Library and Book Fair Fun....

We got this big bulletin board in the library...so I had to think of a way to decorate it. It is really high (above the book shelves) so I needed part of it to be something that didn't have to change all the time. The top part with the clocks will probably stay up for a long time, but hopefully I will think of many creative things to do on the rest of the board. I started with a simple one and just let students share their favorite book on little paper books to display. 

Here is the whole bulletin board...we have many more "book recommendations" now on the board.

I didn't have real clocks so I just set the clocks to show what time it would be other places if it was 9:30am in Thailand.

The second graders had been learning about habitats in their classes, so they asked if they could display their "habitats" they made in the library for a couple of weeks. They were so creative and all very different. The other classes loved looking at them when they came into the library.

Book Fair!

A book store from Bangkok came to our school for two days. The books were in English. We had the fair in the commons area of the secondary school building. The elementary classes enjoyed coming and looking at books and even buying a book or two! 

Making Lefse in Thailand

So the new blog posts will not be in chronological order, but that is just the way life is sometimes...

Last weekend I was invited to make lefse for the first time in my life. Now I am a good Norwegian girl so I have enjoyed eating lefse at Christmas time, just have never made it. Usually my Grandma has bought it or we buy "Mrs. Olson's Lefse" at the local grocery store. I should back up and explain what lefse is for all you non- Norwegians out there....lefse is a Norwegian flatbread that you cook and then put butter and sugar on it before rolling it up and eating it. Yummy! Here is the process that started on Friday night: 

You have to boil potatoes... (I didn't really do this job...they just wanted me in the picture!)

Then you mash the potatoes....

They had decided to try this new way to "mash" them...instead of by hand...

This is one of the 3rd grade teachers...mixing the potatoes with butter...

Hmmm....they don't look like they are doing much work! The lady in red is a Special Ed. Teacher (and it was at her house- her husband is the Norwegian professional lefse maker:)) and the lady in blue is the head librarian and works mainly in the Secondary library (she's my boss).

Here I am mixing the potatoes and butter...then we put it in the fridge over night.

I was late the next morning because I had a Thai class for 3 hours...but when I got back to the house they were still working. I missed the step of putting in the rest of the ingredients, but was able to help with the rolling, cooking and cleaning up. 

Here is one "station" of lefse making..the rolling out and the cooking.

Another station....

Here I am about ready to bring my uncooked lefse over to the griddle to cook it. You have to be careful when carrying it. Behind me is the professional lefse maker! He is the Norwegian in charge...he has been making lefse for a long time and grew up on a farm in ND. 

Rolling out that lefse with lots of flour and my special rolling pin. 

Ready to flip that lefse!

I now have lefse in the freezer for Christmas!

Hume Lake Camp in Thailand

I have been waiting until I could get some really good pictures of the middle school camp...but I have run into some problems with getting them onto my computer so here is a start and I might add some more later.

In this game there were two teams...you couldn't touch the garbage can and you couldn't let go of the  cloth. If you did either you were out. The last person in was the winner.

Camera guy trying to get a good picture by standing in the garbage can- it was great until he started to fall!

Spider ball- trying to get balls from your side into the basket in the middle first.

Girls pulling as hard as they could...you can only get ball at a time and you can't throw them. You can hand them to another person to run it to the basket...while everyone else keeps pulling towards the balls.

My small group of girls!

Pretty view and that is my small group meeting after one of the chapels.

Cheering on the Wild Bears! 

Another game...can't remember the name...

Time alone

The Human Slingshot

The people across from each other switch places and then the next two go.....etc.

My team the Bears one first place in all the games and so we all got nice t-shirts. I can't find a picture of our winning team wearing their t-shirts. We had a great time playing, talking, relaxing, eating and most importantly learning about God. We spent time praying, singing, reading, etc. The students left understanding the importance of filling their lives with God so that they can serve Him with their whole lives. Continue to pray for them!

Our last day and a half in Phuket

On the last full day we walked to a beach about 20 minutes away from our hotel. We were hot, sunburned and really didn't want to get more burnt so we walked down the street with towels on our heads. It kind of worked to keep the sun out, but we didn't do it for too long. 

 The other beach...we liked Kata Beach the best...

Dinner at a restuarant near Kata Beach the night before we left. 

Annalisa always was talking about coffee and needed to have at least one cup every morning. This was actually in the afternoon when we got back to the hotel near the airport, but she can have coffee anytime!

Ok so the pictures are again not in order...on the way back from Karan Beach we saw this "dino park!" Laura is a scary driver!

I am not sure why I am trying to close the dinosaur's mouth...it doesn't seem very smart to me, but they told me to do it.

Annalisa's lunch...they served us and then came back with ketchup and made smiley faces on the sandwiches?!?! 

We went to a little beach that was not a tourist attraction near the airport. It was beautiful but not as cleaned up as the other beaches.

No comment

Looking for shells

Watching the waves come in

 Sirinath National Park was right by (maybe even a part of) the Thai beach we visited on the last day. We just walked through it on the road. It wasn't that big, but had a camping area and lots of nice places to have a picnic. It is a national park because sea turtles lay their eggs there, so they are trying to protect it for them.

