September 26, 2014 Friday
We’ve made
it through 4 whole weeks of Homeschool!!
Hurray for us. We’ve got a
routine going, but I’m still not completely satisfied. I need to rethink my writing lessons. We’re doing a lot of writing, but I need to
do more guidance. Quantity does not mean
quality. We’ll get there.
We survived
our first out of town trip by Allen, and we were just fine. He attended a conference in Chiang Mai and
made a presentation in Khon Kaen. We
stayed home. We even went out and did
some activities. I know hardly any Thai,
but it’s not a big problem here in Bangkok.
I am so glad for all the English signs and the people who know just
enough English to understand me and with pantomime and calculators, we can
figure out just about anything. And I’ve
found that a smile goes a long way in getting things worked out.
We enjoyed
paddle boating at sunset in Benjakiti Park, church activities, a small Thai
craft fair, church, choir practices, homeschool co-op, homeschool at home, and
a rainstorm that flooded our street. It
was an eventful week and we haven’t even had our field trip yet. I’m ready for a break!
Enjoy the Kid Report…
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| After paddle boating at Benjakiti Park |
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| Sunset on the lake at Benjakiti Park |
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| The girls at Homeschool Co-Op at Christ Church Bangkok |
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| Dinner. And thanks to Rachel, it's happy to see ya! |
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| Our flooded street. It was just about over the curb. |
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| We had fun watching the cars and motorcycles navigate our flooded Soi. |
RACHEL, 4th GRADE
On Thursday
we went to Homeschool Co-Op and it was a lot better than last week. Way better!
We understood more of the Thai class and we did a fun activity in it. It was a guessing game. The teacher had little faces showing
different emotions. Then he had matching
pieces of paper that said the words in Thai lettering and in ABC English
letters for the emotions. You had to
match the faces the words. When you got
the match you had to say it in Thai.
“Saw” (pronounced sow) means “sad” in Thai. I remember that one because I kept on getting
that same match each time. “Dun ten”
means “excited” in Thai. We did more fun
stuff during music. We sang more fun
songs. We sang this African song and we
had to bring something like a homemade maraca to shake during the song. Emma and I used plastic butter containers
that we put rice in and then we taped them shut. It was really fun to shake them to the
song. We learned a song called The Music Man that only the British kids
knew because it’s a British kids song.
After that we had snack time and a little bit of free time. That’s when Emma and I found lots of
shells. We had mini-Hob Nob cookies and I
had a graham cracker cookie too. Then it
was Science and we were talking about how grains can help you be healthy and
what they do for your body. They had
some little rice cakes and peanut butter to sample, but neither Emma nor I took
one because we were afraid it would be disgusting and we didn’t want to be rude
and say, “Ewww! This is disgusting.” Right after science time was crafting. You could either play soccer or make a
craft. Emma and I chose making a
craft. We were sewing mini-bags, like
wallet size. They were so cute. I picked neon pink material. We hand sewed it. We even hand sewed a button onto it. And then it was lunch time!! We all had pizza except for mommy. We had pepperoni homemade pizza, apples, and
carrots. We played a game with some
other girls and then we went home.
On Saturday
we went to the Thai Craft Fair. It was
very close to our apartment at a hotel.
They had lots of scarves, some soaps and shampoos, some stuffed animals
and hats. That’s when I spotted almost
an exact duplicate of my sister Bethany’s rainbow hat except the green and the
blues were lighter and the orange and the red were out of order at the
top. And I was like, “I gotta get
that!!” And I got it and I was all,
“Boom, Baby!” We went down the aisles
and we also saw little stuffed animal turtles and elephants. Emma liked this one little gold turtle and
she got it and she named it Samson. It
was so cute. We went down the aisle more
and saw this spot that had all this little Polly-sized food! They had everything. They had water filters, food stands, Thai
food, shakes, hamburgers and fries. They
even had wedding cakes!! I got a mini
picnic basket and a burger and fries.
Emma got a little set of baskets with doughnuts that she didn’t know
were also magnets which made them even cooler.
Emma and I played Pollys basically all day and all day the next day and
all today’s free time. Then after we got
home we quickly got in our swimsuits and ran to the church and ate our lunch on
the way. There was an Activity Days
activity which was going to a pool at an apartment building where a family in
the ward lives. Sister Wood took us to
the pool. When we got there we swam
around a little and ate some snacks.
