Team Skeene

Benefits to Joining A Network Marketing Company

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 04:31:00 +0000

Benefits to Joining A Network Marketing Company

The Adventures of Punch Hardfist

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 03:03:00 +0000

Click on the image to see a bigger view:

Remembering Richmond

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:12:00 +0000

Nicole and I had a special date yesterday where we went around Richmond, Virginia and remembered our engagement. Nicole lived in Richmond when we met and that is where we fell in love and got married so we took an afternoon to visit some special places.

Here is the rooftop of her condo where I proposed:

The ring I gave her:

Nicole is seated at one of our favorite restaurants, Comfort.

Our delicious meal:

The old train station where we had our wedding reception:

The canal which is romantically-lit and perfect for night walks:

We Miss Laos

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Sydney on the Road

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:04:00 +0000

Back Home!

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:02:00 +0000

We are so happy to be back home with family and friends, but we really miss Laos. I think about our friends in Laos everyday and I miss speaking Lao. We are living in Mulberry, Florida but we are still very involved in Georgia. Here are a few recent pictures of the girls:

Hannah and Sydney playing in the pine straw in GA.

Hannah and Callan at the Bangkok airport.

Sydney playing at at a mall in Thailand.

Sydney on the Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:59:00 +0000

Mother's Day '11

noreply@blogger.com (Nicole) — Sun, 08 May 2011 07:30:00 +0000

This year for Mother's Day Sam took me along with some of our friends to the Elephant Village and Hannah and I got to ride an elephant! It was amazing. Even though we've lived in Laos for 3 years, I'd never been to this place or ridden an elephant before. It was a beautiful 1-hour ride through the jungle, into the Nam Khan river, and up through a village. Hannah loved it and had a great time as well. After we swam in the beautiful pool that overlooked the river and the mountains. Thanks Sam for such a wonderful Mother's Day treat!

Easter Egg Hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Nicole) — Mon, 02 May 2011 03:20:00 +0000

Yesterday Laurie held an Easter Egg Hunt at her house for the kids on our team and her neighbor kids. She hid goodies all over the house and the kids ran and found them. Hannah had a great time running around, but needed some help finding candy. Once she had a handful, though, I couldn't get her to release it for anything! Thanks Laurie for being so thoughtful.

Sam's Family Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 10:15:00 +0000

At the end of July, Sam’s Mom, Deborah, and Stepdad, Tom, came to visit for 10 days. We met them at the airport in Bangkok Thailand, then flew to another city called Udon Thani where we picked up our truck, drove across the border, and then proceeded to drive across the middle and northern part of Laos to reach Luang Prabang. The drive was amazing and my Mother-in-Law has an incredible album on Facebook depicting the journey. Once we reached Luang Prabang we spent about a week together with them visiting key attractions of the city and enjoying quality family time. It was an incredible visit and my only complaint about it is that it was far too short.

-Nicole

Click here or click one of the pictures below to see our photo album:

Fun with Family

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:30:00 +0000

My parents have been visiting for the past month and it’s been really great to see them. They’ve enjoyed spending time with their younger two grandchildren (Hannah and Sydney) and we have greatly appreciated all their help. Both Hannah and Sydney have grown right before their eyes! It was a precious time spent together. Tomorrow morning they are heading back home to the states and while we will miss them, we are very glad for the chance we had to be together.

-Nicole

Check out our latest video of my mom holding Hannah holding Sydney below:

Hannah's Newest Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 14:22:00 +0000

The first photo you see attached to this post is a screen shot of Comic Life Magiq, the program we use to make our newsletters and comics. In it you can see some of the ways we work with pictures to bring our stories and antics to you in a fun format. To see all our comics, click here:

Taking a Walk in Luang Prabang

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:29:00 +0000

Nicole’s parents are visiting us right now and we created a comic to commemorate our first walk with the new double stroller they bought us. You can’t see her in the picture, but Sydney is also in the back of the stroller.

Click here or the picture below to see the Comics album:

Losing Baby Weight...Thai Style!

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:43:00 +0000

In Thailand and Laos, it is the tradition that women stay home for at least one month after they have a baby. They bind their stomachs with rags, sit over a hot fire, and drink hot liquids no matter the season. In this way, they sweat out all the impurities and lose their baby weight. The modern Thai still believe that this is a good practice, so one friend that we’ve made while staying here, pictured below,

graciously offered to let me borrow her “home sauna” so that I could participate in this age-old remedy. While I can’t say that I enjoy it, I do secretly hope it works and I lose my baby weight quickly!

Beach Trip to Koh Samet

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:40:00 +0000

For Nicole’s birthday I planned a fun three day beach trip here in Thailand. We’ve been here waiting for Sydney’s passport and had plenty of time to spare, plus the rates were really cheap since this is the low season for tourists. We’ve enjoyed our stay, but we have to go home tomorrow so I want to post a few pictures to memorialize our mini-vacation.

