Phi Phi Island Thailand

Laine, Van, and I spent five wonderful days on Phi Phi Island in the Andaman Sea off the western coast of Thailand. It was just the most perfect vacation ever. The weather was great, hot, and sunny and the accomodations were wonderful. If we had to spend five days on an island, I think we did a great job picking the right one! Diving, beautiful water, shopping, drinking and eating. Paradise found!!



Our first octopus! We saw two of them. It was really great when they swam away from us. I was hoping we'd "get inked" but we were never that threatening to them that they felt they needed to "ink" to get away!


Between dives we have to spend some time on the surface to help prevent nitrogen loading. In between the first and second dive we had this view to enjoy as we ate pad thai and jumped off the upper deck of the dive boat.

Laine and van being perturbed over the fact that I wanted to get a photo of them. Can't tell, can you?

Local long tail boat heading out into the harbor. This was the view we woke up to every morning from our hotel room and got to enjoy as we sunbathed by the pool! Paradise, truly.

One of my personal favorites - a Lemon Yellow Box Fish. It's so dainty, cute and shy.

Laine getting ready to descend into the deep blue at the dive site Bida Nai. It's a beautiful rock reef around a huge rock island. We rented an underwater camera for the trip. It was great!


The fan coral was awesome, but we never did see the sea horse that was on our list of things to see. this trip. There is always next time. That's what makes diving so fun, you never know what you are going to see. The visibility on the first dive wasn't the best, but it was still very, very beautiful.

These tubes of coral are really fun to look in to see what's hiding. They come in fascinating shapes and sizes.

We saw not one, but several very friendly leopard sharks. This one was so friendly, a man in the other group got to pet it.

Laine, unda the sea! She looks so relaxed and at home here. I hope she gets lots of opportunities to enjoy this marvelous sport. It amazes me that 70% of the Earth is ocean. We have a lot to explore!

A rather large Undulated Moray Eel. He was just sitting there minding his own business opening and closing his mouth. He was a beautiful blue green color.

We saw a lot of sea stars on this trip. This bright blue one really stuck out on the reef. If you look closely, you can see the darker blue spots on the sea star's body.
Beautiful and colorful fish were all around us. This pair of Redfin Butterfly Fish were amazing! I must tell you, it is a lot of fun to look up their names in our reference book.

We saw a school of Chevron Barracuda. They have really sharp teeth that look scary!

We also saw this little anemone fish - relative to Nemo! I love these fish. They are so friendly (most of the time). Laine got attacked by one when she was checking out the Flounder! It was protecting it's babies.

We are so happy that Laine can scuba with us, now we just need Joe and Blair to learn how, too. Then it will be a family event. Hugs from Malaysia.

Trip to United States for Home Leave

I should start off with the most important event of our trip to the US first! The graduation of our son Joe from Western Washington University! Here is almost the whole klan. Grandma Doris, Grandpa Van, Joe, his friend Ryan (his beautiful wife Laura is taking the photo), Mike Hamm (all the way from northern Idaho), Joe's beautiful girlfriend Blair, Van, me, Laine, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Barb. One big happy bunch! We are all so proud of Joe and his accomplishment. We know it took hard work and dedication and wasn't always easy, but he did a great job! Way to go, Joe!

Joe being congratulated by his sweet sister Laine. Hopefully, in a couple of years we will be enjoying the same event for her!

After we got off the river, I had a very few days to spend with my family at the ranch in Carey, Idaho. My sister was trying out her granddaughter Katie's Barbie Fishing Pole. Here she is pulling off a bunch of water-cress. Apparently, the pole has special powers, but only for Katie and John!

I had absolutely the best day fishing on Silver Creek that I have ever had! I caught 50 fish in three hours on a Dave's Hopper flyfishing. Here is one of the beauties a nice German Brown Trout. I stopped long enough to snap a shot, but was in a hurry to get back to fishing. It was a marvelous day!

While I was there my sister, Nancy, Laine and I camped each night in a tent by the falls pictured. There is nothing like the sound of falling water to lull you to sleep as long as you didn't have too much water to drink before bedtime! But, if you did have to get up, the stars were incredible!

Here we start the photos of our trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho. It is a wonderful float and was made even more special by the fact that Laine and Joe were with us, Grandpa Van showed up for a couple of days, and our very dearest friends were there as well. The fact that we started each day with a shot of espresso and Bailey's Irish Creme added that "bit of warmth" to get you going! What a fantastic time we had!

