Enjoying Being Back Home in Thailand

After a summer of travel, it's lovely to just be home.  Vivian got off to a great start at school on Monday.

And here's the regular uniform on Tuesday.

She handled jet lag like a champ and really seems to be enjoying her third grade class.  

The best part of being home of course is being with Jeff.  The girls can get him to play pretty much anything at this point.  They worked together on an impressive Lego tower the other day.

I'm really glad to have him back too, and by Friday we felt like we could leave the girls for some grown up time.  There's a "German" brewery called Tawadang about ten minutes from our house that has a live music show.  Lots of people said that the beer was good, the food was fine, and the show was an experience, so we gathered up some friends and went to check it out.  I had called to make reservations, and apparently I made a good impression, because they put us right in front. 

 The food was an interesting mix of a few "German" dishes like pork knuckle that came with Thai dipping sauces,

and more standard Thai options like deep fried sea bass with sweet and spicy sauce.

It was a farang friendly sea bass though.  We got the whole fish, but the pieces were already picked off for us.  They also had sushi which no one was brave enough to try.  I missed the pretzels they have at the other beer garden down the street, but I moved passed it when I saw the beer.  They serve the beer in liter mugs! 

After a while though, people's arms were getting tired, so we ended up switching to the 3 liter dispenser with smaller mugs.  Crazy!

The show was a lot of fun too.  The opening was a mix of more traditional Thai music,

and singers doing covers of famous American and Thai songs.

They all had good voices, so we enjoyed listening to songs we knew well.  At about 8pm, the main performer came on.  She had a stage name that was something like Devine Diva, and she had the outfit and pipes to live up to it.

This is the best picture I got of her.  There were so many rhinestones and effects lights.  Major sparkle!

We followed up our Friday night out with a lazy Saturday at home.  Elena learned she liked Eggo waffles while we were in the States and is determined to fit as much in her mouth as Vivian does.

Elena is especially loving having her pony toys to play with again, since I didn't bring any of them on vacation.

On Wednesday, I left her happily playing with Young and went downtown with a bunch of my friends to celebrate a birthday with the Grand Hyatt's famous Khao Soi.  This is a chicken curry and noodle dish with legendary status among embassy employees.  I hadn't had it yet, so I was excited to see what all the fuss was about.  It was an impressive bowl of noodle and chicken goodness.

I asked for it "mai pet" (not spicy).  The waiter responded, "Nit noy?" (Just a little?).  I guess not spicy was not really an option.  Luckily, I've toughened up a bit over the past couple years, so I was able to eat the whole thing and enjoy it, even though my mouth was tingling.  I wasn't brave enough to try the spicy and pickled extras on the little plate though.  It definitely was good, and I would definitely eat it again if offered, but I don't know that I'd make a special trip downtown for it.  

We also got mango and sticky rice for dessert.  On the plate were little decorative "fruits" which are really wax filled with bean paste.  

They look pretty, but they are not to my taste.  Now the mango and sticky rice, on the other hand, I could eat that all day.

Friday was Jeff and my ten year wedding anniversary, so I was back downtown for more culinary adventures.  I had asked Jeff to take me back to a restaurant we really enjoyed called Scarlett.  Part of the appeal was the great view.

What was less appealing was that they gave me a hard time about my footwear being too flip flop like.  Jeff has his long pants, close toe shoe look down now, but I was living on the edge with my leather flip flops.  They told me I had to surrender them and take some really ugly loaner pumps.  The manager was there, and he was French.  He apologized for having to take my shoes and offered us some complimentary prosecco to smooth things over.  Prosecco accepted.  Happy anniversary to us :-) 

One of the reasons for going to Scarlett was their great ham selection, which makes Jeff happy.

My happiness came in scallop form.

We took our time and watched the city turn from day to night.  It was a lovely way to spend the evening.

We have friends who live downtown and are on R&R, so we are "keeping an eye on their apartment" aka, using it as a free place to spend the night downtown.  We got an added anniversary bonus though, because they're right next to the building that I like to call the "broken building", since it looks like it's still under construction.  Apparently it's getting ready for its grand opening as the tallest building in Bangkok and putting on a light show to get everyone's attention.  It went on for quite a while with all different combinations of lights and patterns.  This was the best shot we got.

