We made it to Seattle

And we are staying very close to the Microsoft campus in Redmond - here is a rented office outside our hotel.  Check out my new parka, too - stylin'!

Tomorrow I have new employee orientation (NEO) - should be fun!

Thanksgiving

We were able to get in one last holiday with the family - here we are with my parents.  We ate lots of good food, and had a great time!

BKK airport is currently closed

This is the airport we're set to fly into late next week.  Hopefully the situation will be resolved peacefully and without violence.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=132341

Hot pot

A couple nights ago we had hot pot with my brother and his wife.  Hot pot (the Chinese for it translates "fire pot" literally) is just about the greatest meal ever invented - you boil water in a wok, and then add different vegetables, meats, and tofus and let them all cook together.  You grab what's done out of the pot with chopsticks and dip in sauce.  As the night goes on the water in the pot becomes a succulent broth that you can drink along with the food.

A great meal to have with family and friends!

Snow has arrived in Madison!

Perhaps a bit sooner than we thought, snow accumulated overnight in Madison.  Forget a white Christmas - we're looking to have a white Thanksgiving this year!

We're pretty sure there won't be snow on the ground when we arrive in Bangkok.

Our old house

We were very fortunate to close on the sale of our house on 10/24/08, after just 21 days on the market.  The market for homes really is tough for sellers right now.  The fact that we backed up to a park probably made it happen - otherwise we might still be trying to sell it!

We'll miss our home, but it was a great place to live for the 9 years we had it.    

Always be prepared

Yeah, I was a Boy Scout - and the idea of always being prepared for what you might encounter has stuck with me.  Here are some of the books I've been reading to try and get ready for living in Thailand - I'm sure it's just scratching the surface, but hopefully getting my head around this material will help ease the transition.

Goodbye, Harold

Today I'm selling my car, Harold.  I've had my car for 10 years now, and it's been a great car.  It's a Chevy Prizm, and it doesn't even have 60,000 miles on it.  We're selling it to our neighbors, who plan to drive it past 250,000 miles, so it's good to know it's going to a good home.

My car is the last big thing we have to sell before we go - Sam already sold her car, we already closed on the sale of our house, and we've sold or gotten rid of all of our furniture and 95% of the rest of what we owned 6 months ago.  We won't have much stuff when we get to Bangkok, which will make it much easier to live in an apartment again.

Our niece Emma

We've been staying with my brother since we sold our house.  This has been very enjoyable, particularly since we get to spend so much time with our niece Emma.  She's almost one year old (she was a Christmas baby last year) and she's really starting to interact a lot with the world around her.  She particularly likes to chew on things since she's teething - as you can see from this picture, where she's very much having fun munching on a carrot.  She also had a great time chewing a pickle for the first time a couple days ago.  We'll miss seeing her so much!

Snow is coming to Madison

Yesterday it snowed a bit in Madison.  It likely won't be long before the serious snow comes to town.  Though we'll probably miss the change of seasons while we're in Bangkok, we have mixed feelings about the snow.  Sam, being from Taiwan, loves snow - it's a rare treat where she's from.  Chris, having been raised in Minneapolis, has seen quite enough snow to last him a lifetime, thank you very much, especially after the record-breaking 100" (!) of snow Madison had last year.  Either way, we should be leaving town before the snow starts really accumulating.

Barnum Family Picture

We took a Barnum family picture shortly before we left.  It has us, my parents, my brother and his wife, and their 1 year old daughter, Emma.  Isn't she adorable?

We're moving to Thailand!

We'll be moving to Thailand at the end of November 2008.  We are creating this blog so that our friends and family can keep track of us and our life in Bangkok.  Watch this space for our pictures and thoughts.