Arrival in Thailand

We're finally here! It is hard to believe that it is officially "time"--time to go to Thailand for the delivery of Baby Dean! I still have a few weeks till my due date, but the airlines have strict rules for how late in your pregnancy you can take an international flight--rules which apparently we were pushing from the attitude of the airline employees yesterday!

Last year, when my good friends the Greene's traveled to Thailand to give birth to their little boy Zeb, the airline almost didn't let them on board because, though they had a letter from their doctor saying Alisa Greene was perfectly healthy to fly, they didn't have the exact medical form from the airline! So this year, I made sure I had the required form (which had basically NO relevance to a pregnant passenger--sample questions: is the patient contagious or pose a risk to other passengers? Does patient require medication that he or she cannot administer herself? etc.) as well as a letter from my doctor in both English and Chinese giving me permission to fly. The airline's official policy was that you can fly up to 36 weeks pregnant as long as you have the medical form. Well, I am not sure if the airline employees at the airport were aware of this policy. They saw me and were immediately concerned, so I handed them all my documents which I was sure would be enough! They barely looked at them, and instead just discussed what a bad idea it was to let me on the plane. Finally, a man who seemed to be in charge asked me--how far along in your pregnancy will you be when you come back? (They hadn't looked at my itinerary either, apparently). I said I would deliver the baby in Thailand, so I wouldn't be pregnant when I came back. This was apparently the core issue, because as soon I said that he gave me permission to get on the plane and they started printing our boarding passes!

The only other interesting thing that happened on our trip yesterday was a luggage mix-up when we arrived here in Chiang Mai. At the baggage claim, 2 of our three bags came out together fairly early. Finally, our third bag--a bright red Dockers brand suitcase arrived. David opened it because he had been trying to remember all day if he'd brought his flip-flops, and he immediately said, "This isn't our bag!" I said, "Impossible! What do you mean?" But he let me look inside and sure enough--that wasn't our stuff! The suitcase was IDENTICAL to ours! There were no more bags coming off the belt, so we knew someone must have mistakenly taken our bag, and now we had theirs! I started talking to an airport employee about what had happened, and David had the brilliant idea to go out and see if he could find the people with our bag! Thankfully, they had not yet left the airport and David was able to find them! They were confused at first, but then opened the bag in question and made the same discovery we did--they had the wrong bag!! After that, they were very friendly and asked for our help in finding a place to stay that night. It was an American man with his Chinese wife and daughter, and another Chinese relative. We told them where we were staying and that we were paying about $30 US a night, which we considered pretty cheap. They thought that was WAY too expensive, and told us they only wanted to pay $3 US a night. David and I have traveled enough in Thailand to know that such prices do not exist--you MIGHT be able to get a bunk at a hostel for $15 a night, but $3 is totally ridiculous, so we bid them farewell and good luck on finding their "budget" hotel!

All in all, the trip went pretty smoothly, and we are glad to have arrived!

Baby's Room

Well, my mom had been asking for months if I had decorated the baby's room yet, and the answer was always, "I haven't even started!" A big part of my Christmas gift from her was some really adorable ABC themed decor from the states, so it was understandable that she'd be excited to know I'd put it all up and how it looked and all that. But I waited until 3 days before we left for Thailand to deliver the baby for several reasons: 1) most of the semester I spent simply trying to survive day to day life and ministry with my limited pregnancy energy and decorating just never made it far enough up the priority list, 2) part of me must be sort of superstitious because I felt in some way that if I got the room ready too early something might go wrong with the pregnancy, or at least I felt I needed to protect my emotions by not letting myself get too excited or go too crazy with decorating, and 3) before I could decorate, I needed to do some SERIOUS organizing just to make room for baby stuff, and I have a strong, strong dislike for organizing! But finally last week, I got around to it, the time seemed right, and my dear dear friend Alisa came over to help me. So at long last (especially for my mom!) here is the newly decorated nursery for Baby Dean:

Christmas Photo

Thought all of you would enjoy David's and my official Christmas photo this year:

Sadly this is about the only photo we took of us together officially on Christmas this year, though we have tons of photos from Christmas events and different things, as well as one good "formal" photo we took several weeks ago in front of our tree for our Christmas card. One of those is about all I can talk David into each year. :)

Christmas this year was great, although I can't believe its already over! December has gone by really fast. For those who'd like to know what we do for Christmas overseas, here is how we spent the holiday this year.

On Christmas Eve, David and I spent the day cooking all sorts of wonderful treats and dishes for a big dinner that evening. David baked 4 different types of desserts/treats/cookies (since baking is HIS specialty), and I made green bean casserole, David's mom's dish called "Corn Corn," and mashed potatoes. We arrived at our teammates Josh and Danielle's house around 5:30 and shared a delicious feast with our whole team: the Shelley's, the Greene's and Ellie Wilson. See Josh and Danielle's pics here. After dinner, the Greene's kids, Kayleigh(2) and Zeb (8 months) watched Charlie Brown Christmas (or part of it) while the grown ups talked. Then we all read the Christmas story together, lit the final advent candle and sang Christmas carols. We all got to request a carol. I requested David's favorite "O Holy Night" and he requested my favorite "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus." Kayleigh requested Jingle Bells! After the kids went to bed, we all watched Home Alone (the original) together. I hadn't seen it in about 10 years, which made it surprisingly entertaining!

