Thailand - Day 3 - Temple of the Golden Mount

On our second full day in Thailand Casey and I decided to go visit some temples. Not realizing that there was a tour service in the hotel, we decided to ask at the transportation desk for a taxi to the temples. We thought we would taxi everywhere, but instead we hired a driver for the day. Our driver, Ali, met us out front so that we could start our adventure.

Let me just add, that the car that Ali drove was a very expensive black sedan (similar to a Lexus). Casey and I felt a little pampered as the day was very hot and we were driving around in nice air conditioning.

Our first stop of the day was the Temple of the Golden Mount or Wat Saket. Ali dropped us off at the bottom and said he would meet us when we returned. Casey and I started climbing.
I just read that there are 318 steps to the top cupola. Casey and I walked all the way up and then done.

All along we would stop and look at little shrines and things tucked into the hillside. At the top, we removed our shoes and went all the way to the top. We found it interesting to look out over the skyline and see temples intermingled with skyscrapers. One picture shows in the distance what looks like some winged creature ready to take flight. The views of Bangkok were incredible if a little bit smoggy.
I just read on the linked page that this was a dumping ground for thousands of plague victims. It was a good thing I didn't know this ahead of time!

Next up - a riverboat ride to the Temple Wat Arun.

Happy Birthday Dad

Still missing you every single day.

Thailand Day 2

After a pretty sound sleep, I was up around 7 am. I decided to get ready for the day and then head downstairs to see if Casey's suitcase arrived. It did and she was pretty happy.

After a wonderful buffet breakfast that included rice and chicken and traditional breakfast foods, we headed out to find Chulalongkorn. We found our way to the BTS (elevated train) and bought day long passes. We got off at Siam Square and started walking in what we guessed was the direction of Chula. There were a few people who were very helpful with directions and who enjoyed talking English with us. We did find the bookstore and the engineering school but didn't accomplish getting uniforms at that time.


There was an open air market on campus that we wandered through and then headed back to Siam Square. We were able to cross off getting her a cell phone which was very important. After a pretty exciting morning running errands around Bangkok, we headed back to the hotel for a wonderful lunch with all kinds of Thai food. After lunch we walked back to the skytrain and headed to Sumaviant - a more English neighborhood where we went to the Emporium (a hip shopping area) and this small but beautiful park. We did a lot of walking, but it was quite enjoyable. One thing that I noticed was the motorbikes that would worm their way through traffic to get to the front of the traffic stopped for a light. When the light turned green all of the bikes would speed off - just like the start of a motocross race. It was pretty cool except for when I would see small children riding without helmets.

Exhausted we went back to the hotel, swam for a while in the very cold water and had dinner at a little shop within the hotel.

Thailand Trip Day 1

December 27 - Up at 4:30 am this morning to leave for JFK at 5 am. I came downstairs to find Casey, Casey2, and Greg all sprawled around the family room watching TV. Casey had decided that the best thing for her would be to stay up all night long and then she could sleep on the plane. Casey2 came over after work to join her and Greg stayed up as well. We got to JFK around 7:15 am and had plenty of time before our flight at 9:15. Our flight ended up leaving around 10 am and we settled in for our 16 hour flight to Hong Kong. I hoped to sleep some of the way but ended up not being able to sleep more than about an hour.

The airlines, Cathay Pacific, was quite comfortable for such a long flight, but going business class would have been much better. Anyways, they had lots of entertainment in the form of movies, music, etc. on the inflight tvs. I watched Mamma Mia, Get Smart, The Holiday, Ghost Town, Sex and the City episodes, Frasier, 24 and probably other stuff as well. I think Casey slept more than I did, but not much more.

It was pretty cool when we flew over the North Pole. It was pitch black outside with just a little bit of light along the horizon. We landed in a bit of fog in Hong Kong and didn't get to see how beautiful that part of it was. I took pictures during my 5 hour layover on the way home from Thailand because it was so beautiful.


