We started off 2022 with a repeat trip to one of our favorite spots–Rabeang Pasaak Treehouses!

The red sand caves are some of the kids’ faves!

January is a gorgeous month in northern Thailand, and it was delightfully chilly at night at the treehouses.

Nick also took some time during winter break to get his Thai driver’s license. Now that he has watched the official drivers education video at the Land Transportation Office, he has all the tools to make him as good as all Thai drivers!

Brecken continues to push the limits of exploration, invention, and at times, safety. His “raw material” collection gets more and more unwieldy over time, and his imagination knows no bounds.

After months of begging, Brecken finally, on his 8th birthday, received the metal detector he’s been wanting so desperately. Our yard is now a dirty block of swiss cheese, from which he has unearthed such treasures as rusty bolts, pieces of pipe, and coins (that Nick may or may not have planted).

He’s always been obsessed with opening coconuts with various tools and methods (and has plenty of them to practice on here).

We have said no to his repeated requests to buy his own machete for this purpose on several occasions. But that didn’t stop him from trying to open one with a pick axe. It did not end well.

Luckily ’twas but a flesh wound, and no bones or tendons were sacrificed in his coconut meat/milk quest.

All pain was forgotten when he found this guy at the market.

Nora is now our hot water laundry lady. She heats the water, scrubs the stains, and agitates by hand. She doesn’t know that there are countries where hot water is piped directly into the washing machine. Please nobody tell her this when we visit America this summer, kthanks.

In recent culinary adventures, the kids have a new love of sushi and udon. The owner of our favorite sushi joint also has a location in Long Beach, CA! He’s Thai, with 1 Japanese restaurant in the Thailand and 1 Japanese restaurant in America. But whatever. It’s delicious!

There is exactly one place in Chiang Mai where you can get a proper charcuterie board. Since you have to sacrifice your first born to include cheese and cured meats in your diet here, this is quite the rare dining experience for us, and you can betcherass we don’t bring the kids.

The kids will still eat 40baht pad kaprow on days that end in ‘y,’ so that helps balance things out.

We no longer have to convince the kids to get haircuts. The stylist’s dog has become such a fan fave, that they ask to go monthly.

Pokemon lingo has taken over our house, and Brecken and Parker have had a few nerd sessions via zoom when their waking hours align. It’s 50% entertaining, and 50% makes me want to poke my eyes out.

In February, the Chiang Mai flower show made its first reappearance since covid! The parade floats were stationary, but that almost made it better. The tiny details–all made with flowers or flower parts–were so cool to see up close!

Brecken was most interested in the plant competitions and now wants to know how he too can win medals for growing things.

But the kids will attest, that the best part of most of our trips to the Old City are the tuk tuk rides back to wherever we park!

Speaking of flowers, every morning in February, thousands of these flowers would be covering the playground at my school. The groundskeepers would be sweeping them up starting who knows how early each day, but there would still be lots left by the time the kids arrived, and collecting them brought them all so much joy. February quickly became my favorite month, as I was greeted by this little bridal party every morning upon arriving at school.

February also brought one of our family’s favorite events–the OLYMPICS! If you know us, you know we are HUGE olympics fans. Summer, winter–all of it.

We spent lots of nights snuggled up on the couch toggling between websites, streaming services and apps trying to watch the latest coverage,and answering the kids’ questions about why Thailand doesn’t have a Bobsled team.

Lunar New Year is also a big hit, largely in part because the kids’ Chinese teacher at school is AMAZING, and gets them so jazzed about it. But also because our Chinese friend Chloe takes us to this awesome place for dinner.

As if February couldn’t get any better, it’s also my favorite school celebration–the 100th day! These 2 brothers went all out, and I will never ever ever get tired of them teaching me animal facts…even when they’re NOT wearing matching 100 year old man costumes.

I’m not really sure where this next video fits into this blog post, so I’m just going to shove it in right here. Found this book in my classroom.

