Saturday, July 13, 2013

Sister Adventures! Whoot whoot!

MY SISTER CAME TO TOWN! First of all, let me tell you what a blessing it was for her to be able to come. It is not easy to leave responsibilities, jobs, bills, animals and friends and pay a fortune to fly halfway around the world to see your sister. I can only say thank you to my fabulous brother-in-law, Philip and to the secret angel God sent to help my sister afford the flight over. And when I tell you it's a secret, I mean, if I could, I would shout his name with praise from the roof tops in Thailand and tell everyone how gracious I am to the fabulously, generous, kind, loving, selfless man who gave freely. I love your guts out you private angel! So, my sister gets here and I take her to Chatuchuk, the world's largest outdoor market. After running around buying things for everyone else, we almost die of heatstroke because it's 850,000 degrees outside. If you could have seen all the Thai and foreigners looking as we lay on the dirty sidewalk drinking freshly squeezed orange juice, your mouth would have gaped open in astonishment too. The next day we fly off to Krabi to show her the beauteousness of the beaches in Thailand. We were so happy we were going to be able to show her Bangkok AND Krabi! It rained every day, but to two girls from South GA who are filled with excitement and so blessed to be seeing each other, what is rain, right? We rode elephants in the rain and of course, I had the mamma with a naughty baby tied to her. Fitting, since I'm riding with MY naughty baby while the other baby rides with Aunt Nikki and the poor Gypsy has to ride by himself. As we got over being scared, I looked around and am so amazed at how people live in the jungle and ride elephants. I saw, even through the rain, the beauty of palm trees against a backdrop of mountains so green it looks like a fake movie. As I hear my sister squeal with glee and Hailley laugh at her squealing with glee, the naughty baby got naughtier. She decided to flop around in the mud while mamma slips and slides down the hills. She then proceeded to lead the whole procession of very large elephants toward a lake. As she dove right in and all other elephants started to follow I start screeching in my pitiful Thai, "I'm scared, I'm finished, I'm scared!" So, everything stops and miss naughty baby got out. Whew. I mean, I've got a set of lungs! Our next adventure was the five Island tour. I have no idea what the Islands were because we never made it. It rained so hard and the waves were so bad the captain took us to a little resort and we had a cookout. Do you think this bothered us? NO WAY! We laughed and had the best time! We ate our first fish with hua (heads) on them and laughed hysterically about how we almost died in the 5 food waves. Our next adventure was the ATV and BB gun shooting. What? You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl! It was amazing. I think it was the funnest thing we did all week! My Gypsy, even though he's from the south, had his first day of mud slinging, speed racing, fun! It was so awesome. I think he and Nikki had more fun than me and the baby birds all together. And who knew the rain would be the biggest blessing on that particular outing? There were times of beach going and wandering up and down the strip, bargaining and getting things that were "large size for you madame!" We got beat up several times by the waves and almost blown away by monsoon rainfall. The funnest time was sitting in Krabi, Thailand with my family and my sister, my fun fink face, having porch time and laughing and talking about old times. I tell you, her visit was a blessing and food for my soul. It is the hardest thing to do watching a part of your heart walk away and get on a plane. But I'm telling you, it was the best visit ever and I'm so blessed, so filled with joy and gratitude for my sister, her visit, our crazy times together and to squeeze her guts out. Thanks to all who made this adventure possible for us. May God bless your pants off!