"What?! You have TWO sheets on your bed?" Noah exploded with shock at the sight of it. Yesterday he was helping me put the sheets back on our master bed after I'd washed them, and I was once again reminded by how many little things we do that are different here from how we would probably do them in America--and having two sheets on a bed are one of those things! In Asia it's typical to only have the bottom fitted sheet (over a very hard mattress, I might add!) and then have a duvet (with no flat sheet in between). So we've adapted to that practice in our own home (it's certainly easier to only have to change the bottom sheet and then wash duvets periodically!) and that's all that the kids see at friends' houses and in hotels. When I told Kevin about Noah's response to seeing two sheets on one bed later that night, we both cracked up at the thought of just how many little things our kids see as normal/abnormal. Pretty funny to think about them having that same reaction when they go to college and see a roommate with TWO sheets on their bed--shocking! Ahh, who knows just how far-reaching the impact of this ex-pat lifestyle will be on our sweet kiddos!
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| Horse carcass on the back of a truck |
Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I'll be honest--I'm haunted by the turkeys that are in my freezer at the moment! It's actually 3am right now, and typically I'm sleeping at this hour. But instead I couldn't sleep, mainly with thoughts of turkeys flying through my head, so Trapper (the cat) and I are here on the couch in the living room. I went two days ago to the only import store in town that I know of where I heard you could buy a turkey. I had orders from friends to pick up 4--two that I am planning to bake (we're celebrating with friends both on Thursday and on Friday) and two that are for other families who don't have cars, so getting to the store and getting the turkey home are more of a challenge. It was a total China experience. The three women sitting at desks in this closet of an import store began by informing me that there were no turkeys in town this year. Then one of them remembered that it was really close to Thanksgiving and she got another one of the ladies to get on the phone and make some calls. By the time I left the store 15 minutes later I had a promise that there would be 4 turkeys waiting there for me the next day! So yesterday I returned at the hour they'd appointed, and sure enough, no turkeys. I was thinking it was going to take another day of trekking out to try again to pick up the birds the following day, but thankfully they finally showed up after I'd waited for 40 minutes. However, I was not expecting the size of the turkeys to be what they are! Each of them is about 17 pounds, so I'm thankful that my freezer is as large as it is. (I already dropped off two of the birds). And I'm also thankful that I have one of the only full-size ovens in town (single ovens, which probably isn't considered full-size by US standards...). Not sure exactly how I'm going to fit everything in my fridge and bake the thing to other's standards, but hoping that it won't cause too much anxiety in the meantime! The lack of the built-in thermometer and the size of the birds is making me a bit nervous...
Noah was really excited on the way to the store, as he kept asking to make sure that the bird was really dead. Sounds strange, but out here, it really was a valid question. Our friends who have lived here longer originally could only find a live turkey that they had to butcher completely themselves. (They made the mistake of having the husband go to pick up the turkey, so he made the decision to NOT have the seller chop off its head right there. The wife was not excited about this decision!) Another poignant reminder of some of the realities of where we live confronted me even on the way to the import store. While stopped at a traffic light, I snapped this photo of a horse carcass that was strung up on the back of a truck in front of me. And a man was actually sitting back there and cutting on it while the car was in motion! There is a large Kazak population where we live who are known to be horsemen (and horse-eaters, too), so I'm assuming that is who they are marketing to? But I'll admit that it was a bit creepy to me; the visual image of the horse carcass being strung up by the tail was something I just don't see every day.
