Blissful Weekend

We had a lovely weekend. Did some last minute Christmas shopping, finally decorated the Christmas tree, made Scandinavian cardamom bread, took a family photo for Christmas cards and started the annual Christmas card writing marathon. And we only had two social events--one of which (the funner but less required one, unfortunately) I bailed on.

This morning, I thought, why did last weekend feel so good? Then I looked at our calendar. The last weekend Nathan and I were both in country without house guests was the weekend of Oct. 7--and that was the weekend of Ellie's birthday party. Too get a truly free weekend, I think you'd have to go back to September. I'm not really complaining. We've been busy with so many wonderful things--Nathan's trip to Kuala Lumpur, my trips to Bangkok and DC, family vacation in Vietnam, and lots of dear family and friends who have travelled long ways to see us. But I am glad that we'll have a couple free weekends in a row in January!

Photos from Thanksgiving with Jess and Andy and my trip to DC to come as time permits! Now we're trying to finish Christmas cards (so expect yours to be late) and get ready for the arrival of my parents, Liz, and Liz's boyfriend David on Saturday night.

Our Vietnam trip

About a month ago we took a trip to northern Vietnam, mostly Hanoi but also including a trip to Halong Bay. We had a great time, and took some great photos. Here are a few.

We started out the trip in Hanoi, where Nathan got to have some wonderful Tex-Mex cuisine.


Hanoi is also home to a zoo, which really felt like a southeast asian zoo. They did have one ride we deemed safe enough for the kids to go on, so we rode on a train.


One of the many museums in Hanoi is the Ethnography museum. The main feature of this museum, at least from the perpsective of those with kids, is that they have a bunch of houses that kids (and grownups too, for that matter) are allowed to run around inside. Some of them are familiar looking buildings, but the one pictured here is the tallest single level house I've ever seen.

The second part of our trip was to Halong Bay, an area on the Gulf of Tonkin that is known for some unusual geological features, pictured here.

We were on a Chinese Junk, and old style of sailing ship. Ours was one of the biggest on the water, which made for smooth sailing and nice dining.


We stopped by a cave to walk through it, and the kids found one of the most memorable moments to be when we threw something away.


Finally we got out of the cave, and were able to look out over the area of the bay we were in, including several of the boats full of tourists.

It was a lovely and mostly relaxing trip. Not at all the Vietnam that I grew up thinking of, in fact there are very few remnants of the war left, it seems. Those that are still around have been commercialized. Ironic, huh?

Too Busy to Blog

Well, we haven't posted anything for nearly a month, but it's not because we don't have anything to say. In fact, it's quite the opposite...we've been really busy and have lots of stories to tell and pictures to share, but no time to do it!

We really enjoyed going to Hanoi. It was sort of like Phnom Penh on steroids...our one block of nice boutiques became an entire quarter of great silk, lacquer, art, and souvenir stories, Phnom Penh's 2 museums were bested by about 12 in Hanoi, there were several nice parks, and we enjoyed lots more restaurant choices...including Tex-Mex which Nathan really pines for in Phnom Penh! However, Hanoi traffic was bigger and faster than Phnom Penh, too, and we don't mind leaving that behind.

A week after we got back from Hanoi, Jess and Andy came to visit us for about 10 days. We had a great time with them, and took them to see the Tamao Zoo, had a picnic on a lake, and went to the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng. They loved being aunt and uncle, and went to Ellie's swimming lesson, Jess came to Ben and Ellie's preschool, and we all had a nice Thanksgiving meal together.

But, about 12 hours before they even left, I was off...this time to DC to pick up my labor award, see my parents, and catch up with friends. This blog is coming to you live from Incheon airport in Seoul...and my flight is about to board.

Look for more later from either Nathan or me.

Water Festival

This weekend is the middle of one of Cambodia's most important holidays--Water Festival, which marks the annual reversal of the Tonle Sap river. Phnom Penh more than doubles in size, as 1.5 million Cambodians from the provinces stream in to the city, camping in public parks and along the river bank. More than 14,000 of them are expected to participate in this year's boat races, where long, canoe-shaped boats filled with paddlers wearing identical uniforms race up and down the riverfront.

The boats race each day during the three-day festival, and each night there are fireworks and floating lights displays that travel up and down the river. There are tons of vendors, probably slightly fewer pickpockets, lots of booze, and lots of confused rural Cambodians trying to figure out how to get on the elevator at the Sorya shopping center.

