You may have won the battle ANTS, but the war is mine! Today, I FIGHT back!

Day 92:

Today has been kind of crazy, but in a normal kind of way.  When I lived in America if my day had included writing strange letters like a 4 year old, finding ants had infested numerous food items, attempting to pick mangoes, hanging laundry out to dry, sweating profusely indoors and out, finding a dead lizard, seeing a roach the size of Africa, driving around giant cranes cutting down the tops of trees that are insanely tall, shopping for ant cups, and having various unexpected (but very welcome) visitors (of the human variety) would be far from normal. But here, it's just another day. :)

This morning I was coming in to do my Thai study with Kruu Jeab and Kora was sitting in Doug's lap doodling. Doug refused to sit still so I could photograph them, so I chased him down and snapped this shot.

He's so difficult sometimes!

During my study time, Kora took advantage of every bathroom break or unfocused second.  She kept peeking in on what I was doing and it was so hard to focus. She is so stinkin cute!  After a couple instances of her making us laugh Doug took the kids out to the school room.

Doug is always telling me to ignore her and/or not let her into the office, but I just cannot deny her cuteness. And P.S. Look at all those crazy letters, like on row 3, there are 4 "different" W-looking letters that are ever so slightly different. They make the "p" sound and the "f" sound, but they are used different ways.  It's a miracle my hair isn't gray or gone...like Doug's. :)

Such a silly happy girl.

 We spent the morning working.  Doug and I studying Thai and the kids doing school work.  We also took about 15 minutes of a field trip to go and pick mangoes in the tree in our yard. We JUST noticed the tree a couple weeks ago, we've lived here since February. Yep.

Investigating the mango tree.

This one was still a little small.

I have no idea what these alien lifeforms are. But I found one on the ground once and seriously thought I was in the plot line of a horror/sci-fi film.

Mangoes!!!

It may not look like it, but he thought they smelled good.

Kees licked them. One of the many reasons I'm concerned about how he'll adjust back in the states.  We had a conversation the other day about "habits" and how doing something over and over makes you form a habit. Like taking your shoes off, I explained they don't do that in America, they are in the habit of wearing their shoes IN the house.  MIND. BLOWN.

Seriously, these things are so weird. It kind of reminds me of that giant worm thing on Alice in Wonderland.

Doug was pulling them down with a long stick and then Kees would pick them up and take them to the bucket.

This stick was propped up against the tree. It's really long and has a slit in the end so you can twist the mangoes off the tree.

This picture is mostly because Kora looks silly in the background.

Kees and I were reading a book about, what else? CARS!

She loves writing!

Construction vehicles

It's quite a challenge to find things to keep Kora's interest.  Today, Kees and I ripped up scrap paper and taped it to the side of this table so she could pull the pieces off. She liked it!

This is her school work.

Kees making a collage with glitter glue and scraps.

I didn't want Kora to have any glue, after many failed attempts to engage her elsewhere, she ended up helping Doug make lunch while Kees finished his collage.

Green glitter glue!

After lunch we found ants in food I had double sealed in ziplock bags.  I was so upset.  I understand
 that ants gotta eat, but how are they in food that I've taken extra care to seal! I feel like it's worse in this house than our last one, so I decided to break down and buy ant cups.  They are these cup things you fill with baby powder (or water) and they are supposed to keep the ants from climbing up those pieces of furniture.  I should mention that before we left, Kees went to the bathroom and as I was waiting outside the bathroom door I spotted a lizard, it wasn't moving.  Kees investigated for me...it was dead.  It really creeped me out.  I hate those things.

This grosses me out.

Right before we left to go shopping.

Okay, so after I made Doug dispose of the lizrd, Kees and I went on our ant cup buying adventure.  Kora was napping.  We were gone quite some time because we perused quite a bit.  Then we bought ice cream bars, sat on the back of the truck and played "I spy".  Kees caught on really quick and we had so much fun. When we got back Kora had just woken up. So we played with the ant cups a while. My ipod was almost dead, so I didn't get pictures, but we used balls and tried to throw them into the cups...kind of like skee ball, now I am tempted to go back and buy extras to use as toys. :)

On our way, do you see the yellow crane???

This is an ice cream trolley. For 10 baht you can get an ice cream cone, usually vanilla and/or coconut flavored, and you can get it in a cup with sticky rice, on a cone, or as a sandwich...literally ice cream on plain old white bread.

Road side food stand. Various pots full of food, curries and soups I'd guess.

At the plastic shop. Before we left I put just my necessities in this little bag. The plastic shop is very crowded with stuff and having a bulky purse makes it hard to maneuver the aisles.

My shopping buddy.

We counted before we left. We needed 7 sets of 4, or 28 ant cups. These were 25 baht a set, a little under $1.

This was a box full of random toys, so me of which were broken or missing pieces. Kees thought he hit the jackpot. We stayed here about 10 minutes enjoying these neglected toys.

A view of the plastic shop.

Tools!  A little boy's dream come true.

After we were done we picked out ice creams.  Kees's had this weird gelatinous orange thing wrapped around a lime Popsicle.

I debated adding photos of me on this non-make up day, but this is how my kids see me all the time, so when they look back on this in 20 years it won't be weird to them. ;)  And check out my nails: 3 weeks later!

What we were looking at while we played "I spy"

We saw a cement mixer drive by, like in our book from earlier!

He loved this game, he had so much fun. We played on the way home too.

Kees got to spy the last thing, it was this yellow flower!

Remember that picture from right before we left, this was about 3 minutes after we got home, it's like nothing ever happened.

Doug left to go buy baby powder to put in the ant cups and while he was gone our friend from church came to deliver some coffee we had ordered. It was pretty comical because Doug was at his house while he was here.  Good thing they live close.  Doug came back and was able to pay him for the coffee. Doug is trying this new "fad", allegedly unroasted coffee steeped like tea is a good weight loss technique. Will get back with you on if it works or not. I TOLD Doug to take pictures of the process, but he didn't. He's so contrary sometimes.

Tippy toes.

Who, me?

I bought Kora a headband!

While I was cooking dinner Pi Tone and Pa Eiw stopped by for about half an hour.  It feels like it's been so long since we've seen them.  Kees was a little shy at first, but he warmed up and we took them over to show them our school room. After they left, I attempted to fill the ant cups with the powder. I dumped what I thought was a little baby power for Kora to play with so she'd stay out of my business. She loved it!  In the mean while, Doug was steeping his tea.

Pa Eiw with Kora.

School work

Kees and Pi Tone

Yeah, remember me commenting on Kora's blurry body parts...wonder where she gets that from...

Baby powder!

She loved this so much. She hugged the floor and kept rubbing the ground lovingly. It was so funny.

I love you baby powder, please don't ever go away.

Ahhhhh....

It's amazing!

She sold me!  I figured I better try it out too!

Kees took this opportunity to sit on my back.

He got messy too!

Both babies got hosed down after all that baby powder got all over them and I can't believe it's already bedtime.  It's crazy today has been so busy, but it went by pretty fast too.  I will say, I was losing it a bit about the ants, pulled it together, only to get gripey again about having to do all the work to "install" the ant cups. I had posted on facebook about choosing to count my blessings, so when I got gripey again Doug Tomlinson sarcastically started singing, "Count your blessings!"  Well played, Douglas, well played!  I appreciated the humor and decided to join in the singing. Thankful for that guy, even though he does try to goad me sometimes!