Last pictures from the conference. The closing ceremony was really special with King Constatine from Greece speaking on the impact the conference had on him this week. Ethan performed in the choir. I especially loved the conference CD and the parade of flags. Each school representative in their school uniform parading their particular flags. It was just great!
(Just a note about the Fall-themed slideshow. I decorated for Fall a couple of weekends ago and when Nok arrived Monday for work she asked, "Why do you do this?" I tried to explain to her that we have a season in America called 'Fall' and it is my favorite season. That even though we don't have Fall in Thailand I still like to celebrate it and pretend that it is Fall! We are at the end of the rainy season and sometimes when it is raining and I'm looking at the window I can pretend that it is Fall in Thailand and all the pumpkins and fall colors displayed throughout the house help me in my fantasy, which quickly fades once I walk out into the sticky heat!)

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Over the last week the boys' school has been hosting the annual Round Square International Conference for 800 delegates from around the world, doubling our student population in 24 hours. It was a huge effort for our school community and I think it was a very successful conference. Most of the delegates didn't commit to attend until July because of the political unrest in Thailand last Spring so it hindered our planning to some degree , not knowing until we all returned from our summer holiday how many people would be attending.
On Friday and Saturday the delegates began arriving from their pre-conference projects that were distributed all around Southern Asia, from the Hill Tribal area in Northern Thailand to Laos, Cambodia, Koh Phi Phi or the Bangkok area. I was Luggage Control coordinator for most of the day Saturday. Sunday was the official opening day, lunch was an International Flavors theme and I was the Americas coordinator, I've been solicitating chocolate chip cookies, brownies, rice krispie treats, sugar cookies and pimento cheese sandwiches from every American or Canadian Regent's parent over the last few weeks. The bakery supplied 30 vegetarian quiches. (There were many vegetarians attending especially from India.) The Aussies took care of all the grilled meats including hot dogs. The Koreans and Thai parents served up lots of spicy dishes. Europeans took care of pizza, croissant sandwiches, Welsh pies, and scones. We had to supply enough food to feed 1000 people.
It was a huge undertaking for the parent community. We had 200 sugar cookies alone, I made 400 pimento finger sandwiches and they cost me about $75 to prepare, cheese is a very expensive item here! One thing I love about Thailand though is the crustless bread that is available, it sure makes finger sandwiches much easier to compile. 1000 people descended on the food like a pack of locusts and cleared it out within two hours.
Monday and Wednesday were committed to service projects. The delegates along with headmasters, board members, and other adult chaperones were divided between 26 different service projects that our school is associated with. My bakery hosted 25 girls/ladies for a day of baking, basket weaving and origami. We've been planning for some time, securing permission from the prison director, assessing potential dangers of our site (making sure the dogs were secured...remember my dog bite there last Spring.) transportation issues, lunch plans, a lot of prayer on my part...I'm thankful to say that everything went really smoothly and a good time was had by all it seemed. The prison girls seemed to enjoy the day as much as the delegates, it is a rare event for them to have outside visitors, much less from half way around the world!
We had a map and globe available for each delegate to share with the prisoners their names and where they are from. One of my girls admitted that she didn't know the world was round! It was such a great experience for all involved. I think the day had a profound affect on the delegates, the bakery ladies are right at their ages, they are cute, nice, not looking much different from themselves but yet are isolated on the premises, little to do-no school etc. and have very stark sleeping and bathroom facilities.
On Tuesday and Thursday we sold all the baked items that were produced during the service days at the conference, it brought some funds back into the bakery. I also volunteered at the Information desk for several hours on those days. Dustin and Nathan were Barazza leaders and facilitated discussion sessions after keynote speakers. There were many late evenings this last week as they were so involved in the conference.
BUT the best thing has to be this-on the last day of the conference the Hotchkiss School from Conneticut donated $300 to the bakery for the kitchen to be plumbed!! Most people don't realize we don't have indoor plumbing there, the girls have to haul all their dishes to another location, we wash our hands from a large container filled with water that has to be carried into the kitchen and bottled water is used in our recipes. Four girls and a teacher representative from the Hotchkiss school cooked with us on Wednesday and felt led to contribute to our project. It sounds like such a small amount of money to students that pay $45,000/yr to attend their prestigious boarding school but is HUGE here in Thailand. I started crying when they handed me their donation and I can't wait to tell the girls all about it on Wednesday!
I'll post some pics from the closing ceremony later. Here's a few pics of our week.

