August 30, 2005

Good Tuesday...really. It's a great day. It's not ridiculously hot..there's a nice breeze and we're in the middle of office work. weeeee. My Mac has been giving me problems. It keeps freezing all the time so I decided to try using internet explorer instead of Safari and bamm..problem fixed. Isn't that nuts? It's just craaaaaaazy!!

I'm getting excited for this weekend. I can't wait to sit on the beach! YAY! We'll take lots of pics I'm sure. It's cool having a few different resorts in mind becasue they're competing now. One place is letting us stay for free and another is offering us a free dinner! YAY! This is fun!

Oh, last weekend was the clarinet teacher's husband's birthday. hahaha. We went go-kart racing (I watched) and Dave beat everyone! hahah. But then we went bowling, played 2 games and I won both games! WAHOO! I don't think I've ever won at bowling before..not to mention twice in a row. OK..that was the highlight of our weekend....

Not much else to mention. We're starting to get real hungry for Western food. We're thinking about buying a big microwave/oven...think they're around $400!! We could sort of get by with that and a hot plate. It's so expensive to buy American products but I think it's going to be necessary. Nothing here comes close to Totino's Party Pizzas..even if they are $5!

Sorry this is a boring blog. I gotta practice. BYE!

August 23, 2005

Cheddar!!! YAY! We have a kitten. A little boy named Cheddar and he's soo cute. He's about 10 weeks old. The age where his ears and paws are way bigger than the rest of him. haha. He looks really skinny but I guess it's the breed of cat here, you know..Siamese. hahaha. His mom was a street cat that was taken in before she gave birth. So he's a healhty little guy. I put pictures up on my website.

It's Tuesday and it's a really bright sunny day. I teach a lesson at 4pm and then I have studio class at 5:30pm. I think Dave taught 3 classes and 2 lessons..hahaha.

We had our 2nd TPO concert on Saturday ngiht. It was Dave's first concert as 2nd trumpet. He did awesome. We played Beethoven 1 and some Thai music and a Chinese violin Concerto. I found out more about our season. We go full-time is November which means 4 concerts a month on weeks 1 and 3. Week 2 is recording sessions of Thai music and week 4 is either off or extra rehearsals. I'm so excited. Our first November concert, we're playing Pictures by Mussorgksy. Should be fun. I also found out the date that I'm playing with TPO. March 3, 2006. I'll be performing Kerry Turner's "Low Horn Concerto for horn and Chamber Orchestra." For anyone at my masters' recital, it's the same piece I played at that. Gotta start practicing that piece again!!

Dave and I had a meeting with another resort for the wedding. They're currently closed for rennovations because they lost so much business after the Tsunami but they open March 2006. We're taking a 4 day/3 night vacation over labor day weekend to stay at 3 different resorts. I'll definitely take pictures like crazy! I hope one of them stands out. I want this part of the planning to be over but I can't complain.....we get to hang on the beach for a few days to find one that we like! Speaking of wedding stuff, I went with a friend of mine to her last dress fitting. She's getting married in October and I wanted to go along and maybe try on a few gowns. Well, yeah. The typical size here is about -6 so they had to find the larger dresses for me to try on. hahaha. But this one dress, I put it over my head but there was nooo way it was going to fit over my hips so I started taking it off. But it wouldn't come off! So I asked the lady to come in and help me and we were both tugging away but nope, wouldn't budge. I started sweating, which made it worse because the fabric stuck to me. hahaha. The lady kept trying, meanwhile we're both cracking up and literally 10 minutes later it was still not coming off. hahah. I was thinking that I'd have to pay for it and they'd have to cut it off of me. hahaha. About 10 minutes later, another woman came in and the three of us finally pulled it over my head. hahaha. Good times...I think I'll have a dress made.

Hope everyone has a good week. We miss being home right now. Not sure what it is. Even our tummy's are craving for anything Western. Take care!

August 14, 2005

Good morning! This is my 1st official condo blog. We finally have internet at our apartment! YAY!

It's Sunday here and what a glorious day it is. Whenever Dave and I wake up before 9am on the weekends we bike over to the hotel on campus that serves the ONLY western breakfast in the area. Very exciting, and today was one of those special days. It's so good. Coffee (that's not strong at all..the way I like it), bread (a rarity), fruit, omelette and bacon. YUMMY. What a way to start a day..

We've had a 3 day weekend and it's been fantastic. Friday was the Queen's birthday which means it's Mother's Day too! I like that. Anyway, on Friday we were so hungry at lunch that we went to Bangkok and ate at McDonald's...and it tasted sooo good. It's weird what you miss and what fills you up when all you eat is rice and small portions of meat and veggies. We felt guilty later and went on a run..haha. We also went to the huge electronics mall (5 stories of real and pirated anything electronic). We bought several DVD's and have spent the rest of the weekend watching them. Good times.

Yesterday I had a rehearsal near Chinatown so Dave met me after and we went on a Lonely Planet search for some Indian food. It's the 2nd search we've done and once again, like the Peanut Butter Factory, we couldn't find it! I hate those maps! Seriously, if you're going to take the time to make a map and put a little dot where a restaurant should be, you should make sure it's accurate. There was a bank where this restaurant was said to be. Anyway, we ate at a Muslim restaurant instead that was just like Indian food. The Muslim place was reccommended by Lonely Planet too and that was where it was supposed to be. I guess that the place we were looking for could have closed...oh well.

