Today we leave Thailand for the first time since we moved here 6 months ago, to visit family and friends in the US and Canada. On the taxi ride to the airport, I was watching our new home city go by and saw a golf cart adapted into a police vehicle round the corner with lights swinging. We both thought it was pretty...
Wow, more than three months have gone by! We moved to Chiang Mai to slow down our lives but the transition phase has been anything but slow. To be fair, one of those months was on Koh Phi Phi taking everything slow. I'm so glad we built that time into our moving plans. After that we spent a month housesitting before we got...
A very happy birthday to my dear sister Jess, who just turned twenty-two and managed to make being on camera and listening to Taylor Swift all day look entirely adorable! We are grateful to be able to spend the week with her in one of the most beautiful places on earth - Koh Lipe, Thailand. This video is an example of what Tory...
We came over here with two suitcases and carry-ons. A big part of the move for us was a great opportunity to reset and live into our values. I'm still grateful for that chance, and have been thinking about and tracking all our purchases as we bring them into the house but I think the surprising part is that the 'set up' part...
We have been little scavengers lately. The benefits of finding our gem of a place through non-touristy ways are abundant and the challenges are too :) The people of Thailand, our friends and colleagues have been very generous to us helping us adapt and learn how to function, more or less! This is the first photo series on the subject of "how much...
Helmets: one of life's new necessities My sister in law sent us an email with some sweet questions about our new home that were fun to reflect on... here they are along with some additional questions I've gotten from a few friends:1. What is weather like during this time of year? What is weather like in other seasons?Tory: Weather has been very pleasant....
Tory has been talking about how this island will break him. How after almost a month of nothing on the to-do lists, nothing we need to accomplish, nothing for the brain to worry about, that he will finally learn how to relax. For me, I am good at relaxing. But I struggle with focusing on the present and being grateful for the moments...
The same week we left the west coast for Thailand, my parents left for a whirlwind trip through the Bible via Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, and my old friends Brandon and Fiona left for a cross country move that parallels ours in some ways. Life has changed so much for us this year already, it's hard to have any sense of what the...
In the days and weeks surrounding our move, it was hard to think straight. Life consisted primarily of great hangouts, so many good-byes, and hard work finishing up remodeling projects and clearing out the house. I managed to jot down a thought or two over the days leading up to our ride out. 4/23 - Life is getting full and empty all at...
We had a lot of fun at Tory's company party this spring. It was a red and silver masquerade theme, and Tory's only red clothing is his go-to Waldo costume. The entertainment was one of those traveling casino's where you get a certain amount of chips to play and the chips add up to raffle tickets to win prizes. I ended up doing...
I have been trying to figure out a way to insert intentionality into our upcoming life in Thailand.... all along Tory and I have been talking about being open to ways to have positive impact in a developing country, but we have also been really careful to make sure we're not trying to define those needs ourselves or insert our own judgements or...
