Breakfast was served upstairs with a beautiful view of the pool and the bay.  Adam enjoyed his coffee (aka- milk) while pondering important life questions like “Why does the pool go into the ocean?” Ah, infinity pools, confusing children everywhere.

Malcolm meanwhil prepared for a day of sun and relaxation.

And relax we did. We took a short boat trip to some amazing islands.  A year ago I wouldn’t have believed you that you can relax on a beach with little kids, but it can be done! They love the sand and can entertain themselves for a very looooong time filling a plastic bottle with sand.  The water was amazing. It was warm and we could all hang out for a long time right by the shore.

Oh and there were hammocks.

Some of us took a bit of convincing to get in the hammock and preferred to hang out precariously on the bench…

But eventually everyone came around.

Our next stop on our boat trip was…another island with an even prettier beach where they had refreshing Buco juice.

We headed back midday for some yummy lunch, some golf cart rides, a nap and some fishing!

When we asked Adam the highlight of his day, every day we got the same reply- fishing.  The hotel had free fishing on the pier every day at 4 and we were there every day at 4.

The hotel had an amazing staff that took such sweet care of Adam and Malcolm. But the winner was Jake. He was the one that helped us fish and was with us on our last day of island hopping. This 26 year old single guy was one of the sweetest people with children I have ever met.  He sat with Adam and helped him catch fish for hours, he chatted with Adam on the front of the boat chatting the whole trip and  on the island he took both boys swimming, kayaking and kept finding fun things from the ocean floor to show the boys.  He even saved us from a box jellyfish!

A week after we got home Adam turned to me and says our of nowhere – “I miss Jake”. It was so sweet that he remembered this sweet person.

All three of my boys love to fish. I think Randy may actually love it the most and that’s saying a lot because Adam and Malcolm love it A WHOLE lot!

Island hopping, a yummy lunch, a family nap, fishing and dinner. Sign my up to live this day again!

We decided to test out the new smaller double stroller we got for out upcoming Italy trip to see if everyone liked it. So far, huge success. The boys loved sitting next to each other instead of one behind the other. It’s easy to fold, light and small! Italy here we come. But first Coron.

One of the things I love the most about these two is even though they each have a kids kindle for when we travel (thanks Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj!) they usually end up watching each other. I’m going to count that as a good sign that they one day will choose to hang out with each other and be friends.

Big surprise -please read with sarcasm- our flight was delayed by a few hours. This is hands down the number one thing I dislike about travel in the Philippines.  Flights are often delayed for hours and with two little kids to entertain these hours can feel like fooooooreeeeveeer. But we mostly kept smiles on our faces.

Our plane was a propeller plane and was the cause of much excitement.

Only rivaled by the kindle of course.

We finally arrived.  It never gets old to land on a little one lane runway with a little string fence keeping the cows off.

The hotel was an hour away from the airport but this place was worth every second of our trip! We woke up the next morning to this view from our balcony.

The views were like this the entire way.

There are tons of zebras, giraffes and deer walking around all over the island.

After feeding the giraffes we headed off to South Cay island which is owned by the hotel we were staying at, Busuanga Bay Lodge. This island was the place dreams are made of. Beautiful white sand, turquoise water, an amazing barbecued lunch, oh and beach chairs and umbrellas. Did I mention how much I love beach chairs and umbrellas. Even in Greece, where you have to pay for your chair I would buy one each and every time I was at the beach, because it is so much better!

Adam explained that he used my favorite colors, then he remembered that my favorite color is grey (yes people, it’s a color) and explained that there was no grey so he used colors I would like.

Can you tell which one is me? I’m the lucky one with hands and feet 🙂 I’m also the only happy one, maybe because it’ s my special day.

So sweet that he chose a flower. Adam loves finding the local flower, kalachuchi, downstairs in the playground for me.  It’s also impressive he got my age right.

I love that Adam is so confident in my weightlifting skills and my job. All joking aside I love that he understands how much I like my job and always try to do the best I can at work. The gym, well I have been going more, but I am not quite lifting that much! Maybe someday.

I also never say I want to kiss you! I just kiss him loads so I guess he thinks of kisses when he thinks of me. Well, kisses, employment and the gym.

Hmmmm, I do laugh when he says something funny (wish is pretty often) but I don’t think I’ve even thrown him up in the air. Something to work on!

No words needed, he nailed this one.

I hope this is always true Adam!

And some selfies from Mother’s Day.  This one is a Mother’s Day post gym shot, when the kids had gone to a fun kid area downstairs while we took a fun boxing class. Win Win!

