Photo Dump Thursday

These are more pictures from the Boat Festival last weekend. It was so much fun! it was so nice to have a fun and exciting weekend! I bought my first souvenirs to take home, and won a free spark plug at a wheel of fortune! as well as bought the coolest hammock I am really excited about. 

I took this picture because the trees are so pretty! and the leaves are HUGE! the picture really does it no justice

There were people walking around with these huge balloon animal towers, selling them! i thought i twas crazy how detailed they were! also Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty are EVERYWHERE!!!! i mean it. 

SOOO many barbies.. so many

Armys of Barbies 

This is me and my beautiful roommate Abbey! We were feeling a little crazy! i didn't get the crazy face memo..

These puppets were pretty popular too! reminded me of the one i had when i was little. except these were made 100% out of yarn. crazy talented people here. almost everything being sold was what people had made. my shorts i'm wearing are ones that i bought for $1 each. some man made them. cute right?

This is just some random boy we saw. he was so precious! just the cutest little guy i have had seen!!!  look at that little backwards hat! he is living the thug life for sure.

Okay. this is our addiction here! this is our absolute favorite treat stand! its  just down the road from where we live! they sell what is called Rotii. pronounced (Row-Tea). it is basically a fried crepe with butter, and sweetened condensed milk and sugar on top..  Me and Jess discovered they make one with bananas and Egg in the middle, wrap it up, and fry it all together and put sweetened condensed milk and sugar on top..... Okay i know it's so not healthy!! but it is to die for!!! and less than a dollar for one.. so that ROCKS!

Me, Jess, and Zoe. That's the pink little dream stand we love so much. and eat way too often! 

Okay. this photo has a good story. We bike everywhere we go. im sure we burn so many calories between biking everywhere and how much we sweat! the bikes are ones that the school has provided us with, same with the helmets! but some of the bikes have good days and bad days... but mostly just bad days. most of them are rusting to the core. and some of the brakes don't work, the alignment is off on some. like they are totally PIECES of Shiz. but the bike i ride is the nicest one, and newest one. and it also has pegs on the back of it and a little seatish type thing on the back tire. So since i am the more..... lets just say. my thighs and my body structure can handle having another person on the back of the bike, as opposed to my 100lbs roommates. so i take the nicest bike, and ALWAYS have a passenger! its fun. i will have ROCKIN legs by the time i get home. thats all im saying.
Also. Tang won't let us take the bikes out unless we wear these STUPID helmets, that are so old, and the straps are just so lopsided, we look so funny riding around the town. people are already staring at us because we are the only white people. let alone we look like idiots. so don't worry Mom and Dad. I am not bringing any boys home.
we just get a couple good belly laughs in everyday at how ridiculous we all look!!

Sailor MOON at the festival!! 

Me and Jess laying out at the Garden House on Sunday! what a perfect day! if you can get over the ants crawling on you. which we have. laying out is pretty fun! especially being surrounded by Mango, Banana, and Lime trees! :)

Phichit's Country Wide Boat Festival

Anybody hungry?? I'm not...

Every year, Phichit has a "Boat Festival" where all of Thailand comes to our little city and teams from all different cities come to compete in a giant boat race!that was the description we got when we were planning to come to this.. get ready for this..

Coolest thing ever right??!?! i think its so sweet! there are like 50 guys on each boat!! It lasted all weekend, and there were people everywhere! Phichit was packed! I have never seen so many people crammed in one place like that before.. it was pretty nuts! the smells coming off of some of the grills were crazy disgusting! they aren't afraid of anything here.

Me and Jess

This is part of one boat team, they were going back to their car, and were so excited about us. they couldn't stop taking pictures with us! I really wonder how many Facebook pages i am on now. They just kept saying "beautiful" and " I love you" haha and kept laughing and smiling at us. it was pretty funny. they weren't being creepy, they were just excited to see Americans. Its kinds similar to my reaction when I see an Elephant....

Some more boat guys!

