more from Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai

Bangkok

Last Hurrah

We are leaving today for a three week to Thailand and Japan. Two backpacks and two children will be our only accompaniments. We decided we better take advantage of being in this part of the world, even if it does mean travelling with two toddlers! Nicholas decided to pack scotch tape and shims, Morgan packed her silky blanket, Ryan his camera, and me...my sleeping mask and earplugs. We will spend 10 days in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Northern Thai mountains (we are skipping the beaches since we live in Saipan) then to Japan for 10 days. We will be in Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Nagoya and Kyoto.
We are planning to return to the States later this summer, making it to Nashville by the beginning of August after stopping in San Diego and Kansas City.
It will be difficult to leave the Saipan lifestyle, but We are looking forward to seeing all of our loved ones. Hopefully we can put some updates along the way.
love, Kim

Happy Mothers' Day

We decided a few weeks ago that we would take a year off of our annual Mothers' Day party. That gave me the opportunity (maybe the last chance) to surprise Kim with a Mothers' Day party. Nicholas almost kept the secret.
We had a lot of fun with several of our friends. The food was from Herman's Modern Bakery (established on Saipan in 1945 during WWII), and the music was provided by an Hawaiian trio of two electric ukuleles and a bass. They joined us for a swim and entertained us with songs like "Coconut girl in a high-fashion world" and "Long before there was Clark Kent, there was a Hawaiian superman", as well as versions of "Black Magic Woman" and "Big Yellow Taxi".
Happy Mothers' Day, and see you at the 5th annual party in Nashville!

Hike to Forbidden Island

Ryan had the day off, so while the kids were at school, we hiked to Forbidden Island (so named because of the unexpected high currents and poor accessibility). The hike down was about 45 minutes and included some rappelling on the steep parts. When we got to the bottom, there was a gorgeous beach surrounded by cliffs and rock pools. After a swim, we headed back up, which wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.