Boats practicing for today's races

While a beautiful festival, it also makes for a loud, crowded, smelly city with serious sanitation problems. Part one of our master plan for Water Festival is to take in the sights while avoiding the crowds. So we went out this morning for breakfast with a new embassy family at a restaurant overlooking the river. Since the boat races don't start until 11, 8:30 is the perfect time to take in the practicing boats and get a feel for the festival before things become incredibly hot and crowded.

Ben, Ellie, and Elmos taking in the sights from our riverside restaurant

Ben and Ellie loved seeing the boats, but they especially loved the helicopters that were buzzing the river. This one is labelled RCAF (Royal Cambodian Armed Forces) 0027. Does the Cambodian military really have at least 26 other aircraft?

Which brings to the second part of our master plan: leaving town. With Phnom Penh one big traffic jam and the embassy closed for three days next week, why stay? Tomorrow we're off to Vietnam for a week in Hanoi and a 2 day cruise on Halong Bay. Pictures when we return...

Too Cute

You look mahvelous!

The other day in the car Ellie and I were talking about people who do naughty things and I told her that even grown ups do naughty things sometimes. Ellie was fascinated by the notion that adults make mistakes. Then I told her that when grown ups do really bad things, they have to go to jail. Ellie piped up and said, "But they don't have to go to jail in Cambodia." Quite an astute observation about Cambodia's highly corrupt judicial system for a three year old!

(Of course, when I asked her why people in Cambodia didn't have to go to jail, she said "Because people here don't do bad things." Ah...if only...)

Ellie, our little clothes horse, loves to match other people's clothes. Here she's in seventh heaven with her and Ben both in red striped shirts.

Ben has taken to telling us entire stories, one or two words at a time. Sometimes he hops off the sofa and says "Take tuk-tuk". Nathan asks him where he's going, and he often says "buy fruit". We find out specifically what fruit he's going to buy, and then he throws us off with something like "mommy". "Are you buying a new mommy or picking up mommy from work?" Nathan will ask. So far he seems content with the mommy he currently has.

Halloween

Last week was another tropical Halloween with two dinosaurs in tow. We had done the tuk-tuk trick or treating around town the weekend before (scheduled 10 days before Halloween to avoid the slew of holidays and long school vacations in late October and early November). Ben stayed home to give out candy while Ellie, Liz, and I went trick or treating. Unfortunately, Ellie is not a fan of the "trick" part of the process, and was very frightened by some of the scary costumes. We came home after about 45 minutes, and Ellie hid from the trick or treaters who came to our house.

Hey, kids, leave that for the trick or treaters!

Coolasaurus and fishing-o-saurus

New this year was trick or treating at our fabulous new embassy. We had a lot of fun going from office to office, though again, anything scary met with Ellie's disapproval. Everyone guessed Ellie was a chicken. I guess people just don't expect yellow dinosaurs. C'est la vie--that's what happens when you let kids choose the colors on their costumes.

Embassy kids ready for trick or treating

I'm protecting the kids from those scary spidermen behind us.

Ben in the pumpkin patch
(Those pumpkins are really our diplomatic pouch bags! That's how your mail gets to us...though usually sans faces)

Smile-o-saurus

Even the Ambassador gets involved.

Jim and Christina Come to Visit

Our friends Jim (a former colleague at Bread for the World) and Christina (his wife and another former Breadster, but before my time) came to visit us recently. Christina works for Catholic Relief Services in Islamabad, Jim is doing some photography and contract work there.

While they were just here for two nights, it was great to see them again. They had amazing stories about living in Pakistan. Nathan and I both had the strange feeling of reverse culture shock listening to them. Somehow, living in a friendly and relatively egalitarian Buddhist culture seemed pretty familiar and easy when compared to the constant fear of terrorism or other violence, fervent anti-Americanism, and repression of women.

Cute Kidisms

We let Ellie choose what to have for her birthday dinner. Nathan and I recited a long list of possibilities, none of which was too interesting until we came to french fries. Then her eyes lit up. We asked:
"What do you want with your french fries?"
"Ketchup!"
"Ok, what do you want with your french fries and ketchup?"
"Fries!"
"Ok, so we'll have fries, and french fries, and ketchup. Do you want anything else?"
Ellie didn't think anything else was really necessary, but agreed to hamburgers without the meat or cheese. (She did concede that Ed and I could eat the meat and cheese). And she even agreed to carrots and snowpeas for good measure. No Atkins diet for that girl.

