Leaf: Singing Jesus bhajans (devotional songs) at Easter time at the Ashram. (Varanasi, India)

Rae: This dry cleaner somehow caught my eye. (Certainly not because I've ever had anything dry-cleaned.) (Vientiane, Laos)

Leaf: Bhela (Jasmine); one of the gifts God gives to soothe the pounding heat of and Indian summer. (Varanasi, India)

Rae: We fill out a lot of forms in this life of ours. Yesterday we filled out fourteen forms to get a visa on arrival at the Laos border. Today we filled out forms for new Thai visas at the embassy in Vientiane. Bring on the scribbles! (Vientiane, Laos)

Leaf: My beautiful singing guru and friend who moved to India the year I was born. 1977 was a good year for us! (Varanasi, India)

Rae: Everywhere, everywhere, the trees are flowering. We've been driving down highways flanked with color. Though the grasses are very brown, the trees are abundant in violet, yellow, red, orange, and white. (Pai, Thailand- but we see them everywhere, right now on the road to Laos.)

Leaf: The Door to Door Environmentally Friendly Knife Sharpening Business. (Varanasi, India)

Rae: Indoor ice-skating at malls in Thailand blows my mind. I don't know why I find it so wild, maybe because when I was a kid we ice-skated for gym class outside, in our own ice rink which was formed by the very cold air. (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

Leaf: The simple beauty of our old hand woven stools in the morning light. (Varanasi, India)

Rae: Hair cut! Kai is the only one in our family who likes to keep his hair short. (Pai, Thailand)

Leaf: Gardening Afternoon at the River Ashram. (Varanasi, India)

Rae: I went for a little bike ride with this man today, and loved it. (Pai, Thailand)

Leaf: It is crazy that this is ordinary beauty around here! Every step is a postcard picture. (Varanasi, India)

Rae: Another one from our day at the river. The kids got to try one of these floating water ball things. They loved "running" on the water. (Vieng Nuer, Thailand)