School
Each day the children go to school. I know I have talked about school already, but I wanted to include a picture for everyone to see. When I first saw this school, I was so happy to see how organized and "pleasing to the eye" it was. I was also pleased to find out that all three children could attend this school. I knew that they would at least have each other to talk to until they were able to communicate with the others. Hattie and Emma have been studying with a tutor each night to learn how to speak, read and write Thai. This has helped tremendously. Last night, one of the teachers asked Emma to "But Faay" (phonetic spelling), and I was so impressed when Emma jumped up to go turn on the light for her. Today Hattie has some tests to take that are similar to mid-term tests in college. They want to see if the children are all learning the topics that have already been taught. Hattie is a bit nervous, but I know she will do well. Emma does not have tests in Kindergarten as far as I know. Lil Harry has been playing and learning alot of Thai. His favorite thing to say is "My Ow" which means "I don't want it" or (if he adds the "Thank you") it is "No Thank you". The kids have had a hard time with making friends because they can't talk to the other kids, but they are learning a bit more each day. We know that they will make friends at school. Keep praying for them to persevere through this learning process.
Uncle John's
We have many places that we like to go eat, and this is one of them. It is called "Uncle John's". This picture shows me and Uncle John. This restaurant serves some Western foods (ie. pancakes, omelettes, spaghetti, grilled steak, and baked potatoes). This kids love to go here to get pancakes. Uncle John is a very nice guy who does speak English, so it is a great place for us to go for a break from speaking Thai. Hattie is friends w/ Uncle John's youngest daughter. Her name is Palm. She is 12 years old, and she loves to hang out with Hattie. All of the children love to have ice cream at Uncle John's also. You can see the ice cream case in the picture. Hattie and Emma's favorite ice cream is rainbow sherbert, and Harry loves cappuchino. As you can see we can drink Coke here, and Harry loves "Nom Manow" which is like a limeade. It is so good. This is one of the first places we ate at when we arrived in Mae Sai.
Our favorite street vendor so far (there are many good ones, but this is our favorite so far) we call "Spaghetti Guy". I am not sure if any of the vendors have official names, but this vendor sells Spaghetti, hamburgers, steaks, and salads. Sounds like America, huh?? Well, the spaghetti is a bit different. The pasta is the same, but the sauce has a bit of Thai twist to it. The hamburgers are basically friend pork or chicken sandwich. This is Emma's favorite. She will eat two of these. I really like them also. Nellie loves to eat their steamed vegetables. If I had to guess, I bet we go there at least once a week. They have tables set-up on the sidewalk behind the cart, so we can eat it right there, or you can "drive-thru".......(snicker snicker). Harry and I were really missing our favorite drive-thru restaurants until we discovered this. We can literally drive-up to any vendor, and order their food to take home. It is great. I am hoping the pictures will help to explain a bit about the street vendors. Ok...I know some poeple are saying, "You be careful eating at the street vendors". I want to let you know that we are very careful. We take a look at how they are storing their uncooked meats and such, and we also do not eat at places that cook their meats in advance and let them sit there for hours. We have really done great with picking the right places so far. The kids like to go down to the street vendors to get dinner and walk around a bit. It is really exciting if it starts to rain. Nothing like picking up your table to put it under an awning to keep you dinner dry....too fun!! We have met many people this way, and we love to get out of the house to eat.
One of our favorite places to go shopping is called Tesco Lotus. It is the closest thing to Wal-Mart that we have here. You can eat at their food court (which is excellent, and it is air conditioned!!), the kids can play at "Skippy World", we can get ice cream at the DQ (yep, that's Dairy Queen), we can buy books (in Thai) at the book store, we can buy all our computer needs at the IT store, and we can go shopping for home needs and food. For a while we were going there everyday (sometimes twice a day), and now we only go a couple times a week. Everyone who works there knows us. We even have discount cards for Mister Donuts and KFC. Pretty neat, huh??
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