The river canyons are so amazing! You can see why they call it the River of No Return! The best thing was no cell phone service and no Blackberry's (so no work was allowed). Of course there was work to do, but it was fun compared to answering emails and updating schedules! It was a true "no work allowed" vacation. That is what Van and I really needed!

Gus (or Jeff) cruising into a rapid. Pure skill!

View down river from the pictographs that were on an amazing solid rock wall! See below.

Looks like a man to me!

The wall the pictographs are on! It was so amazing. I could see how the Indians would want to paint something on such a sacred place as this.

Here is Joe and Grandpa Van shooting through House of Rocks. They made quite a team. Van is 85 years old and it was his first trip down the river! Amazing! Way to go G-Man! We are so proud of you! Joe, thanks for rowing him safely down the river!

Appetizers - hand-rolled spring rolls! Steve and Rob did a marvelous job of cooking for us. After a hard day on the river it was food like rack of lamb, mushroom lasagna, big juicy steaks, ... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. It was AWESOME!!

One of our camps. Terry fishing in the foreground and our sandy beach in the background. All of our camps were special. My favorite was Sheepeater because we had a hot springs before bed and when we woke up!! Can't beat that in my book!

Laine cruising into camp after a long day rowing. This is her second time down the river and her second time rowing all the way (well, this year she did have some help from Max who was a rower in training).

More beautiful scenery. You never tired of looking. There was always something beautiful to marvel at. It made it hard to keep one eye on your fly. I lost a few fish because I was gawking and not paying attention!

Cliff jumping is one of the favorite past-times of the younger rafters. Here Matt does his thing as Todd waits in the water after his successful jump. Laine is the only "lady" jumper! I was like that even younger than she is so she comes by it naturally - honest!

Todd, Laine and Matt. The cliff was "really" high!

Here's Laine in Tappen Falls. She busted an oar at the top and successfully negotiated the rest of the Class IV rapid with one oar! Way to Go!

Steve gives his boat a good washing (along with everyone in it). He hit it right on and just kept going!

Jeff, Trey and Terry hit Tappen Falls - Woo Hoo!!

Laine, listening and learning from the pro "Gus." That girl knows who to learn her amazing skills from that's for sure.

Shawn and Nancy sitting pretty!

Mmmmm, breakfast. Hashbrowns, coffee, eggs.....

Steve with his "river smile" on. Bet you don't look this happy during tax season!

The dish and hand washing station. Can you think of a more beautiful place to wash dishes or your hands?

On Laine's 20th birthday (on the river) she was treated to licking the utensils covered in chocolate! Jeff was seen licking the chocolate off Gus's hat (which Laine was wearing). Priceless!

This is Dagger Falls. It is above the put-in at Boundary Creek where we camped the first night after rigging all the boats.

Ponderosa Pines, my very favorite. These two majestic beauties were spared by the fire.


















Multi-use river. Both wranglers and floaters can share!

The fire burnt one tree on left, but saved a couple on the right. No rhyme or reason, just the luck of the draw.

Laine showing Max her "river moves." Max was a great learner. She must have had a great teacher!

The put-in at Boundary Creek. Boats rigged and ready to start the 110 mile journey!

Gearing up in the morning. Here, Todd shows us how it's done!

Shawn showing his patriotic spirit on Barney the purple boat.

Say "Cheeeeeesssssseeee, Laine!"

On our way to the US we stopped over in Seoul and spent the day checking it out since we had a long layover. Here is some creative graffiti that caught my eye.

Trinkets at the street market. We could have spent hours looking around, but had to get back to catch our plane. The airport is an hour from downtown Seoul.

At one of the temples near the Battelle-Korea office, the patrons hung these latterns with their wishes/prayers. They were everywhere and very beautiful. I wish I could have read them.

One of the doors to the temple was decorated with this beautiful painting. The whole temple was a marvel of carved and intricately painted wood.

We had a marvelous trip. It made me more home sick to come back to Kuala Lumpur after being in the US. I'm about over it now. Laine is visiting and will be here for another 10 days. I am going to enjoy every single minute. We leave for Phi Phi Island in two days. Stay tuned for more happenings.