Yet another link for wedding pictures

We have now received the final installment of our wedding pictures. These are the family photos. We've included a few of our favorites on our blog, but for all of them and at a better quality, click on the link. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25017151@N06/sets/72157624145128216/

Pretty Scarlett in her pretty dress with her pretty shoes and her pretty flower.

I personally think this perfectly captures the serenity that always surrounds MacPherson families.

We love how Cory and Canyon look just like old men. Does this look more like a funeral than a wedding? When looking through the pictures, watch Cory's face. It's priceless.

Ben's flower broke in half as soon as we got out of the temple. Luckily his mom was there to correct the error I made when pinning it on.

This one is probably our favorite. No other caption necessary.

The Grand Palace

We went to the Grand Palace this weekend in downtown Thailand. People have been telling us all along that this was one place we needed to visit while in Bangkok. It was a fun day trip. I'm also working on putting all of our pictures on photobucket.com. I've been having a hard time deciding which pictures to post, and this way we can have them all up for everyone to see.

We rode a boat downtown with Lynette and Alaina, but it was just Ben, Alaina and I at the Grand Palace.

I didn't notice anyone else staring, so maybe this is normal. Alaina said he was probably fishing for trash. Not hard to find in this river.

Inside the compound of the Grand Palace.

These structures were all very ornate. This is Alaina demonstrating to me how people pull off the squares of gold.

The Emerald Buddha. He's actually made of jade and wears a different gold outfit depending on what season it is. This is his summer season attire. They didn't allow pictures inside the temple, this was taken through a window outside.

During most of our visit, Alaina was most interested in playing with the bees, which are supposed to have no stingers.  Buddhists believe this is because of the sacredness of the Emerald Buddha.  Alaina's theory is that "they were just born that way."

In front of the Grand Palace

The three of us leaving the compound

The temples behind us

Visa Run

It's been a little while since we've written anything, so I thought it would be a good idea to update our avid readers on our recent visa run. When traveling to Thailand, tourists don't have to buy a visa to enter, but they are only allowed to stay a certain time before leaving and getting your passport stamped again. For stamps in airports it's every 30 days and for stamps at the border it's 15 days. Our 30 days were up, so we had to leave the country. The cheapest and quickest way we found (with the help of Pi Maam at Ben's work) was to wake up at 3:30 in the morning so we could catch a 5:00 bus to the Cambodian border. It was a double decker bus that was taking a bunch of Thai people to the casinos on the border. Neither Thailand nor Cambodia allows gambling, but they have an agreement to allow casinos between their borders. We had been warned of the likelihood that officials would try to trick us into spending way more money than necessary. Right as we stepped off the bus, we were taken by someone to an office to fill out some paperwork. When we took it up to the window, the man tried to charge us twice as much as we knew we should pay. When we told him we knew what the price was, he became furious and stormed out of his office and started yelling (in English) at the man who had brought us over, saying he should settle on a price first. That was quite an experience. Shortly after that we made our way through the Thai border and over to the Cambodian one. We also had to argue with the officer there because he kept increasing his price. But we held out. All in all it wasn't too much of a hassle. We then had all day to kill because the bus we came on didn't leave until 3 that day. We spent about an hour walking into Cambodia. It was an extremely hot, dusty road, but it was interesting to see the differences between Cambodia and Thailand. It is obviously much poorer. We bought some water there (so Ben could officially say we'd been in Cambodia) and then when we turned around to head back to the border, a man offered to give us a ride on his bike. We then spent the rest of that day in a casino in the middle land between Cambodia and Thailand. We ate some free lunch, I got a foot massage, and we watched people gamble. We actually had fun with that, trying to figure out how the games worked and what people's strategies were. To end this adventurous day, we got to walk back to Thailand through pouring rain in order to catch our bus on time. All in all, it was quite an exhausting day. But we enjoyed ourselves, and we'll be headed back there in about a week and a half for a real trip to Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh.

Mon adventure

As Ben said, we spent Saturday walking around the Mon settlement, Ko Kret. Here's a little history lesson for you--a few hundred years ago, the king put this group of people, the Mons (from Burma), on this piece of land. He didn't want them taking jobs away from the Thais. So they lived on this land making pottery. It eventually flooded and became an island and is now a pretty popular tourist sight for Thais. Now you can all walk away smarter and enriched. So we caught a taxi from our house to Wat Sanam Neua in Pak Kret where we took a ferry over to the island. It was a short trip but really pretty. We ate some amazing pad thai and walked around the entire island. We saw some potters working and bought a few pieces of pottery. The entire walk took about 2 hours. It was beautiful, and it really did feel like a honeymoon for the first time. We highly endorse this island to anyone visiting the city.

The ferry over to the island

The most delicious pad thai we've had yet

A shot of the market where we ate

The making of the pottery

A kiln

Potters carving by hand

These kids were helping out--they were adorable

A couple of old women talked us into buying these treats, which we did. They were disgusting.

Ben's first coconut tree

The path on the back side of the island was much more rural

The biggest temple on the island

I love my wife

We had a great day today, it was the first day that really felt like we were on a honeymoon. We went to a little dilapidated island where the local tribe, the Mon people, made a living by making ceramic pots. We were outside for a number of hours, and when we came home, she slept. I love her. That's all. I'll let her talk about the rest of the day, I just wanted to say that I love her.

Wedding pictures are here!

We got our wedding pictures today! Our wonderful photographer, Andrea Christensen (who we highly endorse to anyone in the Provo/Salt Lake area), just posted a bunch of pictures from our wedding day in Nauvoo. She hasn't finished with the family pictures yet, but these are the ones that she took of Ben and me. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25017151@N06/sets/72157624145128216/show/with/4643905748/

Pictures, pictures, pictures

It's been a busy few days, so I thought I would put up some pictures so everyone can get a glimpse of our day-to-day lives.

Ben, Adele and Alaina working on the fort we built in Adele's room. We watched The Kid inside the fort.

At Villa, a shopping center, for 10 baht you can have a machine spit out fish food and then these huge catfish come up and fight for the food. It's crazy.

The bus/truck thing that I ride to work every day. It's pronounced "Song-Tau" and basically it's just benches and a roof put over the back of a truck bed. And it only costs 6 baht.

Anvida Kindergarten, where I teach English three times a week.

The Pinvises' house, where we are staying. The window at the very top that you can barely see is our room.