Loy Krathong and more catching up

Last week was Loy Krathong, a Thai holiday celebrated on the full moon in November (the 12th month of the lunar calendar). Thais float little boats called krathongs in the klongs, rivers, and in our case, the apartment pool. In the words of Pedro, floating your krathong can make your wildest dreams come true. Or something like that. And we also float these to say, "Oops, sorry river goddess for turning your river into a polluted mess!" I'm sure she says, "No probs babe!" Sawyer's krathong was 150 baht at Villa Market, our grocery store. That's about $4.50. On my way to the store to buy a krathong, I got a picture of the people outside Hilary Bar (or some other bar on that strip) making their own krathongs. Last year we didn't get to float one because all the festitivites were right at bedtime and at that age, it wasn't worth disturbing his sleep cycle. This year was really fun. In addition to official celebration on Loy Krathong, a few weeks ago we went to the embassy to celebrate. There were boat races, Thai dance lessons, food, and krathong floating.

The apartment little ones in the front row (from left): Molly, Evie, Kaden, and Sawyer. Evie is Sawyer's nemesis. He hears her playing downstairs at the playground and looks at me with grave urgency, whispering, "Weevy."

Here Sawyer wishes for his very own taxi (his new obsession).

What else is happening? The weather is becoming bearable! Yahoooo! We're enjoying some days that are in the eighties. They don't necessarily stay this way all day, but mornings and evenings are getting pretty beautiful. This means Sawyer and I get out to some of the parks more often. The playgrounds at Lumpini Park are great. Chuvit Park, in the entry below, doesn't have a playground, but I learned that Sawyer's cars now make anyplace a lot more fun. Sawyer enjoyed waving and saying hi to guys sleeping on the benches. There is a lot of grass and I actually had to tell him it was okay to go run on it. He's not around grass on a daily basis.

Every day I walk down the street and laugh (on the inside) at the signs I see. Oh, once I laughed outloud at a guy picking his nose so shamelessly. And then the guy behind him laughed and said, "Funny funny!" Anywho, there is one sign that I don't have a picture of. Down the street is a new beauty salon. It's called "Grace Beauty Saloon."

Here are a couple others, just pretend you don't see me in that one on the right. These aren't nearly as funny as signs get here, but I like "foreiner objects."

It's time to go enjoy the rest of Sawyer's nap. Before I sign off, some more new words from Sawyer. When Pat leaves for work in the morning he gets, "Bye Dada, c-ya!" When Pat walks out of the room at bedtime while I'm putting Sawyer down, it's "Night Dada, c-ya, uvoo." Uvoo is "I love you." He's tired of doing the wai (hands together) and trying to say sawadeekhap, so now anytime a Thai approaches he just shakes his head and says, "No, no, no." Or if he's feeling particularly irritable and sarcastic he says, "No khap." "I see you" is a fun one to do. He can peek through the vents in the bathroom doors while you go to the bathroom and let you know he sees you. For those of you coming to visit, be prepared to lose your privacy! Is this boring stuff? Should I be writing about other stuff? What do you think?