Going West on the Gulf of Thailand

We like the water.  We like the breeze and the views, but we've discovered that our children don't like sand, so when we plan a "beach" vacation, the beach part is really optional.  Our first attempt was Pattaya for solar New Year.  We walked on the resort's beach, and Vivian complained about the sand in her shoes.  For the lunar Chinese New Year, we decided to go the other direction on the Gulf of Thailand.  The big beach town that way is Hua Hin.  There's a royal palace there, which is where the king and queen live most of the time.  There's a nice town, and quite a bit of sandy beach, for a price.  A little bit farther north is Cha Am.  There isn't really a town, and there isn't as much or as nice a beach, but it's closer to Bangkok, and the hotels are less expensive, so it seemed like it would be the right fit for us.

Agoda.com (my new addiction) had deals on suites at the Novotel in Cha Am.  The room had  a balcony with water views, the pool had a water slide, and there was a kids club.  I was sold.

We had a pretty easy drive there.  It took about two and half hours on not too crazy roads.  The lobby was open air and there was a wonderful breeze.  When we got up to our room, we were pleased with the view, and the fact that we still had the breeze.  There was a living area with plenty of room for the girls to sleep too.

The play pen fit easily through the sliding glass doors to the balcony, so we wheeled Elena out and had quality time on the balcony.

The hotel has three main restaurants.  We did the Thai one for lunch and the "sports bar" for dinner.  To the sports bar's credit, the chicken quesadillas I got were actually really good.  It was a very family friendly hotel, so all the restaurants had high chairs.  Elena was pleased.

As it got close to sunset, we walked out to the edge of the property to enjoy the view and watch the waves.

Vivi also tried out one of the hammocks.

We went back to hanging out on the balcony, and discovered that if we looked backwards we could see the town with the sun setting over the mountains.

Elena was great and slept through the night, but we still all got up bright and early.  Breakfast was open air with the awesome breeze, and then we got in our gear and went down to the pool.  The pool slide wasn't open yet, but we had the whole pool to ourselves.  It was just cool enough to be refreshing without being cold.  There was a large shallow part that Elena probably could have stood up in, but she freaked out and clung to me like a baby monkey.  She was fine with me carrying her around and watching what Jeff and Vivi were doing, but she had no interest in getting wet past her middle.  Eventually I took her out and wrapped her up.

We found some chairs in the shade, and I changed her and fed her.  She was perfectly happy to just lounge around.

She spent some time trying to figure out how goggles work.

After a while the water slide opened and Vivian made friends as she went down it repeatedly.  She even got Jeff and I to each go down once with her.  Eventually Elena faded, and Jeff took her up for a nap.  I kept an eye on Vivi and made her get out every so often to eat and drink.  She has a tough life.

After four hours at the pool, I decided to take her back to the room before she turned into a sunburned raisin.  It turns out I waited a little too long, since she and I ended up quite rosy.  

For her afternoon adventure, Vivian tried out everything the kids club had to offer.  One area was more for little kids, so she didn't stay there long.  In the big kids area she tried out one of their game playing pods.

The game was a pretty low key, Lego Star Wars one, but she got very stressed out when she couldn't figure out how to make the character do what she wanted it to do, so I cut her off after about five minutes.  Then we tried out foosball.  

Finally, she settled into the movie area to watch Rise of the Guardians.

For dinner, we tried out the restaurant right on the water that had a combination of western and Asian food.  We put Elena's high chair facing the table, but it didn't have any straps, and she loved the view so much that she turned herself around.

Jeff and I were sharing cheese cake for dessert when Elena started making little feed me noises and opening her mouth.  Turns out, she likes cheese cake.  She sucked it off the fork.

That night, on the balcony, Vivian decided we should play charades.  She has the basic concept of the game, but had a little trouble with easily understandable signs.  We'll have to practice, but all of our attempts produced plenty of giggles.

We got up early the next morning and headed home before the traffic got bad.  Elena took a little nap in the car, just like she had on the way there.

She woke up when we stopped for gas and a Vivi bathroom break.  The ladies who were pumping our gas were thrilled with her, so Jeff rolled down her window, and one of the ladies took a picture of her.  The blond hair and blue eyes seem to make most Thai women melt.

Overall, we had a nice, relaxing family weekend.  The hotel was easier to get to than the one we stayed at in Pattaya, but it wasn't as big and fancy.  We liked both, and we're getting a better idea of what's out there, so our next "beach" vacation should be easy to plan.

Valentine's Day Times Two

This year we had a family Valentine's Day on Saturday at Secret Garden, and then Jeff and I went downtown on Sunday for our own celebration.

