Not-so-Amazing Race...

"The Amazing Race" came to our city!
Our language teacher canceled today.
So we thought it would be a great day to see some sites, and
afterwards make the greatest blog post ever.
Ever.
An Amazing Race theme.
Our "tasks" for this leg of the journey...
1. Pet the "mouse deer"
2. See the famous bird park (and identify the famous "Horn bill")

Then we would have finished the blog with us posing in front of this same house at the Pit Stop...
...this post would have been so cool.
You all would have been SO impressed.

So we set out to find the house behind these folks.
We knew about where it was downtown
(think Central Park NYC, but on a mountain and HOT tropical weather...the bird park and mouse deer petting zoo are all around the same area)

This post would have blown your mind.
But instead it was one big "Road Block" and "Yield" after another

First when we arrived we parked and attempted to find the bird park and/or the Big park that the AR-House was in.
There were no signs directing us.
No clues.
So after climbing, I'm NOT lying, a billion steps, we found something...

The Planetarium.
Cool- as in it had AC- but we were on a tight schedule and we set off- after getting directions from the locals' pointing- toward the bird park.
On the way we passed Stonehenge.
Not a bird
not the AR-house
not a mouse-deer.
It was so hot I had to talk Anthony into doing something 'funny' for this picture.
Then we kept walking...
We saw no monkeys, but this picture is fun.
And I could stand in the shade while I took it.
Did I mention it was 46,000 degrees outside?
Because it was.
Then we found it.
HALLELUIA!
We were pumped.
But then we found out the entry price was RM30.00 per person.
60 Ringgit for something without rollercoasters? psha.
After an unsuccessful attempt at getting a discount price,
we found out the "Orchid and Hibiscus" garden across the street was free.
Aunt Danny...ever considered something like this to display your orchids?
There were tons, but we'll only bore you with one up-close flower picture.
The Orchid Gardens had hills to climb and not a lot of shade.
And there were no mouse deer or AR-houses
But it did have the largest orchid species in the world.
"Whoa!"
The Orchid park had one trick up it's sleeve that we weren't expecting.
Yes, that's a snake eating a frog.
The poor frog was making squeaking sounds.
Very sad.

But as standing on the surface of the sun wasn't on the agenda,
we decided to set out for the big park that held the AR House and the mouse deer.

After criss-crossing the orchid garden a couple more times,
asking directions from 3 or 4 more locals,
getting closer to dehydration,
and walking another 9,000 Kilometers,
we found the Park!
We wasted no time looking for the mouse deer...
(only had about 45 minutes left before we had to leave)
We got directions from 2 more locals.
Walked a few hundred more kilometers and finally found the mouse deer petting zoo.
We were not happy.

By this point we were so deep in the park we had NO idea where we were.
And we only had 30 minutes left
(finding our way back to the car was included in the time frame).
We then abandoned the Amazing Race House search.
So all we had to show for our day out was 4 pit stains.

Don't get us wrong.
We used our language.
We saw some "National Geographic" type things.
We worked the calves and the hamstrings.
But instead of giving you a really cool "Amazing Race" blog post,
it's more like we were "eliminated."

We'll be back in the All-stars round.
So stay tuned...

Friday the 13th!

These are my (Sharon's) parents. (well, Anthony claims them too)
And Today...Friday, April 13th 2007 they have been married for 33 years.
Did you get that?
33 YEARS!
Way to go you two.
Bruce and Janice sittin' in a tree...
or in this case
Bruce and Janice standin' on some rocks...

They've birthed and raised 3 FABULOUS girls.
One of which they outlived and is in heaven waiting for them there.
The two that aren't in Jesus' presence (wonder what she's seeing right now?)
got married to AMAZING men.
Both of which were approved by these parents and they happily call them both "Son."

They've traveled to several countries together.
Served in church together.
Gone to Disney world like a million times together.
The first of which was 33 years ago on their honeymoon...
I know.
They're SUCH Floridians.

Since this picture was taken, they've lost about 70 pounds together.
Bruce 40
Janice 30
They do a lot of stuff together.
My mom even goes out to the pasture to help my dad move the cows "off the rye."
Cute huh?
And she still laughs when my dad gets angry at the cows.
"Stupid Cows!"

He supports her in her van ministry at the church.
She loves the Mexican kids she picks up every week.
Her happiest moments are when one of them gives their heart to Jesus.

