Trip to Kratie

Hello everyone!
The girls had a one week holiday from school for a local Buddhist Celebration known as Pchum Ben.  Shawn had off 2 days of work so we decided to take advantage of one of those days and head to Kratie (pronounced Krah-chay) and see the endangered Irrawady River Dolphins.  As usual, the drive was a lot of fun.  We are always amazed when people carry their IV poles like this.  It's actually kind of sad, and I know we had one of these photos in the beginning of our blog, but we thought this was a better view. 

We of course had to stop and go to the toilet on the side of the road.  This proved problematic as there were a lot of people on the road, but we managed.  I will not include the photo of me, but here is Phoebe!













 



These are just some of the photos from our driving around the area .  We thought they were pretty neat.

This is of a little village on the water and of course the fishing boat was cool

These piles of hay can be found all over the countryside.  After the farmers bring in the rice crops they put a stick in the ground and make piles of the hay around the poles.  The piles can become huge and this is what the cows eat from for the year.  You can see in this photo where the top layer has dried out.










Emma had a few issues when we first got on the boat.  She didn't really care for the rocking and whatnot so she had a little freak out session.  You can see by the photos that it wasn't too dramatic. 

 This is where you can see Emma peaking through her fingers

 We all had a great time on the boat.  Even Emma!  We did get to see some of the dolphins which was really really cool.

These dolphins are a blue color with a very rounded nose.  They were beautiful!

This would be the hole in the boat that I made when I broke through some rotted wood.  I can't even claim that I didn't see it as I had picked up the kids and lifted them over it so they wouldn't get hurt.  Should have done the same for myself!  I have a monster bruise on the back of my leg, and only a minor cut.  A kind lady gave me some liquid to put on it that looked like whiskey but I graciously declined and cleaned it with an antiseptic wipe!

I just love this picture of Shawn and the girls

 This is one big fishing net!  The fisherman all along the Mekong had these.

The following photos are of some kids we came across jumping off a bridge.  They were so sweet and were jumping for the camera then climbing back up the bridge to do it again.

Notice the boy climbing up the side of the bridge

The pictures that follow are just some we thought were pretty neat.  We spent a lot of time driving around the countryside as there really isn't a lot to do in Kratie but see the dolphins.  We did try to drive to see a large Wat (Buddhist temple).  We were told it was 37 km away.  We thought we could make it in the 3 hours before dark but alas, the fastest we ever drove was 10km/hour, so you can do the math.  We still had 10km to go at 4pm and didn't think we would be back before dark and driving on these little roads after dark wasn't an option.  Not that we were concerned about our safety, but we were nervous about killing someone else on the road!

This was one of many freaky bridges we crossed.  

Not real sure what he was doing sitting here on the side of the road...escaping a brood of children or grandchildren, contemplating life, fulfilling a lifelong desire to feel hot concrete on his arse?  Who knows but it wasn't particularly safe!

This reminded Shawn of "Thunder Dome"

Saw LOTS of water buffalo.  These ones were really checking us out!

If you look closely she doesn't have any pedals on this bike.  There is no point for her to sit on the seat as she is not tall enough to use her feet to push her along.  Toe stubbing seems inevitable!

We thought this was pretty neat as they tied a bamboo pole to the side of palm tree to make a ladder!

Waking up Daddy!

We ended up going a different route home.  The guy said the road was great.  We decided that was relative.  We did make it back to a paved road after about 45 minutes and it turned out it was faster in the long run.

The following three photos are in a sequence and they show an interesting phenomenon here in Cambodia. They try and cram as many people in the taxi's and vans as possible.  Previous blogs have shown people sitting on the roofs of cars and vans and tied to the back.  This is something we haven't shown before So: 

#1:  Just looks like the guy is leaning out trying to get a little air while he drives his car.

 #2:  Why are both his hands outside the car if he's driving?

 #3:  Discovery!  He is the person crammed between the driver and the door.  This photo doesn't show exactly how many people are in the car, but it was packed. 

So that was our trip to Kratie.  We had a good time and we were only gone for 3 days.  Vicky (Shawn's sister) and her husband Joel arrive this weekend and we are so excited!  Mattie's arm is doing ok.  We head back to Singapore next week (week 8) to hopefully change to a smaller cast or a splint.  Thanks for all the prayers for her continued recovery.  We really appreciate it.

Peace!

What's The Deal With The Arm??

If you're following this blog you will know that Mattie recently broke her arm.  After 3 long weeks in her cast we went back to SOS for the follow up x-ray.  Bottom line is the x-ray didn't look good.  We, at the suggestion of mom, sent it along to my cousin Mitzi who is a P.A. for an Orthopedic Surgeon.  She had her doctors look at the x-ray and they all agreed it did not look good.  It was looking like we were going to race home for a surgery.  We decided to head to Singapore to get a clearer x-ray since the ones here are terrible.  After we took the clearer x-ray, it turns out that while we are not out of the woods we don't have to rush home either.  One of the bones in her arm is not healing correctly.  The two broken ends are only 50%-60%  touching, and you want them to be at 100%.  So we're hoping that it heals on its own.  We now have to go back to Singapore once a week for the next three weeks to have everything checked out.  Mitzi was a life saver in this whole ordeal and we will always be grateful to her and the kind doctors who evaluated the x-rays for us long distance.  The photos below are of Shawn and Mattie's trip to Singapore.