Two more special cards from my two boys that I hung at work to brighten up my desk,

Side note, Randy and I both had the opportunity to observe the Philippine elections that just passed. it was quite an experience and even though I had to cut Mother’s Day short to head up north to a rural town in the mountains and Randy had to fly down to Mindanao it was a once on a lifetime opportunity. The Philippines had an 81% turnout for voters this year. They’re always above 70% but 81% is unbelievable! And these people wait on line for up to 4 hours in the +100 degree heat to be able to exercise their democratic right. It was a pretty impactful thing to witness.

Malcolm and Adam have both become superhero obsessed lately! Grandma Gertch sent the boys some costumes which have been a big hit!

 Adam’s favorite is Batman.  Malcolm’s favorite is, well, it’s Yellow.  Malcolm has renamed all superheroes Yellow.  According to Adam though, Malcolm loves Spiderman the best.

If Adam was a superhero here are his top five super powers:

1. Loads of smarts – this boy runs circles around me. He understands so much and absolutely nothing
    gets by him. So watch out evil villains, there is no way you can trick Adam, trust me I’ve tried.
2. Empathy for the underdog – Like all great superheros Adam feels the pains of others and tries to         help them. He dislikes when a situation is not just. When we went to see Zootopia he cried                   when the poor fox was teased as a little cub scout. It just about broke my heart 150 times.
3. Persistence – just try and tell him that he can’t have something he wants, go ahead- try.
4. Love of Nature- now before you tell me this is a weak super power, need I remind you of Storm.
    Adam loves science and loves to always learn more about how things grow or exist or change. He
    loves to correct me when I say cocoon and he says its a chrysalis. Knowledge is power people.
5. Out-maneuverability- Adam is a wily one.  He does not get backed into a corner. The few times
    I’ve tried to trick him he has immediately figured it out.

And here are Malcolm’s top five super powers:

1. Resiliency- this boy takes a beating, falls down, runs into things, gets knocked over but just keeps
    on going!
2. The most infections smile and laugh- when this boy has a smile on his face it is impossible not to       smile back! Those bad guys don’t stand a chance not breaking a smile.
3. Persistence (maybe it runs in the genes). Don’t let his size fool you. There is no corner that you
    say is too small that he will not try to squeeze his belly through or a treat high up in the cabinet    
    that he will move a chair to reach.
4. Bottomless stomach. Just when you think, oh surely Malcolm must be full and can’t fit anything
    else in his little belly he gets a second wind and manages to take down another whole bowl of
    couscous.
5. Super strength- I saw him lift a car and topple it over just the other day. Granted it was the cozy
    coup plastic car but it was still impressive.

Then it was time for the egg hunt! I decided to hide each boy 10 eggs and color code them. Adam’s were purple and Malcolm’s were blue (their favorite colors). This was inspired by my brother, dear Uncle Ari, who used to wake up at 4 a.m. on Easter and sneak down to see where all the eggs were hidden. Then at the starting bell (when my parents finally got up and had their coffee- sorry guys for not sleeping in, I now know how you feel!) Ari would shove his little sisters aside and gather 99% of the eggs.

This color coded egg plan (yes, I know I’m crazy) went wonderfully! There was no fighting over eggs and Adam helped Malcolm find his when he was done.

Then it was on to Easter Baskets. These were mostly books and games and gift our wonderful friends and family sent. Some were sent for Easter and some were just sent and I squirreled them away for a rainy day. That day arrived and the boys loved everything! Aunt Sandra, Uncle Shawn, Roman and Isla sent the boys the cutest personalized Easter books. The boys LOVED these! They were so excited to hear and read their names in the coloring books and immediately set to work coloring in all the Easter eggs.

Here was Malcolm’s favorite, Easter tic-tacs sent by Grandma Gertch. He slept with these for the next three days.

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Adam was so excited that the Easter bunny knew their names! The boys are very lucky, Grandma Gertch sends so many books and signs them all for the boys. Sorry Grandma, the Easter Bunny may have taken credit for this one 🙂

We invited some of our friends over for a big Easter lamb lunch! It was great. I of course forgot to take any photos so you’ll just have to take my word for it. We had lamb, spinach pies, tzatziki, orzo shrimp and loads of desserts. We had another Easter hunt for all the kids and everyone had a great time!  I love Easter parties! It always makes being away from my family for the holiday a little easier.

  
Kalo Pasxa everyone!

The museum had this awesome activity where you could draw your fish and the museum scans your picture and your fish comes to life and swims away. Each boy must have colored 5 fishes to be scanned. Luckily there wasn’t a line and no one minded.

 
Get ready for some excitement right here. Here is not one but two videos of scanned colored fish for you all!

Because the boy had been so great this trip, we decided to treat them to one toy each at the aquarium gift shot. Someone was very excited. Malcolm was excited too, but he napped through our lunch and wasn’t available for photos.

