Oh Thailand.

Hair Thai.
Don't look for eggs in the refrigerator (silly!) you will find them on the shelf in between sushi flavored sunflower seeds and toothbrushes.
Dude totally cut me off- where'd you learn to drive? Sesame Street?!
As in "I Wonder why anyone would open this package, take out a cigarette, and smoke it while looking at these pictures."
I love superheros that are also vegetables
Construction workers bring their wives along to work with them to sweep. Also, they work barefoot. We are inside after all.
Now that's a bicycle pump.
Barbie car with karaoke sushi. And Barbie's a man.
hmm. . .
The choice is yours, it is the same price.

Breanna's (Gingerbread) House of Joy

A few of us girls from the Garden of Hope got to build gingerbread houses with 42 beautiful girls in a Chiang Mai home called Breanna's House of Joy. It was breathtaking.

This is Jane- she introduced us to this wonderful organization and the amazing people here

Stephanie rocked the gingerbread world

And so did her mom ;)

P. Daeng held it all together

And Nanami made sure all the candy was ok for the kids to eat. Thanks ;)

Nikki's team had their house up in record time

with lamp posts and everything

And my team put an angel in the doorway

Roofs are tricky

Lots of helping hands. The girls, ranging in age from 5 to 17, worked so well together! Their quiet concentration and patience inspired us all.

They loved the frosting "snow."

These girls wowed us with their creativity

Look how perfectly they lined up all the little candies! (and do you love the barbeque they built?!)

at day's end we all got high-fives from frosting covered hands.

The aftermath: the cleanup crew moved quickly, demolishing the wreckage and scraping frosting and candy into paper cups to eat with spoons. Reduce Reuse Recycle. Nicely done girls!

After consuming their body weight in sugar, the girls proceeded to play calmly- laughing together. No fighting, crying or meltdowns. Wow. Well done, girls- well done.

It really is a house of joy.

Kanom Dog Jok (Flower shaped Thai cookies)

This one's for you, Tomo ;)

On Christmas Eve the girls showed me how to make a traditional Thai dessert. It's a crunchy, crisp, melt in your mouth- flower shaped cookie.

The batter is made from a special flour, coconut cream, toasted sesames, water, and this mysterious bright pink paste:

When I asked what it was, they giggled. Then promised to take me to the shop where they bought it. Then warned me not to try to take it on the plane home, because I would go to the police station. (More giggles.) They were kidding. . . I'm pretty sure. So far the only explanation I've gotten is it comes from a flower. It could be from a sugar beet? Or the Crayola factory?

Once it's all mixed together it looks like this:

To make the cookies, first heat oil in a pan. Then put these special brass cookie stamps into the oil to get hot.

Then quickly dip it in the batter (only halfway) and shake it off into the oil (easier said than done!)If you are lucky, it will look like this:

When it puffs up, flip it over.

This is what it looks like when it's done:

Aroy Aroy! (delicious!)

Success! (You might also want to shower after all the frying, as I did, hence the wet hair.)

Merry Christmas!!!

Taking it to the Street

The last couple of weeks we've been selling our Christmas-y goods in front of the Garden's children's drop in center in downtown Chiang Mai:

Intern Heather hangs cheery green lights (in the red light district)

We are selling Christmas cards with pictures painted by the girls in the Garden of Hope's Burma house, gingerbread house kits, Christmas cookies, and homemade banana coconut bread. Stop by if you are in the neighborhood! ;)

Gingerbread snowmen, trees and snowflakes (not stars girls!) Thank you Cyrus for all the practice with tying ribbon- we're putting it to good use! ;) 

It's beginning to look a (whole!) lot like Christmas

The last few weeks have been gingerbread production in our kitchen.

These are sheetpans full of gingerbread house pieces:

hundreds and hundreds of gingerbread pieces:

Our gingerbread factory has been busy rolling:

Cutting:

(with these awesome house cutters that were custom made by a welder from Hillside church in California!):

And Baking: Martha from Hillside watched over the oven:

And Mixing: (teamwork!)

And Decorating: (hundreds of Christmas cookies!)

Really cute! 

Here is one of our gingerbread houses assembled and decorated: 

And here are some of the 100 gingerbread house kits we put together!

(and boxes and boxes of candy decorations!! ;)
Thanks Hillside team! You guys rocked the gingerbread world. We miss you in our kitchen!