Ah, heck. Why don’t I just embed that video here.

You can see their attention spans waning, but they’re so dang smart! Part way through you can see Nathan trying to stop Opa (my dad) from taking pictures. He’s saying, “No cheese, Opa! No cheese!”

Go to my parent’s blog for a bunch more pictures and videos.

Isaac’s birthday was in December. We also had a shared party for Isaac, Nathan, and some other 2-to-3-year-old friends (at least one of which had a birthday around the same time too). We didn’t know how to explain to them that it was some of their birthdays and not others, so we just gave them all a candle. Finally Lutiya had a birthday too, which we’ve celebrated a couple of times with food, but we have yet to go Airsofting like she wanted.

And then there’s Children’s Day. We took everyone to a local carnival, consisting of a few slapped-together rides — often being welded or fixed on the spot, some grounded via a stake in the dirt, jury-rigged wires connected to a breaker switch or foot-operated brake. So in one sense, this was the most terrifying carnival I’ve ever been to. But the kids loved it and nobody died, so I guess that’s a win.

Click here, or on any of the pictures, for more.

I took a break from drawing this week (not entirely intentionally), so here’s an older drawing from my sketchbook. I couldn’t find any dates, but near as I can figure this sketch is from about 4.5 years ago. I drew this during naptime at an orphanage called Im Jai House. That’s Tee on the left and Heart on the right.

Cindy and I started working with Im Jai House almost immediately after we moved here. At first we just went in the evenings, but soon we were there all day (minus time we left for language school). It was actually really hard for me. I mean, I loved the kids, but I never felt like an authority or role model. I didn’t really know how I fit in their lives.

I don’t know what impact I had on them, but they impacted me a lot. Not only did we learn Thai at an insane speed, but I realized that I wanted to have a place in their lives — not just as the volunteer who sometimes plays/sometimes disciplines. I wanted to be the dad.

Tee, in particular, really got to me. We were there the day he first arrived at Im Jai. He was 6, with no friends, and scared. He hung around me a lot. I don’t know why since I could hardly talk to him.

I remember one day I was playing soccer with him. Some older kids joined and soon after — mostly because I was tired — I left them to their game. Tee came to me in tears. I tried, in my broken Thai, to ask him what was wrong. Between heaving sobs I understood the words, “I wanted… to play… with you.”

It was the first meaningful conversation I remember having in this language, with Tee or anyone.

Later, Cindy and I realized that we couldn’t do what we wanted to do at an orphanage with over 50 kids. We gradually lessened our commitments until we had foster kids of our own to take care of, and we left Im Jai House. Tee is 10 now, and living with a family who does what we do just down the road. I see him sometimes, though I don’t think he remembers that scene like I do. I doubt he even thinks of me at all other than “that farang I used to play with at Im Jai,” but I’ll never forget him.

Dang. And here I thought I was just going to say, “These are a couple of kids at an orphanage we used to work at.” Well there you go. Merry Christmas.

This is our upstairs storage room. Before the shelves, we just threw stuff in there. I hid there once during a game of hide-and-seek. People walked into the room three times — once with the lights on — and they still couldn’t find me. That’s the picture on the left. The other two are what it looks like now:

I’m pretty happy with it, but I don’t expect to earn more levels anytime soon. These are the projects I had in mind when we moved in, and they’re done. Besides, I’ve got other things to get good at.

Sorry. I know pictures are way cooler than the stuff I usually put up here, but they take a lot more prep, too. Anyway, here’s a bunch of pictures from the last couple months. Most are just random stuff we took, but the last half are from our trip to the zoo last weekend. You can see all the pictures here.