Halloween

Here's Paul Bunyan. Poor kid has a teacher mom so he's stuck being a literary figure instead of a monster. This was a pretty cheap costume. He needed some boots anyway, and he already had a jeans. And you can never have enough black and red flannel lumberjack shirts! Sawyer had a lot of fun trick or treating. He got the hang of it quickly, but once he walked up to a house and announced, "I'm Sawyer Anderson!" I like how he says Ander-SONE." I think he looked pretty much like a lumber jack, and a few people actually recognized him as Paul Bunyan. A lot of people would open their doors and say, "Ooooh, scary ax man!!!" I didn't correct them at first, but after a few houses I decided to start schooling them. We didn't hit too many houses, but we collected enough candy to fill his spider bag and have to periodically empty the candy into an extra grocery bag. Note to self: Next year, have Pat hold the extra bag of candy so that big creeps don't toss some smarties into the bag and tell me, "Here ya go, sweetie!" I wasn't even wearing a costume. A couple times I answered, "Thanks! I'm the mommy!"

This is what happens when Sawyer finds orange crackers and has 20 seconds to himself. Days. DAYS to get rid of the crumbs. This look on his face, it's the "I'm doing something bad and I know it and it's funny anyway and you're probably going to laugh at me even though you're not supposed to" look.


Here are some pics from a pumpkin patch with Pat's parents.









A video of Sawyer dancing to the Dora theme song. Don't worry, though, he requested ZZ Top in the car yesterday, so we're keeping him well-rounded! This is a really crazy dance. He's usually doing a bit more bopping and less swinging. Since VIOS allows us to upload so quickly, I'll definitely be putting videos up more often.

A million pictures

Maybe not a million. Many pictures. In no particular order. Our new life. It makes me sad putting up the captions knowing how distant and weird this new life is compared to where we were only months ago, compared to the life of our new friends in Bangkok.

My new car. It's a Honda Pilot. Marianne, if you thought our old car was big! Just doing our part to keep America clean...ahem. Oh, and Sawyer desperately wants to get in and drive. He thinks he can drive.

Olivia! Sawyer has always had 2 Olivias in his life.

Riding at the Fall Festival at Homestead Gardens. The 17 year old driving the tractor did not seem to understand that even though he felt like he was driving slowly, the little carts he was towing seemed to be flying at warp speed.

A birthday party for our little friend, Luke. Does he ever not make "the face"? No.

Distraught and resentful on the way to school.

One of my first days at work. Pat took Sawyer to the park by the airport.

See our cat, Autumn, up by the wine rack? She watches us from up there, probably planning our demise. Sawyer scolds her. "Autumn! Why are you up there, Autumn? Autuuuumn. Get down right now!"

Playing hide and seek with Olivia means they hide in the bathroom and you jump in to find them. Over. And over. And over. And it's hysterically funny every single time.

I took Sawyer to Gorc Park near our house on a beautiful day. This was taken with my iPhone, on no special setting. It turned out really neato. Pat was at a Redskins game.

I dare you to tell me I look tired. You're *%^& right I look tired. And now I always look this way!

Again with the face. On Uncle Jimmy's tractor in Beaver Falls, PA. We had a fun, but all too short visit to see Pat's grandma and Aunt and Uncle.

My favorite boys after eating our favorite hot dogs from Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe and our favorite ice cream from J&T's in Beaver Falls.

Pat took this while driving (yeah, yeah, I know) on the way to Beaver Falls. See the windmills, Eva? See them?

This one is our very last picture we took in Bangkok. It's the cabinet in our hotel. This was all Sawyer had left for toys at that point since we'd packed out. Before bed, Sawyer used to put all his cars to sleep. His idea, not ours. So there they are "sleeping."

Just a sweet picture.

Alright already.

Here's a lovely picture from Patrick. This was taken from the skywalk between 2 BTS stations. On the left is CentralWorld, an enormous mall. The lighted photos on the bottom are part of an underwater photography display. The picture of Sawyer with the stick below was taken the same day down on the sidewalk by the fountain.

This is a statue in Lumpini Park.