-Sam

To see the photo album, click here or click the pictures below:

Sissy Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:42:00 +0000

Hannah has been hugging, kissing, and talking to Sydney everyday. We are very happy because we didn’t want her to feel left out or jealous. That may come later, but so far we haven’t noticed it.

In this adorable video, Hannah displays her affection for her little sister and gives Sydney her very first nickname.

-Nicole

Strong Baby!

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:05:00 +0000

Hannah nearly destroys an ink pen with her mini-might and awesome determination. We believe you have it in you, Hannah.

-Nicole

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 14:49:00 +0000

We are so excited to welcome Sydney Renee Skeene to our family. Weighing 7 lbs 12 oz and measuring 20.4 inches, Sydney arrived at 4:12am Bangkok time on Friday June 18th. She is perfect and reminds us very much of Hannah, who has been enjoying her new sister (so far!).

-Nicole

To see the photo album, click here or click one of the pictures below:

Are We There Yet? Yes!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:52:00 +0000

Well, the saga continues about getting to Farm Chokchai... we left on Tuesday morning at 11:00 for a 2:00 tour, but due to unforeseen circumstances (including our bus breaking down), we didn’t arrive until 4:00pm. So we decided to make an adventure of it and stay the night so that we could take the 10:00am tour. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the front of the farm. Hannah had a great time feeding the fish, and we ate a delicious dinner at the Chokchai steakhouse.

To see the album, click here or click one of the pictures below:

The next day Hannah got decked out in her cowgirl glory

And we headed out on a tour of the farm that included milking cows, riding horses, watching a cowboy show, going to a petting zoo, and more! It was a fantastic 2-day adventure and we had such a great time at Farm Chokchai.

-Nicole

Are We There Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Nicole and I tried to visit a tourist-friendly ranch a couple of days ago so that Hannah could see all the animals and we could eat some farm-fresh ice cream. Sadly, we never arrived at our destination because, apparently, in order to navigate Thailand’s road system you need to be able to read Thai. Go figure. We took a wrong turn early on and never recovered (we were lost for about 4 hours).

We did however find a nice beach-side neighborhood with a boardwalk and pool. Hannah took a dip with Nicole (pictured above) and I walked to the end of the boardwalk. The tide was way out and the “beach” was mostly mud, but I saw about 100 mudskippers wiggling around in the muck. These are a kind of fish that can breathe air, walk on land, and jump 2 feet into the air!

One more cool thing was that Hannah got to play in some grass which is very rare in Laos.

Get Happy

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:53:00 +0000

We have lots of parties with our friends in Laos and here are a few clips of some of our celelbrations. The song is “Get Happy” by Benny Goodman and his orchestra.

Wedding Scrapbook

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Sun, 23 May 2010 15:07:00 +0000

We celebrated our 3rd anniversary on Thursday May 20th, which reminded me that I’d done a scrapbook of our wedding for our families. I posted it on my photos page if you’d like to check it out. It was fun to look back at the pictures and remember that special day!

-Nicole

To see the album, click here or click one of the pictures below:

Safari World, Bangkok

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:53:00 +0000

For our 3rd wedding anniversary Nicole and I went to a great zoo/ theme park in Bangkok called Safari World. We saw a lot of animals you would expect to see at a zoo like lions and tigers. (Don’t say it.) There were also some new animals that we had never seen like the Douc Langurs which are some of the most beautiful monkeys in the world. They are native to Laos and, sadly, are endangered. Hannah loved seeing all the animals, although she would get frightened of the ones that were too close or too big (some birds got too close and, since the tigers were too big we made her come out of their cages and stop playing with them.) We had a great time pushing Hannah around in a dolphin-shaped stroller I called the dolphin dasher and trying to help her stay cool. After we walked all over looking at the animals and exhibits, we drove through the wildlife conservation range where we saw all of the animals you would expect to see on an African safari, as well as Canadian bears! Oh my!

Click here or below to see the photo album with lots more pictures:

Hmong Children Dance

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:08:00 +0000

Laos is home to many Hmong people and we are lucky to have Hmong students and friends at our school. Recently we visited a village nearby where some of our friends are from and we got to see the kids dance and sing at the village Christmas party. I love the smiles on the kids faces.

Missing Luang Prabang

noreply@blogger.com (Sammy Ray) — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:04:00 +0000

Luang Prabang is a strikingly beautiful city, surrounded by gorgeous mountains and lush green foliage. The city itself is peaceful and serene. Yet the main reason why I miss Luang Prabang isn’t it’s attractiveness. It’s the people that cause me to long to be back there as quickly as possible. As English teachers, we come in contact with hundreds of students on a regular basis. We do our best to get to know as many as we can, inviting them into our homes and our lives. Over time, a number of our students have become Lao teachers and administrative staff at the school. It’s this special group of leaders that I have come to know and love so deeply. These are the young men and women whom I truly call friends, and these are the faces that I am longing to see.

-Nicole

To see our photo album about Laos, click here or on one of the pictures below: