Turkey Trot 08 - Kirkland

Tawny was super excited to participate in the Turkey Trot this year because she got to wear my t-shirt from last year! Heaven, Jordan, Tiffany, Amber (not in photo - she was running a little late), Alana, me, Tawny and Tilly all participated! It was a nice day to walk from the marina in Kirkland to Caroline Point and back. Brandon and Brian got to watch football at Hectors while the ladies walked. We had a great time and hope to do it again next year!

Back on the mainland!

Hello Everyone! Well we've been back since 11/8, just now getting time to update with some photos from Bangkok. Brandon is drinking a big beer at the night market we went to in Bangkok - Chung De (Cheers)! All the other photos are from a Temple we went to in Bangkok!

We had a great time, the flight home was a few hours shorter which was nice. I didn't get sick, which was great! We are both back to work trying to catch up on everything.

Hope everyone enjoyed our pictures and updates from our trip!

Leaving the Beach

Well it's our last day in south Thailand. We will be leaving the beach area and heading to Bangkok this afternoon. We will be in Bangkok for 2 nights then it's back to America. It's kind of depressing since Dino won't be my new governor when I return. For those who commented on the elephants, they were fun to ride and feed. You should have seen them use their trunks to grab the bananas out of your hand, they use them just like a hand. Then they throw the whole thing in their mouth and crunch it once then swallow. They absolutely love them. Marcie, I don't know exactly how hot it's been but it has to be in the mid 80's to mid 90's with lots of humidity. When you get out of the water it takes forever to dry off and your towel doesn't seem to dry for days. We added some pictures of our trip. Alana, these are the dogs we shipped home for Juan...I don't really know what kind they are but they were funny. There is a picture of Railay cliffs, the temple here in Krabi and us at the restaurant.

Railay Beach and Elephant Trekking

Yesterday we took a longboat ride to Railay Beach, about 20 minutes from where we are staying at Ao Nang Beach. It was a hot day with not much shade on the beach. The ocean is warmer than your body temperature so it really didn't help to get in. We stayed here for a few hours and then headed back to the hotel for a shower and dinner. We most likely will be going back tomorrow to go exploring.

Today we woke up, got some breakfast and headed out to ride some Elephants! We road for about an hour on them, they are pretty slow moving but still fun. They took us through the jungle, walking through a stream most of the time. The elephants would just randomly stop to pick up some fruit or palm branches, but then our driver would give them a little kick and they would start going again. We got to feed them a basket of bananas, they really just shove them down there mouths - no chewing just in and swallow. After the elephants we took a ride to the tiger cave temple. There is a temple on top of this mountain that you can climb with over 1200 steps and they are steep steps. We decided to try it out, but we only made it to about 300....we were both so wet from sweating since it was so hot that we turned around and headed back down. We couldn't believe all the monkeys at this place, they were everywhere. Signs posted 'beware of monkeys they may steal things'.

We just finished lunch and are going to sit by the pool for a couple hours. Brandon is going to get a Thai Message this afternoon...he is looking forward to that. I don't think I will be getting one.

Enjoy our little video of our elephant ride!

Hi all, here is an update of the past couple of days. We had a great time on our boat ride and went to Phi Phi Ley which was beautiful. The water is so bright and blue. We snorkeled at about 5 locations during our trip including shark point. (sorry, no sharks this time) We spent some time feeding the monkeys at monkey beach which Lindsey was a little apprehensive about doing but it turned out the tide was in so far that we could only throw them fruit from the boat. A few of them decided to come on the bow of the boat and stuff their faces however. They were pretty cute and there were even some mommas with babies. On Phi Phi Ley we went to Maya Bay and saw where "The Beach" was filmed, very pretty. That is a picture of us standing on the beach together. The top two pictures are of us on the beach at Bamboo Island which was probably one of the most picturesque beaches I have ever seen. One is of me just finishing snorkeling out by the reef and you can see the little fish that followed me in, they are bright green with tiger stripes. The other picture is of this really hot chick we saw swimming in the water in front of us.....oh wait...that's Lindsey!

We sat by the pool this morning when we woke up then made plans for the rest of the week. At 3:30pm we traveled by ferry to Ao Nang just north of Krabi and had some dinner...Lindsey had the Grass Noodle (probably supposed to read "glass noodle") and I had the wide noodle with chicken, vegetables, sauce and a sunnyside up egg on it...we split some rice and spring rolls and now Lindsey is having a chocolate chip milk shake that was more milk than shake but still good. This week we want to ride elephants, check out Railay beach and relax before we head back into Bangkok. More to come....Cheers B & L