Vivian had a friend over for a play date, and she wanted to have a special Valentine's Day tea.  For this she requested pink tea and snickers bars.  I offered blueberry muffins and milk in tea cups.  After some thought, she decided that could work too.

After her friend left, Vivian gave her sister some love with special reading time.

They were looking at the baby lit versions of Romeo and Juliet and Jane Eyre.  These are actually counting books.  They both like Jane Eyre better than Romeo and Juliet, just like their mommy.  They looked so cute sitting there, that I made Jeff get his camera and take some pictures.

As is becoming our routine, Young took the girls to Secret Garden around five, and Jeff and I followed shortly afterwards.  We got a table with some friends and hung out for a couple hours.  It was a nice, family friendly Valentine's Day celebration.

Since Jeff had Monday off for President's Day, he and I had planned a special couple's "retreat" for Sunday night.  I got us a room at a nice hotel, and we left the girls with Young.  I picked the hotel because it had balconies with a river view, but there was a Thailand twist to our balcony.  When we tried to open the doors to go out, they were locked.  That was when we noticed the sticker on the window that said due to regulations and safety concerns all balcony doors are permanently locked.  It was disappointing, especially since the rooms are advertised as having a balcony.  This became our view:

Honestly, I can understand the safety concern.  Most kids could fit through those columns, and you could easily drop things over the edge.  Still, a little plexi-glass could have solved that.  On the plus side, we had the river view, and the sunset was nice.

Before sunset though, we went exploring.  The hotel is on Silom road, which is an area we haven't explored at all.  There aren't any major tourist attractions there, and it seems to be largely residential.  There are also tons of gem stores, and I think it's considered the gem district.  There was a breeze, and it wasn't too hot, so we decided to just go for a walk and see what we could see.  It was a luxury to take a walk without worrying about a stroller or where to take potty breaks.

The first thing we saw was the cool median topiary.  Median topiaries seem to be a big thing in Thailand, but this was the first one we had seen that was done like a boat with people rowing it.

Then we walked by this museum.

When we looked inside, it was pretty small, and there was no one sitting at the counter to sell tickets, so we didn't go further in.  Still, it's fun to know that there's a seashell museum.

As we were walking along we saw some interesting stores.  I liked this one's name.

And we decided this is where we would buy statues for the entrance way to our mansion.

We walked by this building which was simply called Indian Temple.

There were lots of street vendors selling flower chains around the temple, so the area smelled nice.  By that point we were getting hungry, so we started seriously looking for food.  Jeff was intrigued by Whisgars, a whiskey and cigar bar.

But, needless to say, it wasn't a dinner option.  We ended up at a Lebanese restaurant, since we've been missing that type of food.  We definitely got our fix.

For a starter, they gave us pickled vegetables with a container of garlic sauce.  The waitress figured out pretty quickly that Jeff is a big fan of garlic sauce, and she just kept bringing him more containers.  We gave her a good tip.  I wanted a smoothie, and I asked the waitress for one with lemon.  She said they had a special lemon, mint, and honey smoothie.  The lemonade I usually get at our favorite Lebanese place in the States has mint in it, so I thought that sounded good.  What I got was not what I expected.

I didn't taste any lemon.  It was basically a mint smoothie.  It was fresh mint, and I was hot and thirsty, so I drank it, but I wouldn't order it again.

After our meal, we walked back to our hotel to relax a bit.  The hotel has a rooftop bar called Sky Bar.  It's the one in The Hangover, and the have a special drink called a hangovertini.  The description sounded pretty gross, and it cost about $15, which seemed to be the minimum price for cocktails.  We had brought our own beer and wine to enjoy in our room, but figured we would go up for one drink to check it out.  What we hadn't planned for was the dress code.  Jeff only brought shorts which apparently are not appropriate at a bar on the roof in ninety degree weather, so we weren't allowed in.  Jeff had a grumble about skirts versus shorts (my skirt was shorter than his shorts, but was not a problem), but we decided to just let it go.  

We had eaten our dinner early, and were planning on getting some kind of snack with our drinks, so once the sky bar plan went bust, we needed to figure out another way to get snacks to go with our beer and wine.  The hotel, of course, had a ridiculously over priced mini bar, but in our earlier walk we had noticed one of the ever-present 7-11s, so we decided to go shopping there.  We got chips and ice cream for about $4.  While we were disappointed about the sky bar, we certainly saved a lot of money.

We got back to our room in time to enjoy the sunset.  The view was best at night.  There were lots of boats and ships going up and down the river, and they were all lit up, some to a ridiculous degree.  We had so much fun just talking and watching the boats.

