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Uh, so about the mold and mosquitoes:

The day after we arrived, still groggy with jet lag, we jumped in the car to go out for an awakening swim. Suddenly we all realized there was an awful smell in the car. Searching for the source we noticed that the entire car was covered in mold. Yes, all of the doors were covered, the dashboard, even the steering wheel. The delights of living in the tropics.



Even more delightful is

Read more... | Published: 09/12/08

The bags are packed—-all eight of them. The alarm is set. The children’s clothing is laid out on the bed for our early departure in the wee morning hours. The kids are used to this, are pro’s at getting up and out for long-haul journey’s.

But today had been different. Excitement had been replaced with resistance. The kids are sad to be leaving. Kai was even teary, my Mr. Emotion.

We reached Heathrow Airport in plenty of time. Boy is that place a zoo!! I was

Read more... | Published: 09/11/08

With two months in the UK and France under our belts, it was time to wrap up business before embarking on the long haul back to Thailand. First we had to meet with Shona, our new rep in London, to find out what the response has been so far to the HOPE children’s spring/summer ’09 clothing collection.





So far everyone has been excited by the fact that the clothing is fair trade. The

Read more... | Published: 09/05/08

The day before the 70th birthday party, the kids clothing laid out for the next day, I realized that the children absolutely needed their hair trimmed. It was the end of the trip and their hair was just looking shab de la shab. So I ran down to my Sikh hair cutter trainee extraordinaire (gotta love the idea as described in previous blog) and literally begged to get the kids in for a simple trim that day. Luckily since we’d hit it off so well, he managed to squeeze them in

Read more... | Published: 09/04/08

Okay, I survived the 70th birthday party. “THE” party which was the whole reason I even ended up spending a colossal two months with my in-laws. Hip hip hooray! I did it all for the children (okay I’m not entirely selfless, I was out scouting a sales rep for the fair trade clothing line BUT I found our rep extraordinaire within the first week) and I managed it all without a single fight! Although I will admit I got a bit snappy when the ‘ole you-know-what went on and on about

Read more... | Published: 09/03/08