December 28 - We finally arrived in Bangkok around 6 pm at night. We went through immigration and then gathered our luggage. Unfortunately one of Casey's bags did not make the flight from Hong Kong. Casey had to go through the paperwork of locating her bag and letting them know where to send it when it arrived on a later flight. We were so exhausted by this time and starting to get irritable.

Finally done, we met up with the transfer agent and were loaded into a car to go to the Siam Hotel. The hotel was beautiful and very accommodating about getting our suitcase when it arrived later that night. We made a quick phone call to Larry to let him know that we had made it safely, showered, and then went to bed at 9 pm. We were both so glad to be in our beds.

Casey's Thailand Adventures

The link to Casey's Thailand blog is on the right and here.

Back from Bangkok

After a wonderful 10 day vacation and a long (28 hours) day of travel, I am home from Thailand. I was so lucky to have this opportunity to go there and really enjoyed my time visiting Bangkok with Casey. We kept pretty busy and the time just seemed to fly past. I will post more over the next few weeks, but some of the highlights included visiting the Night Market with a slew of sellers and bartering, a tuk tuk ride, a trip to an elephant and crocodile farm, riding an elephant at said farm, going to the temple Wat Arum and the temple of the Emerald Buddha, taking a riverboat ride, and much more. It was a very different culture that I am used to, but I have to say that the Thai people were very kind.


The Thai food was very good and with only a few exceptions wasn't too spicy. Here's a hint, avoid the papaya salad.

Merry Christmas

24 Days Til Christmas

And we are off to get our Christmas tree. Every year, the tradition has been to go on the Friday after Thanksgiving to Holiday Farm and cut our own tree. However, Casey had to work both Friday and Saturday so we were left with Sunday to get the tree. We woke up to light snow and then sleet, but we decided to go anyways. Casey2 was home visiting and over early that morning. She ended up going with us. Erin pointed us to a faraway field that had a great selection of trees so off we went. For some reason they all started running.




We only got about one third of the way to our destination when we spotted the perfect tree. It was put on the cart and brought back down to the farm. It is now proudly standing in our family room beautifully decorated.

Today, Casey and I visited Neshaminy Manor nursing home with Wrapping Presence. It was a wonderful experience as always and I am so thankful to be a part of this wonderful organization. My shoppers (Evelyn, Jean, Pat, and Denise) were wonderful and I was pleased to help them "shop" for their loved ones.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Well this year we are not holding to our tradition of getting the Christmas tree on Friday after Thanksgiving. We couldn't go because Casey had to work that day. She is working at a jewelry store in New Hope and had to work both Friday and Saturday. So the plan is now to get our tree tomorrow (Sunday). We did however get out the decorations and I decorated the dining room, the family room mantel, and the front hall.

I love this hall table decor. The tree decorations are all my Mom's. She loved decorating her tree in all Christmas plaid. She gave me these decorations and every year, the hall table is decorated in all plaid. I have her bears that are dressed in plaid clothing and all of the decorations are plaid. This tree makes me smile every time I walk past it. As you can see, Kitty loves it too (she's sitting on the landing in the background).

Richie Havens Concert

Last night we went to see Richie Havens at the Sellersville Theatre. What an awesome night it was. That was my first ever Richie Havens concert and I was blown away. The opening act was pretty good and the guy played a 21 string guitar. Once Richie took the stage, the crowd went wild. I had no idea what to expect as I had only seen pictures of him and listened to one or two songs of his. He was incredible. I had a number of favorites and will be downloading some of them to my ipod in the next few days (after checking what Casey and Greg have on theirs).

Afterwards, because it is a very small venue, Richie would be signing autographs after the show. Larry had brought 2 record albums for him to sign so we got in line. We only had to wait about 20 minutes before the 4 of us got to meet Richie. He was a wonderful person. He took time to speak with all of us, told us a story about the album cover for Stonehenge and how they had to sneak up to it in tall grass to take the picture, and shook all of our hands a number of times. We thanked him and before we left he gave Greg a big hug. It was a night I will never forget and I have the ticket that Richie signed "To Joan, friends forever, Richie Havens". It was actually pretty funny because Larry had the albums signed (one for Greg and one for Casey), then Richie looked at me and asked if I had anything. I said no and he said "how about your ticket". I fished it out of my pocket and he signed it. Casey had him sign her ticket for Larry.

