Monday, August 13, 2012

Post #50!

Well, it's taken just over two years, but this is officially the 50th post on our blog! We're not doing a raffle or anything, but I thought you might like to know.

We are doing well, and are currently enjoying the last evening of another long weekend. Last weekend was a 4-day weekend (Thursday-Sunday) because of some Buddhist holidays. We spent most of those days at home, just enjoying having the ability to relax. One day we spent in Bangkok visiting some of the famous sites; we saw the Grand Palace as well as Wat Po, which is the home of the famous reclining Buddha. My parents went to Wat Po when they came to visit last year; we decided that we ought to go see some of those sites so that when other people come to visit (*cough* Anyone? Anyone?) we'd have some places to refer them to.

This weekend, due to Thai Mother's Day, we have a 3-day weekend. I could totally get used to it, but it's unfortunately the last long weekend until October break, if I remember correctly. The family of a girl that Michael tutors took us out on Saturday. We went with a few other GES teachers, and the family took all of us to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand. We have been there once before, but it was about two years ago. We took a boat ride (a 4-hour tour!) on the river, ate lunch, and just saw some sights. It was such a blast! I've put some pictures below for you to check out:

 Nail, the 3rd grade girl whom Michael tutors, and her mom - what a perfect hat for a sunny or rainy day!
 GES teachers - Sarah (Kindergarten 3), me, Justina (2nd grade), and Julie (Kindergarten 1) - people tend to get Justina and I mixed up if they don't look carefully enough....
 Nail's mom bought us these awesome hats - it took a little while to find one that fit Michael's head! We didn't ask for them, but the family thought we needed them because it was hot outside. So we wore them!

 They also got Michael an awesome t-shirt! What a handsome model he is!
 On the boat - we ate all sorts of food, but this was one of my favorites: pineapple fried rice that was actually inside the pineapple!
 Our group on the boat
One of the views that we saw along the river - Ayutthaya is incredible!

On the boat, we took particular notice of the water marks on the buildings. Last year in the flood, Ayutthaya got hit really hard. I didn't get any pictures of the water marks, but most of them were probably a good 8 feet higher than the current water level. Craziness.

In terms of school, things are going really well! This coming week is our 10th week of this school year, and I can hardly believe how quickly that time has gone by. My life is going to get a whole lot busier within the next couple of weeks; the 12th grade students will be handing in their big research projects! I had some trouble with that last year, as the majority of the students plagiarized their papers, so I had to come up with a new way to grade them so everyone wouldn't get 0%. This year, though, the majority of them seem to understand a lot better what the expectations are - I've read partial rough drafts from all of them, and so far, so good!

Michael's classes are going well. He loves his 9th grade class, and has told me on several occasions how much he enjoys being more a part of the middle school than the high school. He's got many of his students working on various projects, which keeps him pretty well occupied!

 Overall, this school year has been excellent so far. Thank you so much for your prayers and thoughts, and please continue to pray for us and for our students. The Holy Spirit is certainly at work in the hearts and lives of students and teachers at GES this year. Pray for unity amongst the teachers, and pray that the Spirit would continue to work in the hearts of the students, that they may come to know the love of Christ.

As a final note, I've got an album of overnight camp photos (as promised!). The photos are mostly of our homeroom classes (9th and 12th grades), but there's a few with some students from other grade levels as well. The 9th grade photos are of the whole 9th grade (2 classes), not just Michael's class. Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. Christopher McIntosh-LopezAugust 14, 2012 at 10:19 AM

    *cough* Pick me, Pick me ;)

    ReplyDelete