She supports him in his music ministry at the church.
He loves playing keyboards and leading worship.
He gets so thrilled when he sees the people at FBCBG really worshiping.

It hasn't all been good.
He does shake the salt packets at McDonald's in a way that drives her nuts.
But I can't remember very many times,
At least not between the two of them...

I do however remember my spankings and getting up on Saturday mornings to help trim the hedges or do something else 'not fun' when I really just wanted to watch "Muppet Babies."
I also got grounded.
And I was a good kid.
But they...TOGETHER...parented.
They couldn't be divided.
If Mama said "no," Daddy said "no" and vice versa.
But now I know respect and appreciate the authority figures in my life.
So thanks.
Even though I thought you were ruining my life by grounding me or making me be home by like, before sunset, and didn't let me talk on the phone after 9pm, and wouldn't let me tie my shirt up at cheerleading practice (I thought that one was particularly lame)...
Thanks.

Thanks for being awesome married parents.
Married parents that loved the Lord, and loved each other, and loved me (and Heather and Veronica....and now Zach and Anthony).
You rock.
And yes, Daddy, I'll be sure to save up for one of those sweet massaging recliners for your 35th in a couple years.
Maybe we can get y'all matching ones?

Happy Anniversary!

This week in photos...

This week we took a trip the highlands once again.
We went there for Thanksgiving so we didn't take many pictures.
But here is the view from the hotel we stayed in...The only thing cooler than the strawberry & honey roti we ate this week was our niece Katelyn turning 1 year old! (This Katelyn is Katie Black, not to be confused with Kaelyn our other niece or Kaitlyn aka K5 who is our adopted niece here, or Kate Durrance our cousin who is also turning 1 this week...yeah just try and keep it straight!)One year old birthday party pictures are the best! Nothing better than a cute chubby baby getting to smear icing all over their face... every year after that the pictures are of the mom trying to prevent that very thing from happening.
Happy Birthday Katie! We wish we could have been there to see your cute icing-face in person!

Another Girly Post...maaf

When the more talkative of the two of us is a girl, the posts on our blog are bound to be a bit girly.

This one is about babies and weddings.

We'll be heading out of town this week for some time up in the COOL highlands area of our country. We hope this will tide you over 'til we're back.

1st is Mrs. Julia Roberts, one of the bridesmaids in our wedding and childhood friend of mine. She's not in Southeast Asia...she's in Florida.
She is holding her brand spankin' new baby girl Ava Grace Roberts who was born this week.
I'm not really sure how she did it, but Ava doesn't have the "I'm a newborn and look like every other newborn does" look to her. Click on the picture...she's as cute as can be.
Congrats Roberts FAMILY!
And this is Kaelyn Joy Diaz. She also lives in Florida. Kaelyn's mom is my sister.
Kaelyn can't help but be messy...but in that messiness(sp?) is a super creative little girl.
Way to go Heather on appreciating your kids...even when they play with their food.
Oh, and Anthony noticed the healthy bread...way to go on that too.

I also had a picture of KaTelyn and her daddy, but I can't figure out how to get it off Kodak picture share...but she's cute and totally a daddy's girl!

The 3rd thing actually happened in Southeast Asia. We went to another wedding!
Actually...we went to TWO weddings today. When we got to the first, Kakak told us there was another one. A great day with LOTS of food (The 2nd wedding people didn't care that we had just eaten at the 1st wedding...they still piled the rice and chicken high!)
We'll have pictures of strawberries and what not in a few days when we get back...and maybe something manly too.

Bringing Balance

If you couldn't tell, the post below was written by Sharon. In the words of our next-door neighbor, "You really like pink, yeah?" Yes she does. We have pink flowers in our front yard and our tree will (supposibly?) have pink flowers as well.

So here's my attempt to even out the post below with things that are definitely not pink or flowery.

Our country has a pretty sweet F1 track and the annual race is coming up soon. To kick off the festivities, several of the cars are on display at our local mall. Here's the Ferrari/Shell car, driven by Kiki Raikkonen (yes I had to Google that):

I don't claim to know much about F1 racing. I'm fairly certain that I've never watched an entire F1 race, or even half an F1 race. Most of my knowledge comes from The Real World: London back in 1995 when they had an American wannabe F1 racer. Which means I know nothing. The car looks cool all the same.

