Who's Going to Be the Adult?

On the day that Isaac and I got married I had an interesting conversation with my dad about the future. He pointed out, as many other people have, that Isaac and I are very alike. I acknowledged that Isaac and I do, indeed, have very similar personalities. We have a lot in common. Then my dad said this: "Yeah but who's going to be the ADULT?!"

Well, I didn't have the answer to that question on my wedding day but my dad will be happy to know that I think I finally figured it out!

On Wednesday we had a wonderful, mature, house-warming party in honor of our newly decorated and painted grown-up home. One of our friends forgot his camera here and Isaac, being a responsible and reasonable adult, did the responsible, reasonable, adult thing to do. He took a picture of his naked butt on the camera for our friend to enjoy looking at when we returned his camera to him.

I asked Isaac how he came up with such a grown-up idea and he went on to tell me that he had taken hundreds, nay thousands of photos of his naked rear on peoples' cameras all over the world. His butt has adorned refrigerators, mantle pieces, and classy bathroom stalls all over this great earth.

When I listened to my husband tell me of the vast amount of people who have seen and celebrated his sweet cheeks, I knew I finally had the answer to my father's question.

Who IS going to be the adult?

Obviously the answer is....................................

NO ONE! If acting like an adult means not taking pictures of your naked butt for family and friends to enjoy then we will NEVER be adults!

So, there you go father! Now you can breathe a little easier knowing that your eldset daughter and son-in-law finally have it all figured out! And we've only been married 5 months! We're awesome at marriage wisdom! If there was an olympic sport for being married, we'd win the gold!

Must be Christmas

When you live in a Buddhist country that stays about 90 degrees or higher year round, it can be tough to get in the Christmas frame of mind. So Becky and I, celebrating our first Christmas as husband and wife figured we needed to get some decorations up. What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ than, as Frank Peterson would say, with a pagan symbol...the Christmas Tree! We had fun decorating and thought we would share some pictures.

Yes Mom, Becky feeds me, I just don't gain weight. So sad.

After getting some pictures on the wall and some paint up, we/Becky decided we needed to invite people over to partake in the awesomeness that is our home. Soooooo, we had a housewarming after the school sponsored party on Wednesday. It was perfect because the school gave out free booze and food so we didn't have to have much of either! See pictures below of guests during the white elephant exchange. I gave the PIMP watch.

Becky modeling our winnings. An awesome bag and a Jamaican dancing woman with a blunt in her mouth that dances to Row Row Row Your Boat. As Becky would say, "Raaaandom".

Hope all is well. Happy Holidays.

Isaac and Becky

Sarah Paintin: Going Rouge

Actually, I would say we went with more of a deep red. After months of doing little to make our house a home, Becky and I have decided to get our decoratin' on. We hired a guy to come and paint our house last weekend. What started out as one dude slowly morphed into four guys and a girl (and a pizza place). While it was not the best paint job I've ever seen, it was well worth the 60 bucks we paid! We thought our dedicated viewing audience, both of you, would like to see our "new" house.

BEFORE

AFTER

Wine and Cheese

Taking a note from the Korea book, Becky and I along with our friends Kirk and Julie decided to import a wine tasting/judging and cheese party. The idea is that everyone brings two bottles of the same wine. Everybody samples each disguised bottle and rates them. The person who brings the wine with the best rating wins all the second bottles of wine.

Of course, part of the fun of an event like this is the dress up. I decided to break out the ascot. I liked it so much, I think I may just try to bring it back. My friend Ryan said that I would bring the ascot back to prominence the same year the Aggies win a football national conference. I was going to tell him to shut up, but he went to Cal and I am pretty sure I can't talk smack for a few more years due to the beating we took from them in the Holiday Bowl in 2005. Dang it. Becky looked stunning in her bridesmaids dress from Katie and Scott's wedding. Getting our moneys worth!

Becky and I selected a nice Argentinian wine that we had with dinner one night because we thought it was nice. We also bought some Carefour (think WalMart) brand cheap sparkling white wine as kind of a joke, hoping to pull the upset. I am happy to report that the cheap walmart wine came in two spots from the bottom...right ahead of the other wine we bought. Thats right friends, we didn't get last place, and we are proud of that. Next to last is still not last. That is the message we try to instill in our kids at school. Strive for not last.

Sigh, there's always next year.

Isaac

"DON'T YOU DARE!"

In what has become a weekly occurrence, I present you with a fun little video that is absolutely not an exaggeration. Here is the scenario, and remember, although this is one isolated night, it could easily be any day of the week. I was laying in bed about to pass out when I hear a shriek from the class room.
"What's wrong?"
"The biggest cockroach I have ever seen is in the bathroom!"
At this point, I am thinking, 'It's only big because you never lived in Texas'.
"Isaac, come and kill it."
I ask if it is within distance of my reach. It's not, so being the good husband that I am , I tell Becky I am not going to be able to help her.

After some rumbling around, I hear a "Bam" followed almost simultaneously by "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

At this point I am awake and laughing and going for my camera. Like I said, there have been numerous occasions like this one and I have kicked myself in the past for not getting it on camera. I was not going to miss it this time.

Now I will leave the rest up to you. Watch and enjoy.




After I finished off the roach and got into bed, Becky said to me, "I didn't like it when you flung the roach at me." Through chuckling I said, "I have no regrets."
"What if it would have hit me?" she asked.
"Well, I guess it would be tough at first, but I guess I would have to move on and maybe even remarry in time."

She didn't like that and let me know that she knew it wouldn't kill her. Needless to say, I found this entire event VERY humorous. I hope you enjoy.

Also, did you notice the newest addition to the Currey family? It's Danni! We adopted her from a animal shelter here in Bangkok. She is awesome. Dog personality in the independent form of a cat. To Matt: think Boomer!


OK, Gig 'em Aggies.

Isaac

Let's get Currey'ed away! To Laos!

Well, it’s that time again! Time to hear about another exciting Currey adventure! You probably thought that our trips couldn’t get any more amazing but you would be wrong!

Last week we ended our first quarter and had our first week-long break of the year. Isaac and I decided to go to a country that no one REALLY knows how to pronounce: Laos. Whether you pronounce the “s” or not, Laos is fantasmic!

Laos truly was a really cool place to visit, but first let me tell you that getting there was half the fun! And by fun, I mean on of the worst experiences of our lives.

Isaac and I like to think of ourselves as very smart, and practical travelers (aka cheap). Now there ARE flights to Laos from Thailand. It only takes about 2 hours to fly there, in fact. BUT, as frugal as we are, we decided to save a couple hundred dollars to experience TRUE Thai travel. We took the night train and a bus. After all, how bad could it be?

Our trip kicked off to a good start. The cab driver decided to take a “short cut” to the train station and added an hour to the trip. Then, we got onto our night train and waited in our seats until we left about an hour and a half late. We had a delicious dinner of Pringles and peanuts. We had a 2nd class sleeper car which meant we had bunk bed deals in one big car.

We were supposed to get into Nong Khai (the border crossing between Laos and Thailand) at about 8:30 but woke up to a conductor saying “machine broken, 6 hours late! You can sleep!” As good as sleeping sounded, we were pretty upset that we weren’t going to arrive until 2 pm (actually it was 3p.m.) because our bus was supposed to leave in the morning.

After we got off the train, we had to buy vises and get carted around until we ended up in Vientienne at 5 pm. We missed the last bus to Luang Prbang (our final destination ) so we had to stay the night in Vientienne.

The next morning, we woke up at 6 and went to the bus station to catch the “VIP” bus. The next 9 hours were anything BUT VIP! Picture riding thought winding mountain roads with your knees pinned against the seat in front of you and the constant smell of urine wafting from the bathroom below.

The journey was pretty rough but when we finally got to Luang Prabang it was worth the trip! We stayed in this great place with a bungalow facing the river. Each morning we had breakfast delivered to our balcony outside facing the river. We spent most days relaxing, playing skip-bo (with some friends who joined us later) and riding bicycles around town.

Laos was once colonized by the French so it looks like buildings are European and there are a lot of road-side stands selling baguetters. Overall, the trip was really relaxing. We went to a really cool waterfall, saw some monks getting food, and took a boat trip down the river. Good times.

I just like this picture.

I think that kid in the circle is my long lost brother.

Check out the lady all up in the faces of the monks.

Too bad all of the relaxation was cancelled out by our return trip back to Thailand.

We thought getting back to Thailand couldn't POSSIBLY be as bad as getting there. We were wrong!

This time we made it to the bus station on time. There was even a bit more leg room! It was a good sign. Then we realized that we were in the back of the bus where you can feel EVERY bump and curve to the extreme! It was like those terrible carnival rides where there’s no rush or fun, just the feeling that you want to throw up. At least with carnival rides, they only last a few minutes. This was 9 hours! There wa no air-con bt after a while we were covered in sweat so that was a little refreshing.

The bus arrived in Vientiene about an hour and a half late, and after another crazy trip through customs, we got to the train station 30 min after our train was schedule to leave. I told Isaac not to worry because Trains in Thailand NEVER leave on time. Seriously, we’ve always been told not even to arrive at the station until the scheduled departure time because the train will leave at least an hour late. As luck would have it, our sleep train WAS THE FIRST THAI TRAIN IN THE HISTORY OF TIME TO LEAVE ON TIME! So we missed it.

