Summertime

A lot of people clear out of town as soon as school ends.  We did last year.  This year though, we have a few weeks between the end of school and our summer adventures.  I'm happy with a relaxed schedule, but I knew that I had to keep Vivian busy.  A lot of her neighborhood friends are out of town, so thank goodness for basketball.  They ran a two week camp from 9:30-2:30, which was absolutely perfect.  We could be lazy in the morning, she had five hours of socializing and exercise in the middle of the day, and then we could relax as a family in the afternoon.

The lazy mornings have been particularly nice, because the girls can hang out together.

We finally caved and got a second iPad, so that each girl has her own.  Elena is very pleased about this.

They both love the Toca apps, but don't worry, Elena reads and trashes the house, I mean plays, too.

She saw Vivi building forts and decided she would try too.  Luckily she's also good at cleaning up, so we put her to work.

Vivian has also been working hard on her snap circuits and using her iPad to record what her new creations do.

I think her dresses phase is officially over.  She's only been wearing shorts and t-shirts, even on the weekends.  She was so excited when this shirt that Jeff ordered turned out to be kids' size instead of adult.

She had a great time at basketball camp.  At the end the head coach said she was one of his favorite campers because of her great attitude.

Basket ball camp is over now, and this week Vivian is taking a bus downtown for a camp run by Lets Asia, which does swim lessons out here.  Some of our friends in Regent, one of the other developments, negotiated for a discounted bus to take the kids downtown, so I have to get her over there by 7 in the morning.  I'm missing basketball's 9:30 start time, but she's super happy to be going to camp with her friends.

We were almost late this morning.  It's supposed to be crazy sunglasses day, but Vivian decided to be creative and color a mask.  We were having so much fun coloring we lost track of time.  We made it just when the bus pulled up though, and she looked great, so it all worked out.

Fathers' Day fell in the middle of all the camp fun, so we took Jeff out to Vapor for brunch and some playground time.

We're social sponsoring a new family with two little kids right around Elena's age.  They came to Vapor with us too, and we had a lot of fun.  They also provided a great excuse for some downtown time.  I drove them down for their medical appointments.  I dropped them off and then met Jeff for breakfast.  He found me a place with mango smoothies in a chemistry beaker and delicious eggs benedict.  

My husband knows me well.  We went back for lunch the following week when I was downtown with Vivian for her eight year old check up.  The lunch was only okay, so if I come back, it will be for breakfast.

I feel bad that we're not going to be here for most of the summer, so I wanted to give our newbies at least a starter tour of downtown.   I booked a van for us and we went to explore Siam Paragon and Central World.  We had a lot of fun.  We started with the fancy cars in Siam Paragon.  Jeff posed in front of the Aston, while Elena picked her favorite based on color.

We grabbed some pretzels at Central World and then showed off our favorite book store and free play area. 

Every time we go there, they've added something new.  This time it was a soft mat play area with lots of playground equipment.  There are still some open floor spaces, so I wonder what we'll find next time.

That afternoon, we decided to go to the Vapor pool.  We had some fun before the storm came in and the wind was so strong we were afraid the little people would blow away.  Luckily, there's the indoor play area, so we held on tightly to our children and belongings and ran inside.

We didn't suffer though.  The kids had toys, the adults had buy one get one free happy hour, and once the storm cleared up there was a rainbow.

We're leaving the country for adventures after this week, but we've been enjoying our low key summer, and it's bittersweet to see it coming to an end.

Fun at the Rayong Marriott

Rayong is on the eastern side of the gulf of Thailand, a bit past Pattaya.  It's where we parked our car to take the boat to Koh Samet.  Past the port area though, there's a strip of beach with several hotels.  There's a Marriott there that lots of our friends have stayed at and really liked.  We like a beach vacation within driving distance, so we figured we'd check it out.  It turned out to be lovely.

