Birthdays, Motos and More

Hello to everyone,

We haven't written in a while as things have been pretty steady, but we have had a few important functions.  First of all, Mattie and Shawn had their birthdays.  Mattie turned 7 and she had not one but two birthday parties.  There is a movie theater of sorts here so we decided to invite all the girls from her class from school, plus a few others.  All of the kids had a good time and Mattie was very excited.
 As you can see it's not a real movie theater but a DVD player that projects onto a big wall.  There are big cushion on the lower levels, then there are padded wicker benches as you move up.  They are quite quite comfortable and it's sort of like watching a movie in your house.  The owners don't mind if you destroy it with popcorn as they just send their dog in there to clean up.  Not sure what that does for the poor animal but he doesn't seem to mind.







At one point I had to break up a food fight!

It's hard to tell but Mattie is holding Phoebe.

 She has worn the t-shirt that Sophia (one of her best friends from St. Edward)sent to her for her birthday about 10 times already.  It's her favorite.

We also had a movie party for Mattie the next day.  We invited all the children from Shawn's work to come.  We played Kung Fu Panda and everyone loved it.  Some adults even came without kids!  All in all I think she had a wonderful birthday.

We've been thinking about writing a book about all the things that one sees on the back of the motos.  Just the other day we saw 6 people and a dog.  I think that's our record.  I haven't heard of a 7 person sighting, but who knows, maybe it's out there.  Unfortunately I missed the photo op.  I got a little flustered as Shawn is screaming "get your camera...hurry...what are you doing...hurry....you missed it."   Anyway, it went like this...small child, driver, small child, adult with small dog, small child, adult holding a baby.  It was amazing as the small dog had his paws on the shoulders of small child #2 and was quite simply enjoying the ride.  Here are a few other things we've seen. 

We couldn't quite tell from a distance what this was, but upon closer inspection we realized.

                                                                          FISH


Then we finally got the photo that we have been trying to get since we arrived.  It is of the "chicken guy,"  although I should clarify that there are many "chicken guys."  We have learned that it is better for the chicken to be at the top of the pile as that way their beaks doesn't drag the ground as some people have seen.  I have never witnessed this.  All the chickens I have seen tied to the back of a moto, upside down, have been humanely treated.  Sort of.

Then, as we were returning from the Post Office...Yae all our packages arrived.  Thank you to Sophia and Sabrina and Grandma and Hilhu, we finally ran across the elephant.  I had the driver slow down and we got some great photos.

Look, they even put little shoes on his feet.  Or her feet, I didn't get that good of a look.

I almost forgot that we also passed this guy on his way home from what I'm assuming was the hospital since he is carrying his oxygen tank.  Let's hope they don't get in an accident.

The following pictures are of the girls and our helpers after we opened the box we received from Sabrina Farley-Allen.  She was very concerned that we would not be able to find Christmas decorations and Christmas things here in Cambodia so she petitioned her mom to send us a box.  Of course Liza came through and we received a box full of goodies.  The girls had a field day.  It was rather interesting to see Kim Sroy (on the left...she is the cook and cleaner) and Sopheap (nanny...name pronounced so-pee-up) put on raindeer antlers and hop around the apartment.  Kinda funny because they have never seen a reindeer, or snow, or Santa and are Buddhists.

 The girls did have a wonderful time putting on all of the things from the box.

Phoebe walked around like this for about 2 hours.

Greta walked around like this for about 10 minutes.











The picture below is the living room/maybe dining room area of our future house.  It's filthy now but they hopefully will get it clean before we move in.  They've been doing some work in it. 

The picture below is of the upper terrace.  It's huge and I really can't wait to plant some stuff up there.  I took some other pictures but you couldn't really tell anything as it was an empty room with a bed or just an open area.  We're supposed to move in in a week and we can't wait.

 

We hope all of you are doing well and we'll write more soon.  CIAO