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Last night we spent the evening at the Airsoft field for one of the boys' friends at school-Sierra, celebrating her 15th birthday. We crammed a bunch of smelly boys into our Toyota Fortuner and drove 40 minutes to a night field. (We purchased the largest SUV we could find when we moved here. As the boys are growing it's becoming reallyy crowded. We miss our old suburban so much, we would even take our pick-up here. In Thailand there are no laws against filling up the back end of the pick-up truck, you see it ALL the time. Plus, I wouldn't have had to smell those boys who had just finished with basketball practice! Remember in Thai 'men' is stinky, never more appropriate than last night!) Sierra is a part of the Sanchez family and attends school with the boys, her parents have been missionaries here in Thailand for 10 years. They have 2 church plants and run an orphanage for children with Aids. The longer we live here we are finding more of God's people here. The Sanchez family are such a blessing to us, fellow so-journers here in Thailand AND they like air-soft!

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Mom in Thailand

It was so wonderful to have my Mom here with us for two weeks. She is back home safe and sound and we are so grateful. When she left she said she wasn't ever coming back, "TOO FAR!" but I'm hoping her experience is similar to childbirth, that she forgets the pain of that long flight and will return for another visit. Two weeks just isn't enough, it takes about 4-5 days just to get over the jet-lag and there is so much to see. I posted the few pictures I have of our time with her, she took the rest home on her camera. I forgot to download them. I've also included the pictures we took of our 'new' house my parents reminded me that I had never posted some. One of the neat thngs about my Mom coming is now when we talk about our home here, the school, our friends....she has a picture of all that in her memory. I think it helps her to share in our Thailand experience in a whole new way! We were all sad to see her go especially Nok, realizing she may never see her again and really devoloping a friendship with her. Love you Mom so much and thanks for making the LONG trip over, please pray for her, we sent her home with Dustin and Nathan's cold and she didn't feel well when I spoke with her this morning.

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Summer 2010

Hi Crystal! Thanks for the encouragement to get me back to the blog world!

This is for you as I have no idea who reads this anymore and sometimes I get blog weary, it takes so much time, but I will always have some documentation of this time in our lives. I guess that is something!

I've compiled a lengthy slideshow of most of our summer adventures after the 4th of July at Joe's Boot Shop. I was negligent in taking pictures this summer (you will question that when you see how many pics I did take!) and missed capturing so many of my buddies I saw this summer. How in the world did I not get one picture of Tommy and June meeting us in Austin? Cyndi, Rach, Kate and Karen in New Braunfels, no pictures of Camp Travis, none of my 30th reunion, didn't get any at Dean and Cherylee's home, none of my most gracious host-Cecelia (love you by the way!), not a photo from the beautiful ladies luncheon at your new house, sure wish I had taken one of Tawni and Reagen, didn't even get one of our time with Grace Church and the amazing fellowship with all of you at the Fultz's new home, not a single one of the Shepherd's either and our time in their home and their sweet boys, wish I would have taken a pic of beautiful Em when we met for breakfast in D.C., hopefully Lisa will send me the shot that was taken of all my dear VA neighborhood ladies at the luncheon at Sue's....now you can see why I didn't take the time to blog this summer, I was way too busy visiting with so many of you. How God has blessed me with your friendships! My cup runneth over!!

We are happy to be 'home' in Thailand. Hawaii was a most wonderful place to break up the long trip. It was such a memorable and special trip with my parents. Dad flew home by himself and Mom braved the return to Thailand with us, she has a much greater appreciation of how far it really is! She will be here only a couple of weeks so I better run.

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4th Festivities Continue

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I'm posting a few more pictures as our 4th of July festivities come to an end. We leave New Mexico early Friday morning heading towards Virginia. The boys have completed 3 weeks of work at the boot shop and are looking forward to visiting with old friends in VA. It's not too difficult saying good-bye to Mom and Dad since we will see them in a few short weeks in HAWAII!!

The 4th of July

It's been a busy week heading into the 4th of July weekend. The boys were outfitted in western wear and reported for work on Monday, all of us pitching in trying to help Mom and Dad get ready for their annual 4th of July sale at Joe's Boot Shop which began on Thursday. Lots of family come together to make this sale happen every year. We sold hundreds of boots, belts, and shirts over the three days of the sale. On Sunday we had a family reunion enjoying visiting, eating, and resting. It's good to be in America on July 4th!

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