So we have some exciting news! Dave is moving into his own office tomorrow! YAY!!! We're so excited, but we're already anticipating the withdrawl. But for the most part..it will be so awesome to get on our own schedules. I can't wait!

Another bit of exciting information is that we're on the hunt for a kitten! We've been talking about it since we lived in Rochester. We found a great organization that rescues them off the streets and fixes them up and then finds homes for them. We also found a students' friend that has some to get rid of. I think in the next couple weeks we'll have one..or two. It's great because we'll always have students to watch them if we're on vacation! YAY! I can't wait.

Last week was crazy..I caught a kid trying to steal my bike! I couldn't believe it even though I've heard all about bikes being stolen. It was weird though. Dave and I just went up to him and asked him what he was doing. We scared the crap out of him, which was weird to do, and then he went off with this friends. In retrospect we should have gone to security but they don't speak English and we didn't really care. haha. Neither one of us has even been threatening..I don't think, not like that. It was kind of funny.

Another cool event last week was our students went out for dinner with us and ordered food for us. It was Isan cuisine (from the Northeastern region) and it was unreal. We had a huge fresh fish on the table, and more dishes than I could count. It was a wonderful way to try new foods and also to interact with our students. They treated us like royalty..always filling up our cups and serving us first..really cute! Anyway, my new favorite food is the papaya salad..not sure what's papaya about it yet but it's soo good. Dave tried this cartilidge soup..nasty and I tasted pig neck..pretty good. It was adventurous for me especially. Dave isn't afraid to try anything but I am more picky about textures.

I'm just blabbing now so I better finish up. We get our hot water heater installed on Monday! YAY!

August 7, 2005

One word and one word only is needed to describe Thai massage-OUUUUUUUUUCH! Dave and I had our first massages this weekend. We felt surprisingly relaxed afterwards but it was a painful 2 hours. I can't believe the price though...around $10 each for 2 hours! I think we'll try a different style next time. When we were laying on our tummy's, they were walking on our backs and legs and most of it felt great but there were certain spots were we couldn't hold it in. We were both trying to be tough but it didn't work. My back feels a little sore today but for the most part I feel great.

We had some fun this weekend..not too much or anything. ha. We finally broke down and bought some comforts that we've been missing. By the way..it rocks having granola every morning! I haven't even touched the peanut butter yet...I'm holding out. Anyway, we bought an electric water heater so that we can take hot showers..YAY! We bought a water stand so we can drink cold or hot water at any point and not have to buy small bottles of water constantly AND we bought a DVD player. How exciting is that!

In addition to all that fun stuff, Dave cleaned the cockroach bathroom so that it'll be usable to our guests, and I hung up the fabric we bought for curtains. I was going to get the fabric hemmed, but oh well.

Dave and I got our work permits on Friday..exciting! It's funny they took us to that office first becuase our visas (another office) expire on August 17th! We go in on August 15th to extend them for the year but then we have to get our work permits re-stamped. Crazy! We are also getting our rabies shots on Wednesday..YAY! Then I'll feel more confident around the street dogs..right now I'm frightened but once I get those shots...Look out nasty dogs!

That's all for now. Have a great week!

August 3, 2005

I'm back. YAY! It was soooo good to be home and see my family and see my big sister get married. They got married at the neatest winery ever. The pics are already up at lesliebeebe.com. I don't feel jet lagged at all. We took tylenol PM on the plane and I slept for 9 hours!!!!!! And then when we got home we took 1 more and boom...another 6 hours of sleep! I can't believe how much I've slept...so I'm really awake today and well-rested. Before we left, we were going to try and stay in Oregon/ California a few extra days, (the trip just seemed to go by so quick and I was sad to leave), but we decided to come back to teach. When we came to school this morning we received a memo that there are no morning classes tomorrow. AGHHHH!!!!!!! Oh well.

What else can I tell you about...let me see...the week was fun and packed. I had lots of time with my sisters...oh, Dave wants to write......here he is.....

OK the long wait to have me write a blog is over....hehehehheh NOT!!!! Well I am just taking a break from work right now so I won't write much. It is really nice to be back here, but I really miss everyone in the States! The wedding was so beautiful and it was so much fun seeing the fam. Oh by the way my Mom danced at the wedding! That is right! She danced!!! It was a blast. We even squeezed out some time to go wine tasting in Oregon. The wine in Oregon is pretty awesome. I really enjoyed the reds that I tried and my mom and joseph liked them enough to buy some to take home. Well I told you it wouldn't be much...I gotta go teach jazz band now. It was great seeing EVERYONE!!!!

Leslie back-I remember what I really wanted to write about..our costco trip. We SCORED on food. We brought back 4 bags of Quaker oats granola, a huge bag of grape nuts, a huge box of granola bars, and a huge box of instant oatmeal! YES! I'm so excited to get going on that..we also brought back a foam mattress topper for our rock hard mattress. I can't wait...AND 2 huge feather pillows. OH MY GOSH. Sleeping is going to have a new meaning for us. Our next buy is an electric water heater so we can have a hot shower whenever we want! YAY!

That's all for now..but remember...on flight to Thailand, buy Tylenol PM!