So, I'll just finish up with the plumbing from yesterday, I just had a few more things to share about that...
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would pray to God for a good toilet. I have caught myself praying about this, I've said to God, "you are laughing about this aren't you!" :) I'm sure He has more significant issues than whether I will have a modern regular, clean bathroom with toilet paper and soap!
Another significant difference in that Thai's don't usually have kitchens in their homes. They most likely have a "Thai Kitchen" which means it's an outside kitchen where you have a gas grill, etc. So it's like bbqing all the time. Our place has a small indoor kitchen-type place which we have made into a pretty workable kitchen. There is no stove/oven so we had to buy a couple of electric grills and cookers, rice cooker, microwave, shelves and small tables for some counter space. Thai's usually go out to eat so they don't need kitchens but Jeff loves to cook and it makes him feel "normal" to cook every night and I love to help, it's really our favorite time of day when we make a meal together.
So today is laundry day. Laundry is very different here. People might have a washer that is outside but it would be rare for anyone to have a dryer since the sun works really well for that. Most people have a laundry service so that's what we do for most things. They come to your house and pick everything up and then bring it back to you 2 or 3 days later! It's great! 50 pieces for 600 baht (about $17USD). We will probably have 50 pieces every 2 to 4 weeks so it's pretty cheap. For all the little or emergency things I have a little tiny washer that came free when we bought one of our tvs! It sits outside in the "garage" (I'll explain that below!) Jeff calls it a washer for dolls because it is so tiny! I will take a picture of it when I get some batteries. Anyway, before we got that washer we had to do the small stuff by hand like almost all Thai's do ALL their laundry. I have tendonitis in my elbow and it's really hard to wash my hair let alone wash a bunch of clothes by hand and wring them out, etc. So I LOVE my little doll washer! It has a spin dryer on it so it gets the clothes almost half way dry before I hang them up outside. I can't believe I am washing clothes like this but now I am getting used to it, every Thursday is laundry day! We just hang our undies and socks out like everyone else, it's hilarious!
OK, the "garage". Another thing that is very different here. Your garage is like a carport that is all gated in. We have to close and lock the gate every night and unlock and open it every morning to get in and out with the car because the streets are very small and anyway, you shouldn't leave your car out or it will very like not be there in the morning--that's what everyone tells us--we feel very safe here and think everyone is paranoid but I'm sure if we ever get anything stolen, we will say the same thing. So, we lock everything up tight every night like they tell us. Our house is a 4 story townhome, about 2500 sf. 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (one on each floor) and it's about $750USD per month! Nice! We really love it here, it's got 24hours security, gated community so it's really safe, and all the neighbors are really nice. Oh yeah, another thing that's different here, the zoning laws, you can have a business in your home, in fact, it's very common. So a lot of our neighbors are businesses; some also live there, some don't. We have a bioscience business across the street, a label business, a film studio, a bunch of other businesses in the neighborhood, it's weird but we are now used to it.
Something that is really great about Thailand is THE FOOD!!!!!!!!! I have not tasted any Thai food that I haven't liked. We also have no problem finding American foods to cook at home. We go to Foodland and Tesco and can find anything that we need really. 7/11 is everywhere and we have found a good coffee place. We rarely buy hot coffee when we go out because it is so incredibly hot here! We drink a lot of ice-blended coffee or ice-coffee. We bought a coffee-maker for the house and have hot coffee every morning though, just like in America. Thai's don't drink coffee so it's hard to find a coffee-maker but we found one, I think we paid close to $100USD for it, ouch! But it was worth it. Since the Thai's don't drink coffee, about all you can find in the restaurants or stores is Nescafe, yech! I guess they have no idea now horrible it is! But, back to the food, Thai food is great and cheap. Mint has been teaching us to order in restaurants and we are doing really well now.
Mint is our personal assistant. We were really having a hard time getting settled so we hired her and she has been a life saver! She started out PT but immediately we hired her on as our FT personal assistant and admin person. She has been translating for us and we get so much more done with her by our side! Today we started our formal Thai lessons here at the house. We have Ruby now to teach us Thai! Maddie is learning in school, she takes about 6 or 7 hours per week at school.
Speaking of Maddie, she started playing basketball on the school team yesterday. She was asked to join the high school team. They had their first game yesterday and won, Maddie had almost all the points! They won 31, 15. They are excited to have Maddie on the team! :) She is also playing on the badminton club! Remember that game? It's really popular here and she enjoys playing it with her friends.
Well, I will blog more tomorrow!
Jan
This is weird, don't you think? I had to get a shot of this! The writing at the top is in Thai!
Here is our Yamaha Mio XR Limited Edition. It's an automatic so no kick-starting! We bought this to ride around the neighborhood and, ocasionally, to take Maddie back and forth to school when needed. In fact, I will have to go pick up Maddie from school today! Wish me luck!
Here's a view from the from the front door through our garage out to the street. During the day we leave the gate open.
At night we lock it up with the car inside like an open air garage! 
On the left side of the gate you can see the mailbox and up above that is our doorbell! 
Gabriel's first day of "frontwards" in the Baby Bjorn...
Mia is very busy playing...
Grammy and Gabriel hangin out...
Such a smart girl!
Here's a picture Chesta took of Jeff and I at the San Diego airport before she left. Jeff and I are taking off this week for Thailand. I will try to keep up the blog while we are traveling so you can see what we are up to. We are going to be relaxing on the beach in Koh Samui for the first few days. I have been learning Thai and can't wait to try it out this time. Love to you all, Jan.
I've been reading Martha Stewart again...what do you think? :) Check Brittani's blog at www.rfamily-ourkids.blogspot.com for more pictures of our Thanksgiving, Gramma's visit, etc. Her blog is much better and she posts a lot more frequently than I have. I'll try to do better! Brittani is my inspiration! :)
Here are some photos from our Thanksgiving day. Unfortunately, Jeff was VERY sick in bed all day and missed the whole thing! We were all very sad. Jeff is the main chef in this household so Chesta and I had to step up and do all the cooking and everything turned out wonderful.
Maddie was out of school the whole week Gramma C was here so they went over to visit Brittani, Mia and Gabriel for awhile when we were at work.