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Ben's vocabulary is really growing by leaps and bounds. A favorite game for several weeks was to point to things and say "This is....". Just naming objections was something of an obsession, and in fact for a while he didn't really say hi to us, he just would thump on our chests and say "This is mommy!" and "This is daddy!"

The best part was that Ben's "This is" somehow sounded a lot like "Jesus" so we had "Jesus shoes!", "Jesus cheese!", and best of all "Jesus Daddy!"

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The other night we sang the doxology as Ellie's bedtime prayer, and apparently it was the first time she had ever heard of the Holy Ghost. She woke Ed up in the middle of the night terrified that the Holy Ghost was in her room!

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Ben's talking has advanced so far that he's even learned to rebut us. One of his favorite new words is "yesidooo". As in:
"No, Ben, you don't need the whole box of Kleenex."
"Yesidoo!!"

Another favorite word is "havsum", which can be used as a command with any noun, as in "havsum binky," "havsum blanky," and "havsum dis".

When he's not saying "yesidoo" and "havsum", about 60% of the rest of his words are "apple jooose!", followed close behind by "git down!" (Nathan has taken to referring to him as "Boogey Ben".)

Elena Turns Three!

Last week we celebrated Elena's birthday with a party for five guests and a little shindig for the family.

Ellie helped in the preparations by decorating her cupcakes.


At her party on Saturday, the adults were all amazed as the kids gathered quietly at the table to eat egg salad sandwiches, hot dogs, and fruit.

Twins Champa and Champei (or is it Champei and Champa?), Charlie (whose 3rd birthday party was the next day), Elsa, Ellie, and Cepheus

After a snack, we all went outside for an animal hunt in the yard. We hid little plastic butterflies and assorted animals in the grass and trees and had the kids go searching.


Then we retired to the shade, where we decorated plastic flower pots with stickers and planted flower seeds.


Next it was back inside for cake!

Yum!

Hey, I'm trying to eat chocolate here!

We opened lots of gifts--both from her party guests and also from family. Her new Elmo doll (Ben got one, too) was a big hit.

An Eventful Trip to Sihanoukville

September 21 and 22 were part of the Cambodian holiday of Pchum Ben--the festival of the dead, where Cambodians head to their home provinces and honor their ancestors by bringing food (for their ancestors and the monks) to the temples. Nothing against our ancestors, but we decided to take advantage of the four-day weekend and the fact that our good friend Amber and her boyfriend, Gerard, were visiting to head to lovely Sihanoukville and the beach.


Liz came along, too, so getting there was a bit tricky as we had 5 adults, 2 kids, and 1 Honda CRV. But we took it as an opportunity to try out Cambodia's intercity bus service, which I'll rate as pretty good. The bus was pretty clean, reasonably comfortable (except for poor Gerard who is about 6'3" and was considerably less comfortable than all the Cambodian passengers, who only came up to his elbow) and, best of all, our fellow passengers weren't smelly. I know from previous bus trips in the developing world that hygiene standards vary quite a bit in different areas, but Cambodians are big fans of bathing (our Khmer teacher in DC was appalled when he learned that, if we were exhausted, we'd let Ellie skip her daily bath) so it was really a fine experience overall.

We had a lovely time. The kids were a little timid, so the time we spent at the pool often looked a lot like this...


However, they loved playing in the sand (and their first sand toys!)


and on the playground

and we did even coax them in to the ocean eventually.


Ed and I even left the kids with Liz for an evening and had a lovely anniversary dinner at a French-Khmer restaurant overlooking sunset on the ocean. Ahhh...

We were just about to bring a successful mini-vacation to a close, when we decided to visit a temple on a hillside. The weather was crappy, we were all a little sunburnt, and we had a couple of hours to kill until the bus left.

Everything started off fine. We walked around, chatted with the monks, watched the cute monkeys, and had a photo opp with the Buddha.

Then one of the monkeys decided that he liked my camera bag and started to take off with it. We sort of yelled at him, which didn't do any good, so I picked up a plastic cup and threw it at him, figuring he'd drop the bag and run away.

Big mistake.