saturday morning

We are about to embark on a day snorkel trip around phi phi don and phi phi ley....I am hoping to see only fish, no sharks. A little worried about Monkey island, I will leave the feeding up to Brandon. We will make sure to post some pictures and updates later today of our snorkel trip. I am feeling better right now, but sure don't want to eat anything besides pringles and crackers. Alana, we found a couple friends for Juan...they are on a boat home, very shaggy looking but I am sure you will clean them up well. I will post a photo later, don't have the camera on me right now. Alright...talk soon! To all my fellow dino-crats, go Dino!!! (from Brandon) Jess he really wishes you were around lately to discuss the political situation, he sure misses it! Love to our moms...and tawny:)

cats and beer

So for the past 24 hours I have been experiencing cats and beer while Lindsey watched every movie ever made on Starz network from the bed. She doesn't feel 100% yet but is recovering fast. We just had breakfast and this little kitten wanted some of my eggs. I shooed him away but he came back. So when I decided to take a picture of him he tried to jump and get the camera strap. This picture of beer is a local one called CHANG. It's pretty good and costs about $2 for a big bottle to take pool side. The rain has started today and doesn't look like it will stop any time soon. Probably a good thing so that Lindsey doesn't feel like she has to be out and about. XOXO Brandon and Lindsey

Phi Phi 2

Meant to say thanks to all for your comments, keep them coming. I forgot to read them before I started to post so thought I would post again and see if that awesome vid of linds will come through. I wanted to say to Karen that you can't escape the political adds here at least for president. At least I don't have to worry about seeing Chris Gregoire's face except in my nightmares....ohh creepy (thought you'd like that Sparky). Also, it would be kind of nice if you all could get Mike Holmgren to retire while I am out here as well. The Seahawks win cost us some dough last week. Bye again. BW

Phi Phi Islands

So this place is rediculous. It's fantastic yet has all the typical tourist traps and hounds the minute you walk off the boat. I will try and upload some more pictures at the end. The weather has been weird, every day for the past few we wake up to a crazy storm at about 3AM here, 5pm Seattle time. It's blowing really hard and raining like hell. Then when we finally wake up it's warm, cloudy and humid. By noon the sun is coming out. We sweat a lot. By the way, this is Brandon speaking today. Lindsey came down with some heat exhaustion late last night and is keeping cool in the shanty till later this afternoon. We'll probably hit the pool for a bit when she feels up to it. Just so you all know, she is fine and told me to tell everyone that. I had to run out and try and find some gatorade and crackers at 3:30 in the morning. Not a hard thing to do here. There were still people down on the beach, in the restaurants and playing pool in the bars. Everyone is here from all over the world and it creates an exciting atmosphere (not to mention everyone is on a a different time zone). On the ferry ride over I met a photographer and grad student from Austin, TX. Nice guys. they were just traveling from Taiwan and are staying at a hotel at the other end of the island...about 3mi. We may meet up with them later. Their hotel costs about as much for one night as ours does for 5. You can have it any way you want it here...bare bones or lux. Most people are traveling with backpacks like us and despite all of our best packing...we still feel like we overpacked...you just don't need that much. The food is different, tasty, and "interesting" at times. We haven't tried too many weird things. It's kind of annoying because most every restaurant offers thai food, pizza (of some form or another), pasta, german, western, and or Italian food, soup, salad and everything else you could want. Jacks of all trades and masters of none according to Lindsey (I am starting to agree but our dinner cost less than $15US last night with me dringking beer so who can really complain right?). We plan to snorkel and swim later this week. Take a long boat around to the different towns. Lindsey doesn't want to go on a shark watch..I don't blame her. I guess that's it for now. Pictures are of our little bungalo, me outside a crazy night market, the beach 30 yards from our door, Lindsey getting ready to eat some fresh shrimps and calamari at "Hippies" , and some guys harvesting swallow's nests from the cliffs, oh and there's a short little clip of Lindsey and how excited she was about the 2 hr ferry ride. I don't know if the sound came out over the drone of the engine. Temps about 88-90 and the humidity is high....Cheers.

live from phuket

Hello!!! We finally made it to phuket. We spent the first day really relaxing, trying to catch up on some sleep since we didn't sleep much on the plane ride. Lindsey was sick as a dog on the plane, puking quite a few times....glad to be on land. The weather is hot...humid...we sweat all the time, walking just a few blocks is somewhat exhausting. Today we took a tuk tuk to patong beach, very interesting. You are bombarded with people trying to sell you things. We saw some elphants on the drive to the beach...but hope to ride one when we go to Krabi next week. We leave tomorrow for Phi Phi islands, planning on staying there until Sunday. We are about 14 hours ahead of you all in Seattle, so quite a bit of a time difference. We are trying to catch up on the football games, but it is hard to find out the scores unless we watch cnn or find a computer. Here are a few pictures....we will try and update in a few days when we are on the phi phi islands. For now, we will just have to go get some more Singha beers for Brandon. Lindsey enjoys the bottled water...mmm

We are having a baby!!!

We have a little Winters on the way! We are both very excited for the next year.

We thought we would start a blog with updates on the new baby and other exciting news! We leave for Thailand on October 23rd. We will be gone for 2 weeks, returning on November 8th.