It wasn't as loud as fireworks and just about as pretty, a great way to end our celebratory evening.

The next morning we had to figure out breakfast.  I knew there was a Chu Chocolate branch in the area, but I wasn't sure exactly where it was.  We had decided to just go home, but as we were walking out of the building Jeff spotted it across the street! He's a softy and caved on going there for breakfast even though I had agreed to go home.  I started with a shot of espresso in my Parisian hot chocolate, yum!

Of course, I had to have my favorite eggs benedict on their homemade biscuit.

Jeff didn't suffer either.

It was a big space, and it wasn't crowded at all.

It's a little dangerous that I know where it is now, but it was a nice way to end our anniversary getaway.  I can't wait for our next downtown adventure.  We have less than a year left in Thailand, and we're going to make the most of it.

American Summer

It was a lot of fun to be back in the States.  The biggest reason to go back was to see friends and family.  My parents especially love having the girls around.

Of course, sometimes having two spazzy kids invade your little townhouse can drive you a bit crazy.

But they loved having us all there.  I tried to give them some peace and quiet occasionally by taking the girls to play at our friends' house.  Vivian loved hanging out with her friend Kaitlyn,

and Kaitlyn's brother Marky taught Elena all about Paw Patrol.

We also discovered that there's a new Disney TV show based around a princess named Elena.

Our Elena learned that she likes McDonald's hash browns with ketchup, very American of her.

You can see the fading bruise on her cheek in this picture.  She decided to be a spaz and jump around on the bed we were sharing, hitting her cheek on the headboard.  The bruise has been going through quite a rainbow of colors, but she carries it off with style.

She and Vivian were both in need of a haircut, so I thought I'd take advantage of all the different salon options in the States.  Marky's mom recommended Cartoon Cuts to us, and Elena was intrigued enough by the individual Peppa Pig screen to sit in the chair and let the lady cut her hair.

After the cut, she got a blow dry, which seemed like a bit much,

but it's the neatest her hair has ever looked in her life.

She tolerated the haircut, but very much enjoyed the lollipop she got at the end.

While we were at the mall, we also got Vivian's hair cut.

It ended up a little shorter than I expected, but she looks really cute.

As you can see, Elena's blow dried, organized hair didn't last at all.  I swear I brush it, but it has a mind of its own.

In addition to every day fun, we also had some special outings.  My original plan was to team up with Kaitlyn's mom, Alice, and take the girls to NYC for the weekend.  But Alice found out that the Kennedy Center was showing Phantom of the Opera, and it seemed a lot easier to just drive across the river for a Broadway caliber theater going experience.  We even supersized the weekend by getting the girls tickets to see Cirque du Soleil Kurious out near Tysons.  

Each week, camp finished early on Friday after a performance of the week's skit.  So Friday after the skit, we got some lunch and went to see Kurious.  We had been responsible and gotten tickets a bit off center and further back, but we got there pretty early, and one of the staff members invited us to change to much better seats.  It was really hard to get pictures, because of all the different types of lighting and people moving around, but you can see that the seats were great.

So big thank you to random Cirque du Soleil guy.  The show was one of the best Cirque du Soleils I've seen, and everyone really enjoyed it.

On Sunday afternoon, we enjoyed another dramatic experience, The Phantom of the Opera.  

It's been quite a while since I've seen it.  I remembered the chandelier dropping, but I forgot how many times pyrotechnics and fog machines were used.  It was totally over the top, so, of course, Vivian loved it.  I had warned her that the chandelier was going to drop at the end of the first act, so she kept waiting for it to happen.  We both jumped when it did though, because of all the banging and flashing that went with it.  I tried to get a picture of Vivian with the chandelier during intermission.

I also had to take a picture of the actual opera house's beautiful lights.

Even though Elena didn't get to come to the shows, she got plenty of attention on Saturday.  Viv and I took her for some basket ball practice.  On the walk back to my parents' house, she insisted on carrying the "hasketball" herself.  She's still getting the hang of it.