The next morning, we slept in until a decadent 8:30 in the morning with no interruptions from children.  It was fabulous.  Breakfast was included in our stay, and they had one of the better buffet spreads we've seen.  Jeff and I ate our fill, checked out, and headed home.  It was a lovely night away, and the girls were perfectly happy hanging out with Young, so we'll have to do it again sometime soon.

The Beer Garden Compromise

Be flexible.  That is my mantra for living in Thailand.  It seems like I need it to chant it at least once a week.  This week's chanting was prompted by our Wednesday night dinner plans.  Every so often, Jeff needs to stay at work late to overlap with people in the States, so we thought it would be nice if I went downtown to have dinner with him, and then he went back to work.  The husband of one of my friends had to stay late too, so she and I were going to drive downtown together.  We picked a German restaurant that got great reviews, and Jeff was really excited for some German beer and sausage.

Snag one happened when Jeff got to work Wednesday morning.  His late meeting was cancelled.  I said, let's have dinner out anyway, since we'd already made the plans, and then he could just come home afterwards.  He agreed.  Snag two happened a few hours later.  The other couple's two year old son wasn't feeling well, and so they wanted to be close to home and not out too late.  Jeff had driven our car in, so I had no way of getting downtown by myself.  I took a deep breath and let go of eating downtown.

Jeff's biggest disappointment was that he had really been looking forward to beer and sausages.  I decided the best way to save the evening was to give our local beer garden one more try.  This is the Paulaner Garten that we have tried to go to twice already, and it was closed both times.  It turns out the third time, really is the charm, because when I called, a nice woman answered, and she spoke enough English to assure me that they were open.  It's a ten minute drive from our house, so the other couple was in, and our dinner date was back on.

Since we had driven there twice already, getting there was no problem.  The big metal gates were finally open, and we got to walk in and check out the garten.

The weather is still relatively cool (in the eighties) and not too humid, so sitting outside was quite pleasant.  It's pretty close to the street, but there's a fountain with a bust of the man himself, and it added some soothing background noise.

Jeff went the traditional tankard route,

while I was a bit more adventurous and got the affensaft.

It's beer mixed with mango juice.  I was only brave enough to try it because one of my friends had told me it was delicious.  It was :-)  

There was actually a whole section of the menu that consisted of "beer mixes", a new concept for me.

 I don't know if I'm going to try any of the others, since I really liked the affensaft, and when I combined it with fresh baked pretzels, I was in a very happy place.

The chicken schnitzel was just an afterthought.

It was actually not particularly good.  The meat was so thin, it was almost nonexistent, so it mostly tasted like salty breading.  We had a good laugh because on the menu it was misspelled as schitzel.  It wasn't quite that bad, but I won't be ordering it again.  Jeff wolfed down his sausages before I could get a picture of them, so he was happy with his meal.

I've been fantasizing about the affensaft and pretzels, so I'm going to make Jeff take me back soon.  Elena managed to keep me distracted on Thursday though.  She's growing up so fast!  Young was helping her ride her tricycle in the afternoon, and then in the evening she was practicing her free standing skills.  Walking is coming!

The House of Sick and Boo Boo

When Jeff got home from work on Friday, he mentioned off hand that he didn't feel so great, but it had been a busy week at work, so I just figured he was tired.  When he was still in bed at 11 the next morning, I knew we were past tired.  Turns out he had a stomach bug, so he was out of commission most of the day Saturday.

He woke up on Sunday feeling much better though.  Viv was just chilling out with her iPad, and the weather was really nice, so I decided to take Elena with me for a walk around the lake.  We were about half way around the lake when I got a text from Jeff, "Vivian is throwing up.  A lot."  I offered to get someone to pick me up and bring me home, but we figured there wasn't much I could do, so Elena and I finished our walk.

By the time we got home, the worst seemed to be over.  Vivian was lying on the sofa watching cartoons with her throw up pot close at hand, and she was keeping down water.  A couple hours later she was begging to go outside and play with her friends, but we decided to keep her quarantined and under observation for most of the day.  By the evening she was running around and eating normally.

I was really worried that Elena or I would get sick, but we got through the weekend unscathed.  We had to go to the medical unit on Monday for Elena's one year old check up, so, ironically,  I was worried about us getting sick, because then I would have to reschedule her doctor's appointment.

