This holiday season has been a lot of fun. A lot of the reason for that was who we spent it with. Lori got here from Canada two days before Christmas. Then the next day Steven Kings (Kayla’s sister and her family) came from Thialand, to spend 4 days with us.

Christmas Day we didn’t do much that was extra special. Just had a good meal, played games, and enjoyed some family  time. I guess that’s how the next couple of days went.

The one day we took Stevens out to Bakong, and showed them a lot of what we do here. It was fun watching their boy Isaiah run around with Forrest. Their family lived in a city for three years and barely got out so anything nature related was really cool.

On Thursday Charity got here from Alaska. We four oldest children would have gotten to know her fairly well at Beaver Lake Camp this summer, and she and Lori made plans then to come over together…A couple hours after Charity got here Stevens left.

On New Years Eve, we stayed up late and did our family tradition of putting together a jigsaw puzzle until midnight. A couple minutes before 12 we went up to our rooftop patio, and watched the 2018 come in with a bang…Literally actually…From our rooftop we could see fireworks that people put off all over the city. We weren’t quite surrounded by fireworks but it was getting close…

On Monday Frank’s Family invited us and Sen’s to go with them out onto the lake for the day. We rented a big boat and went way out on the lake for lunch. Soon after lunch we came closer to shore and went swimming.

On Thursday our family went up to Kulen Mountain for the day. It was a real treat go there, because it’s a bit expensive. We hiked down to the falls and were there for a bit before heading downstream away from all the people that were congregated around the falls. Once we found a place downstream that we liked, we sat down and ate a snack. Soon after that most of us children were wading in the river. About 4 o’clock we headed back up close to the falls. Much to our surprise everybody was gone…Apparently the sun going down behind the mountain or the time scared them off. Either way we had the place to ourselves and a few of us jumped in the pool there for another swim…

Then on Friday we spent the afternoon at a waterpark here in Siem Reap. We really enjoyed it, but were soon wishing the slides were higher/faster.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much just normal, except for Sunday afternoon Lori headed back to Canada…We were sad to see her go, but she wasn’t quite as sad to go this time as she usually is..:) Those of you who are in the know, know why. The rest of you I guess you’ll just have to wonder…

Here’s a family pic we took since we were all together again.

Well that’s all for this time…

Luke for the Helmuths