Our Goofy Kids

Here's Ellie's typical bed time attire: pajamas, socks, slippers knit by Aunt Jess, Hmong hat that Aunt Liz brought back from Laos, and gloves. Plus, of course, she has to sleep with a quilt (currently Daddy's old baby quilt), many sleepytime friends, burp rags, and water. No wonder bed time takes so long!



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The other night at bedtime I gave Ellie a kiss on the cheek and she pointed to her other cheek and said "I'm going to sleep on this cheek so your kiss doesn't dry up and go away."

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Here's Ben deciding that I really need to be the one to wear the Hmong hat.


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Ben is now talking up a storm, but in this adorable, laborious, two year old way. We love when he mimics what we say and has these adult things coming out of his toddler voice. One of his favorite phrases now is "Sounds like...a good plaaaan." He also likes "I don't fink so" and he refers to one of his favorite books, Mr. McGillicuddy's Clocks, as "Mr. Gillies Cullie's Pots".

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Apparently, it's not enough to have both water and milk at dinner. Sometimes you also have to have water and milk simultaneously.


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One night Ellie and I were fooling around, sucking our stomachs in to have a "skinny tummy" and pushing them out to have a "Buddha belly". Ben joined in the fun, but after a few minutes he said, "I have a Buddha penis!" I don't have any idea what he meant, but it was really funny.

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Here's Ben and Daddy horsing around. Notice that not only is Ben wearing a lovely purple floral hat, his teddy bear is inside one of Aunt Jess's slippers and is wearing another one as a hat!


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Ellie has long maintained that she is afraid of Buddhas, which was confusing because once you got her in to a temple, she didn't seem afraid. Things were cleared up the other night when she started talking about "scary lion Buddhas" and we realized that she has been so exposed to temples in SE Asia that she thinks that Buddhas and statues are the same thing.

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One relaxed weekend, Ellie decided that she wanted her hair in a ponytail but that we had to match, so I put mine up, too. Then she and Ben decided we all needed necklaces made from their cardboard lacing cards.


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Ellie tells us that when she grows up, she is going to marry Ben so they can play together all the time. They will live in the house we live in now, and she'll work at the embassy in the same office as mommy.

Saving Cambodia's Freshwater Dolphins

In early January, I got to spend some time doing one of the really fun parts of my job: environmental fieldwork. I spent three days in Kratie, a town 5 hours north of Phnom Penh on the Mekong, learning about this elusive little guy, the Irrawaddy dolphin:



The Irrawaddy dolphin is critically endangered and the largest population, thought to be just 80-100 dolphins, exists in the upper reaches of the Mekong in Cambodia.


Folks like these fishermen using an illegal gill net are thought to be largely responsible for the decline of the dolphin. The gill nets are huge and stretch across large stretches of the river, catching everything around. And because they are only checked once or twice a day, dolphins easily get tangled in them and drown.

Kratie was a fun place to be for a few days, with beautiful sunsets over the Mekong...


some neat, if decaying, French colonial architecture...


and a bustling local market.


I had a great time chatting with villagers who live on an island, Koh Pdao, in the middle of the Mekong:





On the way home, there was a stark contrast between beautiful, pristine countryside...


and the rampant illegal logging in the region.

Finally...Angkor Wat Photos

Ahhh...the relaxation that comes with a human workload. As I got on the plane Tuesday afternoon after the TIFA (that's Trade and Investment Framework Agreement) Joint Council meeting in Siem Reap, I looked forward to work not punctuated by high-level visitors, trips, speeches to write for the Ambassador, trips, responding to ludicrous statements by the PM, counseling unions during negotiations, and...oh...did I mention trips? After about 8 months of craziness, things have finally slowed down. I don't know how long this will last, but I am reveling in being able to catch up on long-term projects and second priority sorts of things. And I hope to make it home at a more reasonable time and actually have my weekends for kids, fun and stuff around the house.

Speaking of stuff around the house, one of my projects is to get caught up with photos on the blog. So, without further ado, here are photos from our trip to Siem Reap in December. My parents, Liz, and David were all there, but Liz and David did most of their exploring separately so they're not in the photos.

One of the famous faces of the Bayon, believed to be a combination of the face of the Buddha and the ruling Khmer king. This face is probably 40 feet long.

