The Terrific3 travel blog

I wanted to learn how to make a few more Thai dishes, and most of the schools have the same standard menu for you to choose what to cook. I reached out to Tom yum Thai cooking school, whose Facebook page I’ve been following for a year, to see if they would be willing to do a private class to teach me peanut sauce, fresh spring rolls and Massaman curry. We also added in pad Thai and mango sticky rice, which we did last time.

We met Oun at the cooking school, which was set up as part of the house he shared with his wife.

It was another great experience, and the boys had fun cooking and grinding with a mortar and pestle. And I learned that the reason my peanut sauce didn’t taste like Thai restaurant sauce was that it’s more than peanut butter and soy sauce. We put some of the Massaman curry paste we made into ground roasted peanuts (which Z ground with a mortar and pestle). Red curry paste can also be used. We also added coconut milk, and some soy sauce. It was delicious!

Overall, my kids have been doing well. But one thing that has been stressing me out is the level of rambunctiousness whenever we get into a car. I usually sit in the front seat and they in the back on either side. But they tease each other, nudge, giggle, laugh super loud, and make huge noises from the back seat, which perhaps annoy me more than the drivers, but I think Thai people are also too nice, and I would be annoyed with that level of noise if I were driving. Short of me sitting in the middle of the back seat, which I don’t want to do, no level of rewards or threats seems to help and each time, it’s a 20-30 minute struggle in the car as we drive into the city. So today, I was at my wit’s end and made the driver stop 1/4 mile from our house and made the kids walked and talked to them about respect and took away TV for the rest of the day. And am now hiding in my room with a headache. Oh, the travails of travel as a single parent, or any parent, really. Let’s see if the message got through, but I told them from now on, we would be walking more to our destinations or do so immediately in the car if they continued the mischief. Boys are just so loud and overstimulating sometimes, and the more you have, the more exponential the noise. It’s so different than what I mostly observe from my friends who have daughters that we just have vastly different parenting experiences.

Anyways, the rest of the day went well despite not TV. Some pool time, and now the kids are eating and listening to songs on their kindles.

After that it started POURING monsoon style and the boys thought it would be fun to play soccer in the rain with umbrellas…this is the upside of boys…they’ll have fun in any weather!

Tomorrow morning we do a Reiki infused yoga class, and I’m excited!