Today, on Christmas, we all gathered at the Greene's house around 9:30 this morning for a big breakfast. David and I brought monkey bread, and the Greene's fixed bacon, eggs and a delicious fruit salad. After breakfast, we exchanged gifts as a team (we do "secret santa" every year, although this year we all knew exactly who was getting a gift for whom)! David got the book "River Town" from Josh, which is supposed to be excellent. I got coffee, a coffee mug, and a gift certificate for a pedicure from Alisa Greene--all the ingredients needed for a lovely day of pampering before the baby comes! In the afternoon, we lunched on leftovers from the feast the night before, played Scategories and eventually watched the movie Wall-E.

It was a relaxing day, spent with some of my favorite people in the world. I know for all of us, its enjoyability was tempered by the rememberance that we were far away from our families and friends at home. But God is good and blesses us wherever we are in the world, and for that we give him thanks and praise. Love and miss all of you!! Merry Christmas!!

Month 8 Belly Pic

Several family members have been asking for a recent belly pic, so here it finally is. The belly at 32 weeks:As for how I've been feeling--not too bad, overall. I had heard a lot about fatigue in the third trimester, but though I've certainly felt my energy decreasing with each added pound and inch, I still feel like I have much more energy than in the first trimester when my hormones were just going nuts! Nothing has been as bad as that. We'll see if I still feel that way in a few weeks when month number 9 gets here! The baby moves all the time these days, which is really fun not only for me but also for pretty much anyone in the same room as me because my belly contorts so much. Every time David sees the baby moving, he puts his hand under his own shirt and does an impression from the movie "Alien." We are getting more and more excited, but also a little overwhelmed at how soon this big little life change will be arriving!

Why I am mad at The Gap

So here I am coming up on month number 8 of my pregnancy, and this is where your maternity clothes really get tested. Those tops that looked so cute in month 6--do they still cover the belly? Those pants that were so comfy a few weeks ago, are they riding lower and lower these days? I realize some of this is just the reality of getting crazy, freakin huge kinda big, but I have also discovered some serious deficiencies in some of the quality of the maternity clothes I invested in. In particular, I have noticed an alarming trend of shrinkage amongst the knit tops I have purchased. At the beginning, some have discounted my observations as simply being due to the fact I was getting bigger, not that the tops were getting smaller. But, now I have photographic proof of the most flagrant offender--the Gap!!

You can see in the above photo two knit long-sleeve maternity shirts from the Gap. Both were purchased while I was home in the States this summer--they are identical in style and both a size medium. I wore the black one for the first time over Thanksgiving, and washed it ONE TIME in cold water, then dried it in the dryer on med/low heat. This week when I tried to wear it again, my belly totally hung out the bottom! I still had not worn the white top, so I brought it out for a comparison! These photos are what I found! From ONE washing the black top had shrunk nearly 4 inches in length, as well as the length of the sleeves, the width of the top, etc.! I had purchased these 2 tops from the Gap specifically because I put (misplaced) trust in the quality of their clothing and thought these would not only last through this pregnancy but through future pregnancies as well! All my maternity clothes are beginning to look a little ratty, but even the tops I bought for $6 at Ross Dress for Less have held up better than these from the Gap!!! Believe me, there is nothing more frustrating in the world than noticing that as you are getting bigger, your "maternity" clothes are simultaneously getting smaller!!

Catch-up Photos: Halloween

This Halloween, our good friends Josh and Danielle Shelley hosted a pirate-themed murder mystery dinner party called "Murder Among the Mateys." This is the 2nd year one of our friends has done one of these, which are really amazingly fun! You can purchase a kit online that basically provides everything you need to host a murder mystery, from character descriptions, to instructions on what happens at each stage of the evening, etc. The websites our friends have used are www.nightofmystery.com and www.dinnerandamurder.com . Both of the kits from these websites are very professional and will definitely deliver a fun evening, so if you are interested in doing a murder mystery dinner, I would highly recommend anything from either of those sites. Anyway, we had a great time, and David especially really got into his character. At the end of the evening, everyone guesses who they think the murderer is, and everyone also votes on who had the best costume, did the best job of getting into character, etc. This year, David won everything! He was the only one to correctly guess the murderer, and was voted best costume and best character! He deserved it--he did wear eyeliner after all!

Catch-up Photos: Baby Shower

So, I just might be the world's least consistent blogger, but I do occasionally do a little catch-up for all the things I'd been meaning to post about but simply haven't gotten around to doing. A little over a month ago, several friends here in Asia threw me a wonderful baby shower, complete with an amazing "pea in the pod" cake, and a hilarious video of David answering pregnancy and birth related questions!! So, here are some photo highlights: