Wow it's been a REALLY busy week!  The brief recap is:

1.  Kathy made it safely to Thailand last Friday after close to 24 hours of travel - she 'did good' in a very long internaltional travel agenda to end up in Chiang Mia.

2.  Our 5th grandchild, scheduled for an approximate 8th of February arrival, has not yet made his/her appearance.  We are praying he/she will be 'on time' as Kathy has to leave Thailand on the 17th and would obviously like to meet the new little one and help all she can in the first days of family adjustment.  Sarah is doing great but at that point of wanting to be holding the baby and not just 'carrying it'!

3.    Our second son Mark, and his wife Aubrey, are now expecting their first child in June!  They live in the Sacramento, CA area and just got the 'official confirmation' that it's A BOY!  They have already choosen a name:  Jack Henry Laughlin!

4.  Finally, our house move went very well thanks to the help of many friends.  A huge thanks to Jeff, Caroline, Ann, Rhianwen, Kate, Lori, and others for all the help with moving, cleaning and feeding us during the transition.  We are about 85% settled in and headed to our local Ikea store tomorrow for a few key items in order to get to 100%.

5.  We have met one new neighbor so far at our new house and had tea (dinner0 with an 'old' neighbor.  We are only a little over a mile from where we lived before so we are going to do all we can to keep and grow friendships already begun.  God is so good all the time!

Kathy left yesterday afternoon on a route from Dublin, to London.  Then from London to Bangkok and anytime now she should be landing in Chiang Mia, Thailand!  What a trip, but if you know anything about Kathy, you know that she would do anything to help with grand babies, and that's exactly what her mission to Thailand is all about.

Andrew & Sarah (our oldest son and his incredible wife) have been in Thailand for triple conferences, and now for the birth of child number three, (our 5th grand child).  Medical care is very good in Chiang Mia, in the Northern part of the country (see map below) as well as cheap compared to US or Irish costs, so it made good sense for them to 'deliver' there.  

Kathy will be doing all she can with Abby and Joseph while Andrew and Sarah prepare for the birth of the newest 'little Laughlin'.  We don't know if this one is a boy or a girl yet but we are praying he or she will arrive soon.  The due date is around February 8th, more or less, and Kathy can stay until the 17th, so we hope this will all work out to be good timing . . .  will keep you updated.

Andrew will collect (pick up) Kathy once she lands in Chiang Mai and wisk her off to the borrowed house they are all staying in for the next month or 6 weeks.  It is amazing how God provided a place for them to stay as long as they needed it, where Andrew can get good work done and has an excellent internet connection - perfect for SKYPE conversations as well as video feeds!  Thanks for praying for all of them over the next couple of weeks!

For the past 10 days or so, our water supply has been turned off from around 7:30 PM until about 7 or 8:00 AM!  Why in the world would water be a problem in an area that gets as much rain as Ireland?

The answer seems to be infastructure.  Many water pipes in the city are very old and, under normal circumstances work just fine.  The coldest winter in decades, however, seems to have had a widespread effect and caused hundreds or even thousands of small leaks.  The compound effect is that water is dissapearing without the usual geysers when a water main bursts. 

How do you find water leaks in a system when there are no obvious signs?  The unusual cold will likely cost Ireland million of euros that they can't afford.  So, for the time being there is no water at night in many neighborhoods like ours.  'No Water' is a bit of an exaggeration, however, since the only place in most houses that gets water directly from the city water supply is the cold water in the kitchen sink!

In most Irish homes, water coming in from the city supply is pumped to a storage tank in the attic.  When a toiiet is flushed, or a shower is turned on or a sink faucet is used (other than the kitchen) the water is coming via gravity feed from the tank in the attic!  So, the good part is that when the water is turned off, toilets can still flush and bathroom sinks still work until the storage tank empties.  In our case that usually lasts until the water is turned on again in the morning.  We just can't take showers, for the most part, until after the water is back on!

Talk to you soon, God has been very good to us already in 2010!