photos: more than you ever dreamed

so who's ready for some vacation pics?

We'll try to go in chronological order so that you can journey with us. This was the first vacation where the girls got to use their own suitcases, little Dora ones that my parents bought them. Mantha's is a cute yellow bus that somehow didn't make it into this picture. Initially, they were light enough for them to roll themselves, but as time went on, our luggage seemed to increase and josh and I ended up bearing the brunt of the weight. We were killing time here before our flight took us from snowy asia-land to tropical thailand.
Later that evening, we had a 5 hour layover in Hong Kong airport. Five hours in an airport might seem like a nightmare to you, but if it's Hong Kong airport, you don't know how lucky you are! HK airport has to be one of the best airports in the entire world. It is a model of efficency, good planning, friendliness, and is stocked with great places to spend your money - bookstores, krispy kreme, ben& Jerry's. They also have free wifi all over and a kids play area - truly the place where everyone is happy!Finally after a full day of travel, we made it to bangkok about midnight. The girls were wide awake, so we put on their matching Gap jammies and they played around on the bed. A big day was ahead... ...most notably, Toys R Us! Emma did a good job at practicing the "wai", a common thai greeting, but mantha had trouble. Some of the birthday presents emma opened yesterday were hidden in that bag she's holding!Two days of shopping in bangkok, then we headed out to our vacation spot (that was not the original vacation spot, if you'll remember from previous posts!) The girls loved playing in the super clean and beautifully landscaped pools. Emma's "jumping in" was more of a hesitant lean, and her feet stayed on the edge until she felt someone's arms around her!

But samantha was content to jump in even if no one was there to catch her! (Fortunately, this happened only once. Her bravery in the pool could have caused this to happen multiple times!)High on samantha's list of favorite vacation activities must have been walking across this wall that seperated the kiddie pool from the big pool. She happily would walk back and forth for an hour! Her floaties make her look like such a big girl, don't you think?Emma was much more confident in the pool than last year, the difference a year makes, I guess! This sea turtle was one of the hotly contested items during pool time......but mantha found other ways to stay occupied while emma was floating around by herself!
She surprised us all by being very comfortable in the water. With her little floaties, she could "swim" all by herself and make pretty good time, too!I think this was one of the most relaxing vacations I've perhaps ever taken, even though the girls were with us. By coincidence, our room was located right off the lobby; in fact, it was part of the same building. The lobby of our hotel was an arched, open-air pavilion that allowed the breezes to lazily linger in. There were also several nice tables and super-comfy rocking chairs and so.....when the girls were napping, we would go out to the lobby (since we were only a few steps away), grab a book and settle in the rocking chairs while the rhythm of the waves kept time. This picture doesn't show it so clearly, but all that white just past the trees is the ocean...literally only 20 steps away from our dominoes table! Here's daddy, emma and mantha playing a quick game of Dora dominoes after naptime.

Apparantly, mantha had a "match"...

...and was pretty excitied about it!
Our resort also had a little putt-putt course nestled in between the pool and the ocean, so one afternoon we gave it a shot. Emma was really making a good effort...

...and getting lots of good help from daddy...

But after trying it out once...

...samantha decided there had to be an easier way!


Once at the beach, the girls enjoyed collecting seashells and getting super dirty, splashing in the waves, enjoying wide open spaces...

We quickly discovered that by the time the girls woke up from afternoon naps, there was not enough direct sun for all the beach-loving tourists...which was great news for us! After 4pm, we usually had the beach all to ourselves. So if you start to wonder why these pictures have a "dusk" sort-of feel, that's why! (And I, of course, didn't object because the weather was perfect at that time!!)

They both were SO eager to taste sand...


One day, we took the girls to an elephant park where we got to see the elephants! I thought the girls would be afraid, but no way! They thought it was great!

We also got to try a little coconut juice at the elephant park. Emma was not such a big fan of it...
...but mantha, our juice drinker, liked it a lot.

So Emma and I rode one elephant, and josh and samantha rode another. There's no pictures of us on the elephants because, as you can see, josh used the video camera for us and we used the other camera. By the way, turning around to snap a quick picture is not so easy when your elephant is sloshing through the swamp. Just in case you wanted to know. :)

Later on, there was a day without children...so we went to this nice outdoor mall and ate ice cream! (At the suggestion of our friend john, I chose to forego my usual inclination to choose a chocolate something and got Apple Crumble, which was vanilla ice cream with cinnamon, steamed apples and pie crust mixed in and caramel sauce on top. WOW. That's about all I can say.)

Our childless-afternoon company...

Our last stop was back to hong kong again for a few days. We went to Kowloon Park (our first time) and were SO impressed. They had a great aviary, fun flamingoes, swans, fountains, and a nice play area for the girls. It was quite the little oasis inside a bustling city.

Thank you, self-timer. You rock:

We ate our share of doughnuts, mongolian BBQ, great italian food and egg mcmuffins, but before we left we had a special visit with some friends from oklahoma. They happen to live in a very fabulous apartment on hong kong island, overlooking the ocean and outlying islands. They were gracious enough to treat us to fajitas, a quiet afternoon, and even willing to snap a few pictures before we left. Thanks again joe and kathy, for a truly AWESOME time at your place!

(Emma couldn't quite seem to look in the right direction here...)

...but this one's a keeper.)

So there you have it. Fun times were had by all.

Yesterday was Emma's 3rd birthday, so pics and story from that will be forthcoming. Thanks for staying around this long to look at my photo album!