Birthday parties are a little different here....

So one of the advantages of living in a tropical country is that you can always have your birthday parties outside and wear shorts to dinner. The other, as you can see, is that you can invite your friendly neighborhood elephant to come by and give the kids a ride. Sambou the elephant normally hangs out at Wat Phnom right by the Embassy and is fed bananas and sugar cane by kids all day so this was a nice diversion for him. He actually loves his job and you can see him jogging to work in the mornings with a smile on his face, literally. Evanelle was a little spooked by the big animal - especially when his snout was rooting around in her hair for a banana but Kai was all over it. He was the first kid up (much to Mom's chagrin) and wanted a second ride as well - fearless that kid... Also a picture of the tallest Cambodian woman ever! She's almost six feet tall and works as a nanny for friends of ours.