Instead, all of his monkey friends were at the site in an instant. About 2-3 feet from us, they had us surrounded and they were pissed. Hissing and showing their teeth. Suddenly those cute little monkeys were downright scary. Ed told us to go back up the hill past the Buddha, but that root was blocked. We looked around for an escape. People on one side would think we could slide past two monkeys on the other, but the people close to them said no way. The monkeys kept hissing and screeching. I noticed that one of the monkeys was missing an arm, which was really freaky. This really seemed like a bad horror movie. I hugged Ben closer.

Then, in a tactical error, the monkeys guarding the stairs down allowed an extra foot or two of space between them, and we all hurried down, not wanting to run, but eager to get the heck out of there. Amber ended up as the last person in line, and was actually scratched lightly by a monkey. We headed into the car, shut the doors and took off. We had lost the camera bag but had all the people, so we figured we had come out ahead.

I had heard of kids who had been scratched by monkeys needing rabies vaccine and so we called a doctor when we got back. The first (Khmer) doctor we talked to said she should come in and start the rabies shots, but didn't seem so certain. So we bothered a British doctor friend at home, who said that as long as there was no transfer of blood and saliva, Amber would be fine...a big relief!

Sure, he looks cute now. But wait til he decides to help himself to some of your possessions.

Liz Comes to Cambodia

Well, we are getting really far behind in blogging...but let's see if we can catch up. Lots of exciting things have happened over the last six weeks or so, which is why we're so behind.

Here's one of the biggies:

Liz is here!

Being that free-wheelin', thinking out of the box sort of woman that she is, Liz figured why spend all that money on plane tickets to Cambodia just to spend a week or two here when there are two adorable Spande kids and lots of other great things to see here. So, she took a semester off school, hopped on a plane, and came to Chez Spande.

Liz now has a part-time/contract sort of job, working for Baskets of Cambodia. One thing about Liz is that she has amazing luck in having things just fall in to place, and one example is that with this job not only is she getting paid, they are also letting her live in one of the furnished bedrooms above the store...for free! It's a great deal...mostly. The A/C in her room doesn't seem to want to work, and the wat next door starts up at 4:30. But that will just ensure that she still spends plenty of time with us!

In addition to helping out with the kids and just being fun, Liz is also a great photographer who has agreed to let us post her pics to the blog. So get ready for a big step up in blog photos!

And the winner is...

Jen!

You didn't know she was up for an award, you say? Then allow me to start at the beginning.

As you all probably know by now, Jen's primary responsibility here is doing labor diplomacy - interfacing with labor unions, manufacturers, and the Cambodian government among others. She loves this, and is very, very good at it. We've mentioned before how she has several times gotten people out of jail, prevented illegal strikes, and just generally prevented a collapse of the Cambodian economy. These are all Good Things, I think we'd all agree.

As it turns out, the State Department agrees. Every year they present one Foreign Service Officer the "Excellence in Labor Diplomacy" award. In order to be considered for this, the FSO's post needs to send in a nomination. Around the time nominations were due this past time, people at Main State called Jen to suggest that she get her nomination in, and that if it was a little late it would be no problem. Jen hadn't been thinking of nominating herself, but the DCM was very supportive of the nomination and took a rough draft from Jen and did amazing things with it. Everybody at post signed off on it and sent the thing in.

Well, a month or so ago Jen started getting hints from these people at Main State that they appreciated all she has done, and they would be showing her how much sometime soon. This past week they did just that, and announced that she is the new Labor Officer of the Year!

It perhaps isn't clear from this just how big a deal this is, so I'll expand a bit. This award will be presented by Sec. Rice herself, in mid October, and Jen will very likely be flown back to DC for just this event. She will also be presented with $10,000 as an additional little thank-you.

Finally, in case you still don't think she's about the best FSO there ever was, we are pretty certain that she's one of the most junior people to get this award, given that it was based on the work she did in her first year of her second tour. I've been saying things like "rising star" to her for years, but now maybe she'll believe me.

The first few weeks

It has been almost three weeks now since I started my job, and I think I can truly speak about how things are going on that front. The first week or two were a bit rough, as they can be with any new job, just because of the steep learning curve. Although I've never done anything quite like this before, it helped a great deal that I already knew the staff and many of the kids. Now, three weeks in, I know all the staff, and can greet by name about 90% of the kids. The identical twin girls in Ellie's class are still tough for me (the teachers tell me it is something about a spark in the eyes that identifies one of them), but I think I'm doing well on that front. I get on well with the staff, I think, and inspire only a little bit of terror in them. I think having not only a man but a white man in the manager job is a bit intimidating for the almost-all-female staff. That and the fact that I mentioned I wanted to start doing performance evaluations.

