Monroe Sherwood News: January 2014

It was truly a dream to be able to travel all the way to beautiful Thailand for the Christmas holiday. The even cooler part of this adventure is that we were able to meet up with our dear friends, and next door neighbors in St. Paul, Dan, Ericka, and Xochitl, who are currently living and teaching in Shanghai, China...who would have ever thought, when we moved into the neighborhood 10 years ago, we'd embark on adventures like these with our Congress Street counter parts. As usual, Xochitl, Jay, and Adam picked right up where they left off :). We started in Bangkok for a couple of nights and really enjoyed the grand palace, fantastic street food, friendly people, and moments for giving thanks. Those moments had to do with innocent children and babies out on the street at night begging for food. Needless to say, we had some good discussions and moments serious reflection.

On a lighter note, Koh Samui was gorgeous, we relaxed until the cows came home, Santa found us, kids never wanted to leave, and elephants had us all enamored. Jay and his elephant, tai kel, really seemed to have a connection and Jay never wanted to leave. We will never forget this amazing experience and are now on grandma and grandpa alert as we wait for my mom and dad to arrive on the 20th of January. Believe it or not, after 18 days off for Xmas we are at the end of term one in 10 days and will have two weeks off to fully enjoy our time with them and show them around Doha. I just hope they can handle the driving insanity and me at the wheel :)