Cheapest birthday card you've every received!

Animal life at our house. First the dogs. Some days they bark away as if they would eat us, and other days they really don't care that we exist. Our gate is attached to this one so they see us every day and haunt us every night. Second: the tek kah. The spelling could be completely off. They are named that because they make that sound. You need to emphasize the second part. They are quite large and can be dangerous because they have a lock jaw. If they bite you the only option is to beat them until they die-otherwise you will never pry them loose. They are quite territorial and one lives in our neck of the woods. They are pretty neat to see. Third: the cockroach. We actually had a bigger one in last night but this one was caught on camera. And finally: our friendly neighbors the cows. Our neighbors gate is on the left and our gate is attached to that. There is some land for sale in case anyone wants to get some great property. In the rainy season you could even categorize it as lake front!

For those of you questioning the truthfulness of the updates...here is a road on the way to school. You may take note that the water continues all the way to the top of the picture. We drive all the way along the road. Thankfully this road has a little resting spot on the left hand side. The down side is that you do not know where any of the bumps are. So as you drive along you sink, rise, sink, and rise! This is why I wear flip flops to school each day and wash my feet on arrival.

Here is a view from on the seaworthy raft. The driver (pictured) pulled on the rope to steer the motor...I think...maybe he was afraid the motor would fall off.

These were our traveling buddies for the day on the island. This is Dan Hein (principal of Logos) and Jessica (wife of principal and 5th grade teacher). They decided to stay on the island for the night. We were pretty thankful because we needed to hop their "porch" for awhile to get out of the rain. The hut was $5.00 a night. Not bad. It comes with a mattress and a mosquito net.

This was the island that we were on. If you look closely at the sand you will notice it looks very uneven and rough. This is because it had just started to rain; the sky was dark (although the camera made it look quite a bit lighter) and the wind was blowing. The sand (normally very smooth) appears rough because the rain was coming down so hard. It was really neat to watch the storm as it came. I say neat because at that point we were out of the rickety boat!

This is Sihanoukville. The boat behind us is the one that took us out to the islands. I will admit there were mulitple times on the trip when I thought I would be swimming my way back to shore. We had about 15 people on that thing and boy did she wobble back and forth. Not recommended for those who have motion sickness! We went snorkeling and stayed on an island for a few hours. With lunch provided we had a great deal at 10 bucks a person! It was quite a bit of fun.

Ah...where do I start? This is Bud's pride and joy (you will notice mine in the background). I don't know if you can see the name on the side but her name is Deary. Poor Deary has been through A LOT this year. She was made in China which means she will break down within one year (that's what everyone tells us-including the strange men who sit on her while you are in the grocery store). However, we have a one year warranty on her so hopefully we will be okay. Bud purchased her on a Saturday and Monday morning she did not start. A whopping 12 kilometers were registered. At that point I was pretty worried but so far she has been a very faithful old girl. We have not found another Deary in all of Phnom Penh. Apparently no one else wanted the cheapest moto possible:) All this does not matter to Bud-he thinks she is invincible. You would believe me more if you saw the way he drives her! I am sure you can see his love in the first picture!

A common mode of transportation for those living in the province and working in the city. On the weekends you can see many of these trucks coming and going from Phnom Penh.

Our experience at the border was not your normal "Anything to declare?" sort of experience. First of all, everyone ignored us. We would stand in front of a booth with four men in it and they would all be reading ladies magazines. They would not look up or even acknowledge us. We would ask a question and they would grunt or point down the road. We had no idea what they meant. Finally one of the men put down his magazine for a moment to hand us the proper forms for filling out. He gave no explaination and we began filling them out. We stapled our passport pictures to the papers and handed them in. He looked through our passports and realized we did not have the stamp for Vietnam (how were we supposed to know-there were no signs!!). So we had to trudge the walk to the real Vietnam-pay some guys to write out our name on paper-turn around and check-out of Vietnam. Granted this MAY have taken 30 minutes to walk the road and such. We come back to Cambodia and I showed the government worker my stamped passport and asked for the documents we had just filled out. "They have been destroyed," he said. ARGGGGGHHH!!! We were the only people coming through for the day---why would he destroy them! Thankfully we had another picture; I took two of each because I have learned you can never be too prepared here:) So we filled it out and waiting for the officials to hand them back. Meanwhile, while we are sitting there we see people just walking right across the border. No one was stopping them or even questioning them! The picture above is one example. These people looked like they were moving but no border patrol batted an eye! They were obviously too busy ignoring the Westerners and reading their style magazines!!! As we have heard so many times...Welcome to Cambodia!

...and now we are back in Cambodia. Approximate time spent in Vietnam: 30 seconds (that's about how long it takes for a picture and a stamp on the old passport). Approximate travel time: 6.5 hours. Approximate cost: $25.00. And why did we need to do this: oh, yeah...the visas were not ready when we arrived so we needed to leave the country and come back. So for that little walk across the border we had to take a day off of school! We did experience something funny. The moment we stepped on to Vietnamese ground the area was cleaner! It was pretty amazing that you look behind you and see the dust and wandering people, but then you turn back to Vietnam and it was clean and landscaped. At that moment I wanted to stay much longer than 30 seconds!

Well folks...this is Vietnam.

Here are some little kids helping their dad with his work. A few moments after the picture the kids hopped on back just to get a ride. They thought getting their picture taken was the funniest thing (as you can tell). Laughter is certainly a universal language!

This is some of the countryside on the way to Vietnam. These people are surrounded by water in the middle of nowhere; they have this narrow strip of land that connects their property to the road. I think the water surrounding the house is a rice paddy. Some houses along the way had no connection to the land. The people would either wade through the water or hop in a little canoe. Since this is the rainy season most of the land on the roads looks like this-filled with water. Friends have told us that once the dry season comes the land will be completely brown and dry.

Here is Sophie playing one of her favorite games with Uncle Bud. It is called-Sort the colors of Uno and put them in a pile:) She comes over to play with our games (all cards that can be sorted by color); she is a pretty friendly neighbor. One day I walked out of my room and she was standing in the hall. She said "Hi Auntie Al!"and walked right passed me as though it was her house!