Oh yeah: some people asked how we came up with Thailand...

I bought a desktop calendar for Jim's birthday a couple of years ago based on the book "1,000 Places to See Before You Die". For 365 days of the year, a new place was featured. That way, when Jim was hard at work he could look at his calendar and know that one day we would be able to travel to some of these exciting destinations. Jim had mentioned Thailand would be a neat place to visit at some point. Once we decided to take a vacation, we were trying to decide where to go.

Out of 1,000 choices, it was hard to decide our first destination. So I told Jim to close his eyes and I would flip through the pages of the calendar, and whatever page he pointed to would be the place we would go. Ironically, the page stopped at one of the many destination stops in Thailand. To confirm, we did it again, and the page stopped again on the same page. So that confirmed Thailand would be our destination.

Over the course of our planning, we pulled out all of the calendar pages that related to Thailand and put a map of Thailand on a wall at home. That way, each day as we rushed out the door to work, we could see the places we would go and could start learning the geography. Some of the featured places to see in Thailand: The Grand Palace, the Reclining Buddha, Chiang Mai, and the Floating Market. So that would be at least 4 places to cross off our list in one vacation.

So here we are in Thailand, all because of a birthday present! :)