This is from the Sunday brunch at Trader Vic's at the Marriott on the Chao Phraya river. I really can't describe how elaborate this brunch is. It's a buffet with everything under the sun. The desserts are great: ice cream bar, snow cone bar, cakes, a million kinds of chocolates, a chocolate fountain, fruit... We're not going to be in Bangkok much longer, I'll miss this stuff, I really don't want to talk about it anymore.



A nice random picture from way back in January when Pat's parents, aunt, and brother were visiting. This was at one of the many temples in Ayutthaya, what used to be the capitol of Thailand. Sawyer learned the word "Buddha" at these very Buddhas. He now says, "Hi Buddha!" whenever he sees one. If we're in a taxi, he loves pointing out the "tiny Buddha" on the dashboard which is somewhat amusing to the drivers.


In case you're wondering.........THREE MORE WEEKS Woohooooo!!!

Ava plug

If you haven't checked out the Ava and Dylan blog on the left, you need to. The most recent post (at least as I'm typing this now) is a song Ava sings for her brother. Unbelievably cute. Here is a picture of my very own cutie looking oh so serious.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Also known as Funarium. Massive, air-conditioned, western-designed (in other words, pretty safe). This place is unbelievable. It is a huge blessing for mommies in Bangkok. They've thought of everything. There is food, bathrooms with changing tables and tiny kid-sized toilets and sinks, a big art room with volunteers ready to help your kid with a craft, a giant climbing structure, smaller toddler structure, bike track, basketball cage. There are giant slides just like the ones at carnivals, the ones where you actually get some air. In the US we'd be asking, "How long until this place is overrun with teenagers and the guy working the slide tries to sell 5-year-olds weed?" That stuff doesn't seem to happen much here. Oh my gosh it is so much fun. I get way too excited when we're on our way to funarium.






Here is Sawyer on the kiddie slide in the toddler section. The tongue comes out when he concentrates.



Sawyer: "Even if there's a little bit of swine flu on this red ball, it's so much fun it's worth it!"



The big slide. The red flame indicates the fast lane. I didn't know that at first. The far right is the slow lane. I still have a burn on my arm from that thing. They must have greased it up last Saturday. Haven't had problems since then.



The ball pit in the big blue structure. This takes some explaining. The big purple cylinder has a red button. Push the red button and air shoots out of the holes, causing the balls to hover in the air. It's not meant for giant kids to sit on it and air out their sweaty shirts. Maybe they should put a sign up as a reminder.





In this ball pit is another button. This causes the overhead machine to turn into a vacuum. You can send the balls flying through the two tubes on the sides. They collect in the section above you. This machine is on an automatic timer and when it turns off, all the balls fall out on your head. Sawyer liked to just lay down and wait for the avalanche. Yahoooooo!!!

Spongebob Anderson

One night in Bangkok...

So it's 2am in Bangkok and here's why I'm loving it and not wanting to leave.

We listened to someone totally butcher "No Woman No Cry" in a bar called Country Road (singular, not plural). And it was funny. And really painful.

In this same bar a roach crawled up Pat's ankle, decided it just wasn't worth it, and crawled under me and toward the other table. Awesome.

The nachos on Soi 8. This time they weren't made with Doritos which would make for an awful disappointment. But somehow, they were still the best. Okay, who am I kidding. It was the Thai whiskey that made them great. But by then I was drinking water.

Some Australian guy bought us shots of Thai whiskey. It smelled like molasses and tasted like your worst nightmare. I pretended to do it and drank half. It was half of my worst nightmare.

The dj in the place on Soi 8 played some Le Chic and had an afro that appropriately matched the song. He is too cool for school. I've always wanted an afro. How did this Thai guy, who should have stick-straight hair, get a slammin' afro? I never asked, but next time I will.

Sawyer went to bed under the safe supervision of our fantastic Arlyn.

One band tonight played John Denver. They also played a Beatles medley. All of these were with thick Thai accents. It doesn't matter how much or how little talent you have, the accent makes it entertaining.

I will miss these fun nights! Time to sleep it off, reread this post, and feel kind of silly for actually putting these thoughts into words.