girls at play

Emily loves to take her baby cruising around in this shopping cart. Emily also loves to wear these yellow glasses when we are out and about, so she lets her doll sport them on their pretend adventures.

Aubrey is doing well these days... her eyes seem to be staying pretty blue. She loves to watch her sister play and listen to her chatter. Emily often looks at Aubrey and says, "cuuute" or "ah, sweeeet". Every once in awhile she asks to hold her in her "laa lap".

out and about

We enjoyed our time out in the countryside. The weather was nice and warm, as were the people!
Emily ran right up to these girls, and into the arms of the one holding her! They took her inside their house and gave her peanuts and sunflower seeds. Once they saw that she was eating the peanuts shells and all they shelled them for her and gave them to her. They invited us to stay for lunch. The girl holding Em here is 13!
This is rice harvesting season. We got to chat with them while they showed us their methods of smacking the bushels against the side of these wooden boxes.
Emily enjoyed seeing all the animals out there too.... lots of water buffalo, chickens, ducks, and even a pig, which she oinked at quite a bit.

More signs

Early morning fun... not for the faint of heart

So this morning before the sun was up, Scott and I were sitting in the living room. I was feeding Aubrey and Scott had the Word in his lap, when all of a sudden Scott made a series of very fast movements. I was quite startled, since I am used to watching him struggle with a very stiff back in the mornings. He informed me that a very large cockroach was among us. I took Aubrey in the other room so he could hunt and destroy it without disturbing her. 3 muffled smacks later, it was dead. It had gone from the floor by his toes to being on the couch in the time it took me to get into the other room! I was very glad Aubrey and I had removed ourselves from the couch! Anyways, due to the "springy"ness of our couch, the little guy got smacked 3 times. When Scott smacked it, it appeared to jump around, so he smacked again. Once Scott disposed of the body, he went back to his seat, only to discover the poor fellow's head was on the ground with antenna still wiggling! I guess 3 smacks was more than enough. Gross, I know. All that to say, the whole family is thinking about sleeping with Aubrey under her mosquito net tonight! Nah, we actually don't mind a few bugs, but Scott IS out buying roach hotels as we speak. :)

One round of shots for the little one

We called someone who called someone, who knew someone. Then we talked to someone who knew someone.... who is a nurse. We called that gal, and she informed us she is not a nurse, but she knows someone. Alot of someones later, we found a nurse today in a nearby town who was willing to give Aubrey her 2 month old immunizations. We had brought the medicines and syringes here with us from Thailand and they have been living in our refrigerator. But the Thai doctor made Scott promise he would not give them to Aubrey himself. (Apparently one year of nursing school didn't impress him). Well, we had a great time with this sweet nurse and her family, ended up going out to lunch together, she gave us some baby things, and told us some very helpful info about where we live! We were all very thankful... well, except for Aubrey, who's still not so sure she was thrilled with our outing.
When Scott grabbed his glasses on the way out the door, Emily did too. Here they are.... roadtrippin in Asia.

Grocery shopping. Honestly, I am still figuring this one out. I was spoiled in years past, having lived on a university campus, I just ate in the cafeteria with everyone else. Now I have to figure out where, how, and what to buy to feed a non-veggite and a toddler! I've learned that cooking from scratch usually ends one of two ways... with a great sense of accomplishment, OR tears and a great sense of time and energy wasted! Sometimes I even think I've done well, only to get home and find out that the beautiful "cheese" I'm shredding is actually frozen butter. He's a nice old man who didn't know what he had in his freezer. He honestly thought it was cheese, and sold it to me as such. All in all though, it was a great price for 5 pounds of butter. So, PTL and pass the butter!
I've also learned that the only way to get chicken tender enough to chew is to have them kill it right in front of you. They don't understand why westerners wouldn't want to take the feet and head home too, but they'll gladly keep them for you.


So, the air here is not really known for being clean anyways, but the other night when our living room began to smell like an amazingly smokey campground, we looked out the windows, and 8 stories down saw scenes like this in all directions.
I know it looks like Rack, Shack and Benny in the fiery furnace.... but it's just the locals burning fake money to their ancestors. They believe they should provide them with money for whatever they may be needing in the afterlife. Good news is, our building and the rest of the city still stand. It's an old holiday that people all over the country celebrate on that day. The next day I asked a local friend about it. She asked me "don't people in the US take care of their dead ancestors?".