A snippet of an update

It’s currently 4:46 pm on Sunday, January 5th. It feels like 5 years worth of life has happened since the last time I posted. As soon as I publish this post, I’ll start writing about our day yesterday, but that’s going to take some time to complete. So…here’s a brief update about what we’ve been up to:

On Thursday we took some adventures in the Chiang Mai area — the theme of the day was transportation struggle. We spent the morning lounging, then because beds in Asia are so hard, we set out to find a place where we could purchase a mattress topper. We found one a bit north of the city, but getting a Grab (again, equivalent of Uber or Lyft) to pick us up took some time. Adam gave him what we thought was a correct address, but when we got to the destination we had given…it clearly wasn’t the correct spot. We then had to negotiate with the driver to take us to an another location — this time to the right spot. The driver was SO nice and friendly though, and through the use of a translation app he even invited us to his sister’s wedding that would be a hill tribe wedding happening over the weekend. When we eventually got to our destination, we purchased a lovely “extra soft” 4” mattress topper that would be delivered later in the afternoon.

With the late afternoon delivery, we determined we had to split up for our other plans for the day. I’m part of a Chiang Mai with Kids Facebook group and had been scoping out cafes with play areas — it’d been a couple days since Miriam had gotten to play with other kids. So, Adam went home to wait for our delivery, then Miriam and I scheduled a Grab to take us to a place called Yuu Baan Studio in the Hang Dong area of Chiang Mai. I should have known something was up with getting there when the Grab driver who ended up taking us asked for $1200 thb extra to “take us up the mountain.” By this time Miriam was getting antsy and insistent on going to play, I wanted to make good on my promise, and honestly I was too tired to look into things more, so I agreed.

Well…we did indeed make it to the cute little cafe which did indeed have a wonderful play area, and Miriam was able to play with kids.

About an hour before closing, I figured I’d start to work on getting us home. I put the ride request into Grab and waited….and nobody picked it up. I put it in again and waited…and nobody took it. So, I eventually had to go to the staff and use a translation app to ask for their help in getting a ride home. Being as wonderful as the Thai people are, they made a phone call and a ride was there to pick us up and take us down the mountain within 15 minutes. I have no idea who the person was, but I was ever so grateful and totally embarrassed! I also felt really bad because once we got into the city the traffic was BUSY. What should have been a 45 minute ride ended up being a 2 hour ride home.

The next morning (Friday), we packed up our stuff. The rest of my family had arrived after spending a few days in Bangkok, and picked us up so we could all go to a homestay/retreat center in Phrao, Chiang Mai, Thailand. We learned two years ago that Phrao was the town my mother was baptized in. Last year we learned this was where she was born and lived with her bio family prior to her adoption, and where many of her aunts and uncles still live.

The ride up was gorgeous — this area of Thailand is stunningly beautiful with a landscape of rice fields all in different stages of planting, and mountains dotted with golden buddhist temples in the background. Miriam was so happy to see her family and talked the entire 2 or so hour drive north. On the way, we made multiple stops. First to visit merchant stands at a roadside checkpoint, where a significant event in the story had happened last year when my family was here. Then we went to a beautiful Buddhist learning center that had a giant statue of a monk, immaculate grounds, hammered metal artwork, and a manmade cave. Last we went to a gorgeous cafe to have lunch — the place had a beautiful property and a free art center, which Miriam took full advantage of!

We eventually arrived at our place called Khoom Kam Kaew, where every household has a lovely little cabin of their own. My sisters were generous enough to allow Miriam to stay in their cabin, which meant that Adam and I received the gift of some much needed down time from parenting.

Here’s another hide and seek tour of our cottage:

The afternoon was spent just getting settled, then we ate dinner on site at the restaurant. While eating, my mom’s brother, 2 sisters, and their families showed up. It was the first time we have ever ALL been together and it was incredible! We enjoyed a night of continuing to get to know one another, and since my mom had brought some photos of her childhood and growing up along, they spent time sharing stories and looking at all of them together.

We all went to bed around 8:00pm because my family was still dealing with jet lag, and well…that’s the just time we Cliffords start to fade on the regular. We also had BIG day planned for Saturday and we all needed to get some rest for it.

From here it could be a couple days before I post again. As I mentioned before, Saturday was a MASSIVE day that I’m still processing and it’s going to take some time for me to get it all down.