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.

Shangri La and River Adventures

The travel agent we work with sent out an email with a staycation package special.  It was a night or two at the Shangri La, one of the nicest hotels on the river, including a dinner cruise, breakfast, and then a choice of brunch or high tea.  Vivian has seen the Shangri La hotel before, because it's right next to the Saphan Taksin BTS and boat pier.  She thought it was beautiful, and she really wanted to stay there, so we thought it would be fun to include her on this staycation.  We also thought it would be more fun for all of us if we had some friends along, so we invited another family with a son about Vivian's age to join us.

We got to the hotel first, and the service was fabulous right from the start.  They even upgraded us to suites, which was awesome.  We had already gotten a room with a balcony,

and an additional bed for Vivian at no extra charge, but now we also got a kitchen and living room!

There was even a half bath off the kitchen.  It was basically an apartment.  We got lots of complimentary fruit, plus complimentary chocolate, because they have a chocolate store at the hotel.  It was a great first impression.  

After checking out the room, we decided to put on our bathing suits and go find the pool.  The Shangri La actually has two pools.  There was one over in our wing of the hotel, the Krungthep wing, but it was smaller, and looked like it was set up more for people who wanted to swim laps.  Jeff got a nice picture of it in the evening.

We kept going to the main Shangri La wing and the bigger pool.  The hotel's property is quite large, especially considering that it is right on the river.  Between the two pools is a garden area with a Thai restaurant spread over a few teak buildings.

There are also a couple other restaurants near the big pool, but they weren't open at that point.  There was all day pool side dining available though, so Jeff and I sat down at one of the restaurant tables where we could still see Vivian in the pool.  There were two lifeguards too, so we felt fine relaxing with some lunch, while Vivian went to play.

She didn't want to get out of the pool to eat the pasta we had ordered for her.  We asked if we could have a take away container for it, and the waiter offered to have it sent up to our room.  The service was great!  Eventually our friends showed up, and the adults lounged by the pool with drinks while the kids played.  We stayed for the sunset, which, in typical something's-always-being-built Bangkok style, included a crane.

We went back upstairs and cleaned up, and then we enjoyed some wine on the balcony.  Bangkok at night has the best views.

We were really excited about our dinner cruise, because all the major buildings along the river are lit up at night, so you can enjoy the city and the architecture.  We had seen the cruise being prepared earlier that evening.

I had specifically asked for seats outside, so that we could see everything.  It had been cloudy all afternoon, but we had the best of both worlds, because we were under a retractable roof, which could be pulled closed to cover us if it started sprinkling, which it did towards the end of the cruise.

The fabulous service continued.  Even though it was a buffet, the wait staff brought sample platters of food to our table.  In some parts of the world, children on a fancy dinner cruise would be viewed as an imposition, but in Thailand they were the guests of honor.  For example, Vivian was sad that there was no vanilla ice cream at the buffet station near us at the top of the boat.  One of the waitresses went to check if there was any downstairs and quickly returned with a bowl of vanilla ice cream for Vivian.  They also took some great pictures of us.  One of the most beautiful buildings along the river at night is Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, and the server managed to get a great picture of all of us in front of it.

The cruise finished around 9:30, and the kids crashed pretty soon after that.  They had both been really good, which helped make the whole evening more pleasant. 

The next day we had a big breakfast at the hotel and then took advantage of our river location to catch a boat back up to see Wat Arun in the daylight.  It's on the opposite side of the river from Wat Po and the Grand Palace, which Jeff and I visited with Vivian last year around this time.  The regular boat drops you off on the Bangkok side of the river, and for 3 baht (less than a penny) per person you can take the boat across.  It was quite exciting to go across the river, because there are a LOT of boats going back and forth with no apparent order.  It's kind of like the road travel, and, like the road travel, everyone's very careful not to bump into each other.

We survived the crossing, which was actually pretty choppy because of all the wakes we had to cross.  The temple grounds were lovely, but hot to explore in the sun.

We went into one of the smaller temples looking for shade.  We found some cool Buddhas.

We also found some kind of special meal with monks and regular people sitting at tables.  They were chanting something in unison, which was interesting, but we felt a bit like we were intruding, so we moved on to the main temple.  In the daylight, you can see all of the ceramic that has been inlaid into the complex.

Vivian was completely melted by that point, so we got her a cool drink and headed back to the hotel.  Our friends hadn't been to Wat Po yet, so they kept exploring a bit longer.  Eventually we all met back up for our afternoon high tea.  This was in the lobby area of the main hotel.  We weren't sure what to expect, but there was quite a spread.  Everyone's favorite was the pasta station, but we were also impressed by the full orchestra.

We were even more impressed when the majority of the people in the room got up and started ballroom dancing.

Apparently, this is a regular Sunday occurrence.  It looked like most of the women were students and the men were instructors, but they were all very good.  We had a lot of fun watching and picking our favorites.  We stayed for almost two hours and then headed back to Nichada and Elena.  She seemed happy to see us, but unperturbed by the fact that we'd been gone for over 24 hours.  She'd been at home with Young and her toys, so all was well in her world.  Vivian had a great weekend too, so we might try to plan another big girl outing for her soon.