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| View from my seat on the flight to TL |
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| Clarification posted in a TL bathroom stall.... |
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| Tiger Kingdom |
I had planned on getting this post up 2 weeks ago, but we took a trip to Thailand and our return has been much slower than I expected as far as getting back to a routine goes. While we were in Thailand, we stayed at one of our favorite hotels that is close to the airport. It is the most simple place as far as accommodations go, but in back of the hotel is this large open field that my kids have grown to love (and makes me nervous because of the number of snakes that I've seen and the larger number that I know reside there--unseen!). So one of the things that was at the top of their wish list of things to do was to go and pick a coconut from one of the trees and see if Kevin could get it to break open by throwing it really high into the air and letting it fall to the ground. You can see from the pictures that their mission was accomplished! We also spent some time at the international hospital there getting different "maintenance" things done that we can't do where we live. It was such a relief to find out that Noah's ears look good (we were worried that there was a problem with his right ear drum in particular), Karis was able to get some cream for the small bumps she has on her leg, and some spots in my lungs don't seem to be a concern (there's a small chance of me having latent tuberculosis, which is really common in Asia, but nothing needing treatment or anything that's contagious). So we were so thankful to get all those things taken care of at such a nice and modern facility.
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| Finding the coconut tree |
During our last day in Thailand we had friends take us to Tiger Kingdom, where we got to get up-close to several tigers (we opted out of the expensive option of actually snuggling with the tigers!). The coolest part was watching two of them rough housing in this really shallow pool. The sheer size and strength of the animals had us all amazed as we watched them bat at one another and pounce, oftentimes one pushing another under water even. After that we went hiking at a series of waterfalls that was just beautiful. It would have been a perfect day if I hadn't blown it at the end! The kids were off the beaten path (not unusual for them) when they were reprimanded from one of the park workers for climbing up too high. As they started their descent, Hudson started slipping on the wet rocks, sliding on his bottom toward the drop off which landed on more rocks. My heart absolutely stopped as everyone around who saw the event gasped. My immediate reaction was to lunge toward him, which I did, but then realized that there was no way I could make it to him across the shallow pool of water that separated us before he landed on the rocks. So I tried to then pull backward to keep myself from falling into the water, slipping and falling to my bottom in the process. When I did so, I managed to pull some of the intercostal muscles (those are the ones in between your ribs) in my upper chest. Talk about painful! I knew immediately I'd done something, but was obviously so concerned about Hud and his landing (which ended up being "perfect"; he continued to slide down and land on the rocks below feet-first, then literally bounced back up to a standing position while yelling, "That was AWESOME!" There were a few tears once he got over to where I was, as he admitted the whole thing really freaked him out.) So the irony is that I came out of the waterfalls with the most significant injury! The muscles stayed sore for a few days, but once we returned to China Kevin and I both caught a short-lived fever virus that left me with some chest congestion. The congestion coupled with the pain in my ribs made coughing and even deep breathing almost unbearable! I talked with a doctor and he recommended I use Advil and Tylonol, and then bumped it up to taking pain meds, too. I was so thankful that when my mom came in September she brought a new prescription of just such medication, which Kevin has to use periodically for his back when it goes out.
So I ended up spending a good part of the week fuzzy-brained because of pain killers. Moving, lifting, talking for long periods--everything seemed painful! I thankfully had a good stash of food in the freezer, and I even had several friends bring by meals at different times, so the fact that I was useless in the kitchen didn't leave my family hungry. In fact, the older two kids even did several meals themselves--lunches in particular. At one point I asked them to clean off the drying rack where the clean dishes were to make more room and overheard Karis and Eli's conversation. It went like this:
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| Kids using Noah as a pillow |
Karis: Gosh, this is a lot of work. We need to tell Mom thanks more often.
Eli: No kidding. Does she do this every day? Kids are a lot of work.
Karis: Yeah. I'm not sure I'm going to have any.
Priceless! Thankfully I've made it through the worst of it and am down to an occasional Advil for the discomfort. Three weeks later and I'm still not back to 100%, as I get easily fatigued and have to sit down to rest more than I'd like. And I've been off of exercising completely, which is a huge loss for me, as that tends to be one of my bigger stress-relievers. Hopefully this next will be the time....
