A Summary of our Trip

Well, we made it back safe and sound this evening around 6 pm. I'm too tired tonight to get all the pictures on, but I promise to do it tomorrow. They are some great pictures and we are excited to let you all see a totally different part of Thailand. We live in Bangkok and it is similar to any major city in America-- it's got a subway and a skytrain, traffic jams and malls everywhere. The place we went to had outhouses and cows in the middle of the road- it was quite a contrast! We had a great trip overall, but it took 8 hours to get there, which was much longer than we thought. Sterling did well on the car rides, although he was definitely tired of his seat by the end of the trip. While we were there we were able to meet lots of people in the small village where we stayed. They all loved Sterling and wanted to touch him. It is very rare for them to see white people, especially white babies. Sterling did pretty good with the heat and conditions (we stayed in a barn-like house) but he did wake up at 1 am the first night and he cried for about 2 hours. He actually woke up the entire village because no one has good walls, air conditioners, or anything to keep out the noise. We felt terrible, so we went on a drive to get him back to sleep around 3 am. We spent the rest of the night sleeping in the van because we didn't want to take the chance of waking everyone up again. The next night we stayed in a "hotel" about 20 miles away. It was nothing like we would have in America, that's for certain, but Sterling slept much better.
We've never been happier to see our neighborhood or our house than tonight. We feel like we live in paradise after having spent those 2 days in the village...It definitely teaches you that life can be much simpler, much slower and more relaxed. We learned that we can survive on much less than what we think we "have" to have. And we re-learned the lesson that there are so many people out there that God created that are so different than we are- that live so differently, that believe so differently, that eat so differently... And they are just as valuable and lovely in His eyes.