We almost had to reschedule anyway, because the Monday morning traffic was awful.  I thought I had left plenty of time, but I could tell we weren't going to make it by 11.  When I called the med unit to tell them we were running a bit late, they said that if we didn't make it by 11:15, they would have to reschedule us for another time.  I was not happy.  I called Jeff and told him that there was no way I was sitting in an hour and half of traffic just to have to turn around and go home without a doctor's appointment.  Good husband that he is, he left work and walked over to the med unit (which is in a regular office building) to check us in, so that we were technically there on time.

I got to the building at 11:10, but Thai parking garages are always an adventure.  There were parking guards on each floor, who waved me on and up, until I got a floor where one waved me into what was a completely illegal parking spot, but hey, I just do as I'm told by the guys with snazzy hats and reflective vests.  By the time we parked, unloaded the stroller and the baby, took the elevator down to the lobby, then another elevator up to the med unit, we were closer to 11:20 than 11:15, but Jeff was there holding our spot, and we were good to go.  We actually sat and waited a few more minutes until they were ready for us.  Since Elena is the definition of cute, no one gave us a hard time once they saw her.  They all just went into baby goo goo mode.

The rest of the week was pretty routine and drama free.  Elena and I both came down with a cold, but our stomachs were okay.  Vivian got through gymnastics without tears and had a play date afterwards with one of the girls.  In fact, she had three different play dates during the week.  Saturday, though, was our culminating social day.

On Saturday we had two birthday parties and a Pampered Chef party.  The Pampered Chef party was at the same time as a two year old birthday party for one of our neighbors, so I gave Vivian the choice of which party she wanted to go to, birthday with Daddy or kitchen with Mommy.  She chose birthday,

so Elena came with me to Pampered Chef.  

After a quick break for some fortifying, non-cake, food, I took Vivian to her second birthday party.  This one was for a boy in her class, and it was in one of the other Nichada subdivisions.  Vivian is at that age where she's more or less ready to be independent at a birthday party, but I still worry.  The last party was a pool party, so I stayed for that.  This one was a land party with a magician and face painting.  Vivian wanted to be independent, the hostess said it was fine, and most of the other parents were leaving right after dropping off their kids, so I figured it was time to let her try it on her own.  To reassure myself, I wrote my cell phone number on a pink sticky note and told Vivian to have a grown up call me if she wanted me to come back.  She put the note in her pocket and told me not to worry.

Well, an hour and a half later when the phone rang and a nice woman was asking for Vivian's mom, I worried.  When she told me there really wasn't any blood and Vivian was being very brave, I was not overly reassured.  I told her I would be right there.  As I flew over speed bumps in the golf cart, the logical part of me said that by the time I got there, she would be fine and not need me, but the mommy guilt part of me was saying, if I had stayed, she wouldn't have gotten hurt.

When I got there, sure enough she was running around in the birthday boy's older brother's clothes (shes' taller than a lot of the boys in her class).  I did get a hi and a hug though, and she showed me that she still had my, now waterlogged, cell phone number sticky.  

It turns out that there is a pool a ways off from where the party was, near the playground.  Vivian was near the edge of the pool, and a fifth grade boy who lives in the building pushed her (one hopes gently and in fun) and she fell in, scraping her stomach along the edge of the wall, soaking her clothes, and smearing all her face paint onto her new, white shirt.  The fifth grade boy was so ashamed that he ran crying back to his apartment and was not seen again.  Obviously, it could have been a lot worse, but it looked pretty bad.  Vivian insisted I take a picture to send to Daddy, so that he could see.

The birthday boy's mom had cleaned it and put neosporin on it.  She kept saying how brave Vivian was and asking if she was okay.  Vivian was so okay that she went down the playground slide on her stomach while I winced.  She also ran around the party and our neighborhood (once we got home) lifting up her shirt to proudly show everyone her belly.  Jeff and I kept emphasizing this as an example of why you don't goof around near the pool.  The only rough part was her shower that night.  The water and soap made her stomach sting, and so there were tears, but we gave her more neosporin and cuddles, and she was okay.

After all that excitement, I went to bed at a reasonable hour, so I was surprised by how sluggish I felt when I woke up the next morning.  Elena had woken me up, so I went downstairs to get her a bottle and then back upstairs to get her out of bed.  I had gotten her out of her crib and changed her diaper, when I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up.  The main thought I had was, you cannot throw up on the baby; that would be bad.  So I put her back in her crib with her bottle, in her clean diaper and nothing else, and went to our room to tell Jeff he was going to have to take over, because I was not okay.  Turns out that the stomach bug waited a week to get me.  I was out of commission for Sunday.

By Monday, Vivian's stomach was scabbed over, and I was eating solid food.  Elena, Young, and I all still have a cold, but at least everyone's stomachs seem to be getting back to normal.  Hopefully this week will be a little less eventful.