The Highland Games

Each year, the Skagit Valley hosts the Highland Games, a festival put on by the Celtic Arts Foundation. Featuring various traditional games (such as stone throwing, hay tossing, etc.), bagpipe competitions, and clan pride, the kilts seem commonplace! If you are of Scottish or Irish heritage, you are likely to find a tent with your clan's name bannered proudly at the front. Vendors selling their wares are scattered throughout, but these aren't your usual fair vendors. Not only will you find curly fries and root beer floats, you'll find haggis and meat pies. Along with "I love Ireland" t-shirts, you'll see kilts, swords, daggers, celtic jewelry, and an array of traditional apparel. Quite intriguing!

Josh and I spent some time wandering around, observing some dancers and musicians, choking down some Haggis for the first time, and cheering on some of the athletes. And after several days of rain and thunderstorms, we were blessed with a beautiful blue sky. :-)  It was definitely a splendid day!

A Beauty To Behold

This afternoon was spent with friends at Deception Pass with Whidbey Coffee in hand. That's the way to go! Although...it makes climbing on rocks rather difficult when you only have one hand free. I only nearly fell to my death once....Not too bad. ;-)

It was absolutely spectacular!  Words cannot even express the beauty. I praise God for allowing me to behold His wondrous creation this afternoon.

Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Tigers!

Yesterday the adventure continued with an outing to Tiger Kingdom.  I've been looking forward to this for a while now, so it was quite exciting.  You are given four options of sizes to visit: Smallest, Small, Medium, Large.  You can choose which to be in the cage with, then they allow you to walk around to see the others.  From the outside of course. :-)

Pookie and I chose the smallest tigers.  Adorable little babies!! They ranged from 2-3 months old and were just so cute! They were so fun to cuddle with.  Of course, they had their little tempers, but they're in training stage. 

David Martin is here visiting for two weeks and he came with us.  He decided to visit the small tigers, which happened to not be so small!  At 11 months old, they were over six feet when standing on their hind legs!

I've spent today preparing to leave, and that's been very hard yet exciting at the same time.  I'm very happy to see my family and church again, but a piece of my heart is here now and I find it difficult to leave.  Lord willing I'll be back. 

Pookie was disappointed that I would be missing Songkran Festival, which takes place earlier in the year.  Songkran Festival is the water festival where the entire country douses each other in water for several days.  Ahhh!!  Talk about a water fight!! Well, I was coming out of my room earlier only to be greeted with a very large cup of water being thrown on me! A few minutes later, again as I was coming into the house. Should have been prepared that time! So, I guess you could say that we had our own mini-Songkran Festival here in the house. :-D

Tonight consists of dinner out and then my last Thai massage.  Perfect before a looooong time of traveling.  So, my readers, this is my last blogpost from Thailand.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about my adventures and I can assure you, they're not over yet!

Van drives uphill with no engine!

This was a fun experience on our recent trip!

Nearing The End

My time here in Thailand is drawing to a close. I have nine full days left and I know they will zap so quickly, before I know it I'll be on the long flight back. First, let me show you what we were able to do last week. I went with a few of the coworkers to a waterfall and it was so much fun! From the bottom it looked pretty piddly. But as we climbed higher....and higher..*gasp!* It was really beautiful. At one point, I got rather scared about jumping over rushing water from one slippery rock to another. But with the help of my trusty coworkers I made it across with no trouble and was rewarded by the beautiful view from the top.

Starting out at the bottom of the waterfall.

I don't know if you can see.....but Kaw is up high and Bro. A is down low. (Click to enlarge)

Climbing UP the waterfall!

Ok this is the part that I got scared....

Looking dooooowwn.....

Yes.....I can do this..I think...

Aaahhh!!!

Totally worth it to climb to the top!

If you enlarge you will see that Bro. Jeng Lang has lost his shoe. Hahaha!  He climbed down and surprisingly found it!

Kaw.....he was officially dubbed the Monkey. :-)

The Guys

So now....my time left is short, but it's not over yet. Much is planned and I hope to make the most of the time I have left.  It has been so nice to have the Gaudets back.  It's a blessing to be able to spend time with missionaries who have been on the field for over 30 years and to see a little what their lives are like.  If I've learned anything since I've been here it's how effective prayer is. We've seen Satan so obviously fighting in so many areas.  Prayer is such a powerful thing and through it we've seen the Lord do mighty things.  I can't WAIT to see what He has in store for the future.

Maesa Elephant Camp

Today I went with Pookie and Klo to visit Maesa Elephant Camp here in Chiang Mai.  Before I left I was told my someone.....ahem.....that I have to show a picture of me riding an elephant. So you know....I was just being the obedient daughter.  (Oops did I let the cat out of the bag?)

It was SUCH a fun time.  We weren't sure how things would go (or how the pictures would turn out) because it was raining.  Not pouring necessarily, just a steady drizzle.  Similar to what we get on Whidbey.  When we got there we still had about 45 minutes before the show started.  So we approached the pen of elephants after buying some sugar cane and bananas to feed. It was nice because people hadn't started gathering so we had them all to ourselves so to speak.  After a while the trainers mounted their rides (The elephants) and led them to the water to bathe before their big show.  It was hilarious to watch them roll around in the water and spray themselves (And us!). We hustled to the show so we could get front row seats. I'm so glad we did!! It was great to watch these intelligent creatures march in the elephant parade (some were playing harmonicas!!!), play soccer, play darts, play basketball, paint pictures, and do more tricks. Of course, they had to come greet all their fans after the show.  We were able to get pictures sitting on their knee. Nothing like having an elephant trunk draping over your shoulder!! :-D

Then Klo and I mounted our mighty steed and took a trek through the rainforest.  That sounds pretty dramatic, but hey, it was so fun! It was a rather bumpy ride and more than once I was clutching the bar in front of me.  It was so cool to be atop such a large creature!  All in all, I think it was a pretty memorable day and I'm glad I could share it with friends.  Here are a few pictures, but it would take so much space to put them all on here.  So at the bottom you will see a link to view more pictures.


Feeding the little guy.

Klo, myself and Pookie

Riding the elephant!!

Ahhh!!!! They are so strong!

Hahaha...cute.

A little basketball?

This painting went for 6,000 baht.  That's roughly $200!

Sitting on the elephant's lap. :-)

Riding....

For more pictures go to

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