Coco Palms 2012 NYE

Our first morning on the beach, here are the kids with one of their favorite Uncles, Shayn. He is amazing with the kids and they love him to pieces. No for real though, we have to make rules about not smothering him for his own safety!

 Cecily and I took turns staying back in the bunglow with Scarlett and Ander for naps. When we came two years ago and Ander was a baby he slept out by the pool a lot. Scarlett was good but not quite that chill. She definitely prefers to go to sleep in her own bed.

 We got lunch including freshly cut mangos on the beach one afternoon, yum!

It rained off and on a few of the days but most of the time was truly beautiful. We had to put sunscreen on very often. No one believes me that the UV rays are more intense here. But after some initial burns of the doubtful *cough*Shayn*cough* even though sunscreen had been applied (just not frequently enough) I earned a little credit. It is gorgeous but that sun is intense.

 So grateful to have Cecily's extra pair of helpful hands around! Ander loves his Cecily.

 Also thanks to Cecily, Nathan and I got to go out with just the adults almost every night. It felt so awesome to be able to get the kids settled, then leave them in Cecily's capable hands and go have dinner with adults. We were actually able to enjoy our food, have uninterrupted conversations, not have to stagger our eating/soothing babies. Glorious. That was definitely a highlight of the trip for me.

 They set this contraption up on New Years Eve day for the party that night but Nathan and the kids got to break it in first. LOT's of fun, and surprisingly, no tears!

 Shayn and Nathan spent a day on a gorgeous course. These boys seem to make a good pair for golfing. They always have a good time. They also went and watched Muai Thai Fighting one night. I am a little disappointed because I would've liked to have seen some but when we parted ways it was really late and us girls thought for sure they were going to miss it. It turned out that it ran later than we initially thought. The boys talked about it for days afterwards; even got a knock out on video. Pretty cool. 

 New Year's Eve the Coco Palms put on a huge dinner with "entertainment" and games for the kids etc. It was their first time putting on a big NYE party and you could kind of tell. But we made the most of it and the children ran around to the different games winning prizes and having a blast.

 Randomly, this pic reminds me of how everyone seems to have their own opinions on who Scarlett looks like. To us she looks a heck of a lot like Kennedy did as a baby. Either way, she fits in.

 One of the first pictures of all of us. I love it. I love my family.

 And I love my seesters. We had a fabulous time together. (I am LOVING this chicken!) And they were forever patient with the considerable entourage that is my children. Nathan and Shayn decided two years ago when they were visiting us over Chinese New Year that they would meet us in Thailand to ring in 2012. I still can hardly believe we pulled it off.

 The live music was really offensive on the ears and I kid you not, I could've given a better performance of the songs they were singing karaoke to. It was a bit painful, to the point of giving us giggles.

 Eventually we gathered the kids up to do a few fireworks of our own before sending them off to bed.

 As the New Year approached here were fireworks and lanterns going off and lifting off everywhere. It was truly as magical as we'd been led to believe it would be. On our particular beach the lanterns they had for you to use didn't seem to have enough kerosene and had difficulty with lift off. After a little trial and error Nathan and I were able to launch several successfully. We felt like old pros.

It was a wonderful week and I am so grateful we got to spend it with family. What wonderful memories we made... And what a great way to welcome in 2012.

Koh Samui Thailand

Everyone was excited to get the chance to ride an elephant. We chose the perfect day to go because it was overcast and though it was still really hot it was at least not as boiling as it could've been. Nathan and I rode with the babies.

Cecily (our favorite babysitter), Kennedy, Natalie, and Aly rode the second elephant...

And Shayn and Ashley took Kohen with them. Their elephant had awesome looking tusks and used to have a career of some sort. Our elephant guy kept trying to explain to me by repeating "Hollywood, Hollywood."I just nod and smile. 

Feeding a baby tiger was pretty cool. It was heavier than I would have guessed and his paw was as big as my face and you can see he put his paw in the crook of my arm to try and get at the bottle but his paw was so heavy I almost couldn't hold it. Crazy. But cool.

My sister Natalie immediately broke out in a rash after holding the tiger. Who knew you could be allergic to tigers? Sounds so much cooler than being allergic to cats.

We hiked up to the cleverly named "Waterfall #2" and the kids all eventually made it into the water with Nathan. They were wearing clothes and it was fun to see them hesitate and then go for it, not worrying about getting their clothes wet.

The funniest moment by far was when Nathan hiked back down out of the waterfall with Ander, whose regular diaper had now swollen beyond capacity. Nathan went to set him on his shoulders and Ander's diaper finally exploded off of him and dropped to the ground. So there Ander sat, with a naked tush on his dad's shoulders. It made for a great picture but you'll just have to trust me on that one.

Getting to ride on/hold/feed wild animals, truly made for a memorable day.

Bangkok Thailand

Our trip got off to a bumpy start when we arrived at the airport and despite having our etickets in hand and confirmation emails on Nathan's laptop- the airline, KLM, claimed that they had cancelled our tickets two months before. It was difficult to understand then, why they had taken the money out of our account and not returned it, nor had they ever sent us an email telling us they cancelled the tickets. DRAMA.

Apparently this has happened before according to the KLM employees working the counter. It was especially embarrassing for them since Nathan could pull up our account to show they had never returned the money. Doesn't seem right does it?

