Everyone's Environment

We had a really neat Thanksgiving this year! We got to go to Mr. & Mrs. Salmon's house. They are the missionaries who helped our Daddy and Mommy with papers and finding our house. He is the Pastor of the church we go to. There were a lot of other American families at their house. We had a lot of fun playing with all the other children that were there.

In our classroom in our house, Mommy put a big Pilgrim man and woman and an Indian man and woman on the wall. Each day before Thanksgiving, we got to tell her something we were thankful for and then she wrote that on a leaf or apple or something and hung it on the wall. We had a lot of fun thinking of things we were thankful for. She also read us two special books about Thanksgiving. We learned a lot of things. It showed us a lot more things we should be thankful for.

We learned that there were more Indians than Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving. There were actually 90 Indians that came and brought 5 deer for everyone to eat. They also ate lobster and fish and ducks and a bunch of other kinds of meat and a whole lot of different vegetables. They even had popcorn! We learned that the first Thanksgiving lasted for three days. Squanto was the very special Indian who helped the Pilgrims learn about hunting and planting. He was a special person God gave to the Pilgrims to help save them. He had been captured many years before and sold as a slave to monks and then they sent him to England where he finally had the chance to go back to his family. But when he got back, he found out that they had all died. The Pilgrims told him he was like Joseph in the Bible. Joseph was sold as a slave and then God allowed him to be free when the people needed to be saved from starving.

We are thankful for a lot of things like our Daddy and Mommy and each other. We are thankful for salvation and for God and for our Bible and church. We are thankful that our Mommy is our teacher and that she teaches us really neat stuff. We learned that the Pilgrim children didn't have toys when they got to their new place so we are thankful that we got to bring toys with us when we came to a new place. They didn't have houses either. God gave us a house before we came to Bangkok.

We hope you had a nice Thanksgiving with your family.

P.S. - I was so very proud of the children with all the things they thought of on their own that they were thankful for. As I read the books to them of the history of Thanksgiving, I was thrilled at how they began comparing things the Pilgrim children had or didn't have when they arrived in their new land to what they had or didn't have when we arrived in Bangkok. God has blessed us with some very special children. They aren't perfect and they can get loud and very active, to say the least, but oh, how sweet to see their faces when they understand and learn something for themselves! God truly is so very good ALL the time!!!

Andrew's Actions

I finally had my birthday! I am seven years old now. I had a very fun birthday. My Mommy made me a really cool birthday cake with dinosaurs and a volcano!

It was really cool how she made the volcano. She took one of Cynthia's play cups and turned it upside down and then put icing and a lot of sugar on it! I tried to lick it all off but she made me stop.

I got some new dinosaur pencils and a book about a robot dog and one about a monkey who gets lost in Bangkok. It was really neat because I learned about different places in Bangkok. I got a really neat track for my cars, too. All my brothers like to play with it too so I share it with them.

P.S. - I want to add one thing to Andrew's post. I have always decorated for each child's birthday with different themes. This was one of those things I planned on having to do differently after moving to Thailand. The only child I had anything "special" for was William since it was his 1st birthday. A week before Andrew's birthday, I found a party store in Bangkok that had themed plates, napkins, etc. just like I used to use for all the children's birthdays! I was so excited to be able to continue to have a theme for their birthdays. It always seems to make it a little extra special. And this time, I think all the children enjoyed it just as much as Andrew. Thank you, Lord, for the "little" blessings that you send my way! ~ Mommy

Andrew's Actions

I finished Kindergarten!!! I am so happy because now I get to start 1st grade. My parents got a new kind of books for me and Lee and Cynthia to use this year. We really like them. They gave me a special Eeyore because they know I really like Eeyore. I got an awesome paper that shows I finished school.

Everyone's Environment was SURPRISED!!!

Our grandparents came and stayed for 2 weeks. We were so surprised because we didn't know they were coming. We had a great time! We had an early Christmas which was a lot of fun for us. We also got to take them to the beach for a few days. While we were at the beach, we got to ride horses!