Today I am 40

July 07, 2016

Today I am 40

Day 9 – June 22, 2016

Wednesday

Today I turned 40 years old. I do feel older. Not just today, but lately. More aches and pains. More straining to read the fine print. More wrinkles and sags. But I couldn’t have imagined a better life at 40. I have an amazing husband who loves me no matter what and thinks I can do anything. I have 5 wonderful kids who have good, kind hearts and want to be good people. I have the best friends a girl could ask for. Friends who cheer me on in everything I do and are genuinely happy for my successes and compassionate about my failures. I have a beautiful home filled with wonderful memories. And I am traveling in Thailand! I feel so grateful for such a wonderful life.

We spent the day zip-lining in the treetops near our house outside of Chiang Mai at a place called “Flight of the Gibbon.” They were careful and I definitely felt safe but they were a little chill with some stuff. Like the kids hanging off the platforms to be funny, held only by their harness and a carabineer. Or letting us do crazy take-offs and bouncing the cable to swing us around. There were two times when I came very close to hitting a tree. The first one was totally my fault and I think the cable was too long for the guide to adjust me by pulling on the cable. The second one was a much smaller tree (still probably would have broken something) but the guide let me get pretty close. If I hadn’t pulled my legs in, it could have been a bad deal.

During the zip-line, we spotted a family of gibbons (ape family) and watched the four primates (not monkeys…they don’t have a tail) swing through the trees and jump from tree to tree right in front of us. It was seriously so cool!

After the zip line, we walked around a village with an interpreter to see some handicrafts and different local customs. We watched this cute little old lady weaving bamboo and we tried to weave a little ourselves. It was tedious work! The interpreter showed us these little sticky rice baskets that you see in restaurants and told us it took her an entire day to make one basket. Then she told us she was selling them for 60 baht each. That is about $2! An entire day’s worth of work for $2! I don’t even know how she could survive. An average cheap noodle bowl on the street is 30 baht! I asked Oppy about it later and she said she probably lives with her extended family and eats mostly from her garden and chickens. It is crazy to think about how much we take for granted in our lives.

The zip line included a lunch at the most charming little mountain restaurant. The atmosphere was straight out of a movie set. We ate in an open-air bamboo pavilion with hanging lanterns and pottery dishes. The delicious food was served family style while a small group of musicians played traditional music on a bamboo stage right in front of us. You could hear the little mountain stream below. I loved every minute of it!

Later that night we had arranged to have dinner at the house. Oppy and the staff let us help cook and gave us a cooking lesson while we prepared the meal. We learned how to make Panang curry and cashew chicken and rolled our own fresh rolls. It was so much fun! At dinner the kids presented me with all of their special treasures they had bought for me at the night market the night before. They were so excited to give them to me. I felt so special and loved. Later Oppy and the ladies said they had a surprise and asked us to come out to the garden where they had set up a beautiful little garden table with lanterns on the ground and candles on the table. They brought out a beautiful made-from-scratch mango cake covered with sliced fresh mango and a candle while everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me. I nearly cried it was so sweet! Thai’s don’t usually celebrate birthdays with much and they do not do cake and ice cream so it was such a special effort tor them to do this for me.

After the cake they said they had another surprise for me and brought out 2 huge paper lanterns. The kind I have always wanted to do, and even tried to do but have never been able to get it to work. I couldn’t believe it! It was so magical. Seriously. I felt like the most blessed person. Our family and the ladies and Atta (Sibouya’s husband) lit the lanterns and let them fill with hot air and then released them into the sky. They were huge lanterns, probably 3 or 4 feet high, and it was beautiful to watch the glowing lanterns rise and shrink into the starry night sky. I could not have asked for a more memorable 40^th birthday!

Every structure in Thailand has a Spirit House. This one up in the mountains by the zipline cable house was one of the coolest ones I saw.

Look closely and you can see the Gibbon family of 4.

The kids were a little crazy, hanging off the platforms from their harnesses.

Jeff always keeps me laughing.

Isaac aways the daredevil!

How romantic. ;)

Thai cooking class.

After each of the kids gave me their gifts, they gave me a huge hug.

My mango birthday cake.

My three shirtless boys out cold, all in the same twin bed. The little boys were scared, no doubt, and they begged their big brother, Calvin to sleep with them so they wouldn't be scared.