The Harter Family

Phuket sand bakery

2011-10-28T08:33:00.006+07:00

On October,22,2011 ,we went to Phuket because of the floods. One day we went to the beach and had popsicle , boogie boarded, surfed and played on the sand. But i loved the sand bakery... The sand bakery is a big wall with a lot of space in the inside. The sand bakery has 5 stations cake, chocolate balls, sugar, cookies and pudding. Phuket rocks!!!!

Milla is a Genie in a Bottle 2010

2010-05-28T15:40:00.001+07:00

Skyline Drive

2009-07-01T09:13:00.005+07:00

Now that we are in Virginia for the start of Summer Holidays, we have been enjoying the woods, greenery, and fresh air as much as possible. Today, we took a drive on the amazing Skyline Drive - a part of the Appalachian Mountains. Amazing views, 35 mph driving, and little jaunts onto the Appalachian Trail itself. Kids loved it...who am I kidding, we all loved it.

Milla's Dance Show 2009

2009-05-30T22:26:00.001+07:00

Milla did ballet this year and her performance this year was amazing. Titled, "House Painters", the Primary Ballet kids really were beautiful. So cute.

Enjoy.

Catchin' Up

2009-05-15T19:48:00.003+07:00

Been busy times of late.

To sum up, the team I coach won Gold at the IASAS Softball Championships in Singapore. We were supposed to be at home, but civil unrest in Thailand moved the tourney to Singapore. It was my first Gold after 16 seasons of coaching in IASAS so that was exciting.

The whole family went to Australia. Good pics from that trip are posted. We lost our video camera while there though, so the video footage from that trip is gone. Milla performed a Thai dance for the entire Elementary school at the Songkran assembly.

Kai fell about 2 weeks ago and got a gash on the back of his head that required 3 stitches. His first stitches. Hey, he beat Daddy! He's doing fine now and the stitches were pulled out.

Lana is talking up a storm these days and know all of our names. She has gotten better, but occasionally still has trouble with the "k" sound and so Kai sounds like "Hi!" Very cute. Milla is currently "MeeMaa" to her...which we like too.

We are excited to be coming to the US in the summer months. Can't wait to see family.

Recent Photos:

Kai sings

2009-04-06T23:03:00.002+07:00

Kai has been repeating (and repeating) this song ever since he learned it from Milla.

Kids eye view Fall 2008

2009-02-25T14:19:00.003+07:00

Here are photos taken with our kids' Fisher Price digital cameras. Fascinating look at the world through their eyes (lots of photos of people without the heads!).

Taken mostly in the Fall of 2008.

Photos from last June

2009-02-25T14:02:00.002+07:00

This is a retroactive post to share photos from last summer. Some from KL and some from Matt's visit to us in Bangkok.

Kai turns 4

2008-09-25T23:39:00.002+07:00

We had a great superhero birthday party on Wednesday for Kai's 4th birthday party. Was a great party with 16 4 and 3 yr. olds! Kai had a blast and is already behaving in more mature ways. If I had known this was going to happen he'd of been 4 months ago!

At the party, I finally had the video camera out and so I got Lana on tape, walking. She's been doing it a while, but at least this time we recorded.

The third child IS screwed. We must take more photos and video!

Here's the vid....she is the smiliest baby ... EVER!

Songkran at the Beach

2008-04-24T21:24:00.003+07:00

With the frequency that I am blogging, you'd think we did nothing but hang at the beach!

I was coaching in Jakarta for the first few days, but met the family at a great condo on the beach later.

We played, swam, and enjoyed the time off.

Great pics of the kids here. Lana was just about 6 months when these pics were taken.

Check out more pics in the album!

Milla's PreK class goes online

2008-04-23T15:31:00.003+07:00

Milla's PreK teacher has become a blogger. It's awesome. Check out this VoiceThread to hear Milla and her classmates talk about their drawings. If you want to skip ahead, Milla drew the teddy bear picture.

Subscribe to the blog and keep up with how Milla is doing for the rest of the year.

Awesome job, Ms. Patty!

Sweet, sweet Phuket

2007-11-21T13:18:00.001+07:00

The family got out of town for a few days and lived the life of luxury at the J.W. Marriott in a 2 bedroom suite. A family could get used to this.

Lana was awesome on her first flight (at 3.5 weeks old...not bad).

