Karaoke and Suphanburi

Sunset from a cool little bar over the reservoir by us

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all the American's that read our blog! We hope that it was a truly great holiday weekend for everyone!!!

Graham and I were so sad to not be with family this year :( I enjoyed skyping with everyone but missed experiencing my family's crazy antics in person, although they did a great job of making up for it throughout our entire call. Graham especially missed not being in the States for Thanksgiving, because it is his favorite holiday, and the food his favorite. Poor guy did manage to make pretty good mashed potatoes by boiling them in a hot water heater though, which I thought was very inventive of him. We were joined by our American friend Katie, and our English friend, Jessica, and had and  a nice "Thanksgiving" dinner of pasta, mashed potatoes, and fried chicken, so not all was lost.

The girls behind our yummy feast

Friday was Matt and Sel's (our fellow teachers) last day of teaching, so the school had a party for them, which was fun, and consisted of a lot of karaoke. I have never done karaoke before, and I have always thought it was pretty dumb (sorry to those of you who like it. I know a lot of people do!) so I was excited/interested to actually participate in it and decide if my initial impressions were true. Well, they were, BUT, we still had a lot of fun. I guess I really just don't get the appeal. Dancing seems so much for fun to me. That being said, we did have a lot of laughs and Graham sang "Hit Me Baby One More Time" for me, so overall the evening was enjoyable. The food was also really good, as always.

Ice Cream in a tiny town here at Swenson's, which is based in San Francisco

On Saturday we headed to Suphanburi, a larger town close to us. There isn't much to see there, but Graham found what we thought was a plush hotel with a sweet pool! We were exited for a relaxing and luxurious weekend, but it turned out that the pictures online were all lies, and our hotel was completely ghetto! I have stayed in some pretty basic places, but this place really takes the cake. Graham and I had considered going there for our 5 year anniversary, and kept reminding each-other this weekend that even though it was horrible, at least it wasn't where we rang in our 5 years! We joked that we wouldn't have made it to 5 years and a week if we had gone there, and that the guy that photo-shopped the pictures is the only one who should keep his job! Bottom-line, we ended up having a good time, and it will certainly be a weekend we won't soon forget! The name of the hotel is Khum Suphan - for anyone touring Thailand, please don't be fooled by the pictures and end up staying there!!)

The front of the market

Some of the delicious food they had there

On Sunday we went to the famous 100 Year Old Market in Sam Chuk, which was awesome to see. It was huge and consisted of blocks of old wooden buildings that looked straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. They had everything you could imagine to buy, but we held ourselves back as we are realizing that we have to carry around everything we buy for another 6 months, and not many things are worth that.

Today, we are back on the grind. We both got new teaching schedules today, which will hopefully not change for a while at least. It will be good to have a consistent schedule so that we can learn more names, and really be able to assess the class level and the best way to teach them. We both continue to be surprised, exhausted, exhilarated, and challenged by teaching, but overall we both are really enjoying our time.

 Graham has crossed out -elementary school teacher- from his list of possible careers, and while I also know that I do not want to teacher young kids, I am surprised by how much I enjoy it. The kids are certainly a handful, but they are just so excited and fresh too.

I did want to add a couple things to Graham's post about the best and the worst though. All of these come under worse, and actually would have been at the top of that list for me.

1.All the sad stray dogs and cats

2. Environmental degradation everywhere (for instance our town used to by know as the town of the elephants because there were wild ones that would walk through and their main drinking hole was actually at the exact spot where we live! That was only 40-50 years ago, but now all of those elephants are gone, with sugar cane fields to take their place)

3. The use of so much plastic. And the fact that people throw 75% of things away on the ground. There have been so many pictures we have taken that were somewhat ruined by litter and electric wires taking up much of the view.

That being said, we continue to find ways to make little changes, whether it be feeding the strays, trying to get them spayed/neutered, bringing our own reusable bags wherever we go, getting food put into reusable containers, picking up a bit of trash, teaching kids about animals and the environment, or taking buses and riding our bikes everywhere. It feels good to at least lead by example. People here think some of our antics are pretty crazy. But hey, that's how Grahamalie rolls.

We loved the hot pink chairs in this little boat!

Last, but certainly not least, we wanted to congratulate Graham's sister, Meghan Drew Patterson, and Willie Panther II on their engagement!!!!!!!!!!!! Graham and I are both big supporters of love, and are so happy that Meghan and Willie found each other and make each other so happy. Meghan also asked me to be her Maid of Honor, which I am beyond happy to be and am so excited about. Meghan and Willie, we know you will be very happy together!

Also, congratulations to Gabe and Kristi, who got married this week in Cabo. We are so sorry we missed it but are there in spirit!

Love to you all from Thailand!