Dinner twice tonight

       I went to a driving range today.  $6 for unlimited buckets, chipping, and putting.  After a couple hours, a neighbor and I stopped at a local restaurant for my second lunch of the day.  It was about 3:30. My neighbor speaks great thai and knows the place, so he ordered two tall sweet teas and two dinner plates of rice with pork, vegetables and an overeasy egg on top.  Total price with generous tip-60 BHT = $1.85 per person.  At 6:30 I had spaghetti and a salad cooked by Ahnika.  Then at 7:30 headed out to a restaurant with about 10 others for what I thought would be drinks.  This place was on a busy local street.  It had a sheet metal roof with cheap 4 foot double fluorescent lights all around and no side walls.   There was no atmosphere except all the locals and the pouring down rain (while still about 80 degrees).  It's all about the food and drink at this place.  The blackened halibut was $1.10 and a 22 ounce beer $2.25.  So here I am blogging after midnight to digest some of this food. 
       I realized today while at the restaurants and on the taxi ride there, that I was learning thai.  After my second lunch today I was able to tell the cook that I had a happy tummy.  I could tell the taxi driver to take me to Chai raan ahaan, yuu thii soi samakee (Chai restaurant on street Samakee).  I was able to tell him where and which way to turn or when to go straight or slow.  I was also able to ask for change at the restaurant, trading 500 bht for sii loy, and haa, yii sip (4 hundreds, and 5 20).  When I came here, I had doubts that I would ever pick up the language.  Now I know that this will truely be my second language. 
     Ahnika swam in the swim-a-thon last night.  She swam for two hours, taking only about 6-30 second breaks to drink water.  About 3.5 miles and goodness knows how many calories. 
     This morning Micki ran her first cross country race.  As an 11 year old she finished first in the girls under 13 group.  It was fun watching her last 300 yards as she reeled in several people including a few boys.  I'm sure you can tell the boy in this picture got toasted.
     What a great start to the weekend!