Adventures.. oh the adventures

This is a really shameful thing! These pictures are all from last weekend. I can't even describe how tired I am here all of the time. E-mailing is so hard to get around to. same with writing letters. We have so much to do here at the school as teachers. our schedules are crazy most days. and they expect a lot from us. Blogging is always in the back of my mind! so i haven't forgotten. i just ask for patience! because i am trying my hardest! 

Last weekend it was Paige's 20th birthday. and she has been talking about getting Thai massages since we got here. so we found a place in our town that is like a spa, and went last saturday! it was such a good decision! Emi, Paige and I outside the spa. we got 2 Hour massages for less than $13!! thats including a pretty generous tip! it was the best experience of my life. 

seriously. i have never had a massage so good in my entire life. 

most people know a pretty good amount of English. which is pretty surprising. 

not enough to carry out conversations. but enough to get our point across and communicate. 

so we told the ladies what we wanted. and they took us up stairs to a room with a bunch of massage beds, and it smelled like peppermint, they had relaxing music playing and the lights dimmed. they gave us clothes to change into. they were like soft button down over sized shirts and these huge like scrub bottoms. but softer and thinner. 

there were curtains around each bed, so we could have our privacy if we wanted. me and Jess had our curtain open and were talking to the one massage lady because she spoke pretty good English. she was telling us about her family. and about the town. but we had long enough i totally fell asleep a couple times. haha. it was so relaxing! Thai massages are pretty much deep tissue massages. so they are painful to some people. some girls even had a little light bruising and sore muscles. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. so it didn't bother me at all. I thought it felt good for the most part. 

man, me and Jess are still trying to figure out how we can get one of those ladies home into one of our suit cases. because that was the best!! The next day (Sunday) we didn't go to church. we were all so tired and exhausted from the day of partying with Paige. and the trip before was pretty rough. so we opted out. 

we went swimming at "Mom and Dad's" Garden House. they are Tang's parents. Tang lives with her parents. that's one thing about Thai culture. everyone stays in the same house with their parents and grandparents. you all live together. Tang and her Husband Ake live there. same with Tang's brother Ton. (Tang is our Native Coordinator, as well as the owner and principal basically of the school I teach at)

They just have us call Tang's parents Mom and Dad. so if i say that.... you know who i am talking about.

Mom is a retired Dermatologist. and is the cutest woman you will ever meet. Dad is a Dr. in town. and he is also one of the best orthopedic surgeon in Thailand. so their family is very well respected. especially with Tang starting such a good school. 

Now that Mom is retired, she loves gardening. 

So they built a Garden House, about two years ago. which is basically their settling house. there is a pool, and beautiful plants, flowers, trees, pathways, a green house, fruit trees, everywhere. it is beautiful. and definitely one of the most beautiful, houses ive seen in our town. they gave us a clicker to their front gate, and said we are welcome over any time. so we went over there to swim and lay out. it was such a fun day. we swam in the pool, and layed out in the grass on the side yard, surrounded by mango and banana trees, we just all laid out and turned on our American music on speakers. It was the most "American" i have felt since being here. I loved it so much!

I know we are going to make it a tradition from now on to do that at least once a week; garden house therapy

Last Friday, after class me and Emi went adventuring to the Crocodile Park. it is so beautiful there. I can't get enough!

I am not kidding when i say Beautiful. I can't get over how green it is here!

I found this bus and just took off running. Emi thought I was crazy! I just ran and jumped up on the front of it like this and said "Oh my heck!! Take a picture of me NOW!!!" haha it was the coolest bus to me for some reason... idk just because its RAINBOW!! i mean come on! I grew up watching "The Magic School Bus!" this was Thailand's version I'm pretty sure!

I wish i could call myself the proud owner of this party machine!!

Saying "Hi" to the Crocodiles!!

We stopped by and saw the Crocodiles... can you see them behind me??! real life. 

