Chiang Mai has turned out to be a wonderful experience!  After a few days of introductions to staff, learning about our role, and other training things, we likely would have headed down to Mae Sot.  Instead, we are here for nearly an extra week waiting for our work permit to clear.  We have a one year visa currently, but it requires you to cross a border every ninety days.  This is typically very easy in Mae Sot, where we’re just kilometers from the border, but that border crossing is currently closed (and has been since the elections in Burma).  So, we’ve gone ahead and applied for our work permit in Thailand, which should be able to be signed for and picked up next week.

Until then, we’ve had the weekend free! It’s been a great opportunity to rest, read, and spend some time together. We were also lucky enough to be here for the Flower Festival, which is held the first weekend in February each year.  Just a few yards outside of our hotel, we got to enjoy the parade, markets, and flower displays.

It was a pretty big deal, I’d say. Here you can see a float in the big picture… …and a little closer, …then you can see how it’s all made up of little flowers!  It was beautiful.

All in all we had a really wonderful day and enjoyed seeing the Thai’s so proud of their country.  Glad we caught this Saturday in Chiang Mai!

The shower curtain at our hotel is weird.

For starters, you don’t see shower curtains all that often in Thailand. Usually the shower just goes into the bathroom, and you simply try to not trip over the toilet as you shower. But this particular hotel has an actual shower area and thus a curtain.  But it looks like this:

Note the graphics that include a computer mouse, the @ symbol, and a sketched computer monitor. But then, please read the writing: it’s a collection of websites, most of which probably don’t exist or you just simply don’t want to visit. “Bathtime.com” for instance, or “Classicbath.com,”  Or “HappyHappyHappyHappyHappy.com.”  Or “Sexysexysexy.com”– that can’t be good.

Anyway, we think it’s weird, and that’s pretty much it.

We’re here! We made it to Chiang Mai, Thailand, late on Monday the 1st of February.  We’re now in a guest house in Chiang Mai for about ten days while we go through some training, sort out work permits, and adjust a little.  Next Thursday we’ll be heading down to Mae Sot to find a house, settle in, start working, etc. All the basics of creating a new life there, I suppose?

But before we move too far into Thailand, there are some wonderful times in England to be told. We had such a wonderful time with Chris and Jenn.

This is Stephen and I in the beautiful park behind their house. It was wonderful for walks and a few runs in the morning.

But, they won’t be there long–this is Chris & Jenn in front of their new house! We got to visit and look around; it’s a really lovely house and will be even better after all our dreaming of decorating ideas.

We went for a long hike one day–somewhere between eight and ten miles. It was beautiful, but freezing. I think the educated guess was about -10 degrees Celcius (14 degrees Fahrenheit).  Anyway, it started in this old people town, so it had these signs up to keep them safe.

We tried to take a picture all together, but Stephen didn’t make it after he turned on the self-timer. Obviously Jenn and I were similarly annoyed with his pace 🙂

He made it the next time.

It got much colder as we moved further up into the mountains. We’re all pretty much freezing here.

Then we made it to London!

We visited the Churchill War Rooms, which Stephen’s Papa Doc highly recommended. It was a maze of underground rooms that Churchill ran the war from during Second World War.

Let’s just say it was fun.

And for all you folks in Conway: they can see your greatness from London!

This is our sad goodbye at the airport.

Here the four of us are packed into their little car among our two years’ worth of luggage.

I love Amy Grant at Christmastime, so I might use as many of those lines as I can. Hope you can handle them.

After we spent some time with Stephen’s family in Tennessee, we also went back to the Nashville area to visit friends there. We loved it.We stayed with our wonderful friends, the Adams, and loved it!

This is their sweet little girl, standing on the couch to take our picture. And it only took a little cropping!And we couldn’t forget a picture with the life-size Diego.

We also got to visit our Karen friends we spent the summer of 2008 with. It was so fun to see how much everyone had changed, see their beautiful smiling faces, and enjoy their beautiful singing voices!  They did a few special songs for us that were absolutely wonderful.

We also got to see the Cartwrights, who we count as a simple privilege to know. They inspire, challenge, stretch, encourage, and love us so well. The best way I can say it is this: if you get a chance to meet them, do it.

And have a very merry, tender Tennessee Christmas 🙂

We’ve been running for the past, oh, month; and it’s resulted in blogs getting a little behind. Even so, there are stories that must be told, and the first is of the underground.

We had heard back in February that there was a tunnel that ran under Oklahoma City. It was since discussed every Sunday when we were downtown at church–Where is the tunnel? How do you get in it? Can we go? When?  And the glorious day came the Thursday before we left Oklahoma City: we toured the tunnel.