Isaac convinced this dude at the station to give us free tickets to the only other train leaving that night for Bangkok. It was a 3RD class train leaving in 15 minutes and we gladly took it. The train had bench seats about 2 feet across. We had to get up and move to different seats 3 times throughout the trip. The train was so full that Isaac and I had to share one of those little seats all night This time, our dinner was peanuts, Pringles, and about 500 bugs that flew into our mouths from the open window we were next to. Miraculously, we did manage to fall asleep. At one point, I woke up in the middle of the night to see a cockroach scurry across the window next to my face.

We got home and tried to forget the whole thing happened. It didn’t work. I suppose that we should be thankful that we have enough money and time to travel at all and we should think about how many Thai people travel like that all the time. We learned a few valuable lessons on our trip. Here are the top five:

5. Baguettes CAN be eaten for every meal
4. Condensed milk doesn’t make EVERYTHING taste good
3. No matter how mature you think you are, it is not possible to be a gracious loser at Skip-bo
2. Putting dead animals in whiskey bottles does NOT make you want to drink more.
1. When given the choice ALWAYS FLY!

Culture Week:
Before we left for break Isaac and I got “roped” into being a part of a teacher talent show during our school’s culture week. We showcased American culture by doing a line dance routine. Isaac and I were supposed to do something creative for part of the dance so I hog-tied him and left him in the middle of the stage while the rest of the teachers danced around him(we didn't let them in on what we were going to do). It was really entertaining. The best part of the show is when our PRINCIPAL said: “Now I know why Isaac married you.” I said: “Because I look good in jeans?” And he said: “No, S & M”. Classy.

Catching Up

From Khao Yai

I always do this. I wait to post stuff cause I am tired, and then there is just too much stuff to write about. We last left off with a return to Thailand from the USA about a month ago. Well, we (Becky) decided that a great way to recover from our trip would be to drive to the mountains of Khao Yai national park about three hours Northeast of Bangkok. I admit, I also thought this would be a nice relaxing trip...and it was, compared to a weekend in Hell.

I kid, I kid.

Mostly.

If you did a google search of Khao Yai national park, you would see pictures of monkeys and elephants and waterfalls and hornbills! Sounds exciting. I was indeed, very excited. We headed out right after school on Friday in some brand new rentals (there were 12 of us total). Three hours later we were in some awesome fresh air. (Bangkok is not known for its cleanliness). It didn't take long to encounter our first wildlife.

Khao Yai is the region of Thailand where they (feebly) grow wine grapes, so there are all these vineyards. Its actually quite nice, even if the wine is subpar. So we go to this first restaurant, and its really cool and during dinner, one of the girls says, "Oh look, a humming bird," pointing to a "hummingbird". As the "hummingbird" draws nearer to our table, the squeals of excitement slowly crescendoed into screeches of terror as we all begin to realize that the "hummingbird" is in fact a giant beetle. Check out the picture of this mug when it landed on the table.

The rest of the dining experience was OK. They had a vineyard out back, which I thought was cool.

The next morning Becky and I decided to join seven other people for a trek through the rain forest of Khoa Yai. You might be thinking, that sounds really cool! I was thinking the same. You might also be wondering, how much does a guide for something like that cost. The answer my friends is ZERO! "How could that possibly be?" you are now most definitely asking. Simple, why would be want to spend five dollars on a guide when we could rely on our friends who have been here many times and could lead us.

From Khao Yai

Any idea how this one turned out? Correct. We got lost. Turns out, a hike through a rain forest on a trail you mark with "that one big bush" and "do you see that funny looking tree" during rainy season is a bad idea. So yes, we got lost but we were still having fun. Look how happy we look at this big 'ol tree.

Pretty much immediately after this picture, the skies opened up and unleashed its fury upon us. I think now is time to tell you about the other wildlife that we encountered on our trip. Let me flash back to getting ready for the trek. See the picture below.

Do you see those silly looking things. Those are leech socks. See how happy I am to be wearing them. That happiness did not last long. At the begging of our hike, these little suckers (punny) were not too bad. They were getting on us but only a few at a time. Well, as soon as it started raining, these things were everywhere. The girls on the trek were losing it. I think I may still have a few marks where these things leached on. And no, I did not have a Stand By Me moment. I think Becky would have been jealous of the leach...hi five! Actually, Becky did get a leach near her fun zone, but nothing too sketchy.

From Khao Yai

From Khao Yai

I could go on and on about the rediculousness of being lost in the forest with a group of people. I think there was genuine fear among some of us (not me...Eagle Scout). I think I heard one person say that we should eat them if they were the first to die. Slight overreactions. It got to the point where I was like, OK, I am going to lead us out the way we came in.

About this time, someone was on the phone with the park service and they were trying to tell them where we were... "There is a tree, and, uh, some mud, and uh, hmmm, a river."

Well, eventually (5 hours later) we followed the sound of motorbikes and found our way out. We all had like 30-75 leach bites and were exhausted.

