acknowledge you if they are uncomfortable. I guess I made them uncomfortable because I can't FInd my kid. 

So I'm standing there going excuse me ( now wishing I had paid more attention during my Thai lessons) and about 7 of them behind the counter glance up at me but quickly put their heads down and go about their shuffling of papers. The nurse who took Andrews vitals who spoke English, I see her and ask her where Andrew is, she suddenly doesn't speak English. Now I'm agitated. Andrew is in one of these rooms. He is 12 and would not walk off. I call his cell, no answer. After several minutes and me getting no ones attention and no one having any idea where Andrew is a nice Thai woman waiting in the waiting room comes up to the Desk says something in Thai pointing down the hall and suddenly they are helping me find Andrew. I walk into the room and the appointment is over, with the doctor giving Andrew all his instructions. 

Andrew looks at me like WHERE have you been and why does my phone keep buzzing. 

We are shuffled out of the room and told to follow the nice nurse who brought us here. Yeah where was she when I couldn't find Andrew. I am givin a bill, told to wait for my number to be called, pay for services, handed my medicine and sent on our merry way. All this took place in less than an hour and now we head out to find Khun Biayoon. I'm Exhausted. 

These are just some of the things you have to get use to in this country. It is definitely not America. I just have to remind myself sometimes. 

Cheers

😘 M

The vacation was not over!

We arrived home from vacation and poor Walter had to jump on a plane for America, all within a couple of hours. The kids and I relaxed for a day sent the laundry out and stocked the refrigerator. 

Saturday we were invited by some friends to go snorkeling here in Pattaya and possibly try out scuba diving. In typical Maggie fashion, I ask no questions or details and just jump in head first into making this decision. Basically this is how I have lived my last the last 40+ years. Hell yes we are going. 

The only detail is to be at the dive shop by 8am. The boys and I head out get to the dive shop. (Erin didn't want to go bc of to much homework, her mistake!) I go in having absolutely no idea what I have gotten myself into. First question I ask what time should my driver return to pick us up. 6pm I'm told. 6pm????..  Seriously that is like in many hours from now. What on earth are we doing?  Do I say this of course not. I nod my head and go tell my driver to be back at 6. He of course already knows this because he talks to all the other drivers.

The instructors point me to the man who is going to help me and the boys get our equipment. I have decided we are just going to snorkeling. This man is TALL like 7ft tall I basically look at his belt buckle when I talk to him. He is a little intimidating and in this very strong German accent asks me what I need. Need I have no idea aren't you supposed to tell me what I need. I say we need flippers, WRONG they are not called flippers but fins.  Everything we have to discuss because I am American and he is NOt. Terms as simple as shoe size, I am WRONG they use European size.  Water temp is Celsius. Depth of water meters.  Oh come on just give me the damn stuff. 

Everyone has arrived we get on the baht bus and head to the pier. What kind of boat are we getting on?  I have no idea?  Was I suppose to bring food if we are going out till 6 pm, I have no idea. Detail, details. Maybe I need to start asking questions BEFoRe I agree to these things. Nah where would my sense of adventure be. My boys they just tend to roll their eyes at me and stop asking me questions because it becomes obvious I have no idea. 

The boat begins. There are about 30 people on the boat. We are given some safety instructions (that's actually a first for me in Thailand). They even had life vest for ALL of us. We head out into the open water. We traveled for about 11/2 hours. Thank goodness my girlfriend gave me her last Dramamine "just in case" before we left. Maybe another detail I should have thought about. I don't get sea sick but I also can't remember when I traveled an hour and a half out into the open water. 

Thank God I made this decision to come. What a wonderful day. We snorkeled, the boys jumped off the boat, got to see lots of scuba divers. We ate lunch on the boat, it reminded me of camp. Everything was served out of big metal pots and you scooped up onto big plastic plates. We did not have to down our own dishes though which was a bonus. The boys of course still talk about the awesome food of course Everything was deep fried that's why and lots of fresh fruit. Beverages were served only after snorkeling and swimming (safe again, shocking!). I was prepared in the best way I know, an opener. Yep they all made fun of me for having it on my keys (house keys remember I don't drive here so it's okay) but they could open their beers. 

Poor Walter he missed this trip. What's the saying - the cats away and the mice will play!  That's me!

The boys are at the top listening to our safety instructions. 

Jack and I doing a little snorkeling. 

Andrew just a natural floater. 

Jumping off the boat. 

Cheers

😘 M

No whining please

Waterfalls, massages, zip lining, fanastic fire shows, amazing food and a "few" cold beverages. What more could you want in a vacation. Koh Chang was everything we wanted and more. The driver drove us to our destination which was 4 hours a way. That was definitely a first. It really made this road trip a little different. Bickering, whining and smells that sometimes come from my little boys was definitely not an issue this time around. Movies and sleeping seemed to be the top priority. Big Papa sat in the back though I do think he was a bit bored at times and can sometimes be a bit of a backseat driver. I think this is when Khun Biayoon pretends to not understand his English and does what he wants anyway, we have all been there I get that.  :). 

The ferry we rode over on. Very interesting. We sat in the car and watched a movie. I didn't ask any questions about safety of all these cars running their motors on the boat I just enjoyed and shut my mouth.  Sometimes you just have to do that in Thailand. Just enjoy the ride! 

Our resort from the water. Photos don't do it justice. It was beautiful. 

Making our way to the waterfall

Got to swim at the base of the waterfall. The water was crystal clear and very refreshing

Quite a fire show on the beach at night. 

It's Tarzan, no Jane, okay it's just me, probably saying profanities because it was frickin hard climbing up this tree. Our zip line ropes adventure was not for the faint of heart. 2 1/2 hour complete workout playing monkey. Our boys LOVeD it, Erin, well let's just say she was happy she did it and vERY happy it was over. She is not a fan of heights. 

Ready for some fun!

Some scenery from high above the trees. 

Dinners at night on the beach, the boat in the background is filled with fresh fish that you can pick for your dinner. 

Oh and just a little bit of fun was had by me!

In typical Walter fashion he had the taxi drivers eating out of the palm of our hands waiting for us wherever we went and even sending back up when the one taxi broke down. You probably think of course because he has all the baht. Not Walter he barters for the price, stands out in the middle of street and nicely argues with them about cost and tells them how much the trip is worth. All this and they still wait around for us taking us where ever we want to go and giving us business cards for when we return. By the end of the 4 days the man was shaking Walters hand and thanking him. Gotta love traveling with Walter! 

Can't wait to go back

Cheers 

😘 M