Learning Thai: A Visitor!

We have our first visitor from home! I went with Sharon to pick up our friend Twila from the aiport late Wednesday night. It was so fun to see a familiar face coming through that arrivals gate! The girls have been having fun getting reacquainted with their old friend. Eliza was shy at first but warmed up within five minutes and now would rather be held by Twila than by us! She babysat for us last night so Tom and I could have a date. We ate at Tom's new favorite restaurant- Imperial Hot Pot which features a Japanese (sushi, tempura), Chinese (dimsum, etc), and "European" (cheesy potatoes, pork knuckle) buffet and a soup pot on the table in which you make your own soup (it's so strange seeing the piles of raw beef, fish, eggs, etc on people's tables!). We found out that the buffet is a lot more fun without kids and we got to see a movie too, so it was a fun night. Twila brought fun presents like Twizzlers and fancy bandaids from home and the girls had a great time.
We had a worship time at our house this morning and Twila joined us and did a children's story for our kids. It was another good time of encouragment, eating, playing games, and catching up.
We're enjoying this week or two between school ending and Tom beginning his job. We are working our way through a to do list of writing, planning, and house jobs. The break is actually great timing as we'll have time to commit to the prayer team when they are here too. Tom is pursuing the latest teaching job at Bang Muang and we're hoping he'll be able to start after the prayer team leaves. He was able to observe a class similar to the one he would teach and is feeling really positive about this option if things continue to work out.
A few pictures, mostly from today....

The girls with a present from our older lady neighbor.