THEY BOTH HAD A GREAT TIME AT THE NIGHT SAFARI AT THE SINGAPORE ZOO

THEY WENT TO THE NATIONAL MUSEUM

The Trip to Bangkok

Monday last, after a rather busy day as some friends and I are were watching the kids play on the jungle gym and talking we all of a sudden heard about 10 nanny's shrieking at the top of their lungs.  We look over and Mattie is also shrieking and holding her arm which looks like it has been bent backwards.  We rushed to the nurse who happened to be on the other campus, then we rushed to SOS International.  A good friend of ours, Anjali, called ahead to let them know we were on our way and we booked it!.  Turns out Mattie has a green stick fracture in both bones in her arm.  The doctor informed us that he could not set them properly so we need to see an Orthopedic surgeon in Bangkok.  Luckily for us there was a representative of the hospital in Phnom Penh, so we gave her a call.  She set up the flight, the ride from the airport to the hospital and organized a room for us.  We were on a plane by 8pm and in Bangkok at 9pm.  We made it to the hospital saw the Orthopedic surgeon not long after we arrived.

This was Mattie before the surgery at the airport in Bangkok.  She looks pitiful but she wasn't in that much pain due to the codeine.

After seeing the doctor, he told me what we would be doing...breaking the bone completely and re-setting it.  I could stay with Mattie through everything...I chose to step out during the breaking and we would do this early the next morning, or rather 4 hours from the time that we were talking.


We made it to our room, got a few hours sleep and had a very successful bone setting the next morning.  By 3pm we were out of the hospital and to the airport.  by 7pm we were back in Cambodia.

They had a McDonald's at the hospital!!! 

Life is grand again.

After Summer

We had a wonderful summer at home seeing almost all of our friends and family.  One of the big highlights was the hair cutting of Mattie and Emma.  They had been growing out their hair for Locks of Love for a few years now and it was finally long enough.  We were very proud!

So, after 6 weeks for all the girls and 4 for Shawn we headed back to Phnom Penh with our new German Shepherd puppy.  Why, you may ask, do we need another large dog?  The answer is simple, we're idiots.  We thrive on mass chaos and clutter and dog hair.  Shawn named this dog Ares and he is the only other male in the home!

Here are a few photos of our journey back to Cambodia:

This photo was taken on the way to the airport from Mom and Dad's house.  I'm sure you all can notice a few things seriously wrong...1.  Emma is crying  2.  Emma is wearing a towel (due to the accident she had about 2 minutes before we had to leave for the airport)   3.  Greta is sleeping       This was a fabulous way to being a really long journey, the first leg of which was by myself, hence the "not good" factor of Greta being asleep. 

This was Greta while still at the airport in Houston before getting on any plane.   Grreeaat.

Mom and my's brilliant way of pre-rigging the headphones so we could let Greta watch a movie.  I have to say I'm very proud of this.  She didn't keep it on for too long but it was good while it lasted.

This is how I felt after the 5 hour flight from Houston to LA.  Yes, 5 hours because we go to stop in Las Vegas.  Lucky me!  We also had to push all of this stuff 5 terminals away...took about 20 minutes to walk as the porters wouldn't change terminals and Southwest doesn't have an agreement with LAX to transfer luggage internationally.  No, we did not know this when we booked.

Shawn picking up the tray that Greta kicked onto the ground.

Shawn's shoes full of eggs and yogurt.  Hee Hee

Shawn's feelings on the subject

Greta's feelings on the subject.

We made it home in one piece.  The new puppy was fine and didn't poop in his crate at all.  Bless him.  Everyone slept some so we all managed to stay awake until bed time and begin to get on the right schedule.  It took the kids about 5 days for them to stop waking up at 3 and 4 am.  Now we're just getting ready for school.


The first day of school has arrived.  Emma went back to her old class as a first grader so she had it easy.  The classes her are blended, so it's K/1, 2/3, 4/5 then they go to middle school and it's normal.  Mattie moved up a class so her teacher was new and she didn't know too many kids in the class but Mattie is one of the easiest going people I've ever known so she just rolled with it. 

The next photos are of Phoebe's first day of pre-school.  Day 1 went really well, and day 2 she cried some.  We'll see how day 3 goes!  She was very excited to wear the backpack!

This is where we had to prove to Greta that Phoebe wasn't in the car!  She did like getting all the attention though!

She didn't believe us so she actually had to get in the car to look.  Poor kid.

I'm out of order, but this is the photo I took of her as we were leaving.  The one below is just cute.

It has been about a week now that Phoebe has been in school and she's doing great.  Mattie and Emma are still doing good too.  Mattie is going to begin her piano lessons again, and Emma is starting guitar.  All is well in our little world.  Well, as I'm about to post this all wasn't right in our little world a few days ago, but it's good now.  See next post.