We went for a walk around the park, and found these crazy trees! there were Cob Webs EVERYWHERE!!! so I basically risked my life for these pictures... Enjoy :)

Jumping for Joy in this green LUSH! jeez! its soo much prettier than Utah to me. I LOVE seeing all of the GREEN!!!

After the park, we rode in to town and went to the grocery store, i needed to buy a fan and some extension cords for my bed. so i can actually half-way not die of the heat. it took a while to read Thai, and Emi got board of waiting for me. I made myself at home on the floor. because I was determine to get the right one.

I love how i tried to read them and decipher what they said... who am I thinking I can read Thai?? Crazy. person.
But i bought my fan, and got the right extension cord and power strip, so my life on the top bunk is a little better. i now have power and moving air!! haha its a lot better actually. It was definitely worth it! 

They've got my Heart melting away

 This Lesson that I did was a fishing game. Got a blanket, made a fishing pole out of a pencil, string, and a clothes pin. and Let them "throw it in the ocean" and catch a prize! this was my favorite game when I was little. I made a special "fisherman's mask" the kid going fishing got to wear. it was suppose to look like a fish. with all the scales. They LOVED it! and had SOOO much fun! I love these kids with all of my heart.

D-Day. He is the WORST. but secretly my very favorite

Ghod. He is such a cutie. and I can ALWAYS expect a hug from him. He is such a lover. I love him

My class of CRAZIES

Prima. hes a very quiet, very sly trouble maker

This is a typical view that i have. getting them to pay attention all at once... Impossible.

They are clearly 3 years old.. literally

Basia. She is in love with her teachers. she always hugs me whenever she sees me! and always wants to be by Teacher Kate's side. she will fight all of the other kids for the chair by me. and will sit and kiss my arms and blow me kisses. 

Yipso. she is obsessed with PINK! anything Pink. she is such a little girl. she doesn't have any in on this day. but she always has pink bows in her pig tails.

This is Tiger. he always will run up and jump on me. DETERMINE to give me the biggest hug. and kiss my cheek. i love him. he is one of the kids that boards at the school. so i babysit him at nights. and he loves playing with me. he definitely is one of my favorites

This is Nest. on the first day of school, when he was trying to tell me his name. he was speaking really quiet. and i thought he said "nose" all the kids busted up! so now we call each other "Nose" he calls me "Teacher Nose"

This is Nui. he is brand new. his first day of school here was the first day we started teaching here. he didn't speak any English. and from what we have gathered from his home life. he is spoiled like crazy. He hates listening to rules. and staying still during class. and always hits us. and beats up all the kids. we always just send him to the Thai teachers. so they can discipline him. because we can't communicate. he's a little stinker.

Pizza, Yipso, and Basia.

Nui, Name, Tiger, Nest. heart MELTING smiles! i love them so much!! 

KHAOW-TONG pronounced (Cow-Tongue) yep. thats a real name. He loves giving me loves. he stays by my side as much as he can. I LOVE THESE KIDS!! can you tell?? 

Seriously... Those pig tails?!! why are they so cute??

Nest and Tiger. Nest loves his teachers. his family can speak English. so his English is really good. and he always talks about us to his parents.

Name, Nest, me, Tiger, Khaow-Tong

My heart is Exploding looking at these again!

This is Chester. he is SO CUTE!! oh my heck. they way he talks. he doesnt' have any teeth on the top row. so he has a lisp really bad. and a really high pitched voice. in addition to his accent. gosh. i love getting him to talk

Sun. he is a little quiet. but has the biggest smile.

This is Ching-Ching. the littlest, girl i have ever seen. she is so petite and such a cutie

Mhew-Mhew. she always has to sit by me. and touching me when we walk from class to class. she is so cute. Nam Nan is photo-bombing hard core

We went fishing!!! Nam Nan and Sun

Ching-Ching, Sun, and Nam Nan

Kaow-Phot pronounced (Cow-pho) and Mhew-Mhew

Mho-Pee, and Chester

Mhew-Mhew is such a lover. she literally always has to be on my lap or by my side.