Then I got back in the pool. I
got out to do something and when I got out my toe scraped against the side
which was scratchy and scraped a piece of skin off my big toe and left a flap
of skin there and it was bleeding like crazy.
So I got a band-aid and sat out of the pool for a while and then I got
back in and was swimming around. It
started to sting and I could feel something flapping and I got out of the pool
and sat on the edge and I saw a little flap of skin and I peeled it back to see
how big the scrape was and the whole piece came off! It started bleeding again
and then it stopped and I got back in the pool.
Then we got out and had snacks again.
The cookies had been sitting in the sun and it was like they had just
come out of the oven. They were hot and
melty and really good. Then we came home
and chilled for a while.
And that’s
basically what happened that was exciting.
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| Taking a lunch break at Homeschool Co-Op |
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| New Hat, Old Hat...the New Hat is on my head. |
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| Polly Pocket and the miniature food. |
EMMA, 6th GRADE
Dear People Pals,
We ordered
Thai take out on Monday. The place we
ordered from was called Have a Zeed. Really
weird. Mom thinks that by Zeed, they
meant Seat because there’s a picture of a chair in the logo. They probably mis-heard the English word
since they’re Thai. So, we tried a
bunch of Thai food. Everything was
either spicy, or really sour. There was
this coconut lemongrass soup that tasted like fresh-squeezed lemon soup, with
chicken in it . I didn’t really like
it. My favorite was this really
good kind of spicy fried fish. YUM! Also, there were spicy chicken wings, and Dad
said that whoever ate the last wing would get an extra cookie. So I got an extra cookie. SCORE!
On Thursday
Rachel and I went to the homeschool Co-Op again. It was way better this time. At home I memorized all of my numbers in Thai
1-19, but then at class we practiced saying our feelings in Thai instead. We got into groups and played a memory
game. When our group was good enough, we
made up our own games to practice the words.
In music we’re supposed to bring something that makes a sound when you
shake it, so mom made us shakers by putting rice in two butter containers. We also practiced a few African songs for a
performance. One of them is going to be The Lion Sleeps Tonight. After that, instead of soccer Rachel and I
tried the sewing class. It was pretty
fun. We made wallets out of felt.
On Friday
we went to Benjakiti and went paddle boating.
It was more work than I thought it would be. Mom, Rachel and I were all in one two-seater
paddle boat. Laura and Nathan were in
another. Laura and Nathan were faster
since Rachel and I kept switching seats to take turns paddling and steering. And
we kept stopping to take pictures. After
the paddle boats we walked to Terminal 21.
We ate at Mos Burger, except I got a hot dog. It had ketchup, onion, and weird
paint-tasting mustard. I also had orange
Fanta.
On Saturday
Mom, Rachel and I went to the Thai Craft Fair.
It’s where a bunch of people gathered in a conference room at a hotel
and brought a bunch of stuff that they made to sell. They had lots of interesting stuff
there. There were a bunch of cloth and
bead things and scarves. There were little cloth houses that had Nativities in
them. There were cloth carrots that had
little bunny rabbits in them, and cloth bananas that had little elephants in
them. There were lots of Christmas and
Easter stuff. We also found this one
person who was selling a bunch of miniature food that you could make into a
miniature town. Like there was a mini
jewelry display case and mini baskets of food and cakes. It was
SO ADORABLE!! Rachel and I both ended up
buying something. I ended up buying 5
tiny baskets that had little checkered cloths in them and then there were
little tiny doughnuts in them. Each doughnut was really detailed. They were also magnetic. And the baskets were real tiny baskets! Rachel bought a teeny tiny glass tray with
teeny tiny fries and a burger on it. She
also bought a little basket of fruit.
Rachel also bought a knit hat that looked like our old rainbow hat
except it was lighter in color. I also bought a silk stuffed turtle. I named him Samson because that was the first
name that came to my mind. Mom bought
these Christmas ornaments that were red, white, and green. She got a snowflake, a bell, and stars. They all had sequins and beads on them. They were really cool.
After that
Rachel and I went to an Activity Days Activity.
They only have one every other month.
For here the Activity Days includes boys and girls age 8 and up because
they don’t have Cub Scouts. We went to
this apartment pool that a lady in the ward lives at. We did swimming and they also had
snacks. There were 2 kinds of
cookies: chocolate chip and chocolate
chip, but they were cooked differently.
Also there were chips and fruit.
It was really good. Rachel
scraped her toe at the end though so she didn’t swim the whole time. We mostly played with these two girls,
Narissa and Yoomin. We had a good week
this week.
