It was a whirlwind of a few days.  Jetlagged and confused, our guests pushed through and by the end they were already talking about when they may be able to come back next!  It’s been so long since Sara and I have looked at Thailand with “fresh eyes”, so it was a ton of fun to experience those first-responses once again after we first experienced Thailand 5 years ago.

One thing that our guests were able to bring from home was a box of camera equipment that didn’t make the trip over when we moved here last July.  There just wasn’t the space for it then.  But our friends gladly brought what they could fit in their spare suitcase space.  Since then I’ve been charging batteries, brushing up on my camera 101′s, etc.  But even before playing around with my new toys, I was able to pull a few shots out during the time when our friends were here.

…Which brings me to this next Foto Friday…  Both were taken from our visit to the Grand Palace in Bangkok.  We even got to take a river taxi to get there, which Sara and I haven’t done since I swallowed a mouthful of disgusting Chao Phraya water those 5 years ago on a similar boat ride.  Anyways, here’s what I could salvage from the day trip.  And now that I’ve got more gear to grab my attention, let’s all hope for more Foto Fridays to come!  (click on the images to see them at higher resolution)

Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand.

Wat Phra Kaew. Thailand's home to the Emerald Buddha. Bangkok.

Leave a Comment (or just come visit us…  or a Skype call would do)!

Here are a few of my favorites:

There are several more that I haven’t posted here but will invite you to see at our Flickr site:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsarver

So my question for you now is, what do you do to relieve stress?

There are a few things lately that really miss from home.  The first two months here have gone by amazingly fast and we are loving most of it.

I took some time to edit a few photos that I had taken back in June when we were in Colorado.  As many of you know, photography is a great stress reliever for me.  Sadly, we were/ are so busy I hadn’t had a chance to even pull the photos off of the camera until now!

I like these images on top of that mountain in Colorado.  I like them because I remember how beautiful it was.  I like them because I remember how stinkin’ cold it was at the very top.  I like them because they remind me of a shared experience I had with my wife (I mean, come on, coming from Indiana Sara and I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on mountain tops!).  I like them because I remember how little I felt standing in those trees as the bold, cold wind surrounded us.

I like these images for many reasons.  I also miss home from time-to-time when I see photos from times past and even those happening now.  I have sisters who are at their Homecoming football games of their Senior year in High School.  I have a brother about to his first child with his new wife who also just bought their first house.  I have a father who has season tickets to Purdue football and faithfully goes and cheers them on despite having now lost 5 games in a row!  (Boiler Up!)

Just as we have a lot going on day in and day out here in Thailand, we miss the things we are missing from home.  I miss that cold breeze form the mountain top…  I miss thinking creatively about our Christmas services at Olive Branch…  I miss Fall with family and friends…  And most days I miss knowing what to expect for that day…

God has done some amazing things in our lives to get us to this point!  I mean, come on, we’re 6,000 miles from home and working on learning a language that doesn’t have a western script alphabet!  That’s crazy!

There are these days though where hot apple cider, casseroles, being chilled to the bone, family, friends, and knowing what to expect for tomorrow sounds like the best vacation in the world!

I guess we really do underestimate what we have until it is gone…

arguments aren't that simple

More on that later tonight or tomorrow, but for now I’ll boast a bit on some old photography work I did while in Thailand. You may have seen this photo before. It’s made it onto purchased prints a few times, it’s a book cover for a Polish psychology book (my first ever image used for a book cover) and now it’s been showcased again on the Digital Photography School website in their latest article: 10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography.

It’s really quite a good article. Go check it out… Also, why is it that it had to snow as soon as we hit Indiana on our drive home from our Caribbean vacation?