Ashley’s Birthday party

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Riley had her first birthday party recently… she was very excited. The party was just around the corner so we walked over to the house. When we arrived the party was in full swing with tons of people and a giant bouncy house and toys EVERYWHERE. Riley was a bit overwhelmed, but we had fun playing in the corner.

There were more presents then you could ever imagine a child needing, so Riley helped Ashley open some of them…

Daycare

Riley definitly loves daycare these days. At the end of the day if you ask her what she did all day she’ll say “Play with friends,” or “swing” or “music, dance.” For a while she went through a phase of fighting with a girl her age over the swing. The funny thing is they didn’t want to sit on the swing, they just fought over who got to push it. Her teacher Luz said it wasn’t fair because Riley has her words and can express herself, but Emory doesn’t have her words yet and thus has to scream at the top of her lungs. Unfortunatly this all resulted in no one getting to play with the swing at all. Riley started saying, “Emory, swing, no more fight” around the time. Luckily it seems to have blown over.

Riley’s favorite kid at the daycare is Baby Kira (as opposed to Big Kira, there are 2 Kiras and Riley always specifies). She LOVES baby Kira and talks about her all the time. She’s about 10 months old and Riley likes to give her hugs and play peekaboo with her. They hide under the table together too. One day the kids were painting and Luz was holding baby Kira, and Riley asked her to put Kira in the high chair. She did, then walked away, and when she came back Riley had given Kira paper and brush and water and was helping her paint! So sweet. Makes me think she’s ready for a sibling…

Riley’s been singing happy birthday to Caylin for weeks now, which is odd because apparently his birthday is in April.

For a while Riley’s special friend seemed to be Ashley. They are the same age, and Riley talks about her a lot… She also talks about Lauren.

So she’s definitly enjoying herself and bringing home lots of paintings to decorate the walls with. I’m so so glad we found Luz and her daycare, it’s such a relief to know riley’s in good hands…

Best of Thailand

We took about a million pictures on our trip of course, but we managed to trim it down to some highlights. Here they are.

(the ones at the end are videos)

Some last thoughts on the trip…

Unexpected things that Riley learned to do while travelling:
– Cut with scissors (she became quite the scrapper)
– Ride escalators by herself (up and down and up and down and up again)
– Play make believe/pretend

Things we heard her say a lot:
“Can we ask the lady for pretzels” (this after she learned the flight attendants were the keepers of the pretzels… it’s pretty much her first question when getting on a plane now)
“Khap kun kah” (Thank you in Thai. People loved it whenever she said it)
“Good job!” and “You did it all by yourself!” (we must have been saying this to Riley a lot… because she started saying it back to us whenever we did anything complicated like opening a water bottle or putting on our shoes)
“No thank you” (whenever we asked her to do something she didn’t want to do… this was a very frequent one)
“I want to do it MYSELF!” (also very frequent. sometimes coupled with a foot stomp)
“Can I touch it?” (In the temples she wanted to touch every shiny thing…)
“I want to remember again” (To make her stop crying or keep her occupied we would play “Remember when…” and tell her a story. At the end she would often ask to remember the story again)
“I’ll be right back” (again, something we said to her a lot, and she started using too)

She’s so funny to listen to. It’s not so much that she says funny things, but more that it’s funny to hear her just talking and saying things word for word that we say. And it’s funny to hear her interpretations of things. I wish I had more examples…

Cambodia

By the time we got to Cambodia, we ran out of steam with the blogging. Angkor wat was pretty amazing though…

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Khao Suk

We arrived at the Khao Suk rainforest reserve around 4pm, and were a little disappointed. Then we opened our bags and realized mine and Vida’s were soaked through. My bag had only my clothes and Riley’s and literally just about everything was soaked in salt water… even the freshly laundered clothes in plastic bags. Oh well. We set everything out to dry all around the room (which was challenging given that there was almost nothing to hang it on). The room was hot and muggy and a bit dank. The bed was solid and hard (no bouncing for Riley) with one thin sheet over the mattress and a scratchy blanket. The mosquitos were in full effect but luckily there were nets over the beds. We were expecting a bit more rainforest and wildness… this more just undeveloped. We decided to walk around and everyone’s mood picked up quickly. We wandered until we found a bar in the woods (Funky Monkey of course) where you can also incidentally get a tattoo. We stopped for a quick fruity cocktail then headed back since it was starting to get dark.

