Returning To Routine.

I'm cautiously optimistic that I'm slowly getting over the first big hump in the Thai language. Cautiously optimistic. I do have my first story to write in Thai (due Tuesday) so I'll let you know how that goes!  However, I absolutely love our new school schedule! Last year, I was studying Monday and Friday mornings (8-10, sometimes 10-12) and that was brutal because Nat had school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (1-3), so I felt like we were two ships passing each other. It also made for very long days. Nat's schedule has remained the same, but now I'm studying Tuesday and Thursday (8-10). I feel like we're in a good routine and we're doing a better job balancing individual study time for both of us as well as quality family time and couple time. Score! We've also added in some studies with other people, in addition to keeping up with our two active kids. We know we have a few time slots that need to be re-purposed, but overall we're pretty happy about getting back into the swing of things.

We also learned something important in taking the trip to the States: a 2-month trip really turns into a 4-month trip once you factor in all the upheaval in preparing and returning from said trip. That's good to know for when we plan our furlough!

In other news, we're extremely excited we'll be having some very dear friends come for a visit in April! We're looking forward to sharing Thailand with them and getting in some precious fellowship time. An added blessing was their airline ticket price was the cheapest we have ever seen for a flight to Thailand. Isn't that just like God?!?

A Sweet Treat.

Every Tuesday we make it a point to go to Swensons - a local ice cream parlor - for their buy one, get one free deal. We love ice cream and Swenson's has a flavor called Midnight Brownie that is just fantastic!

Everything is better when shared together, so Paul shared my ice cream with me. I think it's safe to say he enjoyed it. :-)

Birthday Buddies.

One of my favorite things about Nat is he shares my birthday! Or perhaps I share his birthday since he's older than me. :-) I suppose it doesn't really matter because every year we celebrate together and it is always so. much. fun!!

This year we asked a friend to watch the kids while we went to dinner Saturday night. There's a restaurant at the edge of our village called Eat On Earth (no joke!), so we enjoyed a quiet walk through the neighborhood on the way to the restaurant. We opted to sit outside for dinner since the ambiance was spectacular (until the mosquitoes came along!) and we just enjoyed some quiet time together.

We both ordered the same thing (chicken cordon bleu) and it was absolutely delicious. My mango smoothie was pretty good too!

Nat chose the peach and orange smoothie and was extremely pleased with his choice. Everything was so nice and since we were tucked away in a corner, we didn't have to be distracted by a lot of people going back and forth past our table.

Today was a quieter day for sure. We usually get together with another family for a bible study Sunday morning, but half of their family was sick so we just spent the day at home. The church we attend has services Sunday night, and so that's where we went tonight. After church, we came home and got the kids into bed before pulling out our birthday treat: brownies, ice cream and fresh strawberries. Yummy! 

In addition to today being our birthdays, we're doing something different this year and having a count-down to Valentine's Day. We each decorated several cards on the front and put various things to do together on the back.

So this was our first one (sorry for the blurry picture)! On the back I wrote down, "if money weren't an option, make a list of all the places to travel together as a couple." We enjoyed talking (and dreaming!) about places we want to go. I'm looking forward to see what tomorrow's idea is! 

All in all, I would say we had a pretty good birthday. :-)