Christmas Party

We attended our missionary friends' Christmas Party and it was fantastic. Maddie has taken to volunteering with the women's shelter group. Some of these girls are Maddie's age and have suffered abuse beyond understanding...tonight they perfomed a play (in Thai so I'm not sure what the message was...) and they enjoyed it so much.

Getting ready before the performance...

The stage...

Two Women Named Lois

2008 is almost gone and I have been thinking about resolutions for the new year...and that brings me to thoughts of two inspirational women in my life, Lois Bisbee and Lois Elwell. These are ladies from the church where I grew up. Lois Elwell was the pastor's wife, a Sunday School teacher and piano teacher of mine, and was the ultimate Proverbs 31 woman. Not to say she was the only Proverbs 31 woman that has inspired me but she was certainly the first. I am grateful to God for her (and her family's) HUGE influence on my very young life. Lois is gone now but her spirit lives on in her family. http://www.ehow.com/how_2158942_be-proverbs-woman.html

Next, Lois Bisbee...another huge influence at an early age, my Sunday School teacher, bible camp teacher, gave me by bridal shower and Brittani's baby shower. One year she held bible camp at her house out in the woods, she had the most splendid merry-go-round you could ever imagine and the woods was so fun to play in. This particular summer we learned about the fruit of the spirit and though I don't remember exactly how it played out, we were to seek out paper plates marked with all the fruits of the spirit and see which team could find them all first. I don't know about the rest of the kids but this activity made a huge impression on me. That we were to seek God and as we knew Him better we would acquire these fruits in our lives...I am resolving to seek God through prayer and being still with Him and hopefully acquiring the fruits of His spirit to make a difference for Him in this world...

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5:22)

The word "Spirit" is with a capital "S" - which means these 9 fruits are coming directly from the Holy Spirit - not from us.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year. Please keep us in your prayers.

It was a great day on Koh Samet

Bauer toes in the sand...

On the beaches in Thailand you will see these mobile bbqs all over the place. It's great, this little old lady walks the beach with this pole balanced on her shoulder, and will stop to prepare you some bbq meat or spicy papaya salad, yummy...

Maddie snorkeling on the island...

Motoring around Koh Samet

The plants are beautiful...

Jeff and Maddie playing on the rocks...

So beautiful...

Koh Samet

The love of my life...

Relaxing on the beach...

Another love of my life...sweet Madalyn Rose...

Maddie and Nolan

We have all been missing Nolan this holiday season...some photos we cherish...

Eating lunch at a noodle house in Japan...

One year ago on a hike up Iron Mountain outside San Diego...we love and miss you Nolan. :)

Beach House!

Here's Maddie and Daddy enjoying an "American Breakfast" on the island of Koh Samet. We had our very first pancake at this restaurant since we left America and it was fantastic. We headed for Rayong (the house is actually in Ban Phe, a few miles south of Rayong) on Friday morning, just relaxed. I started driving and I feel human again! The shifting is no problem and I have a feel for where I am on the opposite side of the car so I now feel confident I won't mow anyone down with the left side of the car. We ate dinner at our favorite restaurant on the beach (only about 2 blocks from the house). Maddie and Ginger love to chase crabs on the beach every evening. Ginger comes swimming with us every day in the ocean. Last trip we had to drag her into the ocean every time, this time she just ran right in on her own. She loves the beach house!

Next morning we took a speed boat out to Koh Samet and had breakfast here. We then rented motorbikes and toured around the island for about 3 or 4 hours. It was really fun.

Maddie took this picture...very nice...

I'm not sure if any of you saw this around the rest of the world? This is not a good picture but Maddie wanted to take one of the moon with 2 planets that made a happy face (on our side of the world anyway) It was really cool...

The Imperial Phukaew Hill Resort

We stayed here in August 2003. What a beautiful place. It's up in the mountains in Petchabun Province and it is a little slice of heaven. http://www.imperialhotels.com/phukaew/location.html
We haven't been back since but we were just telling Maddie we are going to plan a trip there soon. I can't wait! This picture doesn't do it justice, the one on their website is much better. Back in 2003 we got a room here that includes breakfast for about $10-$15 per night. The rates look like they are a little higher now, about $45 a night including breakfast for a March booking, probably even lower in August.

These flowers not only look pretty, they smell fabulous. Another great thing about Thailand, the beautiful flowers...

