May your days be merry and bright

Hello all...here is an update for the holidays. we had a lovely thanksgiving dinner at our house. no, i did not prepare a turkey but some friends brought over a chicken. apparently turkeys are hard to come by here and very expensive. however, i tried my hand at making pumpkin pie, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and beer bread. all turned out pretty well especially since i had to substitute many ingredients. we had 12 adults and 2 kids over and it was a first thanksgiving for otto as well as some other thai, british and indian friends. i think everyone enjoyed themselves and there was more than enough food. it was nice to feel surrounded by friends especially being so far from home.

we have had 3 4-day weeks in a row! lots of holidays in december for the king's birthday and constitution day. we went with our friends victor and maam up to maam's home town in the north. we stayed overnight and woke up early to give food to the monks. then we went to an amazing waterfall with 115 levels! trust me, we barely made it to level 5 but it was gorgeous! the weather was crisp and clear. on our way home, we stopped to see this temple at the tip-top of a mountain. the architecture was gorgeous as well as the panoramic scenery. i would love to do a meditation course there! the next day we drove up to chiang mai with some friends to do some last minute christmas shopping at the night bazaar. we also met our friend's new baby Megan Galaya. she was so cute!

last week I was very busy preparing my students for our christmas show on friday. they sang Joy to the World though they were very timid and shy. for the past month, we've been collecting jackets to take to a village school. so last saturday we went out to the school and had a christmas party. the kids really enjoyed singing songs, playing bingo and playing some sports. this week we had a christmas lunch for the english major students. and this coming saturday is a chrsitmas party at the welfare school i volunteer at. it is also graduation day at yonok so it will be a busy weekend. next week (christmas week) is midterms. i will be proctoring on monday, tuesday and wednesday and then i will be off work from christmas until jan. 5! we are going to do a bit of traveling in the north and i am really looking forward to a visit from my friend Lori from chicago.

so that's it from me. hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!