High School Junior

He's Growing Up So Fast

He's 16, 6' tall, and looking at colleges and careers. Where did my little boy go?
Last Sunday was his last baseball game. He started playing at 5 years old and has now aged out of Flemington baseball. He will probably play for fun in college, but since he plays tennis in the spring, he never plays on the school team. His team this past year was coached by Mark again and what an awesome coach. The team lost their first game by 10 runs and didn't lose another game all season. All but 2 of their wins were by 10 runs or more. Talk about a great team.

At the end of the last game Greg was given the game ball and lots of praises by his coach. His coach also asked Greg to be his assistant coach next year. What a way to finish his baseball career.



It was a lot of fun going to his fall baseball games and I was happy that Casey was able to attend a few of them. She was very happy to pose for a few pictures.

Love These Two

Casey's 20th Birthday


Greg, all almost 6' of him

Wow Where Has the Time Gone?

Yes, I have been a very bad blogger. Work, school and definitely family keeps me quite busy. It's a good busy though and I am not complaining.

As always, September and October are difficult months for me as I remember losing both my mother and father. It's been 5 years but still seems like just yesterday. I keep planning to do more with the family history, but it just doesn't seem like it gets done. I know that I need to make it a priority and I will.

More pictures to come soon and a continuation of our trip to London and Paris. I have to get that done before I leave for Thailand in December.

Another Long Interval

I have the best intentions of updating my blog, but time just slips away from me. I still have a few more days of Paris travel journeys to cover, but today I thought I would include pictures from my recent visit to the US Open.

This was Greg's birthday present this year - a trip to the US Open and it was quite a lot of fun for both of us. The weather was hot, but not overly hot. Just full sun with a bit of a cool breeze all day long. We met the chartered bus at our tennis club and enjoyed a non-eventful ride to NYC. We got to the tournament before 10:30 am which was awesome because we got to go see some of the players practicing before the start of the matches.

We saw Venus Williams warming up on the practice courts, French players Mahut and Batteau, Iva Karlovic (all 6' 10" of him serving a record 42 aces in his match), Anna Groenfield, Daniel Nestor, Warwinko, Guy Montfils, and more. We hated leaving at 7:30 because we were very interested in the Daniel Nestor and his partners' doubles match (they are seeded No. 1).

During the Mahut and Batteau doubles match with Frognini and Lapenti, I was sitting in front of Lapenti's parents throughout the entire match. When I sat down at one of the outer courts to watch Anna Groenfield, I ended up sitting next to her father. Then I went to another match and sat next to another player parent as well. This is the neat thing about having a grounds pass. You can wander in and out of matches all day long and see some very good tennis.

Paris - Day 2

Late in the morning we headed to Versailles for a tour. This was our first glimpse of the labor woes in France. Apparently, whenever the workers decide they want a break, they go on strike. They happen to do this often during tourist season. Lucky for us (not), we were there over the spring break holiday and of course, the workers decided to go on strike. For a country that has fewer working hours than us, this was hard to fathom.

We ended up walking around the grounds of Versailles while our tour guide wrangled her way to get us into the buildings when they reopened. The lines were SOOOOOOOO long and she didn't want us to have to wait in line. The grounds were quite beautiful but it was bitterly cold and windy so we didn't stay out too long.

We finally got to go into Versailles and it was unbelievable how opulent everything was. In the Red Room, Mozart played at age 8. The Hall of Mirrors has been shown in various movies. Learning that the royalty weren't very clean and only bathed once or twice a year, disgusted me. It was very crowded but definitely worth the trip. It was amazing to look out from the various rooms and see the beautiful gardens.

