Catching up on pictures

Basically these are a bunch of random shots we've taken over the past month from the Marine Ball, home life, the Water Festival and a boat trip along the Mekong among other things. More shots of baby than Kai because he refuses to sit still! :)

Kampong Cham

I got the chance to head up north to Kampong Cham province the last couple of days. It is the perfect time to be out in Cambodia now - the weather is actually "cool" most days - about 80 or so. One of the temples just outside the provincial capital is my favorite in the country so far - it's from the 7th century but still used by all the villagers for prayer. Most of it is crumbling, but they built a new "preah vihear" or smaller temple inside for the Buddhist adherents who come by foot or on bicycle to offer bananas, chicken or incense to the gods. There are literally hundreds of these temples around the country, most in tiny, out of the way villages that no one visits. This is quite an amazing country to toodle around in and fortunately for me I have a job that requires a lot of toodlin' :) The picture of the two kids holding the saffron monk's robe is basically a shot of them trying to catch coconuts that their friend is picking out of the tree above.

What - no pictures of the kids this time?

Reading this blog one might think that all we do is take pictures, and talk about, our children. Not true! We actually do get out to the countryside a bit as evidenced by the pictures here. These are of Udong - the former capital of Cambodia which is about an hour from Phnom Penh - several former kings are buried here - the stupas you see are their resting places. There are very few hills with any sort of elevation, especially close to the Mekong, so once you find one (like Udong) you get quite a view of the countryside. We're in the waning days of the rainy season so you'll see a lot of water around - much of the country is permanently flooded during this period which is obviously great for cultivating rice, rice which is making me very fat since I eat it every day now. This weekend is also the start of Om Tuk or the water festrival - 4 million villages decend on Phnom Penh quadrupling its population and traffic problems. We plan to lay low and maybe walk the kids over to the river to watch the dragon boat races. A little more info can be found here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Om_Thook.

Halloween!

Halloween is a rather drawn out affair here - not that Kai or Evanelle are complaining. We've had a trick or treat at the Embassy, at our house, and just went on a tuktuk trick or treat where we cruise around the neighborhood stopping at over 30 houses all stocked with candy designed to jack our little boy up to new heights of sugar intake. We also finally used our "bar" on top of the house for something other than an offiical function - a halloween party for the embassy and other expats seemed like a good idea and was quite fun - that is, until Eva woke up at 0500 the following morning :)

Photos of Eva

She's growing up so quickly - we can't believe she's almost 1 1/2! A few new words appear in between smiles - eggs, sausage and no being the best. You can tell she spends a lot of time thinking about eating.