I never know how to celebrate holidays here, but we do want to try! For this year’s 4th of July we enjoyed a nice swim in the rain, and then we went to the nice grocery store in town and bought the foods we miss most from the States!

For Stephen, that was a burger with a fresh homemade bun. And some French fries & grilled veggies on the side.

For me, it’s salad.

We splurged for delicious lettuce, rocket, zucchini, and–the best!–blueberries & pecans. We found some goat milk in town and attempted goat cheese–a form of ricotta made from goats milk; it was pretty close! I looked forward to this salad for days and it was ahhhhhmazing! It completely lived up to my own hype.

So happy 4th of July. We’re so thankful to have been born free, with papers and in blessed families; even if that is just so we could move to another country!

Amidst the race & some amazing food and coffee in Bangkok, we found a few other adventures. We visited Wat Pho, one of the larger temples in Bangkok housing 99 pagodas.

It is also home to the Reclining Buddha, which is just indescribably huge.

That evening, we went on a night bicycle tour of the city. As a group of four, we were given a private tour, which was such fun. We loved our guide, and he was so kind to answer so many questions and share all sorts of interesting facts. He ended up spending over four hours showing us around a few temples, the flower market, and other landmarks. If you are ever in Asia, look up Grasshopper Adventures; and if you’re in Bangkok, ask for Tom!

We also played a number of games of Ticket to Ride on the iPad. This was my favorite 🙂

And despite Keri’s poor score on this one, the Blunier girls won every game!

We really had so much fun and we are so thankful for the many people who made it possible–particularly the grandparents who watched four kiddos for sixteen days!

After a few days back in Mae Sot, we said goodbyes to the neighborhood and made our way to Bangkok for the last couple days before Steven & Keri flew out.

Since I have always loved running with Keri, and Steven just always loves running, I set out to find a race for us to participate in.

I found the We Run for the Blind 2 race and signed us up–Steven for a 10k and Keri & I for the 5k. We were given instructions to be at the check-in table at 5:30am.

We were. Unfortunately, that was unnecessary, and the race didn’t start until nearly 7:30am. They also had only two of us signed up–Steven for the 10k and “Kelli Helmick” for the 10k. I explained that Keri & I were running the 5k, and they made us new bibs. I tried to explain that one name was actually “no Ls, just R”…we got this.
As we waited for the start, we took this picture. They kept asking us, Are you buddies? We didn’t really understand. We knew some people were partnered with blind people who were running the race, but not speaking the language, we didn’t sign up for this.

Later, Steven went back to the desk to ask about his other bib–there had been two, one in Thai and one in English. He asked if he could keep the Thai one, since it was his name in Thai. To this, the woman asked, “Do you understand this race?”

Uh, no. Clearly not. That wasn’t his name in Thai–that was his “buddy.” Everyone was partnered with another person who was about your pace, some blind and some not. If neither of you were blind, you took turns running blind and leading each other, so that we all learned how to guide as a runner.

This is very complicated with language barriers, and overall, we were very confused. But we did run!

Keri & I decided to be partners since we speak the same language. We held onto the same guide band and for the last kilometer or so I was blind folded and required her guidance… It was a very odd experience, but an experience nonetheless! Steven’s buddy never arrived, so he ran by himself and made pretty good time.

While we didn’t really win, it did give them a good idea of how I feel in most races in Thailand 🙂 I rarely know what’s really going on: just keep running, just keep running!

Steven was so excited for our day with the elephants. While fear of these beasts was more pressing on my mind, it is bucket-list material, and we went for it!

First, they give you these great one-size-fits-not-all denim outfits. I’m sure it’s best for the elephants or something, but that was a lot of denim to cart around.

We then were each given our own elephant, which we spent the next few hours with. They taught us a few phrases in Thai to direct the elephant, and thankfully kept a mahout nearby for when we forgot.

To climb on the elephant, you tell them you’re going to get on, and they lift up a leg for you to step onto. You pull yourself up using their ear, which they assured us doesn’t hurt the elephant. It’s a pretty cool system, but unbelievably difficult. These are some big beasts to be climbing onto!

You could also climb on from the front after telling him to put his head down for you.

Stephen’s elephant, JoJo, was absolutely huge. He was also very fast, and the one who knew how to spray others with water using his trunk. They got all of us.

