Well it’s a little bit different in Thailand… for one thing schools are still open, so all the kids are still at school today, the garbage collection is still on today and pretty much everyone just treats today as another day, I’m sure a lot of Thai’s know that it’s some sort of special day on the western calendar but it really doesn’t seem any different here. We enjoyed our day with the Mum’s and kids living on our property and had lunch with them, one of the boys even went of to school today, and we had a lovely time having a picnic just outside our house on the grass. Later that evening we joined the kids and family at Home of The Open Heart for a BBQ tea, well pork and sausages on little coal fire pots, not a real “barbie” just a Thai style one.

We did have a wonderful day as a family and Timothy really enjoyed getting some books and a car for Christmas, as much as we missed family and friends on Christmas day it is really a blessing to be able to experience Christmas living in another culture. It makes me look at what we do, and why we celebrate and hold particular traditions we do as meaningful, we made sure we sat down in the morning as a family and gave thanks to God for his Son, and prayed and asked God to be a part of our day, I mean there’s no reason that  you have to wait until your about to say grace to give thanks, the only reason we have Christmas is give thanks to Jesus for coming to earth and what he did so why not thank him all day?

Anyway here are a few pics of our Christmas, the one with Timothy and baby Alex is cute as we think Timothy is looking forward to being a big brother, can’t wait to get home and see everyone again, share our stories and adventures, and here how the past year has been for everyone back in OZ. Hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, look forward to seeing everyone in 2010…

So as our time comes down to a week in Thailand, we are trying to enjoy the last few days we have here as well as finish off any projects, work or commitments that we have. We went on a family picnic yesterday which was really nice, it was at Prong Prabhat Waterfall, which is only a five minute drive away from our home, and on Saturday we went for a ride as a family, on the family motorbike of course, to the airport for yummy chocolate drinks and biscuits to watch the plane takeoff. Timothy’s getting very excited about his upcoming plane ride but well wait and see how he is after several hours of being stuck in a seat. We’re doing the overnight flight so we are praying that he sleeps during most of our flight from Bangkok to Melbourne, and that we, Mummy and Daddy, do as well…

It amazes me that the whole thing is held together with wire, bamboo and rope. I love that one group of guys came and put it together and then another group came in the next day and started to clamber all over it, safety here in Thailand seems like an optional extra… just like motorbike helmets!

Thanks to everyone for all their help on the Hospice.

Well the next things I’ll be working on are getting together all the paperwork for the hospice, floor plans, electrical requirements, plumbing, everything else that needs to happen to make the Hospice complete. After that I’m going to look into getting the handrails/guard rails and staircase hand rails hopefully in place, of course I’m looking forward to laying about a thousand bricks myself, but what else am I here for? It’s great to see work getting done on the hospice and rewarding to know that one day it will be a place for those who need love in their hardest of times, I pray it’s all that and more…

Miriam is trying to find her role as a nurse here, as there are already two other nurses here at the moment, but she is kept very busy with an ever joyful and fun filled little 2 year old running around. Miriam is also teaching English once a week to the Accountant here, Kak. The other thing that amazes me is that with all that my wife does she still manages to remain the most beautiful woman in the world, I mean that has to take some effort, but everyday without fail she manages to win my heart, bravo, bravo!!!

Timothy is quite happy with our new home, he gets his own room, which is actually better for Mum and Dad to have more space, Timothy goes to Kindergarten every morning and is really loving playing with his Teacher and one of the kids from Baan Nam Jai. He loves going on outings with Mumma and Daddy and is very quickly repeating every word we say. He loves playing on the playgrounds here and is now into a comfortable routine in his week, which makes life a bit more predictable for Mum and Dad.

All up we are enjoying our time here, and we know that before we know it it will be time to go home, so we’re both working really hard to try and get done as much as we can in the 4 months that we have left here, and try and savour all the things that we’ve come to love about Thailand, 60 cent Cornetto’s, bargain… riding on a motorbike as a family, and not trying to think too much about the things we miss back home…

So here are some pictures of Home of the Open Heart, Timothy at Kindergarten, our new home and the Hospice Project that Matt is working on, now that we’re a bit more settled we hope to get more posts onto our webpage, that’s if the internet is reliab………………………………………………………………………..(Local Area Connection Disconnected, please contact your service provider for assistance.)

We had a really good time and are planning to go back in late October again for another long weekend, there are a lot of cool things to take Timothy too like a butterfly park and Tiger park, and swimming is always a great thing to do when it’s hot…