A year ago....

We awoke on the floor of an empty apartment.  Everything we had left in the world packed into suitcases and ready to move.  We had the Binder of Doom (Patent Pending) with all our paperwork and anything else that was needed for our entry to Thailand.

Breakfast was cereal from a huge ziplock bag for Kiddo while J and I scrounged for food and I think we got breakfast sandwiches from Starbucks.  

We played and ran in an empty apartment for a little while and killed time until out walkthrough with property management from the Avendia Las Brisas apartment.  The apartment that we were pregnant and brought Kiddo home too.  Her first and only home to this point.  

Keys exchanged we just needed to wait on our car that was going to ferry us to the Omni in Downtown LA so we could do a short staycation before the world would be turned upside down.

From there… Well, I’ve done my best to document that as best I can.  

Our adventure has brought us to the other side of the world from where we were born and lived our whole lives, into a culture and language that was completely foreign to us.  We’ve adapted and changed in this adventure, grown, bonded, and seen things from a changed perspective.  

We will never be the same.  We will always have this experience with us.  Even if we end up back in America in two more years, this will have changed us permanently.  

A year ago, I was the last of us to drive a car.  When I took J’s car to sell.  Those that know me know that I was always willing to drive.  Insistent in some cases.  Now, I hope to never drive a car again.  I have Grab and Bolt, I can navigate (mostly) with cabbies.  I have good public transit and a train system that I’m comfortable using.  J, less so with the train, but she might be better with the cabbies than I am.  

On Saturdays, sometimes, we could get to a Farmers Market and pick up some fresh produce and we have a farm to door service that we used to get produce and eggs as well.  Now, we go to the market daily and we spend in a month what we used to spend in a week at Farmer Markets and Farm to Door services, but in a given month, we have somewhere between 50-75 meals that we procure at the market; between the three of us.  Losing access to a fresh market is something that will be strange to us henceforth.

Massage was something that I got as a gift from J one year for my Bday.  Now, it’s something I can get once a week because of availability and cost.

I take my shoes off entering houses and apartments.

A year ago, we left our home.  Unsure.  Only to make a home.  A new start.  A rebeginning.  

And this is life.  For us, at least.  We are having a blast.  It’s been hard.  Bangkok has won a few times.  There have been frustrations and fights.  There have been tears, from all of us, as we face this challenge daily, but at the end of it, there’s always J and Kiddo and Dada there for hugs.  For kind words.  For encouragement and support.  

We don’t see this world as something to conquer or dominate, but as global citizens who watch as the world we live in flourishes and expands.  We look forward to seeing the other places in the world we will end up or go to as we continue our life adventure.  

A year ago, we had no idea what this would be, but excitement and anxiety were first and foremost.  Now, we wonder how we will live if we don’t have all these things that we’ve come to rely on daily.  

A year ago we looked ahead with wonder at how we would fair on this adventure.  Now, we live a life in a strange, wonderful, and beautiful place and we call it home.  It’s not a permanent home, but it’s our home.  It’s not the place, it’s the people.  And with J and Kiddo, I’ll always have a home.  Be it in Bangkok or any place else in the world.  

Before we left California, almost a year ago, I got a tattoo on my right calf commemorating my time in San Diego and the life I built with J there.  Before leaving Thailand I plan to honor our time here by adding to that tat.  Hopefully, a decade from now as Kiddo is finishing school and getting to Uni, I will have a whole leg covered in tattoos of the exotic and wonderful places we’ve called home… and that I can keep adding to that until I draw my last breathe.  

A year ago we started a new path with hope.  Today, we know that this is the path for us.

** Here are a mix of 130 pics and memories of the last year.  I left them jumbled.  Some are from us, but we've had multiple phones and numbers since this started, so that will cause some mixing.  Plus, between us both (J and Myself) and then Nannies Sa-Sa and Beer, the naming and organization gets a little weird and with 130 pics, I don't have the gumption to put them in chronological order.  Enjoy, regardless of that.  :)