There's no place like home!

Hello, 5 baht. These children were selling bracelets, for about 15 cents.
Not an Iowa cow!
Noelle and I fell off an elephant, really!! Noelle broke her foot.
Watching babies was so fun and the parents were so appreciative. This is Vera and David.
Noelle and David. She was chief diaper changer.
Push through the fear. Zip line fun!
Noelle, Sam and I
Foot massages for $4 an hour.
The view from the Buddhist temple, above Chang Mai.

A woman weaving in a village.

We are safely home from Thailand. Well, except for Noelle's broken foot. Brief synopsis of our trip. We spent two nights in Bangkok. We were able to take a water taxi tour and see some of the city and its markets and shopping. Then it was on to Chang Mai. We saw brochure for a zip line at the airport and about two hours later we were on our way. It was incredible. The guy who started it was from New Zealand and had worked on the amazing race. Believe it or not, I am afraid of heights. The secret is to look ahead to the next tree and not look down.

Saturday we went trekking to a village and waterfall and then on an elephant ride. Our elephant ride was cut short when Noelle and I seat slid off the elephant and we fell out. Ouch. and very scary. I turned around to help Noelle and she was trapped between the elephant's ear and his front leg. She ended up with a broken foot and we ended up with a slightly less active finish to our trip.

Monday through Friday we watched babies for a missions conference. I panicked just a little when I found out there was a potential of fourteen babies on the list and we were watching them in a hotel room. Turned out, we had some volunteers to help and we actually never had more than ten babies at a time. We watched them from 8-12, 2-4 and 7-9. So it was a full day, especially since my assistant was on crutches. Thailand is not very handicapped accessible. We had to take a wheelchair down a parking ramp to get from our hotel to the one holding the conference. Noelle could not make it quite that far on her crutches.

We finished out our week with a little bit of shopping and a trip to the Bangkok aquarium. Next it was about 24 hours of flying, No sleep. Something about me and sleeping and travel. Scott and Jake picked us up in Minneapolis to save us the last little flight. My sweet son, stayed up until 5 AM doing laundry so I wouldn't have to come home to laundry. Apparently, I'm doing something right...I love those moments.

And now, I try to stay awake all day and get back on the right time schedule. I checked my 400+ emails last night. No news about our adoption. With no contact from our agency, at this point we are looking seriously into another agency. Keep us in your prayers as we pursue this option.