We got some friends to go with us, and split the cost of a van, which helped Jeff enjoy the vacation more.  Driving in Thailand can be stressful, so if we don't have to drive, we prefer not to.  A fun part of riding, rather than driving or navigating, is that I can take my time looking out the window.  We went into downtown Bangkok to pick up our friends, and we drove past a whole bunch of street vendors.  When we came around the corner off the highway, we saw some cool fruit vending stands.

Young and I decided that was a jack fruit she was cutting up.  Then we drove by vendors who had the prime shady spot under the highway.

The next time we stopped was at the intersection near the Erawan shrine.  There are tons of flower vendors there, so that people can buy flowers to leave at the shrine.  Most of the vendors keep busy by working while they sit.  

One lady was making the same kind of flower chains Vivian learned to make when she did the Life of  a Monk tour.  They make it look effortless, but I know it's not.  

It took a while, but we finally got out of Bangkok and onto the highway.  Elena started strong,

but fell asleep after a little bit.

She woke up for our rest stop, but, luckily, we only had to stop once.  Elena found an interesting bit of bench decoration.

We decided the bench in the shade was better.

My favorite part of leaving the city is when I can look at the window and know I'm in the country.

Eventually we got to the hotel.  The girls had fun in the lobby while I got us checked in.  As usual, Young's job was to make sure Elena didn't try and get into the water feature.  All hotel lobbies in Thailand seem to have a water feature.

We got two connecting rooms for this stay, a regular double room and a one bedroom suite.  We figured that would give us plenty of hang out space and separated sleep space.  The living room area was nice, but our favorite part was the window seat in the double room with a fantastic view.

We saw some cool stuff out that window, like the Porsche Club members positioning their cars and themselves for an aerial photo.

The view out the king bedroom wasn't half bad either.

Jeff really liked that the sofa had an extension for his legs.

After checking out the room, we got changed and went to explore the property.  There are three pools, the big lagoon one that ends in an infinity pool, and a smaller infinity pool next to the kids' pool and kids' club.  They were doing some deck repairs near the smaller pools, so we only spent a little bit of time there, before heading to the big one.  

We decided that the big pool was our favorite.  It was really huge.  The best picture of it is the one with the girls looking out the window above.  It had all different kinds of sections including an aquarium,

We spent quite a bit of time at that end of the pool with Elena saying, "Hello shark, I Elena!"  There was also a water slide and basketball hoop, plus several areas of hotel beach and a part of the pool that gradually sloped in off the sandy part, so there was a pretend shore.

There were some fun games to play in the sand, but there was only full shade in the afternoon.  Elena's favorite part was the deck next to the sand.

This allowed her to play in the sand without actually sitting in it.

She made a lot of pool progress this trip.  She found things to entertain her in the water, like lining up and counting rocks.

She got quite independent about getting in and out of the pool.

And even worked on kicking to get where she wanted to go.  The big size of the pool helped with her kicking efforts.  Jeff got this picture of me and Elena kicking our way to the edge of the infinity section.

We tried to get a family picture, but the wind was blowing so hard it even blew water off the edge of the pool and onto the camera.

Not that Vivian minds water.

We tried to pace ourselves and spend plenty of time in the shade.

Even Elena got her lounge on.

Despite our efforts though, everyone except Elena (who I sent up with Young at 11am) got sunburned.  We blamed the sun reflecting off the water, and plan to enforce sunscreen reapplication and mid day pool breaks next time.  It's a credit to the pool though that we were prepared to play there all day.  Even sunburned kids can play in the kids' club though.

There were lots of fun things for Elena to play with, and Vivian had fun playing foosball with me and other people there.

We finished a great day by leaving Young and the kids in the room with food and Zootopia, while we went with our friends for dinner by the water.

The food was excellent, as was the view.

We had had a problem with flies at breakfast in the morning, but they had disappeared by dinner time.  Breakfast the next morning was fly free as well.  Elena really enjoyed her pancakes.

Jeff and Vivian found a great place to sit and enjoy the view.

We decided it would be a fun place to go back to, and next time we'll do a better job of avoiding sunburn.