The job itself consists mainly of coming in each morning, chatting with parents, and then finding out that something I didn't know existed needed to be done yesterday. Then I struggle for a while to figure out what actually needed to be done, I do it, I apologize to somebody for having been late, and then go on to the next day. That is about 80% of the job. The rest is doing something I know needs to be done tomorrow. The process there is the same as the other, but without the apology.

Despite that, I am actually enjoying myself. The kids are all really lovely. Some of them (not just my own) call me "dada" or "papa", in part because that's a Khmer-style term or respect, but also because Ben and Ellie call me Daddy, so it seems natural that this must be my name. I have an amazing amount of variety, from managing enrollment lists, payroll and school policies to wiping runny noses. Jen pointed out that this is very much the same thing I do at home, just on a much bigger scale.

Sadly I have no new pictures relating to work. Sorry for the all text posting. Once I get my office decorated I'll post some before and after photos.

Weekend Family Fun

As usual, we're a bit behind in the blog, so let me get our faithful blog readers up to speed on what we've been doing.

Two weeks ago, we had a pretty standard weekend at home. Ben played his favorite game:

Can you spot the 18 month old hiding in this picture?

There he is!

There's been a big kite flying fad at the central park lately, so we took the suggestion and headed there ourselves. Ellie (with help from Daddy) even made her own kite! Sadly, it was a bit too heavy to fly so we ended up buying one at the park.

Ellie and her kite

Then, last weekend, we headed up to Kirirom, a resort sort of place in a national park two hours outside of Phnom Penh.

Nathan and the kids on the deck of our bungalow.

We took walks, swam, and had a campfire with the other embassy families there (Ellie and Ben both loved their first s'mores), but the big event was hiking to some nearby waterfalls.

The waterfalls were 4km from the start, and we knew that we wouldn't be able to carry the kids a total of 8km there and back, so our first task was to convince someone to go to a nearby village to find an oxcart and driver for us.

While we waited, Ben had a great time playing in the mud. Messy, yes, but probably an important part of any 18 month old's wilderness experience.

Our oxcart, which took us the first 2 km in and out. The other 2 km were narrower, rockier paths, and we had to go on foot with a guide.

As we got off the oxcart and carried the kids, gloppy with sunscreen, bug spray, and mud, through 4 km of forest, under vines, up the hill, and over rocky trails, we decided that we had evented a new sport: extreme parenting. However, it was all worthwhile, as we saw two beautiful waterfalls. In fact, out of all the embassy families that tried to make the trek, we were the only ones who made it to the last waterfall! (Thanks to both persistence and the Khmer language ability to get an oxcart and guide!) It was a tough test of Nathan's recovery since dengue, and he passed with flying colors.

Chambak waterfall

Nathan Update

There are several bits of good news relating to me. First of all, I had another blood test today, and the results were ALL within normal ranges. I had some lingering liver function issues, and then my hemoglobin was in bad shape after a few weeks of the virus attacking my bone marrow, but all is well now. I'’m still a bit more tired than normal, but part of that is just because of my lack of activity for the past few weeks. I'’ve had several longish walks recently and they seem to be getting easier, so I'’m thinking I'm recovering pretty well. Thanks to all of you for all the support!

The second bit of news from me is that I now have a job! I mentioned in the post on Ben'’s first week at school that I've been spending a lot of time hiding in the manager'’s office at the preschool. The school has been without a manager for a while, or has at least been in limbo. The previous manager is about 8 ½ months pregnant, and she leaves this weekend to go have her baby. The man who was hired to replace her had to unexpectedly leave the country since his wife's contract was cancelled, leaving them with no particular reason to be in Cambodia. I had been slated to take a seat on the board of directors, and had agreed to be the interim manager while we did a new job search for a permanent replacement. Then I got sick and had to back out also. One of the other board members stepped in and took care of everything, and in the processing of doing it he realized that we had been thinking of the job all wrong. It really is a job for a parent, rather than a job for somebody hoping to advance a career significantly. There are maybe 15 or so hours of work each week, and a lot of that is dealing with parents and minor maintenance issues and things.

