Playing Catchup: New Years in Rayong

Leah feeding a sea turtle. He's a biggie!
Leah with her braids. Pretty islandy, eh?


Andrew very cold in the back of the truck!

Whoa! Long time, no post! It's amazing how things get so out of hand. Though I do go to other blogs and see they haven't posted for six months at a time, so it somehow makes me feel justified or something in my own neglect. Not really. Well, let's get everybody up to speed on things around here. First, New Years. We went to the beach in Rayong, a nice little town about 5 hours from Surin, and two hours from Bangkok. It's kind of between the two cities but south. Anyway, we had a wonderful time with many of the people from Surin Baptist Church. The Jones were able to join us from Bangkok as well.

It was very nice to be able to spend so much time with our Thai friends. We took a boat to an island where we could enter the gulf of Thailand. I must say I've never seen water like it, apparently much like Caribbean water, blue and transparent. Not like the beautiful brown or gray water in Ocean City, Maryland! Leah stepped out on a limb and got her hair done at the beach. They did her hair all in braids, tons of them. It didn't stay long, but she was the adventurous one to try it out. We took a bouncy ride back from the island, saw some fisheries, and ate lots of wonderful Thai food. It was a nice little vacation and a great way to get to know some of the people better. We watched the New Year come with Amanda, Orawan and Ya on the beach just talking about this and that and watching some guy about 20 meters away set off fireworks. We thought we were going to get blown up. He wasn't exactly following any regulations. Coming back from Rayong, it decided to get very cold. This was only a problem because four of us were riding in the back of the truck. Brrrrr! (Thought I'd NEVER say that here in Thailand, but it happens) This was more of a personal note to let you know what life is like. We really enjoy when we can take a break and catch a change of scenery, it was very renewing in our hearts and spirits and we came back ready to go at it again!