Speaking of books, the kids recently had to dress as their favorite book character at school (and luckily, none of them chose the Piggy above). The Windschitl parents do not pull out Pinterest-worthy stops for these kinds of school assignments/spirit days. We will purchase materials, but the kids know they’re like 95% on their own. And I have to say, they really nailed it this go ’round.

I can’t believe I forgot to take pictures, but the school photographer (that’s right… we have one of those) sent me these.

Before we knew it, it was time for the pre-Songkran fesitivities at school, before our big Songkran break! For a couple weeks before Songkran, every market sells tie-dye tshirts, many of which have random logos on them. Nick was SO EXCITED to find this Minnesota Wild one.

In ECC we go all out and tie-dye our own. It’s an annual tradition, apparently, and a very big production.

We also finally got to bring back the Wai Kru ceremony at school, where students honor their teachers. It is the absolute sweetest, and I really missed it last year!

We even got to have water fights!

Shortly before we were due to leave for our Songkran holiday, Cookie the hamster experienced a fall from a height (roughly the height of a 3rd grader), and suffered what we suspect was a broken leg/foot.

The kids were beside themselves, and insisted we take her to the vet for a full panel of rodent xrays and MRIs. Instead, Nick told them a heartwarming story about his classroom hamster from years ago who suffered the same kind of fall and injury, and went on to live a long life, albeit with a useless leg he would drag around behind him. This was horrifying to the kids, so instead we lied and told them that Thai vets don’t treat hamsters. So just like they did in the olden days, we gathered ’round the family laptop and summoned up Dr. Google, who told us to remove all her climbing toys from her cage for 2 weeks, which seemed like a much less expensive treatment plan. Our mae baan fed bored Cookie while we were gone, and at the kids’ insistence, sent videos of her twice a week as proof she was still alive.

Then it was time for our smokey season getaway! Except this year was GLORIOUSLY less smokey in Chiang Mai! This made it slightly more difficult to shell out for a trip to the islands, but ever since our first trip down in 2020, we always cross our fingers and hope COVID travel restrictions will get us stuck there for 3 months again, so it was worth the risk! We headed out with our usual travel crew, which means these 5 completely entertain each other 24/7. It’s The Best.

This year we headed to Koh Phangan, an island on the gulf side of Thailand, just north of Koh Samui. It’s takes a plane, a bus, a trolley thing, a ferry, and a songtaew to get there.

On the ferry ride, the skies opened up and started dumping…and they did not close again for 4 straight days.

This weather was very unseasonable, and it never crossed our minds that it might rain. Like even a little. So it was a little disappointing, but mostly for the grownups. The kids were fine!

But rain=slippery tile floors in our Airbnb…and sweet little Chars ended up with a noggin full of stitches our first night there. It was So Sad.

But then the sun came out, and things started looking up!

Nick was breakfast chef in our outdoor airbnb kitchen!

The ladies and I hit up a real crunchy yoga class at a yoga studio/vegan restaurant.

Bryn sucked down her body weight in mango smoothies.

And we pretty much took over this swim-up bar at a resort across from our airbnb.

The funcles taught the girls some card games.

Then it was time to hop over to Koh Samui for the second half of our trip! We had stayed on Samui for a week last year during Songkran break, but it was fun to have friends with us this time.

This year we finally got to experience our first proper Songkran holiday! The water throwing festitivies were still banned in Chiang Mai, but not Koh Samui!

It took awhile to really get used to how hilariously relentless people are during the water fights. It was both shocking and awesome watching people on motorbikes get giant buckets of water (often times full of ice) thrown at them with full force as they drove by. A little old lady with about 4 teeth kept pouring ice cold water down my back then smiling sweetly at me as I screamed. Big burly men with super soakers bigger than our kids had no qualms about pumping them up and going after toddlers. It was such a hilarious and fun cultural experience, and one we will never forget!

