Bikes, Butterflies, and a Birthday

The Henrys are enjoying some major family bonding time! Nathan and Chuck went and played basketball early Saturday morning (August 8th).

When they got back we rode the skytrain to Chatuchauk Park. We wandered for a half an hour or more until we realized the part of the park we wanted to go to was across the street. Then we crossed the street and had lunch from a noodle cart. What a deal, delicious soup complete with chicken feet. Chuck, Nate, Noah, and Elijah all said they were great - just don't think about them being chicken feet.

After lunch, we headed into the park to rent bikes. This is a huge park, all the signs are in Thai, but thanks to some friendly thais, we eventually found the place to rent bikes. The bikes with seats on the back for Micah were "Hello Kitty". I got to be so girly on my pink bike! Zeke rode behind Daddy on a second seat. The bike riding was fun, it reminded me a little of traffic in Bangkok. There are rules and painted lines, but they were only suggestions! They have frequent bike renting cards-since we rented 5, we filled the whole card in one trip. There are so many advantages to having a big family. I must
admit that a cab ride with all 7 of us plus the cab driver in a Toyota Corolla is not on my list. It is really not terrible unless the driver shuts the AC off.

We got off our bikes to play in this kids area. This toy is like a teeter totter, all the boys had fun on it. Yes, the big one too.

Another day we will try out some of our artistic skills. You can buy paint and canvas for under a dollar, set it up on an easel and paint a picture.

There is a beautiful butterfly garden that we went through and took about 30 pictures of butterflies. It is enclosed, so they won't fly too far, but it is very difficult to get a good picture.

On Sunday, our friend Aie, surprised Noah
with a cake her mom had made and her dad decorated. Noah got to run down to their vehicles to tell them thank you.

We worshipped at ECB and then headed to Siam Paragon - an upscale mall with an aquarium in it. It was really gorgeous with lots of wow and ahh moments. This was Noah's request, and we all got to enjoy it. I had tried to bribe Nathan not to go in with us, but he wanted more money than his ticket was going to cost. I am glad he came, and he takes the teasing quite well.

The last picture is back at our apartment after dinner with the cake and candles. Can you believe we didn't have a lighter? Noah pretended to blow them out and we sang Happy Birthday to our new 12 year old. My apologies for the sideways picture, you have to turn them before you upload them --oops!