In this post, I use a word that starts with M that we really shouldn’t use while living in the country. You can interpret the word for yourself.

Our season of lots of visitors seems to be at an end. Very few people come to visit during Thailand’s hottest season, which is about to commence. It’s sort of sad. There’s a small sense in which it’s nice to have the house to ourselves again, but mostly, we really miss having lots of people around. We so much look forward to our visitors and are always very sorry to see people leave. The house just isn’t as exciting without 7 or 8 people in it. I’d have to say that one of my favorite things about the M lifestyle is the home visits. Before we became M’s, we rarely went to stay at our friends’ and families’ houses (aside from our parents) and they rarely came to stay at ours. But since becoming M’s we have stayed with lots of friends and family and have had quite frequent guests at our home as well. I do miss the regular contact we had with friends and family in America, but somehow I have always felt that these home stays bring about a depth of relationship we never had with people when we were only together for hours at a time. I’m not saying that we get to know everyone who comes to stay in a deeply emotional way; you just know more facets of their personality. When you are together for days you get to know people’s habits, what frustrates them & what they enjoy. You usually have the leisure to allow conversations to develop naturally. It allows for an unhurried style of relating that I like.

One the pics attached to this entry is of a family we’ve been with every year for three years. We first lived above them while we were in training two years ago and they’ve come to stay with us both years since then. We went to the hardest mini-golf course ever with them last night. For some funny pics of Gabe from the evening see my blog.