Show Us Your Life - Favorite Vacation Spots

This week's Show Us Your Life topic at Kelly's Korner is favorite vacation spots. We love vacation and we love Bali, I thought it was the perfect time to reminisce about some of our past trips.

We have taken several trips to our favorite vacation spot, Bali! We used to live a short (30 minute) flight from there. Here are some the links that tell about our trips.

Our first trip to Bali was to attend some work meetings and celebrate our 2nd anniversary. We stayed in a hotel in Nusa Dua.

Part 1

Part 2

Vacation

Our second trip was a long anticipated vacation that took place the day after we found out we were expecting our first child. We stayed in a villa in Seminyak.

Family Trip

Our third trip to Bali was when my mom and brother were visiting and I was about 27 weeks pregnant. We stayed in a different villa in Seminyak.

And our last trip was when our baby boy was just 6 weeks old. We went with some friends and stayed in a villa in Seminyak.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Now that we live in Bangkok we are a little further from Bali, but we are hoping to take a nice family vacation there sometime in the next year.

Ayutthaya

We made a day trip to Ayutthaya earlier this week to check out the old temples and have some out-of-the-city fun. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Roger pushing over an old chedi. He's so strong!

Asher exploring some really old stuff.

Jack also joined us. He looked cute and was generally adorable and easy going, even when an old Thai grandma got a hold of those big cheeks while we were eating lunch.

There were lots of headless Buddhas. It is impolite and against the rules to stick your baby behind them for a funny picture.

The old stuff we went to see.

There has been much debate as to whether Asher is screaming in this picture because he is happy or if he is screaming because he is 2. I think the consensus is that he was currently enjoying himself.

29 Weeks

Well, since I'm sure the suspense was just killing you I will answer the question of what I was up to last night. I spent last night relaxing at a hotel here in Bangkok...ALL BY MYSELF! I went to dinner with some friends, got a new book, ate some Cinnabon, went swimming and just generally enjoyed relaxing, resting and being alone.

While I was at the hotel I realized that Roger and I stayed at this same hotel when I was just about at this point in my pregnancy with Asher. And then I realized I had brought the same shirt to wear that I was wearing when I took a belly pic at this hotel.


Asher in 2008


Baby Boy in 2010

I also realized this weekend that I feel so much better than I did when I was pregnant with Asher. Roger thinks it probably has something to do with the 150 steps I climb everyday going to and from school on the skytrain and the 2 year old I am constantly chasing.

Monday afternoon we are going to get to see our littlest boy again, so hopefully we will have some more pictures of him soon.

The Dusit Zoo

Today was a holiday of some variety, never figured out exactly what it was, but that meant no school.


So we went to the zoo.

The last time we went to the zoo Asher was 8 months old and he slept while we looked at animals. This time he was wide awake and making animal noises.

Of course our first stop was to see the elephants.


He was scared to death.


It was understandable because the elephants were just right there and they were loud and excited. They kept running at the barrier trying to get more food. It was sort of sad because he really loves elephants, I just think they were a bit overwhelming in person.


We retreated away from the real elephants to the elephant statues.


Asher was thrilled and we spent a long time letting him "pet" the elephants statues. I think we actually had a bigger crowd watching Asher with the fake elephants than the real elephants did.

There really weren't a lot of animals at the zoo. In typical Asian fashion there were exhibits featuring exotic animals such as deer and skunks. We didn't even bother to stop and look.

Asher did love the monkeys. They were getting wild and Asher was screaming right along with them.


We ended our time at the zoo with a trip to our favorite exhibit.


Evidently we were the first people to put a white boy in that cage because again we drew a crowd. Asher certainly helped the situation by dancing and yelling car car.


This is Roger's favorite picture. Asher got out of the cage and saw the wheels, so he decided to push the car car. He seemed to be absolutely confounded as to why a car with wheels wouldn't move.


We made it home before nap time and spent the rest of the day asking Asher about the zoo. He must have forgotten about the elephants being scary because every time we asked about the zoo he would say "na na na" and get really excited.

The Aquarium, The River, The Tuk-Tuk and the Vacation That Wasn't

There is a big aquarium in the basement of one of the big malls in Bangkok. We have been wanting to check it out for a while and decided that we would wait until Mimi and Mel were with us. Asher has a DVD all about fish and the ocean, so he was very excited to see real fish at the aquarium. It was dark throughout most of the aquarium, so we didn't take many (good) pictures.




Oddly enough Asher's favorite part of the entire place was the musical about a horse and a mermaid. The whole thing was in Thai and he sat there like he understood and then wanted to go see the big horse when it was over.


We also enjoyed a boat ride down the river. We were cheap and instead of paying to take a tour we just hopped on one of the free hotel boats, rode down the river to a hotel and did some exploring near the hotel.


Outside of the hotel we found some tuk-tuks sitting around and decided to take Asher on his first tuk-tuk ride. We paid the guy about a dollar to drive us around for ten minutes. The longer we were in the tuk-tuk the more excited Asher became.




Definitely the best dollar I've spent in a while.


On the way back we checked out the super nice hotel lobby and the view of the river.




To end their time here we decided to drive down to the beach for the weekend. Hmm, how to sum up the beach weekend? Well we were back in Bangkok less than 12 hours after we left, we never saw the beach and for a while we thought Asher might have had a concussion.

We went swimming and Asher looked cute as always.


Then he slipped and fell on the super slippery tile that was everywhere by the pool and inside the house. Unfortunately he fell into the corner of a concrete wall and dented his head.

(No Pictures Available)

Because of that and a few other problems we decided to just head back home and enjoy our last few days of Mimi and Mel at home.

The View From The Top

We had to do some touristy things while Mimi and Mel were here, so I took them to the top of the tallest hotel in the Kingdom of Thailand to see the city.


Of course Asher spent most of his time in the tuk-tuk. I should also mention that Asher has learned to say tuk-tuk and can spot one a mile off in heavy traffic.


This time he shared the tuk-tuk and let Mimi drive.


Asher posed for a picture with Mel.


Asher and Mimi posed for some traditional Thai pictures. Asher is a handsome little prince.


We out to the revolving sky deck, but Asher and Mel thought it was hot and bright, so we didn't stay too long.


Asher and Mimi went for a hot air balloon ride.



After that morning of excitement we had a very long ride home and everyone (except for me and Roger) took afternoon naps.

The end.

Back to the Beach

Asher got back to the beach this weekend. His first beach trip was to Bali, his second beach trip was to Destin, his third beach trip was to somewhere in Virginia and his fourth trip was to Hua Hin.

If you want to read more about our latest trip go here. And if you just want to see pictures of Asher go here.

Asher was definitely much more into swimming and playing in the sand this time. Here are some comparisons so you can see how far he has come since his first trip to the beach.

Asher laying on the beach in Bali.

Asher exploring the beach in Hua Hin.

Asher sleeping in Bali.

Asher running in Hua Hin.

A New Place to Play

Last weekend we went to the top of the tallest hotel in Thailand. Roger and I were excited to check out the view of the city (lots of buildings, lots of smog), but we didn't know how much fun Asher would have.

When we got to the observation floor we found some pretty good views and a lot of things for Asher to play with.

Luckily we had some coins with us and Asher got to ride on the little Tuk-Tuk.

After a while we switched over to the big Tuk-Tuk and Asher took Daddy for a ride.

Asher had a cracker for a snack.

We couldn't pass this one up...

And finally a family picture. It really wasn't all that bright, Asher just likes to squint when we tell him to smile and he was a little upset about having to pose for a picture.

Faces

We took a trip down the river last week. The plan was to take a Water Taxi to a flower market, but we got on the wrong boat and in the end decided to just take a free ride down the river. We ended up a mostly empty mall, but we got a free boat ride and Asher kept us entertained the whole time. Here is a sample of the faces we get from Asher everyday.

This is a new favorite, the I'm not getting my way and I'm not happy about it face. In this instance Asher wanted to climb down the steps onto the dock and jump into the water. As a responsible parent I had to tell him no. He didn't like that.

This one is the everything is okay in the world because I'm with dad face. It's probably one of my favorites.

The what in the world is that face. Bangkok has caused this face to be seen quite a bit, everything is new here and Asher is still trying to figure it all out. This one could have been caused by the fact that we were on a boat or by the trash we saw floating down the river or by a passing train or by a bird. Asher loves to chase birds.

And finally the regular smile face. One of Asher's new tricks is to make his silly scrunched up nose face every time we tell him to smile. I'm sort of partial to this smile although the other one is pretty funny.