Hedgehog Café and Coming Home

My friend Hayley introduced me to the concept of a Cat Café when I was in Dubai.  She told me about it, and I laughed because I thought she was kidding.  I couldn't get my head around going to a café for the sole purpose of having a cat to pet and sit in my lap while I ate a meal.

I like cats, but I don't like their hair getting everywhere (plus cats have been known to cause my eyes to water, my skin to break out, and my airways to close off - no big deal).  The amount of hair flying around our house from me and the girls is enough, why would I want more? 

In my mind I just knew I would never go to a cat café (because I might have an asthma attack), and that was pretty much the last thought I gave to it.

Enter Thailand.  

We had the opportunity to go to a Hedgehog Café, and I seriously couldn't believe my kids were excited about it, but they were, so we went.

You purchase a certain number of drinks and a dessert, and then you get some hedgehogs brought to your table.

They set us up with bowls of mealworms with tweezers and a few hedgehogs to annoy feed and love on.

The waitress told us the names of each hedgehog, and my children quickly became attached naming their favorites.

The fun didn't stop there.  Soon it was feeding time for the guinea pigs.

A lady beat some grass against the wood, and out they came, crossed over a bridge, and entered into a "feeding area," where many small children abused fed them.

Keira was gentle and patient - even as other kids came and stole grass out of her hands!

We stayed for quite awhile, and it was one of my kids' favorite things, so I'm so glad we did its. 

And yes, I did hold one hedgehog for a very short amount of time.  I thought he was going to skydive off my hands, so I quickly passed him off to Caleb as all the kids laughed at me.

Too quickly, our time came to an end, and we left the lush green of Thailand's hills to return to the vast desert in the Middle East.

 

Summer was officially over.  Time for school to start.

Seventeen! In Thailand!

We were in Thailand for Kylie's 17th birthday.

We had a low-key breakfast at an outdoor café, where it actually rained on us a little while we were there.

Kylie and Doug rode on a rented scooter to breakfast,

while the rest of us climbed in the back of the island's version of a taxi.

After breakfast, we went swimming and then we walked to get some sandwiches and coffee for a late lunch, early dinner. 

After sundown, we walked to a restaurant on the water that looked worthy of a 17th birthday dessert.

We all tried smoothies, and most of them were pretty good, but the view was definitely the best part.

When the restaurant heard us singing "Happy Birthday" to Kylie, they brought her something special, but it wasn't a cake.

Bet you never saw this coming...

Crackers with chocolate dipping sauce (H.B.D.)

Yep.  You heard me correctly.



I think this was one of the sure signs that it was "off-season" on the island.

We ate a few, but mostly we just played with the letters.

Kylie is a pretty fantastic human being.  Being the firstborn, she is the guinea pig for a lot of things, and she bravely takes them on.  She pitches in around the house, helps fix her sister's hair, cooks, and works hard at all she does.  She has a creative streak that I only dream about, and she gets excited about planning events and following through with all the details.

She is strong, protective, honest, loyal, self-confident, stylish, and fun.  She is a lot of things I had always hoped to be, and I'm so proud of her.



She's looking ahead at all that is to come, but...



I'm looking back, remembering all that was :)

Happy 17th, Kylie!

Being a Tourist

Since we had traveled all the way to Thailand, we decided to experience a little bit of the country before returning to the desert.

Keira and I tried out the fish tank.

Unfortunately for Keira, my feet had a lot more dead skin than hers, so they basically ignored Keira's feet.
.

We saw some beautiful things

and some interesting things

We took an ATV tour into the mountains.

We got a chance to look for shells.  

It was Keira's very first time, and she loved it! 

The other three have only had two other opportunities 

(South Padre in 2009 and the Indian Ocean in 2010)

It was like treasure hunting for all of them.

No segregated pools here.  All of our kids got to swim together for the first time in a while.

Sunsets are something to treasure, no matter where we are.

This was what a taxi looked like in Thailand.

Caleb, Keira, and I got up at 4:30 one morning to ride in one of these to an elephant sanctuary an hour and a half away.

We had a good time, but on the way home, I could tell some people had had a long day and were exhausted.

Keira was born in Africa, but she doesn't remember any safaris we went on, so she was very excited to go on this night safari.  She loved seeing the giraffes and zebras the most.

Maybe one day she'll get to return to Africa and see some of those animals on the savannah during the daylight hours.

While I was Away and Then Onward to New Things

While I was in Texas, Keira and four of her ballet classmates filmed another segment of "teaching beginning ballet" for a TV station

She also had her end-of-year evaluation and scored well.



She also made a new friend and had a play date.

When the older girls returned from Texas, we had a week with them before we headed off to Thailand.  We had some meetings, and additional classes were arranged for all ages, so we all went along on our first trip to the East.

The first thing we noticed was how green everything was.

Quite a contrast from when we landed back in our home country after our trip.

In Thailand, we stayed at a large hotel

With green views

And interesting script everywhere.

(I'm kind of glad this is not the script I'm learning)

 One of my favorite things about overseas meetings is the coming together of different languages.

These booths have interpreters for different languages represented in the room.

We also tried some new fruits we had never tasted before.

Mangosteen

Dragon Fruit

And some fruits we didn't try...

?????  I have no idea.  You are welcome to chime in.

 The people here worship so differently from the people where we live.

It was definitely an educational experience for all of us.

 

One of my favorite parts was meeting new people from different places (I found a kindred spirit from Scotland) and seeing my kids connect with new people so quickly, simply because they all live overseas, which puts them in a unique category of similarity.