So when I came back from Bangkok, he talked to me, and told me that he thought I'’d be a great person to take the job. After talking to him about the revised set of responsibilities, and the flexibility he imagined would be available, I agreed. Today I met with the former manager, and I'’m going to be starting for real on Monday. I'll be able to continue to do some of the work I'’ve been doing with the Embassy, either in the afternoons, or during the slow times at school. I'’ll be near the kids all week, I'’ll be getting a bit of money for doing it, I'’ll be helping out a great school, and I'’ll be getting to develop some new skills. I am, of course, a bit nervous about taking on these responsibilities with minimal previous experience, but I'’m thinking things will probably go well. In any event, I now have found a great way to have a job and still stay close to the kids.

Ben’s First Week of School

For those of you keeping score, you may know that this was Ben’s first week at school. For those of you who don’t have little kids now, school for Ben is a lot like what used to be called daycare. Mainly it involves many little kids playing near each other, singing songs, and just generally having a good time from 8am until 11:30am. No matter what you call it, though, Ben started going this week.

Day One was a bit rough. Jen and I brought the kids (this is the same school where Ellie is, Gecko and Garden) and stayed for a while with Ben. After half an hour or so, he seemed to be doing pretty well, and there was a bit of a natural break where we decided to make our exit. We said goodbye, and he started crying. A lot. One of the teachers took him and tried to focus his attention elsewhere while we departed, but wasn’t terribly successful. Anyway, we left him crying, but I think we both felt like he’d calm down in a few minutes and have a great time.

An hour later I got a call from the school, saying he was still (yes, not again, still) crying, and could I please come to calm him down. I went and spent the rest of the morning with him, the entire time wondering if I had made a terrible mistake starting him so young. Still having these thoughts, we began Day Two. This time I was on my own, as Jen had to get back to work after such a long time away. Again, after half an hour or so I departed, this time with not “goodbye” but a “I’m going to get coffee, I’ll be back in a while”. Perhaps this made it easier, but when I came back in 30 minutes or so, he was still happy, and after playing for a few minutes he let me leave again. I hung around school, hiding in the manager’s office, but he did great. Wednesday was a non-school day, and he and I went to playgroup and just had a good time together. Day Three (Thursday) started fine, but he had a rough time when I left. This time, however, he calmed down and just had periodic fits of “Dada! Dada! Daddiieeeee!” I was again hiding in the manager’s office (more on this in a different post) and heard most of this, but since he calmed down after a few minutes, I just stayed hidden. Day Four was more of the same, but less crying. I’m now confident that he’ll be fine, but it was a tough week for both him and me. After that long narrative you all need a break and a reward for sticking with me so here are some pictures of his first day.

Jen, Ellie and Ben in front of school

Ben enjoys the sandbox and toys

But he enjoys washing up even more

Saint Vanessa

Those of you who followed Nathan's hospitalization in Bangkok closely know that a friend of ours, Vanessa, put her own life in Phnom Penh on hold to come to Bangkok and help out with the kids. Vanessa was really amazing. She had so much energy and patience for the kids, and immediately dove right in to even the less exciting aspects of parenting, like diarrhea diapers, medicated diaper cream, getting toddlers to take medicine, and losing most of your sleep to toddlers who refuse to sleep! (Oddly enough, all of those refer to Ben. Ellie was mostly a little angel. We explained to her that daddy was sick and she needed to be especially good, and she really was. At least, she was until Nathan got out of the hospital. Then she seemed to figure that all bets were off and she could let out all the "naughty" behavior she'd been holding in for a week. We couldn't blame her too much.)

Anyway, here's a big cheer for Vanessa! Without her, it would have been impossible for us to be with Nathan in Bangkok. She stayed cool and collected in the face of unruly kids and a very stressed out mom, and was probably the sanest of the bunch.

Photos of the Fam

Well, the previous post probably satiated some with an appetite for photos, but not those who really want to see those Pleuss/Spande genes developing here in Cambodia. Here are some pictures of the fam...

Prince Ben seems to be a bit drunk on his own power.

Somany and Ben playing on Ellie's toddler bed.

The kids decided that both of them getting in to our one-seater stroller is a lot of fun. Their timing in discovering this was great, as this stroller was a major part of our strategy in one car-less adult dealing with two little kids in Bangkok. Vanessa and I did lots of pushing the kids up and down sidewalks (no curb cuts in Bangkok) and around parks, malls, and the hospital.

Ben at his most charming.

Here's a smiley photo of the three of us taken the day I left on my trip to the US.