I was pretty scared it was going to be a let down. It was cold and took a good half hour of walking to find the entrance. It was also after work hours, so the businesses underground were closed. It was also a tunnel intended for businessmen to get from one office building to another, not necessarily for entertainment.

That said, we loved it! It was surprisingly fun to explore.  Each portion of the tunnel had a color theme that included colored lights and decor.  We even enjoyed some fun scaring each other around corners, until we got in trouble for yelling! (Apparently, elderly people occasionally use the tunnels and could be frightened by unexplained yelling. Perhaps, but I was skeptical as I considered the mere two patrons, both middle-aged businessmen, we passed during our hours underground.) Aren’t they great?  We miss them like crazy.

We celebrated two wonderful birthdays before we left Oklahoma City and wanted to share a couple photos!

And, we taught them how to suck helium out of balloons to make your voice funny. It was hilarious!

I suppose I want this to be an optimistic blog, mostly because I want to be an optimistic person. I want to tell you all the things that are so wonderful around us, and all the wonderful things to come in Thailand. And that’s really why I haven’t written in a few days. I’m scared.

There are so many aspects of our move to Thailand that are setting in as we get closer and take more steps toward January 19. We’re without jobs, reaching the deadline for raising support, watching our bank account drop, starting to say goodbyes…

And it’s emphasized this week. We’re in Tennessee, enjoying a wonderful vacation with Stephen’s family.  It’s been fun to have three infants here, a four-year-old addicted to Aunt Katherine, and lots of tired adults, drained in a few different directions. As much as I try to celebrate the laughter, meals, games, and even tears, a picture keeps running through my head: it’s next Christmas, when there are three kiddos toddling across the floor, a five-year-old with more mischief, and who knows what else. And I think of my family, where there will be another baby (!) next Christmas, along with Chris and Jenn from England, and the whole family [almost] together.

I don’t know how to take it in. I don’t know how to wrap my mind around all the changes that will occur in two years, with more babies born to people we love, babies turning into toddlers, engagements, weddings, new jobs, graduations, and retirements.

But I don’t feel like we have a choice. I suppose we do, but not really. I understand only a fraction of the sacrifice, and I understand only a fraction of the call. But I really believe we’re supposed to go, enough that it’s worth sacrificing these things. Well, maybe not worth it, but necessary.

There is so much ahead. And there have been so many tears recently. I have never felt so small, so unworthy, and so unqualified for the next step.

See how depressing that is? I’ll need to limit blog posts while I’ll wrestle through that. I’ll post some photos to make up for it.

First, with our dear friends. We miss you so much!

And with Stephen’s family in the Smokies…

This girl is great.  I get to see her every couple of days, and somehow she is always making my heart melt, whether its her giggle, quiet little English, or her feisty spirit. And you’ve just got to see her in her school uniform–someday I’ll capture a picture. One of the cutest things I’ve ever seen!

Today my dear friend asked if she could come along to Thailand with me in bag. I would definitely take her, and her whole beautiful family, if I could.

We have gotten to know this wonderful Karen family in Oklahoma City. I do crafting with the mother, two oldest daughters, and sometimes the son and littlest daughter. We also take Karen lessons from the oldest girls on Thursday nights, which sometimes turn into family events of Karen bingo, UNO, and ice cream sundaes. We have the kids over some evenings for movies, or we’ll go over for games or baking treats. All in all, I’ve just fallen in love with all of them. They are so wonderfully happy, the best workers I’ve met, and a beautiful picture of family sticking together through everything. 

I can’t imagine leaving. We broke the news to the girls (who then translate it to the rest of the family) earlier in July, and it’s been an odd subject. It’s odd to discuss our moving to Thailand, a place they cannot go. I keep reminding myself and them that we’ll keep in touch through facebook, emails, and Skype. We anticipate them getting citizenship in five years so they can travel to visit me! And those these things are good, it’s yet another thing we’re leaving behind.

Somedays it seems we’re leaving everything: sisters, parents, beautiful little nieces and nephews, dear friends, grandparents we don’t even get to see enough now, my amazing boss and job, a city we’ve grown to love. Even the small things like good smelling soap, a hot shower, fancy dresses, and Target.

But then, other days, it seems so natural, and it doesn’t seem like we’re sacrificing much at all. I can see that I don’t need the small things and look forward to the sweetness of returning to our families with genuinely deserved thankfulness.

All this to say, meet this beautiful family. I just might be squeezing them into my bag.