bangkok pictures, or a post full of emma

Well, I intended this post to have most of our pictures from bangkok, but as it turns out, it's mostly just a showcase for Emma. Hmm....sorry about that.

And since I've already blathered on and on about how I love bangkok and everything, I can spare you those details in this blog and just summarize the pictures I'm posting. Though, I will say that I left out one very critical detail of my indulging in creature comforts whilst in the world's most polluted city: I bought the newest book in the Shopaholic series...AND a second book by the same author. Fun, truly fun, self-indulgent times! I'm sorry to say that the shopaholic books have absolutely no value in them at all except that they sometimes provide that much-needed respite from my humdrum life. The main character finds herself in several morally compromising situations that certainly go against everything I believe; most of the humor of the book is derived from her extreme superficiality and lack of depth. So if you are looking for encouraging, uplifting, make-you-a-better-person-type books, then don't look to me for advice. But if you want to give in and indulge in something that add nothing to your life except a few (or maybe a lot...) extra laughs, then you should try them out.

Moving right along...this picture is actually not from bangkok. It's from valentine's day when our family went out to an american cafe for ribs. Last year on valentine's day, josh, emma and I ALL went to hideaway pizza together (though our young family looked a little out of place with all the smoochy couples), so we decided to make it two years in a row! And obviously, we were stuck in the same room with our kids, so it's not like we were going to be able to ditch them for the night or anything! Anyway, this picture is included in my bangkok section because it didn't really fit in any of the upcoming posts i have planned, and it's a cute family picture. Incidentally, it is one of the few times in the last year that I have worn a dress. And I might add, it's amazing how a cute dress can make you forget that you usually have spit-up or leftovoer carrots on your clothes and you usually don't make it in the shower too often during the week. Cheers to cute dresses! :) Many of you may remember one of my favorite pictures of emma right after she was born; I think here she was like ten days old or something...But here...she's like...TWO!

Watching the fountains at one of the beautiful new shopping plazas. ("malls" is too casual of a word for these gigantic places...)

Getting filled up for a long night of shopping...a bloomin onion goes a long way!First stop: the brand new Bangkok Toys R US! We had planned to visit and pick up emma and mantha some fun toys. Among the final-cut items that made it back home were: a lovely purple sequined dress and high heels for dressing up, 5 bottles of finger paints, and a slide! Emma had a slide that she used during our 8 months in the states and she loved it...so when we found a similar slide at a good price, we decided samantha would have fun with it too. So we bought the huge thing, and somehow managed to pack it in a big sack and get it back home. Crazy stuff. Here, emma is doing the traditional thai greeting, called "wai", which is folding your hands together and bowing. You can see that Geoffrey is also "wai-ing" to all the customers. Like a kid in a candy store...And on the way home, we piled into a traditional thai tuk-tuk and I embarrassed my husband by asking the driver to take our picture. The slide is tethered on to the back of the tuk tuk with a bungee cord. Maybe the miracle is that it didn't fall off in crazy bangkok traffic!