We had our first Secret Garden of the year, and they offered free 10 minute foot massages and coconut ice cream to people living in Nichada owned houses. We have our Secret Garden routine down, so Vivian got her bouncy house time in early, drank some water, and then settled in for her free massage and ice cream.
It's funny the things that become "normal". Lots of kids here play at being "foot massage ladies." Elena thinks it's perfectly normal to hop in the golf cart to run an errand or go to a friend's house.
We try to enjoy all the unique aspects of our everyday life here. The other day, Young took us around the back of the house to show us how well our banana tree is coming along. She said these were the long bananas that are sweeter than the short ones that grow on the street.
In addition to everyday fun, our life here allows for some great special occasion outings. Elena has plenty of little friends to play with here in Nichada, but occasionally we leave the bubble with the little ones. On a recent play date, a bunch of us went to Kidzoona, which is only about ten minutes away. Elena had a blast.
I thought she might work up enough courage to go down the slide by herself,
but she chickened out and scooched back down the steps. She was perfectly happy playing in the ball pit at the bottom.
She demonstrated her bravery when a balloon was at stake though. The ladies who worked at Kidzoona were all wearing pink shirts, and they had given balloons to several of the other kids there. Elena saw a purple balloon that would match her shirt, and she wanted me to get it for her. I told her she had to ask one of the ladies in the pink shirt for it. She hung back for a while, but when she saw I really wasn't going to get it for her, she went on over. She managed to communicate that she wanted purple to match her shirt, even though the lady didn't speak any English, and she marched back to me, proud as could be of her purple balloon with a face she could talk to.
Mommy was pretty proud too ;-) Jeff and I are also both proud of Vivian who is getting to be grown up enough to be invited on downtown staycations. We still had a free place to stay, so we got together with some other friends with daughters, and a group of us all went out to dinner together downtown. Vivi is mastering using her rabbit card on the BTS and walking around the sky walk like she owns it.
The girls got to play Monopoly after dinner and Vivian won. Her accountant Safta and aunt are super proud.
I also decided that it was time for Vivian to be allowed to watch past the second Harry Potter movie. The Fantastic Beasts movie is coming out soon, and I don't want her to find out major spoiler plot points from people's conversations, so we're letting her watch the movies with the understanding that she'll go back and read the books when she's a bit older. We started with the third one on this staycation, and she was duly thrilled and appreciative. I can tell that she's still not ready for the full complexity of the stories, but I'm confident that she'll eventually read the books and understand how awesome they are.
The good times continued the next morning when we took her for her first breakfast at Chu Chocolate. She didn't have hot chocolate, but she did have Nutella and banana french toast and a big glass of absolutely delicious, fresh whole milk, so she understands the awesomeness of Chu's.
I've set an unofficial goal of getting downtown at least once every couple weeks in our last year. I want to get in as much Bangkok time as I can before we go.
There are fun outings to be had in Nichada too though. I went with some friends last week to taste test some new dishes at Vapor. The food was more interesting to look at than to eat,
but the drinks and the company were good, and Vapor always has a great view.
I was back at the Vapor pool a few days later with Vivian and three of her friends for Vivian's first ever belated birthday slumber party.
She had a great time, so hopefully I'm covered on birthday parties for a while.
Lately, we've been partying with the neighbors, so she gets lots of kid social time. It's still monsoon season though, so when we had friends over here, we grilled under the porch, which turned out to be a good call when the skies completely opened up.
Even when we're not downtown on the weekend, we're still enjoying the good life. This past Saturday, we all dropped Vivian off at basketball, and then Jeff, Elena, and I went to the mall to pay bills and make a pit stop at Auntie Anne's
Elena was bummed that she couldn't do basketball with Vivi, but when we came back for pick up, we let Elena have her moment.
This semester they're offering basketball starting at age three. If they're still offering that in the spring, we may need to sign Elena up. She's growing up so fast. This week we graduated her to a "big girl" bed. She was skeptical at first,
but she has decided she likes it, and keeps saying, "Daddy made it for me!"
She hasn't fallen out yet, and last night she slept through the night without coming to the gate at her door demanding attention, so we have declared it a success. We are having so much fun watching our girls grow up against the backdrop of this wonderful life in Thailand. Our "normal" here is never dull.
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