In the 70’s someone had the bright idea of building a dam and making a huge lake in Khao Sok. The few prior inhabitants were (happily) paid and relocated, and then employed running the longtail boats and other assorted jobs resulting from the new wave of tourism. The result is quite spectacular. In the morning we drove to the lake and then took a longtail to a floating raft lodge on the far end of the lake. It was about an hour ride, but with the scenery it passed quickly. Just before we arrived our guides took the boat into a little inlet and shut off the motor so we could check out the wildlife (there was a gibbon flying through the trees, but most of us missed it).

As we went the last little bit to the lodge, Riley’s hat flew off her head and into the water. There was a bit of excitement as we brought the boat around and tried to fish it out with a paddle, but it had already disappeared under the water. Before I knew it Elise dove in and disappeared under the water, surfacing triumphantly 20 seconds later, hat in hand. Yay!

The floating lodge was awesome. A string of 20 or 30 little floating huts reached across a small cove, with a little restaurant at the end and a little bridge and trail leading up the shore to some simple toilets. The huts were simple (bamboo, mat floors), but clean. The best part was that you could jump off the walkway into the warm, refreshing, and deep water for a swim, or just sit on your little porch staring at the crazy mountains across the way. Heavenly.

After some lazy time in the water and lounging about, we had some lunch and took a short boat ride further down the lake to a trail head. A short hike (maybe a mile?) over the hill and through the forest brought us to another dock, were we got on another boat (this time made entirely of bamboo!) for a short cruise across another part of the lake to a limestone cave into the side of the cliff. The cave itself wasn’t especially deep (maybe 200 feet?) but it opened into a number of large caverns, with an assortment of stalagtites and -mites and other cool formations. Riley seemed to like it, as long as all the lights didn’t go out at once. There was another family (German… we saw a lot of Germans in Thailand) a bit behind us with a pair of little boys who were going crazy, reminding us how mellow Riley is.

On the return boat ride back to the dock we stopped along the cliffs and watched a family of monkeys flying through the trees. Riley got a kick out of that (“The monkeys are crazy!”). On the hike back our guide made Riley a hat out of some ginormous leaves (which she liked, but not quite enough to wear). He really redeemed himself in her eyes when he gave her some (Thai) basil growing along the path, which she scarfed down in no time. She loves Thai basil. And most other
leaves or spices you give to her, strangely enough, despite being pretty picking about more conventional prepared foods or strange fruits.

The next morning we woke up early for a morning swim, had a leisurely breakfast, and took the boat back to civilization. Some 7 hours later we eventually made our way back to Mom Tri’s in Phuket for one last night in Thailand before heading to Cambodia. We made the most of it: an hour on the beach and in the pool, a beachside dinner at the Boathouse Grill, a walk up and down the strip along Kata beach, and then another couple hours on the beach the next morning. Did we mention Riley likes the beach? Not so much the water… the waves are a bit scary. But nothing beats the sand and a few sand toys. And maybe some water to pour on everything. Yep.

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Ko Phi Phi

Ko Phi Phi is a little island paradise that feels like it’s at the end of the world. We stayed at Zeavola for 2 nights and spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach and at the pool. Lucky for Riley there were other little kids to play with. On the boat over she made friends with a little girl who shared pretzels and crackers with her and kept her entertained much of the way (even though they couldn’t actually communicate since the little girl spoke a different language… didn’t stop them from talking though). At Zeavola there was a German boy who was a little younger then Riley and they immediatly hit it off. They played with sand toys together on the beach (while parents drank cocktails and enjoyed the sunset) and kept each other entertained during meals. The boys mother pointed out that hanging out with boring adults all the time must be really tiring for kids… playing with each other was a welcome break. Our last night they went crazy bouncing on the blow up pool floats and running around in circles and yelling a lot. It was hilarious. Between his parents and us we took turns standing near them while the others enjoyed their meal. Before he left he gave Riley big hugs, then had to go to sleep. Riley kept saying, “Where’s my friend going? I want the boy to come back and play with me!” It was very sweet.

The relaxing abruptly ended when we got on the boat to Krabi where we were to meet our ride to Khao Suk. It was an ancient musty boat that seemed like it might snap in half at any moment. We luckily got seats downstairs (where it was pretty dank and mustly with little air movement). The young party kids sunning themselves on deck came flooding down as soon as the boat left and they got soaked by the waves. Needless to say it was pretty crammed and hot down there. When the roof started leaking water and we realized our bags which were stored above must be getting soaked all we could do was throw up our hands and say what can you do. Riley got pretty fed up, but luckily was entertained by the “remember when…” game. We remembered Ronin and the snow and the spices with Joshua and Arizona and the dogs and everything about our trip so far…. with Riley throwing in a random thing along the way (“Remember grandma and grandpa??”) and finally finally we got there. We eventually met up with the van around 1pm, and Riley prompltly fell asleep. Recently for nap and and bed time we read the nursery rhymes book and she falls asleep quickly. In the van we just recited them and by the 5th or 6th one she was out.

