mothers, let your hearts be warmed and fuzzied

we are being so well cared for! at church this week, pi ju (sister ju) invited us to family home evening on monday, so we went. it turned out to be a paaartay with all the sankamphaeng-area members and all 3 sets of missionaries, so there were around 30 people in their backyard on the ubiquitous roll-up mats. and it was so fun! it was the first time i fully realized that this is our new branch; we've always been with all the byu kids at church, so we get the same label of summer kids. at fhe, however, i was the only non-thai speaker (until nick came, late, because he was at the deaf orphanage to scope out the water catchment project he's supposed to head, despite his total lack of experience or knowledge ; ) go, development!), and we weren't spectacles. so it was cool. i made a tiny friend named ten who is very ticklish and snuggly. his little buddy, august, was about 18 inches tall and SOOOO CUUUTE. i'm going to steal one of these adorable little kidlets someday, i'm afraid.

after penguin's lesson (yes, her name is penguin, and she's 17) on receiving revelation, we played a game in which everyone was assigned a number and stood in a circle. someone stood in the middle with a cane, and he'd call out a number and jump out of the way, and the person whose number was called had to run and catch the cane before it fell. it was odd. but at the end, all the people who hadn't managed to catch it had to parade around the middle of the circle doing a highly entertaining chicken dance and song. it put me in mind of the losers' punishment of writing their names in the air with their bumsicles--which, incidentally, is much more entertaining in thai, as almost every letter has a loop-de-loop or three.

an enormous table of delicious food ended the shabang, with mango sticky rice for dessert. ohhhh, blessed thai food. i've "upped 3 kilos," according to my fellow teachers (and the scale), but i did weigh in right after lunch, so... haha, i love eating, so so much.

in other news, nick started muay thai training with our paw last week. muay thai is thai kickboxing; if you haven't seen it before, look it up. it's pretty intense. so now my sweet husband who hasn't really exercised in... a long time... gets up every morning for a run before school (i've started biking in front of him, as paw told him he wouldn't be able to teach him if he wasn't willing to be more hardcore) followed by a series of stretches and training exercises. in the evening, he spends two hours as paw's plaything. the tiny man is thoroughly enjoying himself, seeing what he can make the giant farang do, in my opinion, but nick claims his regimen is legit. all i know is that the boy who never sweated in his life comes home twice a day glistening and literally dripping everywhere. run and meh told me that after three months of muay thai, nick will be skinny! confused, i replied that he's already awfully thin, but run just laughed and said, "look at those fat legs!" and paw is determined to get rid of his "fat belly," which means that my personal favorite part of nick's training is the end of every night, when i have to hold his [extremely sweaty and dirty] ankles while he lies flat on the porch and does sit-ups, folding his torso over his legs, and the best part? every time he lies straight again, paw WHACKS him with a boxing pad across the abdomen. it's very violent. i was afraid nick was going to puke on me last time--a thrill, to say the least. i'm so excited to have a skinny husband! ; )

we leave for cambodia tomorrow. angkor wat, phnom penh, and the killing fields are on the agenda. should be a hoppin' good time, eh? oy ve. nothing like walking the grounds of a holocaust to rev you up for watching the world cup at the end of the day. actually, we're really excited, and not just for angkor wat. i'm sure it will all be amazing. and i'm sure brasil will take the cup it was denied in '06 ; ) we get back next tuesday, so we'll probably be out for the count until then as far as communication goes. much love to everybody, though. cheers!

p.s. from nick, i am posting this and I was supposed to put on some pics but ran out of time... i know this is lame, but when we return from cambodia (or while we are there) I will fix the picture situation.