Hanging out with the kids in the courtyard surrounding the inner temple at Angkor Wat

Ben and Ellie loved climbing around the temples...


...and Ben loved playing in the sand. You can see the entrance to one of the temples behind him.


All the Cambodian and other Asian tourists thought our kids were adorable and gave them a lot--sometimes too much--attention...


though we thought the Khmer kids hanging around the temples were pretty adorable too.

All of the temples at Angkor are amazing because not only are they huge and numerous, they also have so many amazingly detailed carvings, like this one of Apsara dancers.


This gives you some sense of the size of these temples. This one (Angkor Thom, I think) just went on and on. Note the tree growing right through the ruins.

Unlike many ruins in other parts of the world, the temples at Angkor Wat are still in use. Here is a Buddhist nun with incense waiting to pray at one of the temples.

Here's the family at Banteay Srey (Citadel of Women), a more remote temple known for its intricate pink carvings.

A darn fine day

We've got Spande grandparents here right now, and will post pictures soon, but today was a darn fine day, so I wanted to share our news with you.

First of all, I (Nathan) had my most recent DarkReading article linked by Slashdot. It resulted in many more people seeing my writing (12,500 hits since Friday is the last number I've been given, which isn't too shabby for me!) So that was good, even though the Slashdot crowd can sometimes be a bit brutal in their criticism. Nothing I can't handle, though, I've got kids :)

Much more significantly Jen got back from the TIFA meeting in Siem Reap today. This was something like a trade talk, basically the USTR and Cambodian government sitting down to talk about trade issues. She made labor a big part of it, and worked really, really hard to do this well, and they are talking about now making it "the new model for labor diplomacy". That award she got certainly didn't make her slow down at all, huh?

Speaking of awards, she also got the news today that she won the First Decade Award from Gustavus, recognizing her amazing achievements in the 10 years since we graduated. The award will be presented on Oct. 13, which is when we were thinking of being home anyway, so the timing works quite nicely!

So, there was our day. Darn fine all around. Oh, and the kids were lovely for the most part, making it all the better.

I'm a columnist!

Ok, well that sounds perhaps more exciting than it is, but it is in some sense true. One of the sites that my big brother Pete manages in his new swanky job is called Dark Reading. They are all about security stuff. He put me in touch with the editors there, and I'm doing a few columns for them to see how it goes. I have one column up now, and will have a new one appearing at the rate of roughly one per week for the next few weeks. It has so far been really fun! But please, only comments on Immingpool, not Dark Reading, unless you would care to comment on the content of the column...

Christmas in Cambodia

This Christmas we hosted a big crowd--Grandma Phyllis, Grandpa John, Aunt Liz, and Liz's boyfriend David. Less than 24 hours after they landed in Cambodia, we whisked them off to an unusual Christmas Eve--a Khmer wedding!

Somany's mother, Somany (our housekeeper), Senin (our cook), me, and Natalie (Somany's daughter)

The bride, Somaly (sister of our housekeeper, Somany) works in a copy shop and met the groom, an architect, when he kept coming in to make more copies. The wedding party goes through lots of clothing changes during a Khmer wedding. This was one of the 12 dresses that the bride wore for different parts of her multi-day ceremony. The smart bit is that all of the clothes they wear are rentals.

After the dinner, we all tried our hand at Khmer dancing, and several of us even learned what can only be described as the Khmer version of the Electric Slide. Wedding line dances are universal! Here David and Dad get in to another wedding dance, which was basically shuffling in a big circle with lots of apsara-style hand movements. (And yes, that is a silly inebriated grin on Dad's face. He was having a really good time!)

The next day was Christmas morning, and we opened gifts...

Santa Phyllis and Santa Liz

The surprise hits of Christmas were bike helmets (the kids liked wearing them so much we had to make a new rule--no bike helmets at the dinner table) and that perennial favorite, cardboard boxes.

Nathan proves that the best part of parenthood is having an excuse to play with their toys.

...and made a gingerbread house.
Grandma Phyllis and Ellie start decorating the house...

...and get some help from Ben, David, and Aunt Liz.

December Snuggles

Keeping with our theme of catching up with the blog, here are some "aaaawwww" moments from December.