To get off the elephant, you could tell him to lift one leg as a step, the same way you mounted. The other option was to have him bow his head and slide off his trunk! Such fun, but a surprisingly far jump.

After practicing getting on and off the elephants multiple times, we took them for a walk through the park and then down to bathe in the river.
We walked them back for the elephant show and helped in the show as they showed off their skills of playing the drums, lumbering, painting, playing catch, and bowing. In all we each spent about three hours with our elephant, and it was amazing to experience such an incredible animal up close.

We then toured the rest of the park, including the elephant hospital, elephant nursery (adorable!), and the paper factory. There are about 70 elephants at this one conservation center, and they recycle all the elephant dung to make natural dung paper.

Last, we took a ride through the jungle on an elephant with a seat. After riding the elephants bare-backed and learning to direct them ourselves, this wasn’t as epic, but still another incredible experience!

After a few days in Mae Sot, we took a quick jaunt up to Chiang Mai. There were just a few things to be explored that Mae Sot didn’t have to offer.

We arrived just in time to catch the last two quarters of the final NBA game at a local pub. While I can’t remember now who we were cheering for, “our team” won, and Steven was pretty stoked he caught the game!

Next, we visited the Grand Canyon. It’s really just an old quarry now turned into a swimming hole with cliff jumping. And this particular day, we arrived for them to tell us there wasn’t any cliff jumping today because someone had hurt their back this morning. When we asked if they were okay, they just said they were at the hospital, but “no problem, we make safe for you.”

And cliff jumping was back in business within thirty minutes or so.

With the back incident and personalities to consider, Stephen & Keri much preferred the tubing while Steven and I took some jumps.
We visited the zoo the next day (with a few hundred Thai school kids), which is one of my favorite places in Chiang Mai. One of the best parts is that you are able to purchase food to feed animals, for about 30 cents per exhibit.

Here Steven & Stephen are feeding emus bananas at the end of a stick. Emus are scarier than you might think, and that stick might have been a bit shorter than we’d have liked!

Check out this hippo mouth!? I love that in offering food to them, they come right to you. I can’t say I’ve otherwise seen the inside of a hippo’s mouth.
Feeding baby pigs milk from a bottle is one of the cutest things.

Here we took turns putting raw meat on the end of a stick and feeding it to a panther.  Again, amazing to see the animals so engaged and interested in our being there!

In all, we fed hippos, sheep, goats, elephants, panthers, piglets, emus, & giraffes. Pretty amazing!

The following day we headed back to Mae Sot, but stopped at an Elephant Conservation Center on the way. I think we’d all say it was the best day, so that deserves a post of it’s own!

I’m sorry for the silence. Instead of writing and posting to a blog, we had family in town and we were soaking it up. We enjoyed conversations, games, food, and adventures: all we did is win, win, win.

And now we share the fun of having my sister & brother-in-law come to visit for a couple weeks!

We scheduled a few appointments in Bangkok the days before Steven & Keri arrived so we could be there to pick them up at the airport. One of their flights was delayed, which led to missing the next one, which led to delayed luggage…you know the drill. Except, their re-routed schedule had them arriving four hours early to Bangkok! We enjoyed a morning over coffee before catching our flight to Mae Sot. Thailand also came through with gusto and connected their luggage on a flight to Mae Sot the next day! I can’t really express how much of a surprise this was: win, win, WIN.

It was so fun to show them around Mae Sot after it has become so much a part of us.

We took them to our favorite places, which for me, is the market.

And we introduced them to our favorite people! It was fun to see Steven in his element of teaching. We also played games with the kids and they were able to help with childcare during bread baking.

It was so fun to have them in the community and loving on our best friends.

I wish I could truly explain how many times we had the realization of there being two Kewees (Kelli & Keri) and two Stewens (Steven & Stephen). This happened in every conversation, in every city, and every culture. Amazing, and absolutely hilarious, particularly when the converser is somewhat inhibited by alcohol. Yes, there are two of us with relatively the same name, and there will be the same number in the morning!

Global Alms returned to our community to bless additional girls with beautiful dresses!

We spent one day exploring waterfalls!

We went to countless of our favorite restaurants and loved sharing the experiences of Mae Sot with the Helmicks!