A Photo Dump

These aren't exactly in chronological order... but this is my baby and where he sits to watch the world go around. Thanks to his Grammy Graber for the money for the chair.

The pumpkin project. Of course, I discover after Thanksgiving that it works better to only cut the pumpkin in half when you put it in the oven. Goes faster that way.

Dru teaching English to the children at CMCC.

Grading papers from his class at IGo. Here he's actually working on grading the tests. He had a lot of fun with this. (Both the grading and the teaching, yes.)

Me and my little fatso.

More teaching at CMCC.

I might eventually add Thanksgiving pics, but until then, go to the "Wildflower Days" link and see Rachel's pictures of that day.

Thoughts and Teapots

Hans Mast, the famous person himself, brought me six boxes of mint tea. Now he is my hero too. But I didn’t start this post to talk about Hans Mast. It’s about tea. Since being over here I haven’t really had real live mint tea. I’ve had mint flavored black tea which just isn’t the same at all. So when Hans asked Dru if he could bring anything over I ordered up some tea. I wasn’t really expecting six lovely boxes of it but here it is and I’m not complaining.

I miss my tea pots and cups back in the mini barn in Wisconsin. When my sister, Frank, along with some friends hosted a tea party at my mom’s house a while ago, I told them to go out and get my tea things and use them. I really don’t want them hauled over here because they might break and that would make me sad. So if my mom and sisters pull my things out to use every now and then so they don’t get lonely, it will make it okay.

I wonder if my little sister-in-law realized that she was using the tea cup I got from my step-great-aunt Ruthie Schrock for my graduation present.


Around the time I turned sixteen I was at a hockey game and couldn’t figure out why Mom wanted me to come home so bad. But I came. Here she had bought me my birthday present of a tea pot and four cup and saucers. They aren’t china, but they’re me, and I suppose that set is what I miss most. They will be facing a long cold winter alone in the mini barn.


There was one set they couldn’t seem to find. It was a tea for one set—the one I got from Shilah when I was in Idaho teaching school. I guess that would have been for my twentieth birthday. That one is also a beautiful set. I wonder where it is—probably in a bin somewhere.

Pastor Kiat came over and drank tea this morning out of my set from Fern. It is a different sort of tea set. In fact, I had it displayed on the top of my cabinets for a long time and this is the first time it was actually in use. I had Dru crawl up and get it for me and now it is down where I can put it to use. So if you come to my house I will serve you tea from an orange and green tea pot.



Shouldn’t every woman have a tea pot in use? Maybe when I get big I will have a tea kettle too, but not today. I will just boil water in a regular kettle and pour it into the tea pot. That will work for now.

All my pots and cups have stories. I didn’t show you the two tea cups from Pastor Kiat and Mae Pahn (his wife) either. When I am old and grey, I wonder how many stories I will have to tell. I suppose not all of my tea set stories will be happy ones. There will be bitter-sweet memories and maybe even sad ones. But that’s okay. Life is like that.

Oh, and not all of my tea is going to be made to hot tea. I’m enjoying iced tea. Thailand is a warm country most of the time, so I like drinking my tea cold for now.

Purple Smiles...

Of course, the first smile I capture would be when he has a purple mouth because of the Gentian Violet because of thrush.

Dru comes home from teaching and relaxes with me and the baby to get his breath back. Then he hits it again in preparation for the next day.

Loy Krathong

I was feeding Jube on the couch last night when I saw and heard fireworks RIGHT outside my kitchen window.  Upon investigating later, I discovered holes in the screen and the tell tale red stick on the window ledge.  It had gotten caught between the window slats and the screen. There was ash dust on my counter this morning.

It seems everything about this holiday involves fire hazards.  Fire works go off all over the city for nights in a row.  There doesn't seem to be any rules about who is allowed to light what size of fireworks.  They send up lanterns, hundreds and hundreds of them.  They make pretty, red lights in the night sky, but they come down and get caught in the high lines.  And they float these pretty little boats down the river with some sort of flame on them.  

So it's pretty enough--but oh, the noise!  Our neighbors out the back don't only let off lots and lots of fire works, they also play their music so loudly that we can listen to it comfortably, whether or not we want to.  But like Dru says, "I really can't complain, it's their holiday."  So it is.  I'm not complaining either.  

When the Thai people play, they play hard.  It's lots of water at one holiday and lot's of fire at another.  At least nobody can say they don't know how to have fun.  

But oh, I severely dislike bottle rockets!

Saturday Morning Rambles...

Thailand, my dear friends, is still quite warm.  I'm looking forward to the day when it is cold in the mornings and remains that way for the majority of the day.  I have discovered that my baby sleeps better in the afternoons if I take him down to the A/C.  There I either take a nap with him, or Dru can keep an ear open for him while he works at the computer.  I can go back upstairs and work.

