Christmas Holidays with our kids...........

Not the greatest picture, it was taken at 3am, of the new airport in Bangkok. The airport is an hour closer to Sriracha so is much nicer for us picking up people in the wee morning hours. They still haven't completed the building so there are new vendors, etc everytime we go. This time we were here to pick up our own kids...........yippee!!!



We were suprised when Jason arrived - his hair was a little longer than we had ever seen it. It didn't take his cousins long to convince him to get it cut, which was his intention anyway. It was great having them come and visit.




Here are our three kids, left to right; Orlund(son-in-law), Jennifer(daughter) and Jason(son) on top of the Bible College and helping mom with the grocery shopping at the market.


Christmas dinner..........included all family and extended family of the childrens homes, bible college, and staff that were not away on holidays. The dinner was in our home, El Shaddai 1. There were 56 in all.

It was impossible to fit everyone in the picture but

these will give you a good idea. It was soooo great

having everyone here. We did miss Al and Terry

but there is always next year.

After dinner the El Shaddai 2 kids opened their

presents, what a long days wait it was for them.

Uncle Dave handed out the gifts to the kids.....it is

hard to see but in the one picture with Dave in it,

Peter (sitting on the sofa) is holding up a Bible,

thanking God. (Peter is wanting to be a pastor.)

They all received an English Bible from our

church, Bible Truth Church in Kamloops,

that Jennifer and Orlund brought over with them.




This was the action

outside of the house.

Everyone sure

has fun.


We then decided to have four days off with just our family; Jennifer and Orlund from Kamloops and Jason from Edmonton. We left Sriracha and drove for about 4.5 hours to an island called Koh Chang, meaning big elephant. We ended up staying in a remote resort with about 30 Thai people, all from one company celebrating New Years.

The pic on the left is the ferry landing on the island and the one on the right is the 'duplex' we stayed in. (we were on the right, where all the towels are hanging.)

The weirdest part of all was our sleeping quarters........either Orlund really loves his inlaws or he never wants to see us again. Yup, all in one room, with five of us on four single beds......cozy for four nights!!!!

Our beach was beautiful, with gorgeous sunsets every evening. As we were at the end of the road we didn't have all the tourists so had the beach to ourselves most of the time.

Here is what a motor cycle gang looks like in Thailand - they look a little pale, however there were a couple that looked very red after the ride. We stopped on the way to have lunch at a 7-11 and then later stopped for a swim. We rented the bikes for a full day, some of us had never driven a bike before but theowners don't seem to care when renting them. It was a great way to see the island.

The food was very good, although some was a little scarey to look at. We were treated very well by the company group, they included us with their trip to other islands for snorkeling around the coral reefs and colorful salt water fish. They are such warm, loving people here.

The boat anchored out so we had to take the long boat to and from shore. We do have pictures of the underwater world but they are not on the computer - we will show you when we return to Canada. Beautiful colors!!

Then we returned to Sriracha to pick up the four girls from El Shaddai 1 to spend a two night holiday in Kanchanaburi. We did stay at a fancy hotel here, as it had a beautiful swimming pool which we took advantage of whenever we were at the hotel. The hotel is right on the River Kwai, death railway.

We took a l-o-n-g train ride along the river in a real old creaky train on a very unstable feeling track - that I might add was hanging in mid-air sometimes. The first picture is of the girls and their cousins; Jenn, Orlund & Jason, standing on the tracks at the train station. Just to give you an idea of costs, the Thai's ticket cost 13 baht each and the Canadian's ticket cost 100 baht each. (1 dollar = 30 baht)

Along the track, we are sometimes hanging out over the river while rubbing the rocks on the other side. The train has to slow down in order not to rock into the rocks - if you've ever taken a ride on a train it sorta does that swaying back and forth, well we were too close to the rocks to do that.

Of course when you are in Thailand, you must take in an elephant ride. Ours was only 1/2 hour long but that was plenty long enough. The kids sure enjoyed it.












In the late afternoon we decided to walk across the river to Kanchanaburi to do some tourist shopping. You walk right on the railway, they do have little areas you step off on if the train comes along - luckily it didn't when we were on it.

These are the girls with Jason, waiting for the rest of us for lunch. Jennifer and Orlund are posing infront of the River Kwai Bridge.
Before the Canadian kids headed home we had to go visit the famous Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Yes, all these animals in these pictures are alive. We even got to eat alligator - didn't taste like anything really.

Well, our kids are now safely in Canada, back to their routines and we are heading on a north trip with all the students from the Victory Bible College in Sriracha. We are looking forward to the trip and are hoping to find children that are in need of love for the El Shaddai 2 home. The home is still not moved into the new facilities as the power has not been hooked up as yet, now we are looking at around the end of March.