Kai and Milla loved the beach and Milla's swimming skills came in handy as she slid down the water slide at least a hundred times.

More photos to come on the picasa site, but in the meantime, here are some great ones that Justin took while we were there.

Also, check out the baby Lana album as there are some good ones that Justin took in there too of her.

Lana has arrived!

2007-10-29T22:25:00.000+07:00

On October 23rd at 1:23 PM Lana Matte Hue Harter was born. Kylie did awesome in our fastest delivery yet (hey, they can't all last 3 days!). It was a special holiday here in Thailand and so a very lucky day for Lana to choose to come out.

We have spent a week now getting to know her and she is a dream. Such a good baby and SO CUTE!!! Yes we are biased, but it's true.

Kylie is doing great and Milla and Kai LOVE their new sister.

Check out our album of Lana's first week of life.

Painting Fun

2007-09-03T22:45:00.000+07:00

Picasa Web Albums - The Harters - Kids Painting

Kids had a blast painting on our back patio. Hey, all the photos can't be special events. Sometimes you just want to capture the stuff they do every day.

A trip to the Jungle

2007-09-03T22:42:00.000+07:00

Picasa Web Albums - The Harters - A trip to Kao...

We went up to Kao Yai for a weekend with friends. Kids had a blast riding on elephants through the jungle and into the river. Milla was with her friend Kathleen and both got to "drive" the elephant.

Kai rode with Mum and Dad and he didn't want any part of getting in front. Our photos are mostly thanks to our driver who ditched us 2 minutes in and left us and the elephant to fend for itself as he walked and took photos. Not particularly reassuring. Dad took over driving at one stage and even managed to convince himself that he was doing something to influence the elephant's path. Yeah right.

We also walked through the jungle and did a night safari drive looking for animals...no tigers or elephants, but we did see many deer and some snakes on the road.

One amazing highlight...a terrific Italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere up there. Fantastic pasta, fresh-baked bread and amazing desserts. The jungle is hard living...

Kai starts school

2007-08-15T20:20:00.000+07:00

Kai started at pre-school today. Milla started last week at ISB...photos to come from that.

Check out the photos at our Picasa gallery.

Kai loved it all. No tears when we dropped him off and he settled in great. He finished the day telling Kylie how much he loved school and how he wants to go every day!

The Photos are here

2007-08-04T00:11:00.000+07:00

The biggest upload of photos since we started the picasa gig!

Almost 100 photos from Kylie's camera from most of the summer. I say most, because you look back and realize how many times you didn't have the camera with you for things: Boston with Pete, the zoo in DC, the river with the Pucketts and so on and so on.

Oh well...these photos will have to do.

Enjoy. More blog posts to come on different parts of the trip. For now, enjoy the pics.

Summer 2007 back in the US

2007-08-01T13:02:00.000+07:00

Finally, an update to the family blog!

After school got out in June we flew back to VA to spend time with family back in the US. Kids were great...flights were smooth and jet lag was minimal.

Had a wonderful time with so much family time in VA, Todd, Julie & Co. in Newport News, Gordon & Ginger and Co. in South Carolina, Careys, Eversoll-Gallaghers, and Sharp-Arahnas in New Hampshire, and Pete in New Hampshire too. Lots of driving, but tons of fun. (Still didn't get to see too many people.)

I will write about each of the trips in their own posts as we get pics up for each, but since we did get photos up (finally) of family shots (thanks to Jen's photos) I thought I'd post that link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dennisharter

Check out the new galleries. As always the link to the gallery is over in the links section on the right as well. We'll upload the photos that Kylie took all summer soon.

Back to work!

Old Friends

2007-02-20T11:33:00.000+07:00

Saw Michelle LeFevre last night with her boyfriend, John. Was great to see her again after 15 years. Reminded me how that international school connection (or is it just JIS) is so strong even after all of these years, that it's easy to fall back into easy conversation and generally being happy for each other. Friendship is strange that way. How do we define friendship? Is it the continual contact? Is it more than that? Or is it a bond that remains despite distance, time, etc? On one level the continual contact seems so important, but at the same time, there is comfort in the knowledge that you would always be there for someone if they needed you, through some older but common bond.

Admitedly, this doesn't come into play often, since the more "contacted-friend" is more likely to fill this role, but with people spreading around the world, it's cool to know that bonds transcend just regular contact and instead extend to shared experience.

Maybe all just gibberish. It was just cool to see how happy she is.