Being that I've been in Asia the past 7 months, I haven't watched a single college basketball game. To celebrate this feat I entered "Yahoo's Tournament Pick'em" and filled out a bracket. My crowning achievement was picking Duke to lose in the first round. Just forget about the fact that I picked Louisville to go to the championship game. Blast you Browns for getting me to like Louisville! Here's my bracket (you can click on it to make it bigger):

As you can see, my final four are Florida (obviously), UCLA, USC and Louisville. Eehh, 50% ain't bad. For those keeping score at home, I'm currently in 5th place in my group, but 788,016th place overall. As a result, I've decided to withdraw my sportscaster application to ESPN but I think I still have a shot as the resident b-ball expert at ym magazine. I've already thought of 183 ways Joakim Noah can add some bounce to his locks using products already found in his gym bag.

Against our better judgment, Sharon and I registered for a MySpace account. MySpace just might be the most disorganized and user-unfriendly thing on the web. No, you can't be my friend Mr. Herbal Supplement Guy. No, you can't leave a comment Ms. 12-Year-Old Girl Pretending to be 22. To all our real friends: can we be your MySpace buddies so we can see your pictures? That's the whole reason we got it - now "unprivatize" us. Our address is: www.myspace.com/speedygoat. Enjoy the epileptic seizure-inducing adds.

Jasmine & Rose of Sharon

So this past week for a "field trip" in our language class, we decided to go to a nursery
(There are TONS in tropical countries and they're so cheap!)
Along with learning words and what not, we bought 4 new plants.
These 2 are Jasmine plants.
We just cut our grass and cut all the "green" stuff off the top...the green will be back in a couple weeks... it's not dead...so stop judging me :)
Hopefully the Jasmine will be climbing all-over our fence in a couple months.
Then, their sweet smell will help soothe me as I wash dishes
(kitchen window looks out at them)
For those of you not familiar with Bath&Body Works labels, Jasmine is a small and very fragrant flower.
See?
For our front yard we bought 2 Hibiscus plants.
Did you know that the "Rose of Sharon" is actually an hibiscus?
Since learning that a few months ago, hibiscus plants have grown (pun intended) closer to my heart. They've already, in 1 week, grown 5 flowers.
These pink ones are perfect for THIS Sharon!
So that's all that's gone on this week. If you have advice on how to make hibiscus plants into a "Tree" shape please comment and help. Also, if you've heard that the Rose of Sharon is actually another flower, lemme know and I'll buy that one too.

Fresh Seafood and Fresh Turkey

Tonight we went with our friends- Justin and Daniela- to Port Klang, to eat some of the famous fresh seafood.
How fresh you ask?
Just take a gander...here's me picking out some stingray (RIP- Steve Irwin)
some ginormous prawn,
and we also grabbed a squid (not pictured)

After selecting your food, you tell the kitchen how you want each prepared.
Stingray- Grilled
Squid- Fried
Shrimp- Sweet and Sour
That's what we chose...
Then you wait for your food here...

Nice. We also ordered "Otak-Otak" which is "Fish Brains"- Abang gave us some one time but wouldn't tell us what it was...so when it came we were like "OH! We've eaten this before..mmm"
Then this kid came in with a very familiar teal and orange jersey. A sight for football-deprived eyes, I tell you what. We couldn't resist asking for a picture...his dad went to school at Univ. of Miami...we knew these people were smart!

And on the other side of the world, our 7 year old cousin Laina Durrance shot her first turkey!
How cool is that? And that's no BB gun either folks...that's her very own rifle...er...Shotgun.
What's even cooler, is that this very well-rounded little girl ate dinner a few nights before this at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota and I'm sure behaved like the young lady she is.
Laina, you're the neatest little girl we know!

You Like?

We updated to the new Blogger and so we lost our cool picture of the Petronas Towers and added the not-quite-as-cool palm tree picture you see there on the right...but as a trade we got cool drop down menus for the archives.
We know y'all like to go back and reminisce about all the fun we've had...now you can do it in a much more organized fashion.
Also a great big thanks to Zach and Heather Diaz for posing with these camels at Disney World last week... it added everything this post was missing.

Oh- The post below has been explained...just click on "Comments" under it.

For John Killus Jones

Ladies and gentlemen: Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana.

Poo-Ket

We just returned from Phuket, Thailand. Our vacation was great and we thoroughly enjoyed time in the sun, and well, basically, a lot of time in the sun and around the water.
We were beach-tired every day.
And they had a National Geographic Channel.
Does it get any better?

