Nichada Thani and Khun Jah

We ventured North of Bangkok yesterday to visit our house we’ll move into at the beginning of August.  The name of the area is Nichada Thani.  It’s mostly an exPat community comprised of about 30% Americans and the rest from around the world.  The community is centered around the International School of Bangkok, located in the middle of the community.
I chose this area to live during my business trip here back in March because of its proximity to the amazing school, the ability of the kids to ride their bikes to school, and the number of families.  While downtown Bangkok is an exciting place to live, I want my children to have a bit more freedom than they’d experience downtown.  It’ll mean a longer commute for me, but after Houston commutes, long drives isn’t out of my daily norm any ways.  I’m told that if I leave before 6:10am, it’s 40 minutes.  Much after 6:10am can balloon up to 2 hours.
The family was pretty excited as we drove into Nichada.  We dropped by the school and hoped to get out and look around, but it’s closed on Saturdays.  We drove a quick 2 minutes to our neighborhood in Nichada, called Sunshine.  We got out and were greeted by Khun Jah, our house help who will live with us and help us out while we’re here.  She’s a delightful woman and took to the children immediately.
It’s probably worth pausing and explaining why we have a maid while we’re here.  It’s a pretty foreign concept to most of us in the states.  Many expats in Thailand choose to hire house help.  Not only is it very inexpensive, but it’s considered a good job by the local people as well.  They are incredibly helpful in communicating with local services and watching out for the families.  Both Candace and I hesitated at first about this, but the more we chatted with exPats here, it became readily apparent that it makes a lot of sense.
Upon a referral from a co-worker and after meeting Khun Jah for the first time back in March, I knew Khun Jah was an honest individual and would work well with our family.  That was confirmed again yesterday after watching her interact with the kids and Candace.  I have no doubt she’ll quickly become a member of the family.

So, back to the house.  The kids were excited to explore the house and were quickly choosing rooms.  Each has decided on the room they want and are excited to paint it their own color.

The house comes with a pool in the backyard and we’re excited about that.  Our youngest doesn’t swim yet, so we’ll get him in lessons shortly and lock the doors until he’s safe around water.

We love the tropical trees all around the house and neighborhood!
I purchased a golf cart so we can commute around the community…almost all families do here.  I took the kids out around Sunshine and then the whole family wanted to go, so we all piled on and drove around Nichada.  It was a lot of fun!

We’re excited to move into our permanent house in a month.  After living in 6 different places in the last 1.5 months, it’ll be nice to have a place to call our own!