The following weekend, Alice and I took the girls to the National Gallery of Art.  We had enjoyed our trip last summer, but had run out of time to do the audio guide tour, so this time we went right to the rotunda to get our audio guides.

I had taken a picture of Elena with a Hermes statue at the Louvre, because the statue looked really familiar to me.  I had an aha moment when I realized this is the SAME statue.  We had another France deja vu moment when we went to visit the NGA's da Vinci.

Alice and I had also gotten audio guides, so that we could hear what the girls were hearing.  I was pretty impressed.  For example, for this painting, they talked about how carefully people would choose their clothing and accessories when having their portrait painted.  It also talked about what the different plants on the back said about the woman's character.  It asked the girls to think about what they would wear and what they would want to represent them if they were having their portrait done.  

Hamilton has been a big theme for this vacation.  The drama camp actually had the kids performing the Schuyler Sisters song for their musical theater elective one week, so it was fun to spot Hamilton in George Washington's entourage.

Another favorite was Daniel in the Lion's Den.  The audio guide had lots of roaring background noise and talked about how the artists actually studied real lions' movements to get inspired.

Finally, it was our last day.  IHOP was on Vivian's list of things to do while in America, so we made it our big meal outing for the day.  She was happy.

Elena, in her typical stubborn toddler way, insisted she wanted to eat big pancake, not cut up, so I let her go for it.

She made a pretty good dent and then gave up.

Once we were stuffed full of IHOP goodness, we headed over to Barnes and Noble.  I wanted to make sure Vivian had something to read for the plane, since she had finished all her Raina Telgemeier books.  We found her some new Archie comics.  Then she and Elena had fun on the stage in the children's section.

They're becoming quite the performing duo.  Earlier on our trip, they had performed at the community center playground stage, Vivian with a selection from Hamilton and Elena with multiple, enthusiastic renditions of the ABC song.

We hung out at Barnes and Noble for a while, and then went back to my parents' house to finish packing everything up.  We had an evening flight from D.C. to Paris.  We started the trip in good spirits, excited to be going home.

The girls slept for a couple hours towards the end of the flight.  I was worried about how our transition in Paris would go, because we would have to get all of our luggage from one terminal to another and the girls would feel like it was the middle of the night, but they were champs.  In very little time, we were set up in the waiting area for our Emirates flight to Dubai, and the girls were having fun with pretzel sticks.

We had a couple hours there, but they played nicely the whole time, which was a gift.  The second flight went pretty well, but they were starting to get crabby.  When we got off the plane, Elena didn't want to get in the Emirates stroller, but after a bit of fussing, she decided she actually really liked it.

We found some cool seats in the waiting area.

This wait was shorter, but Elena was not thrilled about getting on another plane.  The stewardess came around with presents, so we now have a stuffed hedgehog and seal.  The girls looked so happy and peaceful that I took a picture.

I should have known it wasn't going to last.  By that point the girls had probably gotten about a total of five hours sleep.  I had gotten about two. None of us were at our best.  I kept dozing off, which Elena didn't like, so she started to lose it, which made me start to lose it, and Vivian was whining that she couldn't get comfortable.  It could have been worse, but it wasn't great.  I just stayed focused on the fact that we were almost home.  

Elena finally fell asleep, and when we landed she was in a good mood, which was a blessing.  She knew were going home, so she was excited and happy.  She was maybe a little too excited, because she started rearranging cardboard cutouts while we were in the passport line.  Vivian had a loose tooth which she kept wiggling.  Then she got blood on her hands which she smeared on her face, so I had one bloody faced child and one crazed decorator child, but we were almost there, so I just pushed on through, grabbed the suitcases and found our driver to get home.

Jeff and Young were waiting for us which was so wonderful.  After hugs and kisses, I handed the girls off, took a shower, ate something, and went to sleep.  I had to get up though to take Vivian to ISB for the class list unveiling.  She found out who her third grade teacher is (a male teacher, which is a first!), and she found out that she has lots of friends in her class.  

I tried to get a massage that night, but I kept falling asleep.  Luckily, the massage lady forgave me.  The girls were up at 4am the next morning, but they played so nicely that it really wasn't bad.  It's good to be home.