Dru is feeling quite positive about how his studies for classes, which start next week, are coming along.  Yesterday though he woke me from my nap to explain with some frustration that his computer was not keeping up and was locked up again.  He is a man who can set a record at how many computer pages and tabs, etc, he has to have open at once.  Right now he is down negotiating with one of the students.  His laptop is much like mine but crashed and Dru's hoping to buy it off of him and we'll put the two together and that will give us something to hobble along on.

After he woke me yesterday and told me that it was 2:30 already, I realized that the bread probably wouldn't get baked and I'd be lucky to get my dishes done.  But then Kathy and her girls came over and the girls swept my house and did my large stack of dishes while I made a rather large batch of bread.  Heather was rather amazed that my baby slept through the noise of the vacuum sweeper.  Sarah had just got back from a ministry trip and told us all about it--they had a really good time.  Kathy sat at my kitchen table.  Kathy, the dear lady, has some rather serious back pain these days.  Right now she limps about with the help of a purple cane.  

And then in the end Dru and I took
supper over for the Brownes so we all got to visit some more. Duff's are going to be going back to the states for a couple of months and I am not looking forward to their absence very much at all.  They've become family for us. 

My baby is much happier now that we both got the salad worked out of our systems.  The poor child.  I enjoyed it but I guess he didn't much.  He's a very good baby--but he's especially good when I don't eat lettuce and peppers.  So maybe, as Gabe suggested, I should stick to bananas.  I should be offended at Gabe's insinuation, but can't quite get that way.

My baby is about to go from wearing newborn clothing to the next size up.  He really is going to be a chunky little baby here pretty soon.  He's the cutest little boy there is, I promise.  But you all know all that already.  

And now I should stop rambling and go do my dishes.  There are ants in the sink and on the table.  Yeah, I still have ants.  But I also have bleach, ant poisoning, and ant spray.  I am generally victorious in the end.  They always revisit I suppose, but I've killed more of them then they have of me, if you  know what I mean.  

Okay, the baby is calling me.  Goodbye

Just a Tiny Post

Mom told me last night I should post.  I had thought about it already but I'm discovering that I don't feel as though I have a lot to post about at the moment.  So here's just a little update on my life right now:

The baby is doing very well.  After a month of being a family, we've all decided that we like it.  Dru was up with him for a while last night, but he settled--the baby that is, well then Dru did too I guess.  Like all babies, he sleeps a lot.  He's also becoming a little bit of a Mama baby, which I kind of get a kick out of right now.  

As a couple we're still thinking and praying and dreaming about direction for our future here.  Dru has a meeting with Val right now.  But we're not letting it bother us and we're learning to rest.  Dru's also studying to teach, and that starts next week.  So I have him at home all week which is really nice.

Finally, some pictures of my baby:

So that's my life right now.  I'm happy.  Who wouldn't be, with such a wonderful man and sweet baby?

My Precious

He’s cute, if I may say so myself! Jubilant Dean Lattin. Seven pounds, fifteen ounces. And he’s all mine and I’m the only person in the world that he really cares about right now. That’s an amazing feeling. Okay, so he tolerates his dad as well—but I still like being his favorite person.

People like to say he smiles. It’s pretty adorable when he does but I’m strongly suspicious that his smiles are directly related to condition of his stomach. Grimaces, Dru calls them. Smiles or no, his facial expressions are fun. Even at one and a half weeks he has his own little personality.

Dru is eyeing the diaper stack that I accumulated from my baby shower with growing concern. He speaks of rationing diapers to three a day. I’m sure he’s secretly wishing that cloth diapers were an option. I’m so thankful to his mother-in-law for assuring him that they weren’t.

Nursing has gone really, really well for this first time mom and I just have to thank God. I did take a little bit to get the hang of it and I can’t say that everything is totally comfortable, but I’m not in pain, the baby’s healthy and getting his fill. So I have to thank God for that—and my mom; for praying.

Everything about my daily life has changed it seems. All of the changes are good, so far as I can tell. One of the biggest changes is myself. Not only is my tummy back down to almost the size it would normally be, I feel good about myself. I was afraid I’d never feel beautiful again, no matter how much Dru told me I was. I wondered if romance would ever be fun again. But everything’s much better now that Jubilant is here. Even my food tastes good again—I didn’t quite believe my mom when she told me it would again as soon as the baby was born. In fact, it’s like someone turned the light on in side of me. I think I like being a woman after all.

So I’m a mom in Thailand—far, far away from my home country and family. I miss home and family. Missing comes and goes. There are times when I am pretty sure I don’t want to live in Thailand anymore. But the other day, when I was thinking these sort of thoughts something suddenly occurred to me. I’d much rather be missing my family than my Dru! Every now and then I try to think through the scenario of what in the world I would have done if Dru'd never asked to marry me, how he'd have gone far, far away without me, and how I'd have ended up as a spinster forever—only usually my imagination can think of some creative way to hook us up, even if it is rather far fetched.

So I’m very happy right now. Happy for being able to feel like me again and happy for the two wonderful men in my life. Happy in the adventure my life seems to be turning out to be. Happy because God is good.