My "bucket list"

I haven't seen the movie "The Bucket List", but I did decide to put together a list of 50 things that I would like to accomplish by the time I am 50. Unfortunately, this list changes a little bit every once in awhile and I guess by posting it on my blog, I am committing it "to paper" so that I don't change it. So here goes the list:

1. Lose 50 pounds
2. Get involved in my community (i.e. church, animal shelter, environment, local harvest)
3. Buy a colorful summer bag and use it to add more color to my life.
4. Write a business plan for a virtual assistant business or some other home-based business (i.e. web design)
5. Put together cookbooks for Casey and Greg with family favorites and stories.
6. Ride in a convertible
7. Get something published - scrapbook page or recipe
8. Finish another quilt
9. Learn to knit and make a pair of socks
10. Start digital scrapbooking
11. Finish Casey and Greg's school scrapbooks
12. Make sure that Grandma has a headstone/grave marker
13. Visit someplace in the United States that I have never been to - done 7/1/08 Dearborn Michigan
14. Take a photography course
15. Learn ASP.net
16. Declutter house by using Freecycle (stop hanging on to things for sentimental reasons only)
17. Learn to meditate
18. Splurge on something decadent
19. Get back in touch with Nancy, Kathy, and Chris
20. Make bagels from scratch - 1st attempt July 2008
21. Paint something bright red
22. Screen porch cleanup - new cushions and table settings
23. Utilize screen porch more often
24. Read all of Genesis in the Bible
25. Read Rebecca
26. Read at least 10 "classics"
27. Organize all family history papers
28. Start a family history blog and keep it up-to-date
29. Create a "Shutterfly" book with family history notes and pictures
30. Get some type of Microsoft certification (Word, XP, or something else)
31. Try a food I haven't had before
32. Write a letter to Casey
33. Write a letter to Greg
34. Make a new cushion for kitchen window seat
35. Organize all money saving ways into a blog, website, or booklet form.
36. Document more of the everyday
37. Become proficient at Photoshop (check out all of the free tutorials on-line)
38. Do all BPS classes that I have signed up for - all projects!!
39. Give my bedroom a facelift
40. Go through all of Mom and Dad's recipe books and try recipes - add to family cookbooks
41. Take Greg to the US Open
42. Get back into tennis - join a league or lessons
43. Go to a Broadway show - NY or Philadelphia
44. Get up to Maine again
45. Trip out to Lancaster to visit quilt shops - inspiration trip
46. Put together Christmas book of recipes and traditions
47. Do something positive for the environment; make a difference.
48. Create a bigger garden and eat more food that is produced locally.
49. Visit another country - done March 2008 France and England
50. DON'T BE AFRAID TO TRY SOMETHING NEW - STEP OUT OF THE ORDINARY

Day 2 in Paris

Day 2 in Paris began with a hearty breakfast in our hotel. I have to say that the hotel we stayed in was very nice. It was clean, modern, and seemed to cater to a higher income traveler. Larry found out later that rooms at that hotel ran around $400 a night. Our first stop was at the Eiffel Tower. We had gone to the top of the tower the day before and this time we stopped along the backside of it and looked at a monument that was near the base.


Off we went on the bus to our next stop which was the Invalides. The Invalides was begun in 1671 and is most famous for being the burial place of Napolean. His body was returned to Paris 19 years after his death and is buried in a crypt below the golden dome.

Our next stop was the Assemblee Nationale where we viewed statues in front of it. It was interesting that the statues in front of the building are all surrounded by little spikes to keep people from defacing the statues.

Next up was Notre Dame Cathedral. Notre Dame was very beautiful. Especially beautiful were the 3 Rose windows. The South Rose window (pictured) is dedicated to the New Testament and was a gift from King Saint Louis. "It has eighty-four panes divided into four circles. The first one has twelve medallions and the second has twenty-four. A third circle is made up of quadrilobes, and the fourth circle has twenty-four trilobes medallions. This window features the symbolic number four, along with its multiples, twelve and twenty-four." Being in the cathedral was such a beautiful experience. The only thing that marred the visit was all of the warnings we received prior to visiting it about the abundance of pickpockets there. Luckily we didn't encounter this.


We spent about 2 hours exploring Notre Dame and then boarded the bus to head to Versailles. This last picture is the back of the Louvre which we would be visiting another day. We also went by the square where Marie Antoinette was beheaded.

Up next, our visit to Versailles and how irritated we all were because the French workers decided to go on strike that day. Apparently it happens all the time during the tourist season.

Day 1 in Paris

Up at the horrible time of 4:00 am this morning to catch the ferry to Calais. There was some confusion with the tour operator about the time and there were many sleepy people in the lobby waiting around. The bus didn't leave the hotel until 6:30 am for the drive to Dover and the ferry. It was pretty to see the White Cliffs of Dover (and yes they were white).

Thanks to our bus driver, we were able to skirt around the immigration check, however, it irritated us that we didn't get our passports stamped. So, we have been to France, but our passports don't indicate this. Anyways, the ferry was huge and we were able to have a very nice breakfast on board (Casey wasn't feeling all that great so she didn't enjoy it - probably being up so early didn't help). All in all it was only about a 90 minute ferry ride to Calais. Upon arrival, we boarded another bus and headed to Paris. This was a lot longer of a ride (3 hours), but we saw some beautiful countryside and had a chance to catch up on some sleep.

Our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. We took the elevator to the second level and realized that it was FREEZING up there. The views were incredible from every side of the tower, but boy was it COLD. After much walking around the 2nd level (way near the top) we headed down. Not on the elevator, but rather walking down the flights of steps. Did I mention it was cold? Not only was it cold, but it was sleeting on us as we walked and walked and walked and walked. I really didn't mind the walk because we just sat on a bus for 3 hours and the walking felt good.

The next stop was our hotel (Novatel - the red building in the picture). It was near the Eiffel Tower and very clean. The rooms were fairly small, but we could see the Seine River from our window.

After a short rest, we decided to walk around Paris. We walked across the Seine and viewed the Eiffel Tower from the other bank. We walked up Kleber Avenue and saw the Arc de Triumphe at night. There was traffic everywhere and lots of scooters and smart cars. We strolled down the Champs de Elysse and had a light dinner at a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. The food was very good and the atmosphere quite enjoyable. Finally we headed to the hotel walking past the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night. We were exhausted from a long, long day and lots of walking. But it felt good and we all slept soundly that night.

It's Been Awhile

Can't believe that I haven't updated since May. Casey has been home and is now back to school for the summer term. Greg finished his school year and turned 16 on Friday. We are into the summer laid back feeling. Unfortunately, I still have to drag myself out of bed to work everyday - no summer relaxation for me. I am heading out to Ohio next week for a nice family visit.

Found a couple of money saving sites that I have been doing regularly and making some money. The first one is wellness360. I started doing this last weekend and already have $19 in my account. The premise is that it is a website where you can track your health. There is a place to keep a food journal, schedule exercise, and track your progress. There are also articles with information to read. Basically you earn points for doing these things on the website. These points translate into money. If interested go to the website and enroll. I get points for you signing up and so do you when you sign someone up. Click here for going to the signup page.

Another very successful site for me is MyPoints. I have already received many gift cards just for reading emails and doing short surveys. The best thing is that the points accumulate pretty quickly when reading the emails. There are also other ways to earn points - shopping through the site, using the MyPoints Visa, using the MyPoints search bar. You can just visit the site to sign up or leave a comment with your email address and I will send you an email invite. I have been doing this for about 8 months now and have earned the following $25 Staples gift card, $25 Target gift card, $5 Starbucks (2), $5 Regal Cinema (2), and $50 Staples gift card.

I have a bunch of other little sites that I sometimes frequent that are earning me money and will keep you posted as to the success of those.

Up next-more of my travel diary.