Phuket, Thailand

October 20th-October 26th--We have truly been on "vacation" this week and have found our spot in Phuket, Thailand. We couldn't be pulled away from the pool or the beach to update the blog so we are putting the entire week into one post. Plus, we figured that it would get boring to everyone reading day after day that we lazed around the pool/beach a lot...certainly not boring to us though! Anyway, we left Bangkok on October 20th and took a short flight into Phuket on Thai Airways. We arrived into Phuket around noon and were at the Laguna Beach Resort by 1:00. We were lucky to be able to get right into our room and immediately put on our bathing suits. We were able to enjoy the pool all afternoon long. The resort has a wonderful pool area and a really fun waterslide. We also got to meet Meena, the one year old elephant, that lives on site. She comes out for breakfast every morning and then to swim in the ocean in the afternoon. By the end of the week, the kids were best friends with this elephant and feeding her lots of bananas. On our first day in Phuket, Abby got her hair braided on the beach. There were about 6 Thai women all around her doing the work. They had it perfectly done in 30 minutes. Austin was cute sitting right in front of Abby watching all the action. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were much of the same as the first day with lots of swimming, sun and beach. Abby went to Kids Club Wednesday morning while Austin swam with us. Kids Club meets twice a day (morning and afternoon)and is free for Abby, but Austin has to have a babysitter since he's under 4 and so we have to plan ahead. So, he went to Kids Club on Thursday morning and they got to build sand castles out on the beach. On Thursday afternoon, I learned how to do coconut leaf folding. I made a fish, a bird and a grasshopper out of coconut leaves. I use the word learned very loosely because there is no way I could repeat the folding. While I was in my class, Mike and the kids were at the pool making really good friends with another family. So, when I got done, I joined them out on the beach. This family is originally from Sydney, Australia, but now live in Beijing. Both of those locations gave us a lot to talk about. Dave and his wife Ren have 2 kids, Miles who is Abby's age and Reuben who is 2. The kids got along great. As a matter of fact, Miles and Abby hit it off from the beginning. We laughed about them becoming boyfriend/girlfriend. After a long afternoon in the pool, we all ended up going to dinner together at a restaurant on the beach named Tom Yam Goong. It was so much fun and was a great introduction into Thai food. We apparently needed some assistance in ordering the right dishes. Mike and I both opened up our menus and pretty much shut them immediately. We let Ren order all the dishes for us and everything was fantastic. We had a sampler platter of fish cakes, fried shrimp, spring rolls, chicken satay and chicken wrapped in pandan leaves and Spicy Beef Salad. By the time we finished up, all the kids were really tired so everyone put their kids to bed. Mike and Dave met back up on the beach to have some guy time the rest of the evening. Friday was much of the same except we scheduled the kids to go to Kids Club Movie Night. Dave and Ren joined us for dinner this night at Lotus. This was a very nice Seafood/Thai food restaurant on the beach about 10 minutes away from our hotel. Again, Ren did the ordering and the food was excellent. We had chicken satay, fish cakes, papaya salad and soft shell crab just to name a few. It was a wonderful night with our new friends. When we picked the kids up from Kids Club, we had to sadly say our goodbyes to our new friends though. They were leaving early the next morning heading back to Beijing. On Saturday, we took it kind of easy in the morning. We thought we could use a break from the sun for a while. So, Abby and I did Batik Drawing at the resort while Mike and Austin played on the beach. Batik Drawing is the process of waxing and dyeing cloth by human hands. Abby finished up her painting before lunch, but I needed to go back after lunch. However, first we went on our elephant trekking. It was quit an experience because of course, mine and Abby's elephant had to be the one to go off-roading. At times, it actually felt like we were going to fall off even though I knew we weren't (or at least I had convinced myself we weren't). After the elephant rides, we returned back to the hotel. Mike and the kids went swimming while I finished my painting. Abby and I were very pleased with our final products. Abby turned hers into a bag (this girl loves bags and purses!) and I'm going to hang my on the wall someday. On Sunday morning it was more cloudy than usual, but wasn't raining at first. After breakfast, Mike and Austin went kayaking in the Laguna. We all then went to the pool, but right after we got in the pool, the dark clouds really started rolling in and it did start pouring. We all ran back to our room and hung out for a while waiting on the rain to let up. Once it let up some, we walked around some of the beach front shops before eating lunch. While we were eating lunch, the sun started coming out so we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming. We went back to eat at Tom Yam Goong and we were so proud of ourselves for being able to order good Thai food. On Monday, it was pretty much the same weather conditions in the morning with rain. So, we went over to the Canal Village to look around the shops there for about an hour. By the time we got back to the pool, the sun was out and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming with some of our other Australian friends we had met during the week. This is a popular vacation destination for Aussie's. We were already looking forward to our time in Australia, but are now really looking forward due to the great Aussie's we have met this week. Mike and I had the kids signed up for Movie Night again so that we could enjoy our last night in Phuket. We were a little late dropping them off because we took Abby's braids out. Apparently we needed all 6 Thai ladies again because it took us a little longer than we had anticipated. We ended up eating dinner at the nice Thai restaurant in the hotel. I took a hold of the menu and ordered with confidence. Mike says I did an excellent job with my selections. We enjoyed a spicy papaya salad and a deep-fried seabass dish. We then hung out on the beach for a little while before picking up the kids. We are very sad to be leaving Phuket tomorrow. This place is such a great vacation location and this is truly the first week that we have spent it like we were on vacation. No sightseeing and no obligations at all. It has been really nice and we hope to return someday.