Day after Loy Kratong

Last night was a fun night. The parents of one of my students invited me and Golf to their riverside weekend home (la!) for a Loy Kratong party and for their daughter's 8th birthday party. They also have a boy in first grade, so Kylie, my G1 Colleague, came with her husband and 2 year old daughter. It was lovely and so much fun. The dad is from Lebanon, and SOOO nice. He's been living in Thailand for 30 years, since he was 15 years old. His family came here and he and his brothers stayed on. He went to college here, and has a great career and of course, speaks fluent Thai. His brother owns this Lebanese restaurant in town and so the food that night was not only Thai, but Lebanese. Needless to say I didn't touch any Thai food. I ate hummus wiht pita, this gorgeous garlic paste, which had the same consistency of the hummus, pita bread, stuffed grape leaves, this pastry stuffed with spinach and this fried hushpuppy like ball stuffed with spiced meat and pine nuts. Oh it was heavenly! I also indulged in a glass of wine, which I paid dearly for this morning. Baby did not want that! So it won't happen again til after the birth. Sorry baby!

So their house is acutally more of a retreat like place. It's very small with only one bedroom, but very cute with a traditional old ceramic tile roof. They have a boardwalk that leads out to the river and there's a gazebo sitting area right on the water where we sat and ate and drank. Boats went by, firecrackers went off at the neighbors... and at nightfall we lit our kratongs, which are made out of flowers and shaped banana leaves all stuck around a round floater, usually made out of the cross section of a banana tree stump. I made one in Ayuthaya with my Thai friend, A, last year. There's incense and a candle you light before setting it in the water and you make a wish before floating it. It is a really nice tradition, and we all had a fantastic time.

We got back around 9:30 last night, but it may as well been 1:30 with how tired I was! Pregnancy really wears you out! So today we are taking it easy, just hanging around the house.