We had to purchase new tickets right then and there, and worry about the "issue" later. 

We flew into Bangkok and arrived at our hotel 1am Taipei time. 

 We had a few hours the next morning to see something in Bangkok. We chose the Siam Ocean World that was near by. It was a great aquarium. Perfect for our timing.

 There were touch pools where you could explore the coral, star fish, sea anemones, sea cucumbers and more. This was a favorite spot.

 Scarlett was exhausted from our late night the day before and fell asleep the moment I laid her in the stroller.

 They had these tubs that had the fish in them that eat the dead skin off of your feet. You had to sit real still-   a difficult task for Aly and Ander- but if you did it wasn't long before a bunch of teeny fish would be nibbling your tootsies.

 It TICKLES!

 They had the tunnel you can walk through with all of the fish and sharks and sting rays swimming idly by and over you.  Here is Kenna hitching a ride.

 Ander would punch the fish when they swam by him, he was very pleased with the arrangement.

 The also had this area where the kids showed up on the screens so they spent some time pretending to swim and snorkel on screen.

 Then we have my favorite pic of the day. We all did our pose and then when I looked at the camera it took me a second to find Aly. We are still laughing about it. She was already a casualty of the shark teeth... funny girl.
We nearly didn't make it to the airport for our last little leg to Koh Samui. The traffic was insane and the trip from the aquarium to the the hotel and the hotel to the airport was a couple of the most stressful hours of my life. Even when I knew there was nothing else to be done. It just further confirmed what I already knew, I have NO business ever being on The Amazing Race.
We made it, though it was close.

 Our kids had no idea that their Auntie Natalie and Auntie Ashley and Uncle Shayn were meeting us in Thailand! We walked in and I walked right over and sat down next to my sister. I watched Kennedy's face as she looked around us unsuspecting, and then she focused on my sister and her mouth dropped open. It was awesome. Cheering and even a squeal or two ensued. We made a scene, but a good one, which is a change for our crew. It was a happy reunion.

 This is Ander about 2 minutes before he clotheslined himself on this bar, which knocked him back onto the hard floor. We thought he just hurt the back of his head until we noticed the giant goose egg between his eyebrows. Whoopthie!

 Especially after my sisters and BIL had been traveling for 36 hours, this gorgeous open air airport was a welcomed site for all.

We were tired but thrilled to be in Thailand, together.

A Surprise For Nathan

When you've been together for a decade +, the special occasions that you need to buy your loved one a gift for really add up fast between Birthdays, Holidays, Father's days, and Anniversaries. Over the last year or so I've gotten in a gift giving slump. What used to be one of my greatest pleasures- hunting down that perfect gift- has lost it's luster living overseas with lame-o shopping; can we have a moment of silence remembering Target? *wipe a tear*

This year I wanted to do something special for Nathan and I started brainstorming weeks ahead; hey, my brain doesn't storm as efficiently as it used to. Eventually I came up with an idea. When I mentioned it before I said I "redecorated" Nathan's office but that isn't really accurate. There was no "re" involved. Picture giant white walls. They were begging for attention. 

I enlisted the help of my neighbors Carrie and Brandie and over a few weeks they helped me with much of the prep. Everything here takes 3 times as long as in the states, at least. We went to the plant place and got plants and pots. I went to the little hole in the wall place you go to get canvas pictures stretched. I went to antique places, I went back to all these places to pick up stuff purchased. I went to Ikea, I went to the store for paint, etc. It was involved.

But it was so worth it. I tried so hard to keep it a surprise. Over the weeks I extracted information from Nathan while trying not to arouse suspicion. I made excuses for him to give me his work address in Chinese, his code into the office, I even convinced him to take off the 23rd so I could "finish last minute shopping". I was pretty impressed with myself. I must have at least some skill because he never suspected.

So the morning of the 23rd, Brandie, Carrie and her 3 oldest (2 back from college for the holidays) all snuck out early with our vans packed full of ladders, furniture, plants, paintings etc, and headed to Nathan's office.

It took us less than two hours once we actually got started. Scarlett was pooped out just from watching! It was so much fun, working and laughing together and I felt so grateful that these friends would sacrifice their precious holiday time to come and help me. It was truly a labor of love.

It turned out amazing, if we do say so ourselves. We placed things so that it is the coziest when sitting right at Nathan's desk. The video shows the other little area with the picture of HK and the antique yellow box thing.
The wooden wheel is exceptionally cool. It is an antique Chinese wheel, the wood is exquisite and so unique. I chose it because it reminded me of what Chinese coins traditionally looked like, but more importantly, it reminded me of work. The bottle is this gin bottle from the 1800's that Nathan found snorkeling in St. Thomas, also very cool.

The crew, Makenzie, Levi, Brandie, Carrie and Sydney. (I have to disclaim on Makenzie's behalf that she was borrowing the awesome blue sweats that Carrie was given at a hospital once. Painting clothes at their finest!)

Before I left I took a video on Nathan's iPad showing him the surprise. I then wrapped up his iPad for him to open Christmas morning. He was a little confused but when he found the videos he was blown away. He loves it. He made all of the effort worthwhile. He said he couldn't wait a week to see it (since we were leaving the next day) and loaded us all up in the car to go see it for himself. He reacted at least 3 x's better than I expected. 

It made my Christmas to make his. 

Here is a short video I took to show my sisters my handiwork: