We know that the first 2 weeks in November happened – we just don’t have any photographic evidence for it – so this posting should more accurately be titled “Thailand 2010”.
We booked this trip almost a year ago, and had been looking forward to it ever since. Daniel definitely remembered quite a bit from his last trip in 2008, while Rachel’s memories were much vaguer, and largely influenced by the pictures she’s seen.
So right around November 15th, we jumped on an early-morning flight to San Francisco, then caught flights onward to Hong Kong, Bangkok and (after a night in an airport hotel) Phuket. It’s a long way there from Denver – 24 hours of travelling, but the kids are superstars. Cathay Pacific turns out to be a very kid-friendly airline, with great entertainment and goodie bags for children. The kids meals were apparently constructed on the theory that “put everything on there, and they’ll find something they like” – if fully consumed, each meal would probably have been 4,000 calories.
And so, for a little over two weeks, our lives revolved around the pool, the ocean and the beach. And it was great. Daniel spent so much time with his snorkeling mask and fins on that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get a picture of his face.
Farmor and Grandpa were there too, of course. And for the first 4-5 days, we were also joined by our friends Juliet, Andy, Declan and Fiona from Denver. Declan is a year older than Daniel, and the boys had fun hanging out together. Last time we were here, Daniel enjoyed looking at all of the frogs, and this time he figured out that he could pick them up.
Caffeinated beverages are not on the approved list, which has left Daniel thinking of “Coke” as this highly desirable forbidden fruit. So, when we turned our backs for a second at the Loi Krathong celebration, he saw his chance to order a coke from a waiter, and had this monstrously large grin on his face when he actually got to taste it.
One day we took a speedboat tour to the Phi Phi islands, visited Monkey Beach and did some snorkeling. Daniel thought it was amazingly cool to swim around and look at the fish, coral and other sea life. Every few seconds he’d stop, yank out his snorkel and yell “Papa, did you SEE that?” Rachel and Anida found a different methodology – Rachel rode on Anida’s back while she swam across the coral, and when there was something interesting under them, she’d have Rachel peak down into the water to see it. And that was “cool”. Every time the kids found a treasure on the beach – whether it was a leaf, a crab or a shell, they wanted it photographed.
There were elephants of course. Lucky and Lily came by a couple of times every day, and we got to feed them and ride them. Daniel had homework, so there was some reading and he also wrote a sentence or two in his journal on most days. Grandpa celebrated his birthday again, and Eric and Anida ran the “Fun Run 6k” in association with the triathlon (which we did NOT participate in). Good food and drink, wonderful surroundings, good people and family to hang out with – this is an excellent bi-annual tradition that we hope to repeat for thanksgiving of 2012.
And then it was back from Phuket to Bangkok to Hong Kong to San Francisco to Denver. Kids were awesome as always – no drama – just went with the flow. It’s a rare flight we take when someone doesn’t approach us afterwards to tell us how impressed they were with Daniel and Rachel’s behavior.
And that was November. It was a very good month.
Love, ADRE.
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