The Girls

Just a quick update on the insanity that is my children.  Elena has been in full blown terrible twos lately, which has been less than fun.  Several times a day, she starts screaming for no apparent reason, and she uses the word "no" more times a day than I can count.  On the cuter, but still crazy end, the other day she decided she wanted to play in the bathtub and wouldn't come out.

Viv has been an incredible big sister through all of this, and she's often more patient with Elena than Jeff and I are.  She's also been happy to share her toys with Elena, which is a big deal.  Elena discovered Viv's superhero cape and was wearing it around the house, which was cracking us all up.

We shall call her Super Lay Lay.  

She behaved pretty well when Vivian and I took her to story time at the local Bumble Bee library the other day, so that was a relief.  They had lots of books for her to look at, and she didn't care if they were in English or Thai, so she was happy.

The activity of making your own paper person was a bit beyond her, but Vivian enjoyed it.

Viv also made a paper version of herself for Girl Scout's World Thinking Day.

It feels like we've had a lot of Girl Scout events lately.  A few weeks ago, Viv had her first camp out.  One of the troop families has an 8 person tent, which they lent us, so that all of the girls could sleep together in one tent.  It was great, except for the mosquitoes.  We were also supposed to make our own dinners using the campfire, so, after some research, I figured foil dinners were our least mess-upable option.  They turned out great, which was a relief, so the girls got some meat and veggies in them before the treat of s'mores for dessert.  We had fun singing camp fire songs, and then less fun trying to get them to actually sleep.  Still, it was all pretty painless, and there were lots of good memories being made.

Vivian has also been trying out basketball.  There's a skills camp on Saturday mornings that she's been doing, and we've actually seen a lot of improvement.  The coaches give an MVP medal for each practice.  Vivian earned one for the first practice when she didn't give up, even though it was hard for her (there were tears when she couldn't get the ball to do what she wanted, but she persevered).  We were proud of her, but she was even prouder of herself.

She had basketball this morning, and then we're going back to school this afternoon to help at the Girl Scout booth for the International Family Fair.  The Girl Scouts are doing a cookie walk instead of a cake walk, because the last couple years, all the frosting melted.  Hooray for Thailand!  It should be a fun time.  

Vivian had a birthday party yesterday, and she has another one tomorrow.  Elena has play dates and music classes.  They definitely keep us busy, but it's the good kind of busy.  Plus, Jeff and I can always recover with a massage in the evening once they're in bed.  The birthday party that Vivian went to last night, included massages for the girls while they watched a movie.  The ladies recognized her from coming to our house and were laughing.  Then two of them showed up here for Jeff and my evening massage, and Vivi escaped from bed to come and say hi to them.  We were cracking up.  Hooray for Thailand ;-)

Koh Samet

Vivian had a four day weekend for a teacher professional day and the Maka Bucha holiday, and the weather is still pretty nice, so I thought we should try the beach.  Several people had recommended Koh Samet (also spelled Samed), specifically the Ao Prao Resort, which is on a small beach on the west side of the island, away from the main hustle and bustle.  Since we're still transitioning to being beach people, I thought it would be good to be as close to the beach as possible, so that even if Elena refused to play in the sand, I could still sit on a balcony and enjoy myself.  Ao Prao had the perfect solution, a beach "cottage" which was really RIGHT on the beach.

Part of the fancy hotel experience was a special pier, with parking and a speed boat to the island.  Koh Samet is not far off the eastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand (Vivian had some golf vs. gulf confusion in the car, so hopefully we've clarified things now).  You drive to the area near Rayong, and then you can take a boat to the island.  There's a ferry boat that's easy and not very expensive, but Ao Prao is part of the Samed Resorts group, and they have a special pier and special boats.  The Ao Prao is on a little bay on the west side of the island, so it's about a 10 minute speed boat ride to get there.  When we got to the waiting area, they gave us stickers that said Ao Prao to make sure we got on the right boat.  The boat trip was a fun start to our vacation.

They even had toddler size life vests.

Jeff said Elena was latched on to his shirt.  She wasn't so sure about the speed boat.  We all made it though, and so did our luggage.  We pulled into the bay where there are three resorts.

Ours was on the far end, and to get there we walked by the Lima Coco resort where some of our friends were staying.  There were only three resorts in that bay, so even though there wasn't a lot of beach, it wasn't crowded, which was great.

We got checked right in and taken to our "cottage" which was very nice and spacious.  We got a kick out of the notice we found on the desk area.

It made me wonder if durian smell is as hard to get rid of as cigarette smell.