Early morning snuggles

Storytime with Aunt Liz

Ben gets some lovin'

Jen's trip to DC

Just after Jess and Andy's visit--or more precisely, about 12 hours before they left--I headed back to DC to pick up my Labor Officer of the Year award, meet with colleagues in Washington, and enjoy a weekend back home. It was great to be back in the US, and even better to be in Washington! I could walk down the street (wide sidewalks not impeded by street vendors or roaming dogs), understand everything everyone said, go browse at a bookstore (as opposed to shopping online and waiting 3 weeks for my books to show up), drink a gingerbread latte, and enjoy cool weather.

The Awards Ceremony itself was really cool. The State Department really knows how to do these things right. It was held in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms--the 8th floor wing of the State Department where foreign dignitaries are entertained. There was a full military color guard and both the Director General, George Staples, and the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns, gave good speeches. The Department of Labor even sent one of their top dogs, James Carter, to help present my award (which was given jointly by the Depts of State and Labor). It was a bummer that Condi wasn't there. She was originally supposed to be the one handing out the awards, but the original date in October was scrapped due to her urgent travel following the North Korea nuclear test, and they could never find a time on her calendar after that.

Me with James Carter, Labor Department Deputy Undersecretary for International Labor Affairs and Nicholas Burns, State Department Undersecretary for Political Affairs.

Highlights of my time in DC include:

• A private tour of the West Wing courtesy of my State Department Colleague Richard Miles, who is currently working there as the Executive Assistant to Deputy National Security Advisor J.D. Crouch. Sadly, no photos are allowed inside, so you'll just have to imagine. This was the coolest part of a very cool trip--definitely something we'll remember.
• Reuniting with my uncle and cousins to fill out the McIntire Clan contingent during Alexandria's Scottish Clan Walk.

• Catching up with lots of friends!

I met Geoff, Michael and Maryanne's newly adopted son, for the first time

Dumbarton friends Mike, Barby, me, Howard, Melinda, Greg, and Pam

Gustavus friends Scott and Michelle

Jess and Andy Come for Turkey and Tots

OK...we have a lull in visitors, both official and personal, and we are using this time to get caught up with our friends in Phnom Penh and get caught up with life at home...including getting some more photos to all of you. So, going way back to November, here are some highlights from Aunt Jess and Uncle Andy's trip to see us in Cambodia.

Jess and Andy were here for about 10 days or so, and stopped off in Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat before they came. During their time here, they spent lots of time just hanging out with the kids and enjoying aunt- and unclehood.

Storyteller Uncle Andy reads to a captivated audience

Aunt Jess helped with one of our favorite activities--naked painting--but decided she wasn't ready to strip down just yet.

Jess helps the kids decorate for Thanksgiving with window clings

Then we had the big event--Thanksgiving. We managed to get most traditional Thanksgiving foods, including a turkey, though we had to used canned cranberries and skipped the sweet potatoes. Senin's pumpkin pie was terrific and Andy showed us that making gravy from scratch isn't as hard as we thought.

The Thanksgiving gang.
(Don't adjust your computer screen...Ben is blurry in the original. That little guy does not like to hold still!)

The weekend after Thanksgiving Aunt Liz joined us for a lovely day trip to the Takmao Animal Rescue Center, a USAID-funded project that rehabilitates animals that have been illegally captured and releases most into the wild and houses the ones that can't be released. It's the closest thing we have to a zoo here, and it's pretty neat. Unlike most zoos in Asia, because this one is run by an environmental group, the animals have big cages and are well cared for.

Whenever you go to a touristy area, you are swarmed with kids wanting to be your tour guide (and expecting some riel in exchange at the end of your visit). While we had several kids tagging around with us at the beginning, this little fellow was by far the best guide eventhough he was mute. The other kids new a few words of English, but this kid could communicate far more through hand motions and expressions and had a great personality to boot.

Siamese fireback

Ellie and Aunt Liz

One of the highlights of a trip to the zoo is buying coconuts to feed to the sunbears. Little kids sell the coconuts for about 50 cents each, and then toss them into the zoo enclosure. Remarkably, the bears tear through the very thick and tough coconut shells with just their paws and teeth.

Ben and Uncle Andy