Pictures here and here and here

Chiang Mai to Phuket

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Chaing Mai Day 3

Didn’t get around to writing about this day, but the pictures are great…

Chiang Mai Day 2

The next day we took a cooking class (well Vida and I took the class actually, Dallas, Sage and Riley were just along for the ride). They picked us up in a covered truck and brought us to a market to get supplies. We got a quick lesson about rice and then were free to roam around and explore the stcaks of colorful fruits and vegetables, assorted animal parts (pig heads! and feet and legs and ears…), fish splashing about in buckets, various prepared foods, spices, all sorts of sauces in every color in little plastic bags. I love a good market. Then we were off to an organic farm where the class was held. She first took us all on a tour through the garden. Riley of course loved trying everything (it’s so bizarre, she’s become really picky at the table, but in the garden she’ll try eating almost anything and usually loves it). Her favorites were basil and baby eggplant. Then the cooking began… I made yellow curry (riley tasted all the ingredients, but refused to try the final product), Tom Yong soup and thai basil chicken. We all feasted on the food Vida and I cooked, then we went back for more. I made noodles and for dessert sticky rice with mango, all of which we packaged up and brought home for dinner. It was a fun day for all I think. Riley enjoyed petting the cats and exploring the garden. Unfortunatly Riley didn’t get a good nap in though (just a mini one on the truck in the morning), so by the end of the day she was hot and tired and grumpy. She fell asleep on the way home though (I don’t know how she can sleep on a loud windy bumpy truck ride, but she just puts her head down and goes to sleep). In the evening we walked around the night market again then turned in early.

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Bangkok to Chiang Mai

This morning Riley woke up at 3:30am talking about elephants with flowers on them and oranges. She was so happy. Somehow Sage and I didn’t feel too bad or sleepy (surprising given how much wine we drank the night before) so we all played in bed for a while. Riley anounced that it was time to wake up and have breakfest (“Can we wake up now?), so we ordered her fish and chips and a glass of milk and started packing up our bags. Since we arrived at the hotel, Riley has been trying to call Michael on every hotel phone she can find. This morning she asked again, so I let her call on the cell phone to tell him about the swimming pool and the fish.. She’s getting pretty good at holding a phone conversation. It’s pretty entertaining to put her on speaker phone. At 6am the swimming pool opens, so we put on our swim suits and went downstairs. It was still completely dark (Sage got some really cool pictures with his tripod), but the sky quickly got light while we were swimming. We were pretty much the only ones around, it was really peacefull. There were lights that changed colors on the bottom of the pool that Riley really liked. After a while we went back up and showered and finished packing in time for a quick breakfest before heading to the airport.

People keep coming up and touching Riley here, some even pick her up or kiss her cheek. Sometimes she doesn’t mind, and sometimes she doesn’t like it, but it’s hard for us to tell how’s she’s feeling. I didn’t want her to feel weird or bad or uncomfortable about it, so we taught her to put her hand up and say “no touch” if she doesn’t want someone to touch her. We practiced a few times and I think she’s got it. We’ll see if she actually does it.

When the conversation gets over Riley’s head and she can’t understand, she’ll break in and say “What you telling guys, hey!! what you saying??” over and over until we explain to her. She does it during tours too when she can’t understand the tour guide. “What’s the lady saying?”

In Chiang Mai we stayed at the D2 hotel. Our first day we ended up napping much of the afternoon (it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep sharing a bed with Riley… I love sleeping next to her and cuddling in the morning, she’s very sweet and funny when she first wakes up, but all night long she moves around a kicks… anyway, that’s why we were so tired) and swimming in the pool. In the evening we walked through Chaing Mai’s famous night market, which is basically stall after stall of merchants selling everything you can imagine. There’s a lot of knock-offs for sale… I thought the Tiffany stalls were amusing, everything looked the same, except the color was just slightly different. There’s also lots of colorful food and kinciknacks… plenty to look at. Eventually we made our way to a restaurant and had on ok meal. The highlight was not the food, but the geckos which were everywhere. Riley had a great time spotting them and chasing after them. After dinner we took our first Tuk Tuk ride…

Good fun for all. It felt like we were on a crazy amusement park ride chasing after Dallas and Vida’s Tuk Tuk.

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