Happy New Year!!!!!!

Happy New Year to everyone. It has been quite a year and it is so nice to look back and see everything God has done and praise His name for it. I have been bouncing around quite a bit, but I have finally found a place that feels almost like home. Nothing can be like the home I grew up in, but Bangkok brings a close second :D. God has provided me knowledge in my language learning (that is slowly getting better), an amazing job with great co-workers, a fabulous church that loves to give God praise and encourage each other to grow closer to Him, a house that is beyond my wildest dreams, and fabulous roommate who loves being goofy with me. :)


This New Years was also fun as I got to celebrate the wedding of two of my friends from Chiangrai. They have been dating for 2 or 3 years and they are so darn cute together. The top of their cake says it all :D. I'll let y'all enjoy pictures from their wedding.

The bride picked out this cake topper even though his mom also described two very formal, traditional, nice ones. Just one more reason they are amazing :D. I hope I can find this cake topper if I get married one day.

Me with the happy couple :D.


Amie, Amy, Rachel, and I front and center before the ceremony began. We wanted to make sure we got the best pictures :D.



It's almost official :D.



Everyone was buzzing because I caught the boquet. Nun is pointing to it in this picture. I just smiled and said we'll see what God does. haha.

Last night to celebrate New Years, a friend and I went down to Central World Plaza. The fireworks were amazing and we got to walk down the middle of streets in Bangkok. The police closed everything off to cars after the incident that happened before the celebrations and cancelled the celebrations last year. It was a lot of fun and I think I'm completely insane because there was wall to wall people and lights, etc. and I felt right at home :D. I'll get some pictures from my friend and post them later.

I want to be a proud aunt again since I have new pictures of my other niece and nephew. The first picture is Drew. He's 5 and crazy, but extremely cute.

This is Riley, Drew's sister, with the purse I got her for Christmas. She's adorable and she knows it. haha. She's 2 and a half. I miss them a lot, but thank goodness for technology! I love talking with them on skype and need to do it more often!

I'm putting this picture in just so you can see her beautiful face. I'm not crazy about them . . . I promise ;). Just kidding. How can you NOT be crazy about kids who are so darn cute???

I hope you have a fabulous new year and don't forget to thank God for all the blessings He has given in the past year. May God bless you.

Christmas Eve at 90 degrees

Christmas Eve in Bangkok is a little strange since it was 90 degrees outside. :) However, my roommate and I had a good time. First, I went to a coffee house that is really cute and studied Thai for about three hours with my Thai Grammar book. Then, my roommate joined me and we went to Lumpini Park. First, we found these pieces of exercise equipment. I don't know what they're really for, but I like our idea MUCH better :D. We hung on them and swung around and around. It's so much fun!!!

Then, we were hungry, so we found a place that wasn't really expensive and ate delicious pasta! I haven't had REAL pasta in a long time, so it tasted SO good!

Then, this park has paddle boats and it was cheap and looked like fun, so we captured a swan and went paddle boating. I haven't done this in a LONG time. We enjoyed waving at the little kids and took pictures of the blue, yellow, and red swans.

Katy is a photographer and took this amazing picture while we were paddle boating in Lumpini Park. The sunset is beautiful.
I absolutely LOVE the palm trees. I'm thinking about getting one and decorating it next year for Christmas. Hang lights, string popcorn, and hang ornaments from it, just to embrace the tropical environment I live in hahaha.

This Christmas was definately interesting. I'm still in awe at the amount of Christmas decorations, yet absolutely no nativities. My parents will be sending me one for next year. However, in a way I'm kind of glad I didn't have one this year because it showed me how important it really is to me. It was so easy to just see it in the USA and be used to it that it doesn't move you anymore. However, when you are suddenly without it, it becomes so much more precious. I'm thankful for this Christmas that I was able to remember how precious Jesus' birth really is and that it is the true meaning of Christmas. Without the birth of Christ, Christmas is empty and all about getting presents. Praise God that He was able to show me this in a unique way. I pray that you will remember the true meaning of Christmas. :)

Christmas in Thailand

Hi! This week was pretty normal. My classes are going very well. I was a little off on Friday, so one out of my 4 classes didn't go very smoothly, but I was tired and my voice hurt, so 3 out of 4 is a good ratio. I will make up the mistake on Monday with review and a little more explanation.

I'm trying taking amoxicillian for my voice. A guy at my church, who is a doctor, thinks a virus/inflammation is the reason my voice is so messed up. Since I've been trying really hard to rest it for awhile (and doing a good job), yet there isn't a whole lot of improvement, I'm willing to try it. I started taking it today and the clinic gave me enough for 7 days. I think it will work. I took the first pill tonight and I was able to sing a little bit in my room. Tomorrow will be the major test to see if I can make it through 4 classes. Prayers are appreciated :D.

Today was a real treat :D. We had our Christmas party at church. It was my first time to see an entire Christmas play all put on in Thai. It was interesting and because I knew the basic content, it was really easy to follow haha. Everyone did a great job and there was about 50 or 60 people there . . . non-Christians and Christians. They didn't have an alter call or anything like that . . . this church is definately more relational, but praise God that so many people came. I was also able to build a relationship with a student at KU who is not a Christian. Hopefully I'll be able to help her with her writing in the future. Her English is really good and her accent is perfect . . . and she's never left Thailand. It's amazing. I also got to talk with some other people who normally go to my church and so it's getting less awkward when I'm there. I'm making more friends. YEAH!

Sadly, I failed to take pictures of the Christmas play/party, however I may be able to get them off a friend's facebook soon. However, so you're not left without pictures and I LOVE being a proud aunt, I will leave you with some pictures of my adorable neice, Autumn, and nephew, Isaac. :D I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

Christmas in Bangkok

My roommate and I decided to go around Bangkok and see the Christmas decorations. It's familiar, but strange all at the same time. The lights and decorations are beautiful and pretty much like the states, however, I've been all over Bangkok and haven't seen a single nativity scene. The message is kinda lost in the "fun" of Christmas.

Just in case we forget we're in Thailand, there's always something to remind us. In this case, it's Ronald McDonald. haha.

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but that's A LOT of butter! In some ways it looks like a Christmas tree. Squint with one eye and tilt your head to the right just a little haha.


Yes, this is an ice sculpture OUTSIDE. It was dripping like crazy haha.

I'm still hanging out with Ting and her friends pretty often. I'm eating lunch with two of them tomorrow. I would love to take them to church with me on Sunday because we're having our Christmas service on Sunday, but we will have to see. I appreciate everyone thinking about them. Also remember our Christmas service at church on Sunday. There will be food, drama, gifts, etc. Everyone at church is working really hard on it too :D.

Teaching is going well, but my voice is getting weak. It hurt this weekend, so I tried not to talk and drink a lot of water and hot liquids. It hasn't done this since my first week of teaching, so I'm a little curious as to why, however, my voice is kind of vital to my job. I'll be using a microphone for a while to ease the strain and I'm conciously speaking from my diaphram. It's like I'm singing haha.

I hope you are all doing well. I really love hearing from you, so please drop me an e-mail sometime :D. In Him.

Baking Cookies

So, I think this blog will be more fun as a photo blog. Ting and some of her friends (who are also my students) came over today and baked cookies.







Ti and Mee helped me to make peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.





Mee and I hanging out in the kitchen.





I'm making sure Ti is doing it correctly.





Mee is mixing up chocolate chip cookies.



Mee is absolutely adorable so I got a picture with her ;D

Putt (Ting's boyfriend) and Ti are having fun.

YUM!!!! Peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate chip, and chocolate chip cookies!!!!!

Katy (my roommate) was being a nut and put my Thai pants on her head hahaha.

And now she's acting like Susie Homemaker and modeling her new apron. haha

Ting is being so nice and feeding her boyfriend a cookie. haha

And my "sis" and I are happy that we got to spend another day together. I like days off. :)

These are many of the students I've been hanging out with and going running with. Please remember them in your prayers. They will all graduate in Feburary. May God bless you all.

Red are the Champions!

Red won the sports month! We also have spirit. Balloons, bull horn, mini-pom poms, and all of us are in red. We played basketball (which my team won), tug-of-war (which I played in), and soccer (which I watched).

We had a great basketball team and we had a lot of fun :D. We won both of our games. The funniest thing is that these girls have NO idea what a foul is. The first time I realized this was when I was holding the ball and trying to think of a way to get two girls to stop hugging me while praying for a whistle to blow, which it did, thankfully. I didn't know they loved me so much! Or maybe it was just the rubber ball I was clutching.

This sports month was a great time for me to get to know people at church and I'm developing some friendships from this month and my care group I go to each week. These people have been a huge blessing and encouragement to me. So many times people can come to church and not talk to anyone and go home and live there lives. However, this church is not like that and it's very refreshing. Tonight we had a celebration supper and decorated a Christmas tree! I didn't get to decorate one last year and my roomie and I have currently not finished decorating our Christmas tree, so it was a real treat tonight. They even had blinking, singing Christmas lights! I was kinda shocked to see those in Thailand, but it was funny. I still become a little kid at Christmas time. My roommate and I are planning on going and seeing all the Christmas decorations around Bangkok this coming weekend.

The best news is that all of my students have gotten used to me. The first week was just shocked faces watching me wondering who I was and if I was nice. The second week was smiles as word was getting out that I was nice, followed by kind of shocked happy stares everywhere I went. The third week was a little more natural with people waving and smiling really big while saying hello. I don't think they knew exactly how to react since most teachers aren't like that. HOWEVER, we've finally gotten to the point where my students respect me (the smile and wave or wai me when they see me and they do all their work) but I'm not so far above them that they won't ask me for help or feel uncomfortable around me. It took me a while to get to that point, but I'm really enjoying it. :D.

I'm still meeting with Ting and her friends. They're starting to talk to me more and me being their friend is actually making them work harder in my class, which is nice. Please continue praying for them. Ting and one or two of her friends will be coming to my house to bake cookies in the next few weeks. I'm sure none of these girls have ever been to their teacher's house before. It'll be fun. This picture was from the last time Ting came to my house to bake cookies. She loves her cakes and cookies. haha. May God bless you all!