Here's a white variety. The picture of the dog by the shrine was taken here at Phukaew too.

Past trips to Petchabun

This is one of my favorite pictures...a Thai dog sits by one of the many Bhuddist offering shrines next to the tennis court.

This is Jun and Joke. These are a couple of amazing kids. This was back in 2003 when they were about 13 and 11 years old. Their parents were both in the military. The whole family was in a car accident that took the lives of their parents. Not long after the accident, Jeff visited Thailand for the first time and our friend in Petchabun was telling him how she helps many people in the community in different ways, one of which was help in supporting orphaned children. Jeff asked if there was any way to help and next thing you know we were blessed to meet and be able to help with Jun and Joke. They were able to stay with their elderly grandmother and attend school. Jeff and I "adopted" Joke (the boy) and another friend of ours "adopted" Jun. It has been almost 6 years now and Joke is 17 and wants to join the military like his parents. Jun is 19 and attending school to become a dentist. We are so proud of these two!

There are so many families in need everywhere in this world. We feel blessed to do even a little bit to help out where we can. A lot of times, especially in the rural areas like this, the fate of children is grim. We are glad to have friends to show us ways we can do our part to help and we look forward to more opportunities in the future.

Bauers at the Sunflower Fields

More sunflowers...

Sunflower Fields

This place is so fun and beautiful. We bought fresh sunflower seeds...yum! If you are concerned about losing weight, Thailand is not your best bet. They have THE BEST food and desserts.

Mint and Maddie...

It was a wonderful trip!

Rainforest above Petchaboon

We had to cross the stream many times either over fallen trees like this one or on rocks.

The trees are very tall...

We have a long history of trips to Petchabun and hiking up here in the mountains. My very first trip to Asia was to Petchabun. A friend of ours that is from this area, runs one of her businesses here, and as of this year she has become an appointed Senator of Thailand. She has done so much for this province, she has written many books about women's health and eating organic foods, another business she has started is an organic foods store. We visited and bought organic brown rice, a mushroom based stock to put in soups, noodles, etc., macadamia nuts and tamarind. Petchabun is the capital of Tamarind. They have a statue of the Tamarind in the middle of town. Tamarind is a fruit kind of like a date or a prune. They make all kinds of things out of Tamarind in Thailand. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but I've grown to love it. Petchabun is a great province-it's clean, organized, the air is clean, it's all farming and open land and the city itself is small compared to Bangkok. Anyway, our friend is always promoting healthful programs for her employees like exercise classes on-site and this time when we were visiting all the employees were learning to make their own organic soaps and shampoos as most of the people there are poor and this can save them a lot of money for their families. OK, now I've realized that I am going to have to take a lot of time to talk about Petchaboon! I will continue tomorrow!

Cool Weather...

This was such a nice hike. The birdwatching was great!

So peaceful...

The sun peering through...

Phetchaboon or Petchabun

This week we traveled out to Phetchaboon, or Petchabun. Another funny thing about Thailand is that you can spell things practically any way you want to. Maps and directions are very interesting. We are finally adjusting though, another time when you just have to give up on the idea of anything being efficient or organized, you just have to think of how something "could" be spelled and go with it. :) Anyway, Petchaboon is about 4 hours northeast of Bangkok in the mountains. Maddie had the day off of school on Wednesday and then we kept her out on Thursday too. Mint came with us and we had a wonderful couple of days hiking through the rain forest, birdwatching (Jeff and I got about 6 lifers on this trip!), eating, and visiting with friends. These pictures don't do the gigantic plants proper justice. These palm fronds are at least 30 feet long. Everything is bigger in the Rain Forest!

Political Situation is Better at the Moment

Well, as you may have heard, the airports are preparing to reopen, the protesters have gone home for the moment. The political situation is very confusing and complicated so I won't bore you with the story...but, my prediction is that the people have solved things temporarily, like I said in previous posts, they absolutely LOVE and RESPECT their King and it is his birthday today, tomorrow is "Father's Day" a national holiday (the King's bday is Father's Day and Mother's Day is the Queen's bday here in Thailand) and so they would NEVER disgrace his bday with what was happening here before. I hope I am wrong but after this holiday is over, the political situation is NOT solved, so they could be right back at it again. I would hope they would never allow the airports to be taken over again but confidence is low around the globe after what DID happen! We will have to see if people will come to Thailand again, time will tell. We hope people will still come. Luckily, the issues have nothing to do with westerners, we feel very safe here.