Also, in case you were wondering if it’s possible to fit 4 adults, 5 kids, and 2 weeks’ worth of all their luggage into an SUV, the answer is yes.

Brecken’s second favorite thing to do during Songkran is to pour water on all the Buddhas set up around town and in every store for this purpose.

The ladies got to escape for a couple hours one day to the spa!

We headed home, and it was time to start counting down to our America visit! We haven’t been home in 3 YEARS, and to say we are excited is an understatement.

Rainy season has come in hot, with several flooding days.

We are always a little worried during big rainstorms that we’ll have a power outage, which makes for pretty hot, sleepless nights. Luckily we haven’t had many prolonged outages this year, but one happened on an unfortunate night a couple months ago when both girls had high fevers (yes, it was probably COVID). The temp in the house was creeping up quickly, and we also have no water when the power goes out here. Nick and I set them up on the couch, stripped them down, tried to cool them with towels we soaked in rain water, and fanned them by hand with Chinese fans. Bryn’s fever was up to 105.3, and we definitely had a moral parenting crisis for a bit… knowing that if we brought her into the hospital and she tested positive for COVID, that we’d likely be detained for 10 days… but also wanting to get her care if she needed it. Luckily the power came on a couple hours later and her temp started to go down on its own. The stigma and fear around COVID is slowly getting better here, but the risks of reporting positive cases to the health department still remain pretty great for families.

In other COVID-related news, the kids finally got their 2nd shot! This is actually a picture of the first shot, because for the second shot they went ON THEIR OWN with their classmates in a school van, so no pics from that one! But all 3 were super brave and we were so proud. We can now all reenter Thailand without testing or quarantine! Woot woot!

May brought both (American) Mother’s Day and my birthday. Nick has always been an absolute champion on these days, and makes me feel so loved and appreciated. But the last few years have been even better as the kids have gotten older and more involved in the pampering.

Nick and I even went out for a fancy set menu dinner with friends!

Even when it’s not Mother’s Day or my birthday, the kids love bringing us breakfast in bed. At the very least, they include a sweet note, but on occasion we get toast cut into shapes with cookie cutters, or Brecken will throw in some cash (because that’s HIS dream breakfast…so why shouldn’t it be ours?).

Auntie Ava, (math teacher with a realtor side hustle) continues to lure families into houses in our neighborhood, and it’s become a really fun community. She throws together moo khata parties on the regular, where the kids shovel down bowls of soup and then run wild in the streets while the parents chill in her driveway.

We have lots of neighbors that sell food by advertising in our neighborhood chat group. This kid and his dad have been my mango sticky rice suppliers for the last couple of months, and it has brought me so much joy everytime they rock up to our gate, take my 50 baht, and hand me this manna from heaven. (Then they take my picture and post it to the neighborhood chat as advertising, outing me and my mango sticky rice obsession).

To balance out my MSR consumption, I’ve continued with my Muay Thai studies. And Coach T’Tuoy continues to take countless videos that I have no idea what to do with. The constant picture/video-taking in Thailand is something I’ll never get used to.

We haven’t had visitors from home in 2.5 years, and are bound and determined to convince you all to come. So here are a bunch of pictures of us getting $6 massages.

In just the last month, our school gave the green light for field trips! It was super exciting. Brecken’s class went to the zoo. No waivers needed, even with this mere waist-high fence separating a bunch of first graders from the most dangerous mammals in the world. #thailand.

After taking my own class to the Elephant Poo Poo Paper Park, I knew we had to bring our own kids to this awesome place! The kids were fascinated by the process.

A few months ago on our bike ride home from school, I noticed that one of our neighbors just outside our village was Deaf. I stopped and chatted with her one day, and found out she sews for a living, and has a stall at the weekly night market. I found her there the following weekend, where she introduced me to a bunch of her Deaf friends. It was so interesting to hear about their experiences growing up Deaf in Chiang Mai. She has a hearing daughter about the same age as Nora and Bryn. In this video she shows the pieces she and her Deaf sister make and sell at the local market! Then she gives me a lesson in numbers in Thai sign language!

