Our Thai Halloween

Today was a memorable Halloween. I think Thais have heard of Halloween (kind of like Americans have heard of Boxing Day), but as expected it's celebrated by very few people. Along these lines there were no stores selling costumes so Dianna got creative:










Maisy was the prettiest ballerina in Thailand.





We took her out trick-or-treating to a few friends, as well as at the hospital where I work. I'm not sure people understood exactly what we were doing, but there were plenty of people who wanted to see Mais in her new threads anyways.

Since I'm told that Halloween costumes are like wedding dresses (you only wear them once) I'm going to maximize our take from this one by throwing on a couple more pics.

I got a little festive too, and decided to dress up...as a Yankees fan:

There's always next year!

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

...Our Thai Halloween II

Couldn't resist a few more of these!



Or one of these!

Return of the 'Maisy motif'

Having strayed from our original plan to pack this blog with Maisy pictures, I'm not sure that we still have anyone's attention. To try to make amends I am including one of our favorite pictures so far: Maisy in her authentic Thai hilltribe attire. She is okay with the dress, but seems to have labeled the hat as her arch nemesis. She tried to launch it (as only a 9-month old can) out of a taxi a few days ago.

The Sox Win!!!!

After days of searching we found a nice restaurant owner (who happened to have a satellite and a big screen TV) that allowed us to watch the last game of the World Series. The game started here at 7am; we were really grateful to the owner (who must have seen the desperate look in my eye) for facilitating our baseball addiction. Maisy seemed to like the game, but I don't think she understood all of the fuss.

Motorcycles

To take a brief reprieve from the normal 'Maisy motif' I am writing on one of my favorite topics--motorcycles in Thailand. I am in the process of collecting pictures of some of the creative ways that motorcycles are utilized here. A couple of examples:






Sadly, despite my best efforts I have been rejected in my bid to a)purchase our own family vehicle and b)help Maisy become the youngest motorcycle driver in the world (Dianna won't even let her sit on one). Stay tuned though, I've got a few ideas.

Maisy's Best Friend

This is Maisy and her best friend Nook. Maisy and Nook hang out Tuesday and Thursday afternoons while her mom is at Thai lessons and Tuesday and Friday evenings while her parents are out on dates (thats right TWO dates a week--we're making up for the six months of NO dates).

Getting Carried Away Now...

...but I couldn't resist posting this.

Off to a Good Start

In honor of today's game 2 victory

The Celebrity

We described this phenomenon earlier, but Maisy is pretty well known here. I think there are a handful of people that know Dianna and I by name, but literally hundreds of people that know Maisy. Everyday people stop us to see if they can take a picture with her. The other day Dianna met a woman randomly on the street who after seeing Maisy remarked "oh this is the baby; I've seen her picture." It's fun for us though to live vicariously through our precocious 9-month old. Here's a short video portraying our little celebrity.

New Teeth....

....same big blue eyes.

That is all.

Let's try this again

Wow that was funner than I thought. Okay let's try one more entry tonight. We just returned from a mini vacation, so it seems appropriate to throw on a few more pics. We were in Bangkok (which I just read today should be underwater by 2020--dang that Al Gore and his global warming creation) for two days, and then traveled to the most beautiful place (except for Logan, UT) on God's green earth--Railay. Railay is an isthmus jutting into the Andaman Sea (a part of the Indian Ocean). It has for some time been the hidden jewel of Thailand. No roads, few hotels (we stayed in a bungalow 100 paces from the beach), and beautiful white sand beaches with towering lime stone rocks that shade the bath-water-warm swimming areas. The area was once a coconut plantation and I think most of the locals still wish it was.

Anyways, getting wordy again but a few highlights: feeding the monkeys native to the area, watching the sunset while swimming, running with Maisy along the beach, cliff jumping, and watching the Red Sox trounce the Indians on TV (we don't have one in Chiang Mai).

Our initial stab at blogging

We've been in Thailand for a little over two months now, and keep thinking there has got to be a better way to communicate with family and friends. So we're trying out this blog thing to see how it goes. We also realized that the world needs a good Odell blog.

I have read only a few blogs (thank you Curt Schilling), but quickly noted that true to the first-grader that persists in my personality, I like lots of pictures and not a lot of writing. We'll see how that goes. I also assume that the more pictures we have of Maisy the more people are going to like it.

On that note, Thailand has been an incredible adventure so far. Dianna and I keep speculating that when we look back at our lives at some point in the distant future it is very likely that this year will be one of the most instrumental in shaping our lives. The people here are amazing, and insist on treating Maisy as a celebrity. Seriously as we walk down the road by our house we often hear shopkeepers, or some of the streets tenants yelling after her (in Thai it sounds more like Mezzy than Maisy, but still flattering).

Dang, this is already too wordy. Oh well we'll do better next post.