All was not lost, as we finally saw some wild life on the road on our way out.

From Khao Yai

Overally, it was an interesting experience and we learned that we should just go to the beach during rainy season and check out the mountains when its dry.

CHANGING GEARS....

We celebrated Becky's bday with a weekend of fun. We stayed in a nice hotel downtown. Ate a nice steak dinner. We went to a bar, The Londoner, afterward as they were celebrating October Fest and we got litres of beer. Whoa. That is apparently a lot of beer. Then on Sunday we watched the Ags and the Wolverines both lose...sad, and hung out at the pool. Pretty nice little weekend.

What's that? It's your birthday? Oh, well then have a corn sunday!!!

We finished out first quarter today and get our first days off since school began. We are heading to Laos for a week of fun in the sun. Hopefully there will be fewer leaches.

Gig 'em Aggies and BTHO K-State and Texas Tech. Go Blue (for my lovely wife).

Isaac and Becky

PS - Some leech aftermath...lots of these punks made it way past the leech socks.

Becky's Best Woman Speech

Let's do this! Let's get katie married!

Hello friends! It's time to sit down and relax with a nice new blog post from the Curreys!

Last weekend was a crazy one. Most of you probably already know that Isaac and I went back to the good ole U.S.A. for my twin sister's wedding in Chicago on September 19th.

It was a weekend of fun, frivolity and other "f" words.................like friends!

We're still recovering from jet lag back here in Thailand but it was well worth the trip. We left at midnight on Wednesday the 17th of September and arrived on Thursday morning in Chicago. Basically every second was full of stuff to do. As soon as we landed, I went to Walmart with my mom to try to get 100 lbs (our free luggage allowance) worth of groceries that we can't really get in Thailand. Hooray for refried beans and granola bars. Isaac and my dad had some bonding time on the golf course. I'm sure he wishes he was at the store with me and mom to get the other stuff. I don't know what the boys talked about while they golfed but it was probably something about women being annoying....I think that's what men talk about when they golf.

After the day's fun we drove up to Highland Park (a nice suburb of Chicago) to meet my sister, her fiance, and his family. It was cool to meet the new in-laws and it was also nice to see my sister again. Although Isaac and I were exhausted. For all of those who have seen us in jet lag mode you know that we are zero fun. I know, I know you're also thinking "But Becky, you're ALWAYS zero fun!" hahahahah you're hilarious mom!

On friday I got to meet up with some of my old high school friends, and when I say old high school friends I don't mean 30 year olds who can't graduate 12th grade (although I'm sure they're fun to hang out with too) I mean that we were friends a little while ago when I was in high school waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2000-ish. Anyhoo it was wonderful to hang out with them again. I was especially happy to see Diane Mitchell again who I haven't seen in about 2 and half years. Fun times. Later that night we went to a townie bar in Homewood (the town I grew up in) and Isaac had to listen to this guy Steve tell him about 10 times "Seriously dude, it was nice to meet you! SERIOUSLY!" I guess he wanted to make sure to drive the point home......or he was drunk. Either way, it was a wonderful moment.

Friday night we had the rehearsal for the wedding AND I got a caramel apple! It was awesome! Later that night we went to rehearsal dinner and Scott's mom (katie's new mother-in-law) got emotional and cried a lot and then came and talked to me and Isaac. She's a super close talker and likes to press her face against yours whilst talking to you. It was awkward but I felt oddly close to her.....hmmm......I think I'm going to try to talk to more people that way.

Scott's brother and best man and my escort. Isaac was jealous.

The beautiful and HUGE church.

Saturday I had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to get my hair did with the other bridesmaids and katie. Isaac got to sleep. Then we headed downtown to get ready for the wedding. Katie got married in this beautiful Catholic church and I didn't know any of the rules like how to take communion or when to hand her flowers but I think otherwise the ceremony went great. Katie looked beautiful and Scott was ravishing, as well.

After the wedding we drove around in the limo and took pictures at Wrigley Field, some park, and at a beach in Evanston. Then we went to the reception which was in this art gallery. Very swanky. I missed the cake cutting but everything else was great. My speech made people laugh, and cry, and I think someone threw up but that could've been from something else. (The video of the speech shall be posted soon).

After the wedding and reception Isaac and I went to a hotel and crashed for a few hours and then had to leave early for the airport to catch our flight back to Thailand. It was quite the whirlwind of a weekend. All told, we were in transit for 50 hours and were in Illinois for about 72. I'm still waking up in the middle of the night hungry but that should pass soon.

In other news, Isaac and I are going to the mountains this weekend to reflect on life and to get away from the craziness that is Bangkok. Hopefully we won't get too far from civilization because Isaac needs to check his football scores. More stories to come! Or we'll just write a bunch of garbage......just like this post :) Sorry folks, I'm too tired to be funny!