I’ve come to the end of my 18th year of teaching, and my first year teaching kindergarten! Despite all the crazy circumstances, I’d have to say it was a success. There was more laughter than tears (for me too), and I got to watch these little kids turn into readers, writers and slightly bigger kids. I was honored to earn theirs and their parents’ trust this year, and felt a true connection to each of them, even when I questioned my lessons and approaches every single minute of every day, especially during online learning. I’m thankful for the lessons they taught ME about rest, play, unstructured time, silliness and flexibility. It was a good year.

And just like that, it was time for me to plan my first Kindergarten graduation!

Our school has an events team, and they really do it up on all the details, but the “meat” of the program was up to us. All the ECC classes and teachers were involved, and there were so many cute performances. It was the first in-person event for parents in almost 2 years!

I didn’t really start teaching my class any sign langauge until later in the year, but was so surprised how much they loved it and how quickly they picked it up. I had planned to just have them sign the chorus of this song, but they begged to learn the whole thing. I’d say they nailed it.

The most touching part of the ceremony was when a parent from each Kindergarten class got up and gave an appreciation speech on behalf of the other parents! English was neither of these parents’ first language, but they bravely shared such touching examples of how much their children enjoyed the year. It was so moving.

The biggest success of the 2021-2022 school year, however, was Kindercamp. While the impetus was necessity, we built this thing out of thin air, with very little time, money or resources. The solid resources we DID have, though, were Nick’s passion for and experience in teaching young kids, and the unwavering support of our friends here in Chiang Mai. These friends quickly got behind us and offered us their talents free of charge, and were our constant cheerleaders, coaches, and at times, therapists. Friends AND strangers put their kids in this brand new program with a level of trust and confidence that scared us sometimes. But the measure I used to guage its success had little to do with numbers, and everything to do with Nick’s happiness. Despite all the unknowns, and the countless hours we both put in, Nick came home from school everyday so content and in awe of what the freedom of running his own school was allowing him to do. He had kids making more progress in a half-day, mixed-age class than he often did in his 21 previous years in public and international school kindergarten teaching. He had no red tape, no hierarchy of administrators to navigate to get his wild ideas approved, and the full trust of a group of parents from half a dozen countries, letting him work his magic with their kids. It felt like a beautiful animal had finally been let out of captivity and was experiencing true freedom for the first time.

In this first year of Kindercamp, Nick had a few students who stayed on the full year, but most other students rotated in and out during 6 week sessions. Altogether he had 44 students this year! The transient nature of the class was his only regret.

We were really looking forward to year 2 of Kindercamp being a full year program for this reason, instead of shorter sessions. We researched international school tuition rates in Chiang Mai, priced ourselves competitively, and within 1 month of advertising, first semester enrollment for August 2022 was nearly FULL, with only one spot left! With this full year program, Nick is so excited to create the classroom community and relationships he is so good at nurturing. My role in Kindercamp is much less beautiful and exciting and involves a lot of spreadsheets, invoices and marketing, but to be able to help Nick create a program where he can teach the way we both believe kids learn best has truly made it all worth it. If you haven’t yet, check out our Kindercamp Facebook page!

It’s hard to believe, but after a months-long countdown, our paper chain says we will be in the U.S. in 5 days. It feels so surreal, after all of the preparation and anticipation, that we will actually be getting on a plane headed out of Thailand for the first time since arriving here in 2019! Our visas and work permits are renewed, our reentry permits acquired, our vaccination passports in hand, and COVID tests scheduled. We’ll be stateside for 6 weeks, all of it in Minnesota, most of it in Minneapolis. Thanks for following our adventures from afar and cheering us on. We can’t wait to see you in. the. flesh. so soon.

Cheers,

Sara

Student photos used with parent permission.