After exploring the room, we went out onto the balcony, took some pictures, and headed right to the beach.  The water was nice and warm and quite shallow.  We were able to walk out easily.  We also walked down the beach to visit with our friends.  Their group of kids was working on digging a giant hole (perfect beach activity!), so Vivian joined in to help.  We played for a while, and then headed back to the play area in front of our resort, where the girls had fun for a while.  To wrap it all up, we went to one of the pools at our hotel to swim around a bit.  Elena was not a big fan of the sand, but she enjoyed the ocean, and she loved the pool.  Jeff took Vivian in to get her cleaned up, and I stayed at the pool a little bit longer with Elena.  It was an infinity pool, and Elena loved leaning on the wide wall along the edge of it.  It wasn't a big pool, but we had it all to ourselves, which was nice.

We had some time before dinner, so we let the girls play inside, and Jeff and I sat on the balcony to enjoy wine with the sunset.  It was lovely.  For dinner, they had a special on grilled kebabs, which they were cooking over an open charcoal fire, so we picked that.  It was good, but after the day's adventures, the girls were done, so we didn't linger over dinner.  Ironically, it was Vivian who crashed before 8:00pm, while Elena, who hadn't napped that day, kept insisting "No feep! No feep!" Until she finally crashed out on our bed.  

We had been hoping to make it to the 8pm "fire dancing" show on the beach in front of our hotel, but when I realized it wasn't going to happen, I sent Jeff out to take some pictures.  He enjoyed it and had fun doing some long exposures with his camera to get fire effects.

The next day we were up and running around 6:30am.  We got the girls ready, and then went onto the balcony to say good morning to the beach.

Elena kept saying, "Wow! Wow!" and I think that pretty much sums it up.  There were pancakes for breakfast which made both girls happy, and then we went back to the beach.  

The day before we had scoped out the best beach spot for us.  There were some chairs under a tree for shade.

And it was right next to the play area.

The waves came right up to the chairs, so I could sit with my feet in the sand and watch Viv be crazy in the waves.

The girls also undertook several play area projects.  Elena appeared to have gotten over her sand issues and really liked hanging out in the little area under the slide.

She even set up a sand shop with Vivian providing regular deliveries.

But their favorite activity was digging a hole and carrying over water in a bucket to fill up the hole.  They took turns digging and retrieving water.

When it was Elena's turn to get water, I hovered nearby, afraid that a wave would take her or the bucket or both out to sea.  She managed to do a fairly good job of it, even though the bucket was never actually full.  The cutest was when they paused for a status check.

Eventually, they decided they were done with that, and Jeff took them out into the water to get some of the sand off.

Elena liked bobbing up and down on the little waves that came in.  After a while, she ended up at the chairs with me having a snack, while Jeff and Vivian went exploring the rest of the bay with our friends.  It was quite a setting for snack time.

My little OCD baby realized that there were four holes on the table, and so she wanted a snack for each hole.

We did that for a while until I could tell she was getting tired, so I took her back to the room for a rest.  Of course, she didn't nap, but I at least got her to chill out on the sofa with a bottle.  It started to rain, and I found out later that Vivian and Jeff had been swimming in the waves while it was raining and having a great time.  

It was done raining by the time they got back, so we got changed and went to the hotel restaurant for lunch.  There were trucks that could take you to the other side of the island where there were more restaurants,

but our friends had done it the night before for dinner, and they said that while the beach area was bigger, it was VERY crowded and not very enjoyable, so we decided to stick to our little bay.

It turns out it was a good choice, because crazy toddler had no interest in sitting at the table.  We took turns eating lunch and chasing her around.  Luckily, it was beautiful no matter where you were sitting.

That evening, for sunset, Jeff and Vivian went on a photography walk to try and get some good pictures.  She had her indestructible camera, and he, of course, had his fancy one.  She got some good pictures, but his are my favorite, because she's in them.

By the time it got dark, we were pretty worn out, and Elena had not napped for the second day in a row, so we decided the best plan would be room service and a movie.

It was nice to just relax and hang out together.  The girls went to bed pretty smoothly again, and we got up early enough the next morning for a little more play time at the beach and the pool, before catching the speed boat back to the mainland and driving home.  It was a fun and easy beach getaway, and definitely a good one to do with visitors who want to see a pretty beach, but don't want to get on another plane after flying half way around the world.

Sock Hop!

Vivian and I went to our second Sock Hop this weekend.  Now that we have a better idea what it is, I planned ahead and asked a friend to make us matching poodle skirts.  We went with red, since it's currently Vivian's favorite color.  My friend said she saved enough of the material to make one for Elena next year.

We did some pre-partying at our neighbor's.  The girls danced to warm up, while the parents drank margaritas for similar purposes.  We all posed for a few more photos, and then got into golf carts to head to school.

