Homeschooling....

 These first two pics are NOT at the conference. We also met up with friends at the guest house. I love these pics with S and S on the swing. They had  a blast, while the mommies chatted it up.

 At the conference. The second night was the 'storybook parade' where you dress as your chosen character, go across the stage (in front of a few hundred), and say your name, your character's name, and what book you are from. Sophia wanted to go this alone. I include this pic to show that I did indeed participate as "Ma" Caroline Ingalls, Apron, straw hat and all.

 Up on stage she did great and spoke well. She stumbled a little on which book, since there are so many and we are in number 4 now, but she did GREAT!

These are some very special friends she met. She still talks about them!

 This was another night where you actually had to read from part of your chosen book. She did really well at this too and needed help with some weird words like: 'pokeberries' and 'gaiters'. She also, was not nervous and wanted to go first. The only problem was the sound, the room was noisy, we really couldn't hear a thing.

 She read the part in 'The Little House in the Big Woods' where Laura gets a rag doll for Christmas, Sophia had brought her 'rag doll'.

 So proud of this girl! And I loved the conference and learned so much. It helped solidify some things we are already doing, and gave me tons of ideas for the coming years....all the way into highschool, ha!

Reconnecting: deep

The last time we saw the 'L' family was 2 thanksgivings ago, before that it had been way. too. long. There are not many couples that both David and I really connect with both the husband and wife (we are actually blessed with a few!). But this match is tried and true for us. We love them. We were so excited that they too were coming to Thailand and we could have a few days together before M and I took the older kids to the Homeschool conference, while J and David hung back in Bangkok with the younger ones.

This could have been at Krispy Kreme based on Tobin's crazy face! I forget...

We ate at a REALLY good new Lebanese restaurant. 

Uncle J and Bella boo.

 The kiddos donning the Krispy Kreme hats. It was yum.

Even Bella thought so, and she can picky about her sweets.

For my birthday, M wanted to take me out for a pedicure, something I was completely willing to do! David and J gave us pretty much the whole day! We went to the mall, laughed for an hour at the Clinique counter while we tried on make-up and left looking like clowns. We ate lunch and talked serious over yum guacamole and Manao soda (best soda ever made). They have had a tragic year, and we talked about those trials, we talked about homeschooling (she is ahead of me a bit), we talked about life in China, family back home, and on and on. We also had a few more days as family, which was so fun, then she and I had even more time at the conference to talk too. This was a huge blessing for the year for us. Love this chick! Thanks M for a wonderful time.

Last of the vacation fun

 This deep area had one small shallow place to sit then went deep (deeper than our kids could touch, not us). Once Sophia and Bella warmed up to going deep, we would move over to this area and hang out. Tobin liked wearing the goggles whichever way he could.

Sophia is quite a little fish, and is really practicing holding her breath and swimming under water for longer periods of time.

 Bella has been quite scared for a while. But she grew quite comfortable in floaties and always wanted to go to the deep end, and 'don't hold on to me'.

DIRTY FEET! The resort had a great kids playground, Tobin could do it all with no worries. They all took their shoes off and ran around one night after dinner. Here is the evidence of their fun:

Again, the goggles, cracking me up.

This kid, all about mischief, but is starting to listen and obey better (with constant training). 

Tobin often runs like this, with his hands behind him like he wants to fly. We were trying for a while to get it on film

superman!

 Sister fun.

She looked cute in all her gear, a little overkill, but it made her comfortable in the water.

 Family photo, in search of monitor lizards...

Sophia took this pic. What a handsome man, my superhero husband, not kidding. In-credible.

Black Mountain Water Park, Hua Hin

 Near Cha Am beach (where our resort was), we heard about a water park. We hired a van and hit the road for the day. We did our research and knew that there were plenty of places to sit in the shade and rest, and fun even for the littlest of our kids. This was probably one of the most fun things we did. Here, Sophia is in the area for smaller kids.

 The wave pool was lots of fun and not too deep. We would take turns taking the girls out to deeper waters and holding on to the raft while they road the waves, both Bell and Soph loved it.

We did bring Tobin's sleeping tent, but he wouldn't sleep, with the bright sun and action all around who could blame him. I made Bella rest too in the shade. Both the youngest M kids slept soundly in the shade right next to me. I was glade to be resting with the four (I was very tired). Meanwhile David took Sophia on all the big slides. They looked incredible, and she was so excited, and brave. There was also a lazy river that I could have stayed in all day. We really loved this park, the lunch food was good (had standard Thai and some western), and great ice cream too! This was money well spent (did I mention kids under five were free, kids 5-12 were at a lower price than the adult ticket).

Vacation fun continued

 Lots of fun was had at the pool! Below Tobin and Bella had a little swim class, practicing kicking with Aunt G. They both did really well.

We decided to let the kids eat early one night and the adults go out to the hotel restaurant after they went to bed. One of the older M girls came down to our room and read to the girls until bedtime. Then she stayed and watched a movie. She had a cell phone and knew how to reach us if we needed to come back. This worked so well that we did it two more times after this and had many great hours of all-adult conversation! Not to mention a really good steak. This is one of the things that made this vacation so enjoyable. Thanks H for watching the kiddos!

The resort had a whirlpool area that was made to be all natural looking but swimmable. Here is where the monitor lizards hung out. This was a small one. Monitor lizards can get up to 2 meters long. Crazy. We were always on the lookout.

 The kids did like to swim over in this area, but usually with an adult close by.

Down at the beach, these are from the same outing as the last beach pics, we did only go there once.