The Smanlons.

About two weeks ago, I came home from working in the village to find a handsome visitor waiting for me on my front porch! Andrew flew to Thailand and made his way to my house, with little help from my teammates! We spent a few days in my town in Thailand, he was able to travel to the village we work in, eat at my favorite places, meet my friends, feel the ridiculous heat, and we just got to spend time together. It was wonderful.

On Thursday, I took him to one of my favorite restaurants, it's a long walk, but the view and chicken and cashews is worth it! The restaurant overlooks the lake, the wooden bridge, and the Mon village on the other side of the lake. On the walk home, we fought off a few dogs and then stopped at the little grocery store and got ice cream cones. It started to storm off in the distance on our walk back so we decided to sit on the porch and watch the lightening when we got home. We sat there chatting for awhile, but Andrew just kept saying the same thing about how he liked the way the lightening lit up the mountains. I agreed the first couple times, but then just thought he was being weird. Then (almost getting folded up in his chair) he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! Of course I said yes, I'd have been crazy not to. He traveled literally around the world to see me!









P.S. Yes, I deleted the last blog. Rough couple days for sure, but I'm doing alright now. Thanks for the prayers.

I'm not sure why my pictures are cut in half, but I figure half is better than nothing... so here are a few more.

me- being fed cake by my small friend

the outhouse on the edge of the garden

the view from the garden

Esther and Nono in the garden

Hola.

It's been nearly a month since my last blog post, so I figured I'm due. Things have been fairly busy around here- starting transplants, digging compost pits, finding cow manure, chasing kids screaming "poisonous snake!". You know... all the normal things workers do. 

Planting is a bit tricky here. We've gotten quite a bit of rain lately which has made the ground much easier to work. I've been preparing beds in the children's home garden but I'll wait until the end of April to plant, that will be just before rainy season starts. Hopefully we'll have just enough rain to produce some tasty tomatoes. I've also ordered 20 pineapple plants to plant the last week of April!

Courtney and I have been spending a little time with a

 Burmese woman in town here the past week or so. She's really funny and seems to just enjoy our presence. We brought a watermelon to share with her today. Her daughter about had a heart attack. She ate nearly half and kept lifting up her shirt to show us her full stomach. So cute. This woman is pretty poor. The grass roof of her house is totally holey - which especially stinks because rainy season is not far off. But she's always in a good mood and happy to see us!

I had my last rabies shot today! I think we need to have a party.

I guess that's all for now.