Sick as a dog

2007-02-12T14:20:00.000+07:00

No new photos at this time, mostly due to them being on the other computer. I have to start blogging from the Mac! Everyone's sick in the house. Nothing serious, just a lot of runny noses and tissues.

Dennis has been traveling a lot lately. First 8 days in Foslom, CA, just outside of Sacramento. Then 4 days in Chiang Mai, Thailand chaperoning 160 grade 8 students (there were other chaperones as well!). Good to be home to stay for a while.

Kids are well...new photos to come soon.

Back from Oz

2007-01-10T11:47:00.000+07:00

Back in Bangkok now after a wonderful vacation in Australia. Spent the first half of the holiday in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast and then then Christmas Eve on with family in Melbourne. The highlight of course was meeting our new nephew/cousin, Reed!

Pictures will come soon. My computer crashed before the break, and I didn't lose data, but I did lose my Picasa settings. So in re-installing, I have to create all of the web albums again. Also upgraded the home Mac, so we should have the new photos uploaded and on the web later this week.

Let 2007 be a peaceful year for everyone.

New Photos up! Hua Hin Oct 2006

2006-11-08T23:13:00.000+07:00

Hua Hin Oct 2006 - Just updated a few photos from the long weekend at the Evason. Great hotel, though we did not work out the best restaurant to eat at until the last day.

Also, had a great visit from KL friends who were up in BKK for the administrators conference. A wonderful dinner with almost the whole gang that had come up. Just a wonderful group down there. Good to see everyone.

More photos to come once I get on the Mac.

Everyone in the family is nursing some sort of flu right now. Let's just say the tissues are disappearing fast. Kids are still in good spirits though and the weather here is allowing for a lot of outside play which is great. Will post again soon.

We're photo crazy now!

2006-11-03T16:05:00.000+07:00

In efforts to be better about sharing our lives with friends and family, we've started a web photo album with Picasa, the free service from Google (I really do love them). Have not played with this feature yet, but with geo-tagging, I'll even be able to link where the photo was taken with Google Earth, the coolest tour of the world there is. If you haven't wasted hours of your life playing with Google Earth, then you haven't lived.

The photos are organized as best I could at this stage and sorting through what I thought was an excellent filing system, but now realize is little more than one of those plates that they give you in cafeterias with the sections. You think everything is going to stay in the right place, but stuff moves into the wrong sections somehow.

Of course, the biggest problem that we have is that most to all of our photos are in iPhoto on our Mac. The photos on Picasa are just the ones I happened to have on my PC. In the end, I may switch to a different format if it's super-easy from iPhoto, which I am sure that it is since all things "i" on the Apple are super-easy. On the other hand, I am not messing with the photos on there (including upgrading software) until I back it all up again.

Still the Picasa web gallery is a good start and at least you can see some photos from our lives of late. Might have to create another gallery on another account if I stay at this rate since there is a size limit. Will have to delete some of the older galleries after a while...keep things fresh.

D.

Update!

2006-10-30T20:43:00.000+07:00

Halloween is tomorrow. Milla will be going as Shanthi from Jungle Book (I think) or one of the Disney princesses...man, those guys are good at marketing! Kai will be a tiger, which is a significant jump on the "tough-guy" scale from his turn as a shiny orange pumpkin last year. Pretty cute though. Will post pictures when we get them.

Kylie is enjoying work and doing some great things with the students. There is a real appreciation for photography as an art medium growing at ISB. Good news.

My work continues to be all-consuming. It is a lot to keep up with and we are doing some big things school-wide that demand a lot of attention while also needing to pay attention to detailed things that are happening in the two divisions I coordinate. Busy.

Went to the beach two weekends ago...great hotel called the Evason. Beautiful. Had no batteries on the camera, so pics are limited. Very technical of us.

It is a goal to be better about using this as a way to update and get recent photos posted. In that vein, I've attached some photos from the winter (July) in Australia (I was in London at the time).

Welcome to our blog!

2006-08-07T21:52:00.000+07:00

Hi everyone! We will be using this space to pass on news of how things are going for us in Thailand. Here we can give you news of the kids and any exciting things going on.

We'll see how much we use it, but for now, we are just getting started.

School is about to start and we are getting in the mind-set to focus on work. Hard to believe the restful holidays are over. The kids are happy to be home, however and having a blast with all of their friends here.

More info to come!