October Wrap Up

This will be an October to be missed. It started off with a trip to Thailand. It stayed with unseasonably warm weather and lots of fun activities and it wraps up this week with parent-teacher conferences, the last football practice of the year, and a great "treat street" event put on at the high school. 

Goodbye October 2014. You will be missed. 

T-man playing a game at treat street 

Happy hour with the football families at the last practice of the year 

Happy Halloween from Julia and Marshall

For not having costumes 2 hours before the event, I thought we did a pretty good job. 

Wonderful Weekend

So much to be thankful for this weekend.

A Friday afternoon walk around the neighborhood enjoying the amazing views 

Showing the Wesleyan women a little more of Louisville with happy hour, pizza, and wrapping up listening to live music while enjoying coffee outside. 

A Sunday afternoon checking out the chickens at Nadja's 

Walking Fisher to get dinner on a warm fall day in the Highlands

Having T-man read Fisher a book after eating dinner outside. 

Almost

From one football game to another. An unseasonably warm day for a football game in late October. We planned on leaving early, but with the game going into double overtime, we stayed for the duration. The Buffs ALMOST won. T-man was really into the game and D-man watched the first half with 3 football buddies. What a busy, but great day. 

80 down here, but you can see snow on the mountain 

Tailgating

Playing football at half 

Go Buffs (and Cougs) 

Hat Trick

An early morning semi-final victory for the Louisville Pirates over the Commerce City Raiders. We won 30 - 6 and D-man had 3 interceptions - a hat trick! A really fun game to watch! 

#6 waiting for the kick off 

Sports Stars

Fall Walk

A nice walk with T-man on a beautiful fall day. 

Fall Fun

A fall weekend full of fun. The weekend started with happy hour  and the boys playing outside with all the neighbor kids on a gorgeous fall evening. Saturday was a full day: final soccer game (T-man's best game) and end of year party, a neighborhood fall party, a football playoff victory (2 interceptions for D-man), followed by hosting the Smiley's and Nadja for dinner and a sleepover. D-man also had a friend spend the night and spend all day Sunday with us - a full house! 

Sunday brought a nice morning breakfast  and a trip to the pumpkin patch on another beautiful day.  We convinced the Smileys to stay another night and watch the Broncos roll over San Francisco! 

 

Soccer end of season party 

T-man and Fisher and D-man's football game 

Paintball shooting 

Hamster ball 

Thai Soccer!

Marshall brought home soccer outfits from two of the Thai national teams upon his return. Look at those handsome boys! And a lovely fall day meant they road their bikes to school today. 

Beerfest 2014

We attended the 2nd annual Ferrera Beerfest on Saturday night. Given Marshall arrived from Thailand at 2:00 after 24 hours of travel, he was such a trooper- we made it to 12:30! About 2/3 of the people were Pirate football parents so it was fun hanging out with all of them. 

Picture with "Buddha beer" in honor if our recent trip to Thailand 

Lots of beer choices! 

On Top of the World

Our first night back in Bangkok was filled with visits to huge shoppig malls - one high-end and one with stalls upon stalls and everything in between. We ate dinner in this humongous restaurant area with every type of cuisine imaginable before we headed out to the stalls or some bargaining and deals. 

From there, we took a tuk tuk to the Moon Bar. This is a bar on the top of the hotel on the 60th floor. Marshall secured us a seat for a completely unforgettable experience. We wrapped up the magical night walking the streets by the hotel (what a crazy experience) and had a drink at the hotel rooftop bar. What a night. 

Ramen dinner 

The high-end mall

The mall filled with stalls and stalls for 6 floors! 

On the tuk tuk 

At the Moon Bar with a 360 view of Bangkok 

A Slow Van to Bangkok

(Posting this from the airport in Japan, but wrote it on the ride from Ban Phe to Bangkok). 

We have left our idyllic island of sun (in the rainy season) for an extremely slow van to Bangkok. We have made 5 stops so far. Check that. 1 more stop. 1 more passenger. 1 rain storm. If we weren't sure we were in a foreign country before, we sure are now. 

We chose to stay one more night on Koh Samed - we packed up and headed one resort over (ours was full due to a huge Chinese holiday). Our island vacation included more beach time, pool time, cribbage games (I'm down 3-8), and a trip into town at night for dinner. What an amazing few days to recharge and reflect on how fortunate we truly are. I'm still a little in shock that we are in Asia! Besides a family if ex-pats at our hotel, we have seen no other Americans since we left the airport. 

A few pics from our island vacation. 

Amazing dinners, drinks, and experiences 

With a wonderful companion, husband and friend 

Pics from resort #2

Rainy Season?

While we drove through a few rain storms between Bangkok and Rayong, we have had no rain here at Koh Samed. Today is actually very sunny with a nice breeze and gorgeous! 

Yesterday I spent some time on the beach (and unfortunately have a sunburn to prove it), Marshall went running, and we ventured to the other side of the island to town. It was a bit overwhelming. Many more people, resorts, vendors, and trash. We wandered the beach and eventually had lunch at a place on the beach. It was eye opening, overwhelming, sad, and fun all at the same time. 

Let's just say, we are happy we are on this side of the island. But, also happy that we can experience things that make us truly realize we are half way across the world. 

Our dinner location on the beach