Other than this, everything is going very well for us here. For the King's bday holiday we are taking off for Rayong (the beach city where we spent our first week here, where Jeff practiced driving!) and this time I am going to practice driving! Wish me luck! I am so tired of depending on others to drive and even though I don't mind riding the motorbike, it's not the safest mode of transportation and Maddie is pretty scared to ride with me. We only had to do it once and she talked the whole time about how she was going to die and telling me who to give all her possessions to! Silly girl! I dreamt the other night that I was driving and it was easy so...I think it is time! :)

Political Situation

Here is Part One of the political situation going on here. Since I wrote this the other day, the court ruled the current government to dissolve so the PAD has stopped the protesting and the airports are preparing to reopen...see Part Two for the most current news...

We are living day to day as usual here even though, as we speak, things could take a turn for the worst at any moment. They are presently awaiting a verdict after hearing from the 3 political party leaders to judge whether or not there was corruption (ha! they're politicians! In THAILAND to make matters worse!) in the last elections. Waiting on pins and needles and praying there won't be violence. The court is not far from where we live, as is the domestic airport, Don Muong, the 2nd airport the PAD overtook last week and where the most recent bombing was at 15 minutes past midnight this morning. Although it's not far from where we live, it's far enough that we don't feel unsafe. Last report I read there are 300,000 people stranded here! Things are still simmering, they are trying to settle it all peacefully, it's so confusing and frustrating. Their culture is to be peaceful but this situation is about ready to cause a civil war...this would never even come close to happening in another country and it's because of the culture. They look the other way all the time because they don't want to confront, just want peace, that's why there is so much corruption and no one does anything about it. They just say "maipen lai" (no problem) or "TiT" (this is Thailand). A good example is when our bank in San Diego for some reason thought fraud was occuring since we were using our card here in Thailand (of course we told them many times before we left because we didn't want that to happen, but it still did!) and one day we were getting $$ out of the ATM and the machine ate our card! We had Mint phone the bank that the ATM was with and after we explained what happened they said they would hold the card and we could get it back the next week. We thought, yeah! Right! So we called our bank and worked everything out and asked them to reactivate our cards, they said, we can't they are already deactivated. We told them that they had to because we had no way of them sending us new cards, so we got our lawyer involved and they said they would do it but there was no way we would get our card back from the bank in Thailand. We said, "this is Thailand!" The people at our bank just figured they would humor us I guess but, sure enough, a few days later, we went to the main headquarters of the bank in Bangkok and they gave us the card back! Only in Thailand! Good thing we are legit! :)

Anyway, the people mean well, the majority of Thai people ARE peace loving people that will avoid conflict or violence at any cost. It is this naivety (I'm not sure that's the right word but it's as close as I can come) that has made this situation so difficult. Just like in any country, politics is corrupt and we have to choose the best of the worst, then you throw into the mix the royalists, the poor people and their LONG history of culture, it is a tough situation and I just pray they can find a peaceful solution. It certainly has been a lesson in patience for Jeff and I living here! Everyone is always telling us that things take time, be patient, don't move so fast! But we are Americans! How can it be that things aren't done quickly, efficiently, the RIGHT WAY! :) It's been tough and I'm not convinced either way is the best way, there is a lot to learn from both ways of life.

But, anyway, for the most part, the everyday people of Thailand are embarrased and apologetic over what is happening in politics. This has ruined their economy and it is going to take a long time to recover from this blemish on what they are very proud of, their country and their King. Speaking of which, the King's bday is this Friday, he will be 81. The people LOVE the King and I can't imagine anyone disgracing his bday so I would imagine this will be over by then. Hopefully I am right. The other extreme would be that the country erupts into civil war and we will have to hightail it out of here. It's not probable but Jeff and I certainly have thought about "what if" so we do have a plan just in case.

It's really life as usual here unless you are a protester or anywhere near the heart of where they are protesting. You know the media, always hyping everything up, out of control. But, I will give them this, there is a potential for something very bad to happen, and I would would shocked if it happened, but it is POSSILBE...

