Thanksgiving dinner and patonque lessons

We had a lovely Thanksgiving tonight in Vientiane. Tom and Goht, our friend Cindy from Health Frontiers and two visiting medical type guys, and Tat, Noi and their son, Donut (well, that's what it sounds like anyway).

We haven't seen Donut in a while, and he's getting to be a big kid. Noi just came back from 3 months in the US, and when she got back, Donut didn't remember her. It broke her heart. He's coming around, though.

Tat is teaching Donut about tennis young.



Reason #362 that Jack will likely marry an Asian woman. Everywhere he goes he is smothered with attention. Noi was no exception. He fell asleep in her arms in about 2 minutes.

For much of Donut's 18 months of life, he has watched his father play patongque (bocce ball) with his friends. Patonque has become enormously popular here. When we first arrived in Laos, you could see people playing here and there. Nowadays, it's everywhere.

Anyway, nothing Donut likes more than to play pretend patonque (and alliterate).

Note how he is standing behind the line. Every time he made sure his feet were behind the carpet. And he's lining up his shot.

And the throw. His aim leaves something to be desired, so we moved most breakable things out of the way.

Katherine is getting back on the tennis court for the first time since relatively early in her pregnancy tomorrow morning. She is stealing my 9:00 am tennis date with Tat.