A bunch of us showed up at the same time, and we got some cool pictures with the ISB panther (the poor thing is buried under all the girls).

We had also gotten chips, salsa, and guacamole with the margaritas, and Viv had filled up on guacamole, so she wasn't very interested in the food at the party.  Instead, she went right for the fun stuff.

Just like last year, she wasn't really interested in dancing with me, but she had a lot of fun dancing with her friends, and I had a lot of fun talking with mine.

A big difference was that this year, she attempted to participate in the bubble gum blowing contest.  She's gotten used to the concept of chewing gum over the past year, but the bubbles are still a work in progress.

Maybe next year will be her year for bubbles, and for limbo.  They divided up the girls by age, not height, and Vivian was the oldest (and probably tallest) in her group.  She had fun, but she didn't last long.

She felt the judge was a little harsh when she dismissed her, but she got over it with some dancing and hula hooping.  Overall, it was a fun night.

Don't worry, Jeff and Elena had fun of their own.  They had a little pool party the next day while I took Vivian to a birthday party.

It was a good weekend for the Goerss family :-)

Happy Birthday Elena!

My baby is two years old!

We celebrated by inviting all her buddies to join us at the neighborhood playground for cupcakes.  Luckily, we can pull off this kind of non-party party here in January.  Although we learned at the beginning of the week not to take the heat for granted.  Thailand experienced some of its coldest temperatures for the past decade the week of Elena's birthday.  It actually got into the 50's overnight at one point.

At first we welcomed the cool air by opening up the windows, but as it continued, we closed the windows and put on sweatshirts inside, because, of course, we have no way to heat the house!

We just bought a new carpet, which we're very excited about it.  I doubt it helped keep the house any warmer, but Elena likes to stand on it and say how soft it is.  I knew there was no way I was going to get socks on her, so I tried to bundle her up in her chair while she was watching her pony shows.

It warmed up as the week went along, and so short sleeves were fine for a visit to Vivi's classroom.  Elena sat proudly at Vivian's desk.  She is starting to ask to get on the bus in the morning, my big girl.

By the time it got to Friday and Elena's birthday it was good and hot, so I knew the "party" wouldn't last too long.  Elena started her birthday morning off with eggs and ponies.

When it was party time, Elena wanted to bring her big purple ball, so she proudly carried it down the street to the playground.

The process took a while . . .

We also brought some bubbles, and some of our friends brought balls and bubbles as well, so there was enough to go around.  One friend even brought a kiddie swing which everyone took turns on.  There were lots of fun things to do.

Elena had tried a fun, free music class the day before, and I had signed her up for a more formal one on her birthday.  She was willing to abandon her friends for a golf cart ride, and most of them were ready to go inside and get some a/c, so it worked out well.  She ended up liking the music class, and even though she didn't stay in the circle the whole time, she definitely was into it.  By the time we got home from that she was ready for a birthday nap.

That afternoon she worked on her two year old milestone lists, which include stacking seven or more objects.  She and I were both pretty impressed with her book stack.

She's also supposed to line at least four objects up in a row.  My little OCD child lines her ponies up at least once a day, and her birthday was no exception.

Once Vivian got home, Elena shadowed her.  She's determined to figure out this "big kid" stuff.

That evening, after dinner, we did a family birthday celebration.  Elena wasn't so sure about the candle, but she was quite pleased to discover she was being given a second cupcake for the day.

She hammed it up for Jeff who was trying to get a picture of her eating her cupcake.

Eventually she gave up on the cupcake (she has yet to eat an entire cupcake in her life), and it was time for her birthday card,

and her birthday present.

She's getting the hang of this present opening thing, and she was impressed by the tissue paper.

Vivian was more impressed by the actual dress.

Elena's favorite part of the dress was the flower.

Her other present, a huggable Pinkie Pie (her favorite pony), didn't come until Monday, so we skipped the wrapping and just did a surprise reveal from Daddy's work bag.  She proceeded to keep thanking Jeff for Pinkie Pie the rest of the evening, so much for shared credit.

By the end of the day, we had gotten Elena to say birthday, and she was singing her own Elena version of Happy Birthday, but I don't think she really got what was going on.  Jeff and I, on the other hand, congratulated ourselves on two years of parenting by booking a massage for the evening.  We've been asking for three people recently, because my cousin has been staying with us, and even though I had asked for two that night, three showed up.  Vivian was still awake, since it was a weekend, and she begged to try a massage too.  Jeff and I realized that we were probably creating a monster, but we decided to let her try.  Apparently, lots of kids her age get massages on a regular basis here.  Big surprise, she loved it.

So the three of us celebrated Elena's birthday by relaxing after the crazy two year old had been put to sleep.