They had a fitness park that reminded me of the parks in Brasil. You can see the stumps and logs in the background- that was pretty much the fitness park!

 The sign for the national park- that is a sea turtle above Laura's head.

 Another sign...

 This picture is for Kristel- They really need a Smokey the Bear in Thailand!

 Annalisa lived in Korea for about 5 years so she was excited about the Korean restaurant we found near our last hotel. She taught me how to eat all the different foods. Laura had visited Korea, so I was the only one that didn't know what was going on!

 Phuket was kind of like a little Europe, because of all the foreigners that were at the beaches. I don't even think I saw another American there. We think that all the Thai's liked us because we could speak English well (which is the language they use to communicate with the foreigners) and Laura and Annalisa knew some Thai as well.

Good-Bye Phuket back to the north we go....

Kata Beach and Raya Island

As I looked through my pictures and my friends' pictures I realized that I will probably take more then two blog posts to show all the pictures of my trip. It is just so beautiful and I believe that a picture is in fact worth a thousand words.

We were about a 10 minute walk from Kata beach and we went and enjoyed the water the first day we got to the hotel. It was beautiful out and so much fun to play around in the huge waves. I don't have any good pictures from that day since we were too busy jumping the waves and trying to not get pulled under the salt water. I actually had my back turned to the waves and one hit me really hard on the back of my head! It hurt like someone had just hit the back of my head with a soccer ball or something. It reminded me of the power of water! We went back to this beach in the evening the next day and just enjoyed watching the sunset over the bay.

We never really saw any great surfers, but it was fun to watch them try to get up!

The sunset and the waves!

Trying to not look like tourist by giving the peace sign just like the Asians would do...

Look at us holding the sun...

Jumping for joy...I won't show you all the tries it took to get this picture....

Here we are...We were a wonderful travel group as we were all flexible and helped with the big decisions (like where to eat, etc)!

Raya Island
On Sunday we went on a day trip to Raya Island. We got a discount on the trip from the people at our hotel and we decided that it was probably worth going in a group since we got a ride from our hotel to the boat dock, speed boat ride, lunch, snorkeling stuff to use, snack, and a ride back to our hotel.
We got to the place and realized that we were actually going on a "princess" tour! How fun is that, haha! They had us divided into groups and each group had a tour guide. We were in the red group and our tour guide was crazy! He would give a cheer and we were suppose to answer back. We had to practice on the boat ride. It was about a half an hour ride to the island and we were sitting in the front of the boat. Let me tell you we were flying over waves, waves were coming over onto the boat so we were holding on for dear life! I guess I would rather go fast then rock back and forth. Once we got to the island we dropped off some people that were spending the night and we went to another bay to go snorkeling. We got to the other bay, rocked back and forth before they decided it was too rough...we went to another bay after another 10 minutes they decided that was too rough. By this time Annalisa was not feeling so great. We went back to the main beach and went snorkeling there. I really wish they would have let us touch dry land first, but they didn't we went straight into the water. It was fun to practice snorkeling and the water was beautiful, but after awhile Annalisa and I both went on to the boat and tried to calm our seasick selves! As soon as we touched the ground we were so happy and felt much better! We went to eat on the island and then we were free to do what we would like until 3pm. Ok this is too much talking- I am going to stop, so you can see pictures. They are all out of order because I just am not that good at blogging.

Love the color of the bay!

The guy in the gray shirt was our tour guide. Nice white sand!

We went to a look out point  on the island and were warned about  a big "lizard." He walked across a path right before we walked back down. I am thankful that Laura saw him before I got too close!

Picture of our boat on the way back from the island. I don't have a great picture  on the way there when we were in the front.

The sign that said we were going on the "Raya  Princess Tour"

Ok sorry but I just love the color of the water and cool little boats.

At the lookout point- look at that water!

Searching for shells and other cool things

So when it was about 2:50pm the tour guide for the blue group started walking around the beach yelling that the blue group had 10 minutes before they left. Now you have to understand that this is Thailand. We got picked up from our hotel about 15-20minutes after the latest time they said they would pick us up. Anyway our tour guide was loud and we hadn't heard him yet. We started getting ready to leave, etc but we weren't too worried. Then we saw him walking towards a boat on the other side of the beach- so we started walking that way, too. As I reached the water (I was the 1st of the 3 of us). I saw the boat start leaving! I tried to go really quickly over the rocks and a guy yelled at me that I was going to fall....well I was going to be stuck on the island if I didn't run! Our tour guide finally saw us and they stopped the boat and we waded out to the boat. There was no apology or anything from them, we just said "sorry we didn't hear you tell us it was time to go." As we continued to pull away he started counting people! Great idea! 

We went for about 10minutes and our boat died, they worked on fixing one of the 3 motors and then started going for about 1 minute before it died again. They finally got it fixed and we were off for good this time. Our tour guide then started laughing about how we were running to catch up with the boat and his excuse was that there were other boats that needed to get in. Oh well, I guess you just need to be ready at anytime.

Our boat