Our First Month in Bangkok

July 14
Made it to Bangkok! Stayed in a hotel for the week while we locked up our housing. Pretty fancy golf resort. 😁 Loved the view!

Here's my post from Facebook on July 16:

I have to start with how crazy this beautiful world we live in is. If you had told me a year ago that I would be working with my former principal in Bangkok, I would have laughed and said, "You're crazy, but I hope so!" And here we are! I still remember the day in May 2007 when she interviewed me and I told her our plans for joining the Peace Corps or moving out of state. She said, she'd rather have a good teacher for a year than not at all. I don't know exactly what she saw in me, but she gave me the job and that year was amazing. The culture at Taft Middle School was like none other and all about the kids. I am so excited to be working alongside Lisa again and can't wait to meet the kids! (Also, she is basically Zamin's best friend now. He adores her! ♥️)

We signed the lease for our townhouse yesterday and moved some of our luggage in today. 👍We are in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood in a great location. We are excited to immerse ourselves in the local Thai culture. Really started today when we decided to use GrabApp to deliver street food because we had already walked 30 minutes round trip to pick up cleaning supplies. Boy was that an experience! We did get our food from Grandmother Bistro which was the spiciest meal we've eaten in almost 10 years. Zamin loved it! 👏We are having a great time settling in, using public transportation and taxis, and getting to know people. Work has started but we have two days off because of a Thai Holiday. Back at it again Thursday and school starts August 1. We got to tour the school yesterday and I had to wipe the drooll from Colt's mouth when he saw his new Science lab. 😆It's pretty fancy!

Seems like we are mostly on the Thai sleep schedule (12 hours ahead of CST) and haven't had jet lag too bad thanks to Colt's sleep boot camp prior to leaving the US. 😜 Sending our love to everyone! Let us know when you've booked your tickets to visit. 😁

God is good and obviously knew way before we did what was going to happen. He closed and opened doors to lead us here and we are excited to see what He has planned next!

July 17

Spent some time cleaning our new home today. I'll post pics/video once we get moved in and settled. 👍Scoped out the Bangkok plant scene and purchased a small jungle for our courtyard and inside. 😂 Zamin has been so good on our ventures and has adjusted to taking naps in taxi rides. 😆 Enjoyed some pool time and the beautiful sunset from our balcony. Excited to move into what will be our home for at least the next few years, but going to miss this place too.  

July 20

Had an awesome time at Bangkok Thai Cooking Academy last night. Whomever comes to visit gets to go here with us! ☺️ Zamin will show you how it's done. 😁 Thanks to Lisa and the staff at Berkeley International School of Bangkok for treating the new teachers to such a magical evening!

July 21

Our first morning in our new house. ♥️♥️♥️

July 27

Finally made a video tour of our new place in Bangkok! ♥️

Needed to get a few more house items from the store today and decided to walk to public transportation (10-15 minutes) instead of taking a taxi. On our way there, we found shops in our neighborhood had what we needed! Batteries, hangers, band-aids, bleach. It was great! We saved so much time and $ that we treated ourselves to a Thai tea (one hot, one frappe) and a banana smoothie at the cutest shop not more than 5 minutes from our house. ☺️ A new supermarket just opened right next to it, so we may be frequenting them both. 👍👏 In addition, there's a massage place, salon, and 7-eleven (where you get everything!) within a 3 minute walk. We are very fortunate to have found such a nice, affordable house in a great area!

July 28

Today's adventure started with an hour and half journey to visit a church. 😬 (We are going to try to find one closer. 😜) Then we did a little shopping at Tesco Lotus Express (think Wal-Mart), followed by naptime. 💤 Of course, then we got hungry and decided to walk back to Sukhumvit 93 Market like yesterday and ate at a restaurant there (1st pic). There are at least 5 other restaurants there, so we'll be back! Don't worry, we got our Thai Teas again too from MeStyle Coffee house. 😍 We decided to explore the new market and became official members of our neighborhood with our new CJ Supermarket Membership card and coupons. 👏👍😊 Plus, I won free toothpaste. 😆 Also, in there we found the tiniest waste basket we've ever seen. The next pics/videos are of our main alley on the way to our house, including me trying not to be too creepy as "the walking club" was doing their laps. ☺️ All in all successful Sunday! We are off work tomorrow for the King's birthday. There are TONS of holidays in Thailand.🥳🙌🥳 .    

July 31

Who's ready to get their minds blown? 😁 Made a video tour of our new school, including my office, Colt Nickel room, and Zamin's classroom, pool and playground. ☺️Hope you don't get dizzy and it's quite long so speed up the playback. No need to listen to me babble for 11 minutes.😜

August 1

First day of school! @berkeleyinternationalschool

August 5

Got caught in the downpour on our way home today. Normally, our driver (taxi 😜) takes us straight to our house from work. Today, we decide to have him drop us down the road so we could get some keys made and grab dinner. Well, we got the keys made and got some dinner! 😂💦 At least it was warm and we were just headed home. We all got soaked. For the record, we did have an umbrella. 😁