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| Welcome back! |
Our return from Thailand quickly brought us back to the reality that winter is upon us. We drove home in major snowfall, with about 6 inches already on the ground! The kids have had so much fun playing out in in--building snowmen, snow forts, sledding, and having snowball fights. There's no snow on the ground at the moment, but we've got it in the forecast 3 times over the next week. And friends keep telling us that winter is not actually here yet! This is still just fall, and a pretty mild November at that! I'll admit that it makes me nervous when we walk outside all bundled up, long undies and wool socks on, and I'm thinking, "This is REALLY cold!" And yet our temps are in the 30s, and we'll drop a good 30 degrees before all is said and done! Yikes! Might be pulling out lots of hot chocolate...
I had planned on getting this post up 2 weeks ago, but we took a trip to Thailand and our return has been much slower than I expected as far as getting back to a routine goes. While we were in Thailand, we stayed at one of our favorite hotels that is close to the airport. It is the most simple place as far as accommodations go, but in back of the hotel is this large open field that my kids have grown to love (and makes me nervous because of the number of snakes that I've seen and the larger number that I know reside there--unseen!). So one of the things that was at the top of their wish list of things to do was to go and pick a coconut from one of the trees and see if Kevin could get it to break open by throwing it really high into the air and letting it fall to the ground. You can see from the pictures that their mission was accomplished! We also spent some time at the international hospital there getting different "maintenance" things done that we can't do where we live. It was such a relief to find out that Noah's ears look good (we were worried that there was a problem with his right ear drum in particular), Karis was able to get some cream for the small bumps she has on her leg, and some spots in my lungs don't seem to be a concern (there's a small chance of me having latent tuberculosis, which is really common in Asia, but nothing needing treatment or anything that's contagious). So we were so thankful to get all those things taken care of at such a nice and modern facility. 
During our last day in Thailand we had friends take us to Tiger Kingdom, where we got to get up-close to several tigers (we opted out of the expensive option of actually snuggling with the tigers!). The coolest part was watching two of them rough housing in this really shallow pool. The sheer size and strength of the animals had us all amazed as we watched them bat at one another and pounce, oftentimes one pushing another under water even. After that we went hiking at a series of waterfalls that was just beautiful. It would have been a perfect day if I hadn't blown it at the end! The kids were off the beaten path (not unusual for them) when they were reprimanded from one of the park workers for climbing up too high. As they started their descent, Hudson started slipping on the wet rocks, sliding on his bottom toward the drop off which landed on more rocks. My heart absolutely stopped as everyone around who saw the event gasped. My immediate reaction was to lunge toward him, which I did, but then realized that there was no way I could make it to him across the shallow pool of water that separated us before he landed on the rocks. So I tried to then pull backward to keep myself from falling into the water, slipping and falling to my bottom in the process. When I did so, I managed to pull some of the intercostal muscles (those are the ones in between your ribs) in my upper chest. Talk about painful! I knew immediately I'd done something, but was obviously so concerned about Hud and his landing (which ended up being "perfect"; he continued to slide down and land on the rocks below feet-first, then literally bounced back up to a standing position while yelling, "That was AWESOME!" There were a few tears once he got over to where I was, as he admitted the whole thing really freaked him out.) So the irony is that I came out of the waterfalls with the most significant injury! The muscles stayed sore for a few days, but once we returned to China Kevin and I both caught a short-lived fever virus that left me with some chest congestion. The congestion coupled with the pain in my ribs made coughing and even deep breathing almost unbearable! I talked with a doctor and he recommended I use Advil and Tylonol, and then bumped it up to taking pain meds, too. I was so thankful that when my mom came in September she brought a new prescription of just such medication, which Kevin has to use periodically for his back when it goes out. 
So I ended up spending a good part of the week fuzzy-brained because of pain killers. Moving, lifting, talking for long periods--everything seemed painful! I thankfully had a good stash of food in the freezer, and I even had several friends bring by meals at different times, so the fact that I was useless in the kitchen didn't leave my family hungry. In fact, the older two kids even did several meals themselves--lunches in particular. At one point I asked them to clean off the drying rack where the clean dishes were to make more room and overheard Karis and Eli's conversation. It went like this:
