The Griffioens

When we arrived in Phuket, we were at the airport trying to figure out the most economical way to get into town, when we saw our friend Rob. He had come to pick us up...what a nice treat :) The Griffiones are in Phuket with a team of Canadians and their goal is to plant a church and meet the needs of the people around them.
This is Amanda building with the kids. She has an identical twin, Amber. These girls were in youth group when I was a leader and they are nothing short of amazing. I brag about them all of the time. Their heart desire is to be a light and they really do glow! They will follow Jesus to the ends of the earth! My prayer for my children is the same.
Can you believe that Judy is a grandmother?! She is a ball of energy and she encourages everyone along the way.

Fried Bananas on our first night out with the Griffioens.



Worshiping with the team in Phuket.

Judy's modest kitchen/laundry room. Unbelievably she bakes up a storm in here!


Our last dinner...what a view! We were so blessed by our visit. Thank you Griffioens!

Back Home and back blogging!

I am working on my blog again and am determined to finish! We have been home a week now and have finally recovered from our jet lag and feel normal again. Dan got the flu when we returned and spend a couple of days in bed, and the kids have had a terrible time trying to recover from the jet lag, but things are looking and feeling back to normal now. We sat down for dinner the second day back and Jordan left to go to the washroom. He never returned and this is how I found him :)

Our kids are fantastic

Everyone asks us how our kids travel. Well they did extremely well...we pushed them to the limits and Jordan often ended up falling asleep wherever we were. Taylor was up for whatever adventure came next, and come bedtime they were sacked out! I know that this trip will have an impact on their worldview in years to come.

Lousy Blogger

I have discovered that I am a terrible blogger. I got off to such a good start, but have a hard time sitting in front of the computer when there is a whole new world out there waiting for exploration. I gained some momentum and then just petered out! Tomorrow we are leaving for home, so just wanted to post to say that we are all alive and well. Just came back from a tiny island camping at sea. So beautiful...

Maybe I will complete the blog when I return home...so that I am not a failure :)

Jungle Adventures

Wow! What a day this was...we went elephant riding and then bamboo rafting down the river.

Hiking

Kanchanaburi

Well, everything had been so positive and had gone so well. Dan and I were getting so cocky, thinking that we could be the next winners of the amazing race, navigating our way through Southeast Asia. That ended abruptly when we left Bangkok and heading out to Kanchanaburi, a town famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai. We took this relic of a train, no air conditioning and holes through the floor boards...I think it was original from the war! The trip was to take 4 hours and right off the get go Dan picked up one of his "friends". He has a way of attracting "special" people! This Thai man who spoke English sat down beside him and was in his face. The train stopped every 20 minutes or so and we sort of lost track of where we were. Suddenly we were going very slowly and everyone was very excited...we were crossing the famous bridge. That was really exciting except for the fact that Kanchanaburi was before the bridge! We were madly looking at our tourist guidebook and trying to figure out how to get back. Dan's friend said we had to ride the train for another 2 hours and stay the night then ride back in the morning. He was so excited as he lived in this town and was going to be our very own tour guide. He was so in my face when we got off the train that I told him that he was giving me a headache and that Canadians need personal space! But he never stopped talking long enough to listen.



Anyways we found a place to lay our heads and headed back to the train station in the morning. Our friend actually tracked us down, but we were able to outrun him! We realized we were in a very small town and no one could speak any English. This made things very challenging, but after sitting in the town square in the heat all day the train finally came at 3 and we made it back to Kanchanaburi very hot and dirty! We decided to splurge and stay in a place with a pool to relax today. Things are great here...minus the mosquitoes as we are right on the river. We just spent an hour before putting the kids to bed on a killing spree in our room. The kids thought that it was great fun.


Tomorrow we are renting a car and heading in to the jungle for a hike to some waterfalls and hopefully going to find some elephants to ride and some tigers to pet! Things are looking up!