Mackinaw in early August

We dropped the kids off shore on the west side of Mackinac Island and they swam up to the state park concession stand to get lunch.

After, they walked and treaded water out to the boat with a hot dog and slushie for Kevin & I.

A very long boat ride that started with the kids playing under the bridge, then to the west end of the island, around the island, down the south length of Bois Blanc Island, to the lighthouse east of Cheboygan and back to Macinaw City.

Even Max went along!

Dad and Kevin went fishing. Obviously a good day. Actually a good year on French Farm Lake, even though the locals say that there are no fish!

Kaylie finally made it to Mackinaw this summer! In one boat trip, she swam, tubed and waterskied under the bridge!

Kaylie and Walker tubed together.

Friendly Faces

I ran into Walmart this afternoon after work to pick up a few quick items when a person with a very familiar face stopped me to say "hi." Of course I couldn't quite place that very familiar face and the obvious follow up to the "hi" was, "you don't know who I am, do you?" I regretfully admitted that I was still trying to come up with a name, and the very friendly non-stranger started telling me a story about when my brother Bryce and his very best friend Jason snuck off on their bikes as children to the river near our house. Now this story happened to be one of my children's favorite bedtime stories when they were young and I instantly realized that I was talking to Kathy David (Jason MacDonald's mom). She admitted that she follows the links to other blogs (starting with Jason and Stephanie's to Carol's or Bryce's, to mine, etc.), so is actually aware of what is going on in my life. Now if my husband would actually read the blog he might actually see some of my Thailand pictures! Anyway...Hi again Kathy (and Don), and it's fun to know that you're reading!

New Slideshow!

Ok, so I'm done with the posts of photos with the dorky (I know that's a word from the 80's) captions. I figured out how to post a slideshow that will start running from the time that the blog is opened. Problem is, they start from the beginning each time you open the page. Oh well, there's several hundred there if you're ever bored and have nothing better to do!

Of the 4 bathrooms in the pastor's house (where I stayed), this was my favorite. It was the one I used whenever it was available and was the one that I was locked out of each night (at which point I had to use the squatty).

This is the shower and scoop used to flush the toilet.

It looks pretty normal, but it doesn't flush (you pour the bowl of water down it) and you can't put toilet paper in it. Note the "butt" sprayer hanging from the wall. I elected NOT to try this method and instead brought my handy roll of toilet paper with me each time I did my duty. I got pretty good at tucking the roll under my chin while I was busy so that it didn't get wet from the floor.

This hole in the floor drained directly outside of the bathroom into the grass. All of the water from the sink and from taking showers (and any other liquid on the floor) drained out of this hole.

Some of the youngest students!

This is one of the poorest schools that we visited.

The students at the afternoon assembly.

Our ride to the first school on Monday morning.

In case you wondered what the bus looked like from the inside

A view from the bus window.

A plate of fried grasshoppers

This was on the wall at the guys apartments

The sounds that could be made with this instrument were amazing!

Planing games on the floor of the shared living space in the Pastor's house.

We returned to the waterfall Sunday afternoon for more jumping.

Remember those crabs we caught in the rice field. They were washed and fried, and we ate them shell and all!

Along with the crabs were the very "tasty" fried grasshoppers.

This is the area outside of the church and pastor's home on Sunday morning as people arrived for church.

Inside the church during the service.

After church, during a praise & worship seminar, some of the guys wanted to learn the ladies way of Thai dancing.

This squatty potty and I became friends each night at about 3am.

All 23 of us (plus our hosts) were invited to dinner at this house. When we pulled up in our pick up trucks, the streets started to fill with curious neighbors! They watched us for so long that we finally did our school assembly program for them so that we could eat dinner without the audience.

We sat on the floor aaround mats and each had a plate of rice. The food was placed in shared bowls where you were expected to take small portions, eat them with your rice, and then use your eating spoon to get more small portions from the shared bowls. At this early point in the trip, we were still apologizing to each other for "double dipping" but we got over that VERY quickly!

After planting rice, they took us to this waterfall in a nearby National Park (near the Cambodia border). We climbed behind the waterfall and swam out, and after some coaxing, many from our group began jumping off the top of the waterfall on the far left side.

We had to stop here for gas on the way home. One interesting tidbit was that we had to drive right up and almost inside the small store because that's where the gas pump was.

Everybody's got a waterbuffalo, yours is fast but mine is slow. Oh where do we get them I now know...Thailand!

Behind the waterfall!