I learned two important things during this sightseeing adventure. One is that poor Malcolm is terrified of large moving dinosaurs. Once again, glad to see his fear level is entirely rational!

Second, I learned that I am not built to wait on long lines which are there for absolutely no reason. Especially in the Bangkok heat and humidity. So maybe I am not ready for Disneyland quite yet.

Thankfully instead of waiting on line with daddy to buy tickets we were able to take this jeep out for a spin, Jurassic Park style.

Co-pilot

Road rage…..

Once we were in, there were lots of fun dinosaurs to climb…

and stories about asteroids and dinosaurs…

and dinosaur bones!

Don’t worry Adam, it’s not real!

This was a dinosaur egg lab, which was great. Except for when the pretend Tyrannosaurus Rex attacked and poor Malcolm almost had a heart attack.

But in the end, he only ended up eating Adam!

This past weekend both boys were recovering from strep (aka- still a little whiny), Randy was working in Papa New Guinea and Maria, our trusted nanny, was also down with strep. I’m always hesitant to complain about parenting since we are lucky enough to have a full time nanny who lives with us and a helper who helps with the cleaning and cooking. I do realize that when I complain about not having help that’s what most people live every day.

But you know what, Randy and I also work full time, come home and eat dinner with the boys, give them a bath, read them a book and put them to bed. After that sometimes I squeeze in some gym time or have a work event to attend or sit and watch TV while I multitask on the computer. Weekends usually include swim lessons, butcher, market for vegetables, fruit stalls, SNR- the Filipino Costco (as painful as it sounds), haircuts for the boys, taxes, hardware stores for air conditioning filters, and a million other things that I never have time for like haircuts for me or a root canal that apparently some dentist here has recommended I get. And we work pretty hard and pack in a lot and yes we are able to do that because we have help.

This Sunday morning I piled both boys into the car and went to get bagels for us and for our friends who were coming over with their new baby. Malcolm was up at 5 for the 4th day in a row (why does sleep deprivation make you so cranky) and after bagels we headed to the market. We picked up veggies and headed home to put everything away and get ready for our friends who were coming over in 15 minutes. I pulled into our parking spot which is two elevators, 10 stairs and about 100 steps away from our apartment…..and I hit a major wall. I had been up for 4 hours and lugging two babies around in 107 degree heat and it was only 9 am. I said something to the effect of  asking how am I going to get everyone, our bagels and veggies upstairs to myself, knowing that chances are one or both boys would beg to be carried as well.

Adam must have sensed something in my voice and immediately said, don’t worry mommy, I’ll carry a bag. When I took him out his insisted on carrying a bag, I gave him the kale since it was the lightest and he insisted on carrying another bag and took the bagel bag. I went around to get Malcolm out and slipped. I luckily caught myself (and  my coffee- THANK GOD) but hit my knee. Adam came over and asked if I was alright. He asked me where I was hurt and then he kissed my knee. It was probably the sweetest moment I have ever had. Just having him help carry those bags and kiss my knees made the trip upstairs a million times easier.

Sometimes being a parent feels like an uphill climb. But every once in a while you have a moment like this where you realize the uphill climb has a peak and when you finally reach the peak the view is so beautiful and worth every ounce of effort it took you to get there.

We had limited time to sightsee so we headed right out to cover some ground. Oh wait, that’s right we have two little boys. So first there was an hour long breakfast buffet and then we headed out and made it around the corner to a coffee shop. We were going to just grab coffees but we needed a break from getting lost on our way to the coffee shop that was literally around the corner. And besides, it was so cute we decided why not stay a while. After all who can say no to chocolate croissants!

And here is Adam and Randy’s band cover.

or maybe this one?

After fortifying ourselves with coffee and a croissant we headed out to see this beautiful city. There are beautiful temples everywhere you see.

We found an amazing store that sold beautiful antiques which had an amazing 60 year old Buddha from the northern area of Laos. There was even a cute little dog to keep the boys occupied while we negotiated.

This beautiful temple – Wat Si Saket is the Wat of a Thousand Buddhas and it really has a thousand Buddhas.  We went to sit inside the temple and it was so interesting, both boys sat right down and were so calm for a good 20 minutes. They must have sensed what a spiritual place it was.

On our way back to the hotel after a long walking tour we decided to stop in one more temple. Malcolm was snoring away in his stroller so it was just us and Adam. Adam plopped right down and didn’t want to leave. When we finally got up to leave he turned around to sit down again. The monk motioned him over to say a prayer and give us a bracelet. It was such a sweet moment watching Adam take it all in.

We headed back and even had time for some pool time.

 After a nice long bathe we headed out for a yummy dinner. Vientiane, you are pretty special!