Kim and Jeremy in Thailand

It has been raining here two days in a row!!! That is very exciting, because it hadn't rained at all for almost 5 months. Plus, it rained enough to get a lot of the dust and smoke out of the air and really cool things off. We can see the mountain again (it's been too smoggy for weeks) and the temperatures have cooled down to the 80s (as opposed to 100+). This weather is great!!!

Hooray! I finally got the photo upload to work, so now you can see pictures (and a short video!) of the Burmese choir that was at our church last week, and also several pictures from the ministry day at the waterfall. Enjoy!

Friday was our class ministry day. Each class finds a project or two around Chiang Mai to do as a ministry. Since I am the 9th grade class sponsor, I get to come along. Our kids did a really good job planning; we were a bit concerned at first, because a lot of the planning took place in the two days before we left, but in the end, they had evertyhing figured out and brought all the supplies they needed. The group I went with was 16 Grace kids, and we took about 17 kids from an AIDS orphanage to a waterfall. We also played some games, sang some songs, and had an art project. The orphanage kids ranged in age from 5 to about 13. And everyone loved the waterfall! It was a really neat limestone waterfall about an hour out of Chiang Mai. It's spring-fed, and something in the water makes the rocks not slick at all. You can actually walk right up the waterfall! It looks scary in the pictures, but the kids were perfectly safe. It's almost like a sandstone or something; it doesn't hurt your feet, but you've got plenty of traction to walk around. Hopefully I'll be able to get pictures up soon-I've had some technical difficulties with the pictures lately. All in all, Friday was a good day. A bit tiring, but we were impressed with the kids.

Burning season is in full swing here in Chiang Mai, and as a result, the clear sky is actually yellow, and there is such a thick haze in the air that we can't even see the mountain right next to us. I feel like I'm in LA or something...

The last quarter of the year is officially here. Somehow or another, I did get grades in for all of my kids on Monday. It's hard to believe that we're in the last part of the year. Granted, we haven't had our April break yet, which is kind of like spring break except it falls way later in the semester than we would like. That's two weeks off. Still, school is over the first week of June-less than three months away.

In other news, I'm wearing pants today for the first time in over a month!!! Before you get weird images in your head, let me explain. Because of the baby, I outgrew all of the clothes I brought with me about a month ago. So I'd been wearing wraparound skirts everyday. But this week, my mother-in-law sent me some maternity pants!! Hooray!! So today I am wearing khakis, and it's an exciting feeling.