Eating a bit of sand never killed anybody, right?

Day 82:

Today we woke up and for the first time this vacation it was SUNNY!  Which made Doug Tomlinson extremely eager to get to the beach.  I am not extremely eager to do anything in the morning, except maybe go back to sleep or eat something fabulous...if it's brought to me in bed.  So Doug ended up sunscreening himself and Kora, then headed to the beach. Kees stayed back to help me.  He wasn't keen on going to the beach today.  We met them about a half an hour later.  I was needing to tidy up the room and pack snacks.

Finally ready to head to the beach.

Another accidental shot. I think my eye looks weird, like Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street.

This boy loves the elevator.

He was not happy about this one.

The water was still furious today.  I'm not in love with being in the ocean when it's trying to suck me under. Doug thinks it's fun.  Kora would like to ride those waves, but she has no idea....  Doug and the kids played in the sand for a while. It was eventually time for lunch, Doug thought he knew a good cheap place to find some Thai food. He ordered Pad Thai and something else.  It was more expensive than we were thinking and not that great.  We were hungry mid afternoon and had to order a pizza. So far, we are striking out with street vendor food.  I remember the first year we were in Thailand, it seems like we were always ending up with stuff we didn't love. Now that we've lived in the same place for 2 1/2 years we know where to get the good stuff!  We had to leave the beach earlier than we wanted to because it rained and got crazy windy. :(

Sand!

Working together, as much as any 17 month old is able to "play along" with a 4 year old.

Daddy's helping too.

Water, check out my thumbnail, see, I keep getting my nails in the pictures without even trying.

This girl cannot be hemmed in.  She is determined to push the boundaries and explore.

We've been here 10 minutes, it's snack time.

Kora likes snacks too! We have a running joke in our family about Doug having Gumby legs (stuck together at the top, then separating after the knees). Kora is following in his footsteps.

She loves sticking her tummy out.

She has sass written all over her.

He doesn't believe whatever it is I'm trying to tell him.  I get this look from Doug a lot too.

Smile!

Beach!

Awww!

Mentally regretting the choice of where we sat. Look at all that junk behind us, ruins the picture just a smidge.

Doug bought some new sunglasses. He talked her down by half, I was so proud. ;)

Laughing

Kees wanted to throw a few gold fish crackers to see if a bird would come eat them.

Just want to squeeze her. She hates when I interrupt her movement and try to hug and kiss her, but if she doesn't like it, she should stop being so cute.

And here's some Chinese tourists that I tried to speak Thai too. Epic fail.  They loved our kids. They hung out with us for at least 20 minutes and snapped about 300 pictures of our kids.  Pretty sure we are trending on the internet all over Asia.

Kora eating noodles. She managed to eat a good deal of sand throughout the day. Hope that's okay...

Sometimes I feel like our kids are zoo animals.  "Look, that white baby is eating noodles!!!"

After our mid afternoon pizza, I decided to take Kees to the play place while Kora was napping.  When we got there, it was closed for today, so guess we'll have to try back tomorrow.  Glad I brought books and toys for the kids.  We played cards, Kees knows how to play War and Go Fish now. It's weird having a kid old enough to play games, where is baby Kees???

On our way to the play place, again, the boy loves the elevator!

Sorting again, he gets bored really quick when Kora doesn't come and he always wants to go back and check on her.

Getting closer to dinner time.  We played cards earlier in the afternoon, I took one picture, but I looked like a hideous troll and opted not to ruin your day by sharing it...you're welcome.

Kees is making cupcakes.

Just chillaxing.  (Another one of those kid slang phrases, it's Chilling and Relaxing combined, I share this information in case my grandmothers ever figure out how to read blogs).

This girl loves books, it always makes me miss my sister, who also loves books.

For dinner we went to a restaurant very close by.  We were going to just get dessert, but when I saw the menu I really wanted to try the chicken strips and Doug was very intrigued by the prawns in tamarind sauce, so we ate like real adults, dinner first and just shared the creme brulee for dessert (I don't know how to add all those accents and junk for "creme brulee", so just pretend.)  A hundred years ago, when I lived in the states, I made creme brulee, I perfected it.  I had it down, just how I liked it, so I'm usually disappointed with restaurant versions. This one was passable, but it has me itching to make mine again, just not sure how that would work here...

They were pulling out all the stops for Kora at dinner. First with colored pencils.

He was grumpy a few times at dinner.  I think this was about me ordering him a Shirley Temple to drink,  his frown was quite the smile when he realized his drink came with a cherry and he loved the drink, so I guess I win this round.

Notice how unimpressed she is with this toy. She wanted knives, candles, salt and pepper shakers, and various other items deemed inappropriate for a wreckless halfling.  I'm not really sure where I heard halfling or what it's original meaning is, but I'm using it in place of "tiny person" or "kiddo"

After dinner, we went to 7-11.  Kora found a dog.  She was SO excited!  Love that girl!

She loves animals.  She wanted to get right in this dog's face so bad.

Tomorrow our plan is to have a pool day. Hopefully the weather cooperates. :)