Category Archives: In Thailand

“A Good Time Was Had By All”

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What a weekend!

On Saturday 20th October, we invited our friends and family to celebrate with us, before we ship out to Thailand. Of course, because Alaric and I are both lazy about preparing for a party, we had all the food catered (awesome curry from Alima’s in Toronto.) And when our invitees asked “Can I bring anything?”, I had no qualms about replying, “Sure! Bring a dessert.” Even the salad was purchased, man! For a piddly $7.99, you can get a huge garden salad, all washed and cut up for you. You’d be mad not to buy it. Maybe we’re not so much lazy, as got our priorities straight: it’s really important to us to ENJOY our get-togethers, rather than spend too much time in the kitchen, cleaning, serving, making sure everything is perfect. Needless to say, the queen would not fit in, since she’d have to pour her own drinks…

We might have bitten off more than we could chew: our little house was bursting at the seams with 51 adults and 24 children! The volume of chatter was almost overwhelming at one point. You could hardly hear the music. And you’d think that grown men would not need to best each other in conversation by talking more and more loudly. That said, I love that the conversations were alternately intelligent and downright idiotic. An excellent fête – as they used to say on GBC radio, “A good time was had by all.”

And this, naturally, is where they mainly gathered:

On Sunday 21st October, it was the kids’ turn to have their party. Once again, in the spirit of minimal work and maximal enjoyment, we booked the party at Boston Pizza. Becca invited the girls from her class and close circle, and Keeran invited his “boyz”. A little segregationist, perhaps, but that’s what they wanted for their party.

It turned out to be just about as noisy as the grown-ups’ party, albeit with only fifteen kids! The good folks at Boston Pizza had the children make their own pizzas and sundaes, by choosing the the toppings.

But the party didn’t end there: Keeran brought a friend home for a few hours, for more play time. And Becca went over to her friend’s house for the same thing. Gotta love that there’s never enough play time, no matter how much time you give them, eh?

All in all, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. And here they all are:

 

 

Our First Good-bye

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Yesterday we said good-bye to our pug, Choey, the kids’ “brotha from anotha motha”. He went to an excellent retired couple, who incidentally, owned him temporarily about three years ago. Funny, even after not having seen them for a couple years, Choey remembered them as soon as they walked through our door! He was beside himself with excitement, all a dither, so happy to be greeting his old owners, bouncing around and sniffing like a puppy. While I know he will be well-loved and taken care of, it was bittersweet anyway. He’s the first family member we said good-bye to, on this new adventure to Thailand. It’s the first of many good-byes, I know, but I’d rather think about that until the very last moment.

In this photo, he’s sitting on the upper ledge of the car’s back seat, like some kind of royalty.

Choey