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| Miniature Baskets of Doughnuts...and they're magnets too! |
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| Samson the Golden Silk Turtle |
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| After Homeschool Co-Op |
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| Paddle Boating in Benjakiti Park |
LAURA, 8th GRADE
This
week Dad went to Chiang Mai. He was doing some conferences there so it was
basically every human for themself at home. FUN! We actually spent most of our
time doing schoolwork so there wasn't much of a disagreement issue between
children and parent. I do feel bad for mom. She was stuck inside with us all
week and quite frankly, we're loud.
Without dad, our Friday
field trip was just one to the paddle boats at Benjakiti Park where we went
biking a little while back. We went about 5:30 p.m. They were really fun. I
shared a swan-shaped paddle boat with Nathan. We raced Mom, Rachel, and Emma
back to the dock and guess who won. WE DID!! It was SUPER hot though and the
walk back to Terminal 21 Mall felt really long. We ate at Mos Burger. It was
pretty good. I had a hot dog. They had this weird mustard on my hot dog that
tasted like spray paint. Emma had said it tasted like spray paint, so I wiped
off all of it except for some on the end.
When I tasted the mustard on the end I could see how she compared to
spray paint. It was really bitter and
gross. Have you ever tasted orange
peel? It kind of tasted like that with
this weird hint of burnt rice. That is
how the nasty mustard tasted. You’re
welcome. Otherwise, it was really good.
Other than the trip to the paddle boats, I occupied myself by trying to
organize the fridge and every cupboard in the kitchen. It was hard and I REALLY
hope that we can keep it that way. It's easier to find what you're looking for.
So if any of my siblings read this, PLEASE keep the things in the soup cupboard
and fridge organized!!!!! I found it actually kind of fun. Apparently one of my
other sibs did as well and put up a bit of a hissy fit because dad had promised
me I could organize all the cupboards. So I let them hand me stuff.
Overall
it was a pretty good week even though we didn’t live la vida loca this week.
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| Paddle Boating in Benjakiti Park |
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| Sunset on the lake, from our Swan Paddle Boat. |
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| Standing up to paddle boat makes the boat go faster, right? |
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| In our awesome swan paddle boats |
NATHAN, 11th GRADE
I had piano
lessons on Wednesday. They went
well. School is going fine. The good things about online classes are I
can access it any time, and I don’t have to get up nearly as early. The bad thing about online classes is that if
the internet is going slow then it’s hard to do the work. My favorite class right now is Spanish 3. A
couple of times I’ve had to record things for my Spanish class and then send
them in. In my AP Government class I
have video lectures that I have to watch for each section. I like real classes better because the
classes are more interesting and you have friends in class.
Last
Thursday, Dad left for Chiang Mai to do a couple presentations. On Friday we went to Benjakiti Park and we
went paddle boating for a half hour on the lake there. It was fun.
Our boats were shaped like swans.
It was me and Laura in one boat and Mom, Rachel, and Emma in the other
one. It was only 40 Baht for half an
hour. [That’s about $1.30.] There were
hardly any other paddle boats on the lake, so it wasn’t crowded. I would do it again. After that we went to Mos Burger at Terminal
21. It’s a Japanese burger place. We had dinner there and it was good. I had a cheeseburger and fries.
Then on Saturday Laura and I had a
youth activity. It was a farewell for
one of the guys in our ward who is going on a mission. It was at the young
men’s president’s house. We played wii
games, had pizza and root beer floats. I
played Mario Kart. It was pretty
fun. I wish we had brought our wii to
Thailand with us because it gets a little boring from time to time. After that we went home. The little girls were at a pool party
activity and Laura and I had to go pick them up at 3:30 at the church. When we
went to pick them up they had already started home, so we met them half-way
across the university campus.
Mom made banana bars Sunday. Dad came back from Khon Kaen on Tuesday. That’s about it.
But
wait! There’s more! We just had a mini-flash flood on our street
in the last half hour. We had a
thunderstorm that lasted about a half hour.
It rained and rained and rained.
After the thunderstorm we saw that our street was flooded. It was about 6 inches deep. We went down to the street level to see how
deep it was and to watch the cars and motorcycles go by leaving a wake and
waves behind them. We took
pictures. Yep. Now that’s really it.
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| On the lake in Benjakiti Park |
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| Our swampy Soi right in front of our apartment building. |
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| Watching from the balcony of our apartment as cars navigate the flooded street. |
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