Father's Day, December 2008

December the 5th is "Father's Day" here in Thailand as it coincides with the birthday of HRM King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the reigning monarch of the country. It is a public holiday here and a wonderful opportunity to spend the day with the family.



Little Nio was up pretty early in the morning and one of the very first things that he does is start his breakfast with some yogurt.





Here he is going at it, full of gusto. Very little distracts him when he tucks in to a tiny pint of yoghurt. As you can see here, a fist full of yogurt proves that even this nutritious meal can be considered as a kind of finger food.



This particular brand comes with bits of whole fruit, which means that you get juicy bits of strawberry in your strawberry flavored yogurt. So aside from letting him listen to classical music, this is another way to get a bit of culture into our young man.

Later in the afternoon we had to go to the dentist for my wife, Kanittha. Her wisdom teeth are growing out on both sides, so more than a week ago we took care of extracting two impacted teeth on one side. The stitches came out today. We will probably wait until next year to get the other two on the opposite side. It has been very traumatic for her and she has been in a great deal of pain.



Here's Little Nio giving directions on what he wants done. Not sure what he wants done, but he can be very emphatic about it. Very "Navarro", I think.



We also put up our tiny little Christmas tree today and Little Nio was delighted, amazed and excited by the blinking lights and all the decorations. He's actually seen a tree before when we were in Manila last year, but this is the first time that he has had one of his very own. Our tiny green tree is decorated with only red tinsel and red ornaments to deliberately give it a traditional feel.



He's at the back of the tree in this image inspecting the shiny red balls.

Later that afternoon, Little Nio and his Daddy went swimming. We didn't stay in the pool too long. Since the weather has changed the water in the pool was very cold.



Here's a photo taken with Little Nio standing on top of our coffee table in the family room just before swimming. He's not too happy about something but we couldn't figure out what he was all upset about. Let's hope it's not the size of our tiny Christmas tree he's complaining about.

Home Improvements, November 2008

Despite the terrible news in Thailand about the civil unrest and the closures of both airports in Bangkok — the older Don Muang airport and the more recently opened Suvarnabhumi airport, life goes on for us. There are things that are completely out of our control and things that happen as a consequence of other things, and we simply deal with what we can in the best ways we can manage.

The first and most important thing to do is to stay calm and continue doing what we are supposed to be doing. For our part, that is building up our family and continuing to improve whatever we can. At our house, the developer's maintenance contract is about to expire and there were necessary repairs that needed to be done. Rather than simply repair and replace we saw an opportunity to upgrade and provide a better home environment for ourselves and for Little Nio.



Here he is inspecting the newly completed "pebble wash" (washed aggregate) finish of our driveway. It's off white with flecks of black and grey, and accents of orange and brown. My thought was to stay away from a dark color to increase the SRI (surface reflectance index) and help reduce heat island effect. Not too white so that while it helps reflect light into our home, it won't generate too much glare. More importantly it's a sealed finish that has traction and is not too rough on little feet.



We also had a chance to seal up some minor cracks in the walls to our carport, but instead of patching it up and repainting, we opted to invest in some cultured stone facing. We selected a light warm grey stone that will look good in contrast to the off white driveway. The stone is porous so that it will retain some coolness when we water it. It will also provide a great backdrop when we set some greens in front of it. Here's Little Nio striking a pose in front of the new wall.



As you can see, it meets with Little Nio's happy smile of approval. And even though he isn't green like a plant the wall serves as a great backdrop for him as well.



We're all doing fine. As you can see here Little Nio is playing tag with our Siamese cat, Samuel. This is the kind of game that is fun for a while, but it doesn't get too far when the cat is fine with being tagged.



Bath time for Little Nio. We just had a nice long conversation with Lolo Jun and Lola Nene in Manila. We're all getting ready to go out and do some errands, like eating some nice big pancakes and buying disposable diapers and paying our bills.



Here's Little Nio trying to drain his bathtub using a sponge. He's determined, but his Mommy is going to make sure that he gets clean first before he can finish draining the tub.



Almost done. Next is a quick drying by Daddy, then his Dad will dress him up and we're off for the day.

Things are getting tense around Thailand, but the situation is not without hope of a quick and peaceful resolution. Thai people are generally very kind, calm and generous, but these are extraordinary times for them. The best we can do is offer prayers for safety and a quiet solution to all their problems.