We only took pictures the first couple days. Most were from our evening at "PHUKET FANTASEA." Here's some memories from our time at Thailand's Best Cultural Attraction of 2002-2003.
Wai-ing in front of the Palace of the Elephants- inside there was a Las-Vegas (Family style!) type show about Thailand. Very well done.

The whole place was decorated with lights and carnival type games. These were my favorite lights . They were in front of the Elephant Palace and the Golden Cafeteria (Still can't remember the name...but it was big and golden)
Take a look.....

There were also costume creatures wandering around. The one with Anthony is wai-ing, but its fingers are a bit tangled.
Here's me with a....um...not sure, but I think its fun that the picture captured the person inside...you can tell from their eyes that they were smiling inside the costume.
Costume person, you deserve a raise for going above and beyond your duties as a costume creature!
It was neat to pose with the animals there. For 100Baht we posed with Mr.Elephant...
And the coolest one was a BABY TIGER! It was purring and everything! This was totally worth the 300Baht ($9?) We even got a classy cardboard frame to put it in. Be jealous. I would be if you were me.
The rest of the time was us laying on lounge chairs either by the beach or by the pool, or swimming in sea or pool. Wonderful.

The Verdict (Thus Far)

Wow... y'all lit up our inbox and comments with song suggestions. Thanks for the help - keep 'em coming cause we still have about $30 worth of songs to burn.

Here's the run down so far - I'm posting this now because we're leaving for Thailand tomorrow for the Rivers Family First Official Vacation. We've been on several mini-vacations, but never spent a week anywhere with no other motive but to relax.

Many people recommended John Mayer's Continuum. I've been wearing that one out since the first day it came out. Don't hold "Your Body is a Wonderland" or the fact that he's dating Jessica Simpson against him - its a really good CD. And now for the list...

Drum roll...

New Music

Mat Kearney, "All I Need" and "Where We Gonna Go From Here." Good job, Laurie. I love both of these songs.

Celtic Woman, "Orinoco Flow." This is Sharon's doing - she's wanted this song since she saw Celtic Woman on PBS a year ago.

Herbie Hancock and John Mayer, "Stitched Up." This song is catchy as all get out. Justin played this for me a year ago.

Corinne Bailey Rae, Corinne Bailey Rae. I read a review where the critic said the CD sounds like coffee. My coffee maker makes swooshy gurgly sounds. She sounds better than my coffee. One of the best CD's I've bought lately.

Gavin DeGraw, "Belief," Live at the Alice Lounge. This was a stab in the dark, but I ended up liking it.

Old School (by old school I mean like 2 years and back)

Lenny Kravitz, "Again." Sharon again- she thinks he's cute minus the tattoos- but the song is good.

Keane, "Somewhere Only We Know." Corey and Laurie both suggested Keane and I've always loved this song.

Bush, "Glycerine." Sharon's suggestion (she has a funny story about wanting to be cool back in 9th grade by going to a Bush concert with her friends... she borrowed the cd the day before the concert so she would know a song or two...Glycerine actually stuck)

Jack Johnson, Brushfire Fairytales. Bought this to round out my Jack collection - its the only one I didn't have.

Santana, "Maria Maria." We both love the latin flava' and Sharon likes to clean to this song.

Pearl Jam, "Better Man" and "You've Got to Hide Your Love." C-Love made us remember Pearl Jam. Hats off to you, C-Love.

Guilty Pleasures

Styx, "Come Sail Away." Ha. Sharon and I both love this song. What's not to love? It starts out about sailing, then angels suddenly appear - only they're not angels but aliens who take the singer away on their starship. I mean, that's just solid songwriting. Also, there's a killer synth solo in the middle that I've heard on VW commercials.

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, "Summertime." I will not defend this choice. I like it.

Will Smith, "Miami." Reminds us of home and me of my first 3 years of life in the Latino quarter of Miami-Hialeah, and Sharon wants to get a "cinnamon tan" in Thailand this weekend.

Sittin' on the Fence

DAUGHTRY. Can't bring myself to do it, even though several people recommended it.

Sufjan Stevens. Kelli, Katrin and Corey have all recommended him. Probably will get Illinoise.

And this one goes out to the birthday kids...

All this birthday fun has brought about warm wishes from friends, cards, and gifts.
Yet Anthony is a bit confused...
He has a $50 itunes gift card from his mom
(he already spent the $15 you gave him Cara...that much exhausted the songs he's been wanting to buy)
but he has run out of ideas for song choices.

Any of you out there have a great song or two you'd like to recommend?

