our first stop...

Our first stop in Thailand was Phuket, where we shared a private villa with two other families. It was a really great situation - we had a private pool, a housekeeper, and someone to make any meals we wanted her to make. Breakfast was provided each day (and chocolate croissants, my personal favorite, were on the menu!) In the evening, we could put the girls to bed and then all the adults go back to the pool and chat, or play games, or whatever. Here are some pictures and brief stories from that part of the trip:

This is May, the housekeeper and chef at the villa; the other lady who helped out is there in the background in the white shirt. Our girls both really enjoyed the asian faces, since they are usually more accustomed to that than white faces!
In addition to the great breakfasts, we sometimes had May cook thai food for us. You can see that dinners were truly abundant! Fresh linens accompanied the great dishes; this night, I think we had fish, spring rolls, pad thai, and some kind of chicken curry. It was SO nice not to have to think about eating - not even where to go or what to eat. They took care of it all, and would even go grocery shopping for us!Even though we were hanging out with other families, we tried to make sure that the girls got thier usual amount of mommy&daddy time! We could tell after a few days, emma was ready for our undivided attention! :) Thanks to the grandparents who sent super-cute summer clothes. Both of our gals were SO cute!

here is the private pool on the deck of the villa. I know this picture of emma isn't great, but she still looks cute in her hat! Over on the side, there was also a children's pool that was the perfect size for emma and clara anne! There were also toys for building sand castles that the girls enjoyed playing with in the pool. Emma would use the shovels and pails and create almost like a makeshift kitchen (you know, because she WAS having kitchen withdrawals, unlike her mama!) and "make" us all special dishes, like beans and corn. I know, beans and corn...sounds great huh? Emma's friend clara could do really great swimming with her floaties on, but emma preferred to be held anytime she was in the big pool. But she still loved it all, so that is fun! You can see the ocean right at the back of the picture; our villa was about a mile from the beach.
On this vacation, we learned something about mantha - the heat made her eczema worse, as did chlorine or salt. So....that meant our fabulous beach vacation had to be altered a bit to accomodate mantha's skin! The deck of the pool had a nice shady area where she could sit and play, so we'd let her play there or just keep her inside while one of us took turns dipping in the pool or playing with emma. And truly, even though we had to adjust a lot of our plans, I really enjoyed the extra time spending with her. She seemed not to mind that everyone else could be in the pool - she seemed happy enough! here, she is smiling with chloe...
And here she is, in the cool of the morning, lounging on one of the deck chairs. What a cute girl!