Pictures of Our Last Trip to Rayong

Here are some pix from our last trip to Rayong. We went out to a nearby island (Koh Samet) three different days. It's a great island. We took the ferry boat two of the days--one day we rented motor bikes and toured the island stopping to swim and eat along the way, the second day we took a tour boat to snorkle, swim, fish, bbq lunch on the boat (which included the fish that were caught!), and went to a fish farm. The tour circled the whole island. The third day we pampered Maddie all day in honor of her bday. We rented a speed boat to go quickly to the island and straight to the beach where we rented jet skis for an hour on the ocean (Maddie LOVES to do that!). We snorkled for an hour or so after that. To top off the day for her she was pampered on the beach with the works--massage of head, neck and feet, manicure and pedicure, snacks and a coconut milk which she absolutely loves. She had a great day.

Day one on Koh Samet, relaxing after a swim...

Day two on Koh Samet, on our tour boat, circling the island, stopping along the way to snorkle, fish, bbq, visit the fish farm...

Going Back In Time

Well, here we go, I'm starting with some old photos, going back in time. This was 6 years ago! Gramma Chesta visited us for Christmas! Maddie was just a little baby! Here are some cute pix of her...sigh...

They grow up so fast! Um, yeah, that IS my booty in the background...sorry...

Here is one of my all-time favorite photos ever! Maddie and JR. They are both so cute! :)

Jeff had just started traveling to Asia and bought some cheap, cheap movies for the boys for Christmas. A couple were OK. Nolan is in the background trying out "8 Mile" and it was SO BAD! Remember that boys? :) Someone had, literally, taken a movie camera into the theatre and filmed the movie on the screen while they watched it! Ah Asia and their pirated movies! Gotta love 'em! :) That's what you get when you pay $1 USD for a movie! :)

Loy Nava Dinner Cruise

This is not the best picture but this is one of the traditional Thai dancers on our dinner cruise. We have taken dinner cruises before when we have visited Thailand but they were on a big cruising boat with hundreds of people and loud live bands with dancing--not traditional Thai dancing--but regular dancefloor where you can dance to the live band. Those cruises were fun, but not our "cup of tea". We prefer this dinner cruise, a small intimate setting of only 17 tables on a beautiful teak wood boat with quiet traditional Thai music played on an instrument similar to the sound of a xylophone and quiet traditional Thai dancing for a short period of time. The food was much better than the other cruises we've taken and the owner of the boat came to each table many times throughout the cruise to chat and make sure everything was OK. They had a nice wine list and they pointed out the highlights along the river. It was heavenly!

Here's the link so you can see how cute the boat was! http://www.loynava.com/welcome.html

Here's a picture of Jeff and I enjoying the Loy Nava! And last but not least for sure! We went to the State Tower Building and up to the 64th floor for the most spectacular view of Bangkok! Check out this link!

http://www.thedomebkk.com/web/sirc_gallery_04main.html

Sometimes websites look better than real life but this one is right on! These pictures show you how it really looks! We couldn't believe how beautiful it was! In the pictures you will see a beautiful staircase, it leads up to a dome and then to the side there is a stage where they had a wonderful jazz band playing soft jazz music. The end to a most perfect day...

Grand Palace including Wat Phra Kaew

I took this picture last weekend. This is the Grand Palace grounds which includes many interesting wats and buildings. The whole area was shut down that day though because they were using it for the activities associated with the Princess' funeral. The King's sister passed away earlier this year and they have been having the official mourning and funeral now. We all wore black last week and there was no alcohol sold for 3 days, etc, etc, etc. So we couldn't tour the Grand Palace that day but I have toured it before with Nolan and Maddie back in 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Palace,_Bangkok

The rest of the pictures of the Grand Palace I took back in 2004. A very funny story (not to the Thai's) we have to tell is when we visited Wat Phra Kaew which houses the VERY SACRED Emerald Buddha. So the kids and I take off our shoes, making sure we follow all the rules, being very quiet and respectful, kneeling down on the floor and taking in the sight of the emerald buddha. Well, Nolan's legs, being so long, got tired and so he flips them out in front of him, pointing the bottoms of his feet STRAIGHT at the MOST SACRED Buddha in the land! Instantly, there were armed soldiers at our side telling Nolan to leave! Well, we still didn't know what was going on so I just thought, oh, they must think we've spent enough time there and we need to move along. So we get up and walk out quietly, noticing a sign on the wall stating "DO NOT POINT YOUR FEET AT THE BUDDHA...Oops...

Another one of the gold buildings...taken in 2004...