And Micah, we already have all the Point of Grace and Petra we could ever need,
but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Also in the birthday confusion is to figure out which Australian Gold tanning product I should use which day on our sunny trip to Thailand?
Jenny Brown...I'm countin' on you to help out.
And how great is it to have a mother-in-law who grew up in Miami?!?
She is always ready for the beach.
Thanks MammaLou for out-doing yourself with the package...the sweet-scented pineapple/coconut/mango deliciousness that is Australian Gold will make my time on the beach complete. THANK YOU!

Just what the Doctor Ordered...

So in continuing our birthday fun...
This past weekend, we traveled a couple hours to a 'traditional kampung' to experience rural life.
There were no hotels, motels, or hostels...we stayed in people's homes.
It's actually a great program our country is known for...
a person can travel through the entire country without ever having to go to a hotel, it's a great way to experience the life off the beaten tourist path.
With people that don't speak any English.
Whew.
Here's pictures of our Saturday and Sunday...Here was the nice "aunt and uncle" and their home. She made DELUXIOUS salted fish (a village specialty) one of my favorites...
We introduced "Ultimate Frisbee" to this village...the older kids caught on pretty well, but this little guy was more interested in the cones. So cute.
We got to travel several miles up river to an "original people's" village- the equivalent to our Native Americans. There were some other white ladies there...they were troopers and made the boat ride more fun- they got the most wet out of anybody. The boat ride was something out of National Geographic and served as a sweet relief from the sweltering heat of the day...
Man on a traditional bamboo raft...sweet.
At the Original People's village some children arrived by boat for school...There were 3 Floridians and 1 Californian in the boat, so we represented the Disney inside each of us. (for those that don't get that- on rides at theme parks, you hold your hands up if you're part of the cool group) The trip that day was like Jungle Cruise on steroids.Today- the 26th- our actual birthday, I got my hair done (tried to post a picture but it was turned the wrong way...and I think the post does just fine without new hair), we saw Ghostrider...AND we found the mac-daddy of all import grocery stores.
Take a gander at this photo...Yes...that's Dr. Pepper you see there.
12 whole cans.
Straight from the wonderful land of Texas.
Also included are Pop-tarts, Cool-Ranch Doritos, and blow-pops.
Again, Happy Birthday to US!

We also want to send out a special THANK YOU to Mrs. Geral Marie in Bowling Green for the sweet birthday card she sent us. Thank you...it was just what we needed!

The Party starts early...

For those of you who don't know, which I think most of you do because you either know us that well, or you're such an avid reader of our blog that you've even read the February 2006 archives and know this coincidental tidbit about us...

Anthony and I have the same birthday.
February 26

We call each other 2-26ers (although here they do their dates dd/mm so we're 26-2ers)
...but not all the time
Actually very infrequently.
But this time of year it comes up.
Anthony's Uncle Eddie is a 2-26er too.
Just FYI.

Except Anthony was born in 1980, and I in 1981.
Monday we'll be turning 27 and 26 respectively.
So why the birthday post now?
Because we've already started the birthday festivities, that's why.

The birthday festivities necessarily started now because there's a 3rd Birthday kid here with us...
Daniela.
No, she's not quite the lucky enough to be a 2-26.
She's a 2-27er.
That's Josh Groban's birthday.
Again, just FYI.

Thursday night we did 3 things for the 3 bday kids.
Bowling, out to eat at the amazing "Paddington House of Pancakes," and dessert at "Baskin Robins" (like we needed dessert after the Pancake House, you'll see what I mean...keep reading)

First bowling...
Six of us played. D-Lad and Justin pretty well ran the board...but we didn't do too bad.
Justin only beat me by 99.
And 8 year old K4 beat all us birthday kids with his whopping 85!
Don't worry. Any unsportsmanlike feelings were smoothed away at the Paddington-HOP...
Amazing.

The pancakes were long gone by this point, so we posed with the cute malt glasses.

Then today we got to go to the post office- which thank heaven people spoke English there, even though we brought Kakak and Abang just in case- a WONDERFUL package arrived from several of our friends in the US...Thanks to Cara, Danielle, Lauren and Mindy!

Then...just as we had everything laid out on my lap for this picture, a horn honked outside...and ...
wa-lah!ANOTHER package from my mom...except hers had tax info in it and a card to remind us of our SWEET Mac that I'm using this very moment...The moment was like one that belonged in a movie...Happy Birthday to US!