2. How to give actual kisses instead of air kisses. He leans in and gives the softest little pop with his lips.

4.  How to make a hotel bed and tuck in his animals (with a kiss for each of course). Shown below is Riley the Cat and Harry the Dog. Oh and Yim Ym given to us by the hotel.

5. How to navigate the Bangkok metro with the big boys. There are ALOT of stairs in the Bangkok metro so we tried to walk whenever we could and Malcolm loved it!

6. How to make a sandwich with his coco puffs at the breakfast buffet.  This. This right here takes some serious skills.

7. While we’re on breakfast buffets, Malcolm learned how to truly manipulate the breakfast buffet, or his parents or perhaps both. By the end of the meal he would have multiple plates of food for sampling and multiple juices.

8. How to eat skittles on a plane. Hey, whatever helps you get through the flight.

9. How to say mango juice and how to insist on some at every meal.

10. How to navigate the heck out of his kindle, because when on vacation there are absolutely zero limits. And guess what he watched on loop the entire time, yup Batman (cartoon, friendly version- not the scary Heath Ledger Joker version).

But best and most important of all he totally learned how to nail a selfie! We do live in the selfie capital of the world after all!

And as always he practiced looking adorable, alongside Adam.

Here is our Mahout/elephant trainer, whose name was Mr. Bad. Traveling with two little superhero obsessed boys I thought his name was awesome. But no one else got it.

Being able to ride on top of such a beautiful calm creature is enough of a treat but when we started moving and I realized how breathtakingly beautiful the area was I was speechless.

The boys were great.  Malcolm got a little nervous (as did I) when he realized that the elephant was going into the river. Glad to know he correctly gauges potentially dangerous situations! I explained that we wouldn’t be in the river, only the elephants legs would be in, and he felt much better once the elephant was in and he understood. Then the elephant had a humongous poo in the river, we all had a good laugh and felt much better. Ah, life with boys.

It’s hard to take a selfie that captures the three of us on an elephant.  But here you go. You’re welcome.

After our ride Adam got to sit on Mae Buakham’s neck. What a brave boy, he wasn’t even scared!

After that we were invited to feed Mae Buakham some bananas to reward her for all the hard work she put in lugging us around.  I wasn’t sure if Adam would be into this but after I helped him feed the first one he went ahead and fed all the rest of the bananas all by himself. Malcolm was a little scared and opted to watch Adam instead.

Is there anything more soulful than an elephant’s eye? I don’t think so.

I tried to give it to his trunk but our guide explained it had to go inside his mouth! I would have been a little worried but Adam had no problem and got right in there and loved it!

After all the bananas were gone our guide gave Adam a big branch to feed the elephant!

‘Tastes like cheese’ is my favorite line from this video!

Goodbye Mae Buakham, we hope we get to see you again one day! 

Here is Adam’s second favorite exhibit. Also a hard one to explain. This is definitely on that is important and worth talking about. I didn’t know before standing here and talking to Randy how much Laos suffered during the Vietnam War. The U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos from 1964 to 1973 during the Vietnam War. That’s equal to a planeload every 8 minutes for 9 years. It’s not well known how many were injured in killed during this time and not very publicized. 

But…as important as this was we figured it was a bit heavy for a four year old, so we just explained that sometimes people lose their arms, legs, teeth and need to use a fake one. The one that intrigued Adam the most was the teeth.  He kept asking how people take them out and in. 

The whole second floor was dedicated to the last 60 years of history and pretty much only focused on the atrocities that the US Imperialists inflicted on Laos. It was so interesting to see, although a bit uncomfortable for people hailing from the land of Imperialism.

I took some photos of some of the captions for you all.  “Weapons imported by US imperialists for their puppets.”

“US imperialists who deceived the right wing soldiers.”

Here are the boys practicing their best revolutionary march.

He managed to take some cute pictures of us.

So here is Laos through Adam’s eyes.

Comment here for the below snap, Adam’s school have been really into recycling. He even fell asleep on vacation one night in our bed and right before he drifted off yelled- Reduce, Reuse Recycle! So he was on the lookout the whole trip for trash (which resulted in him saying loudly- trash, trash, trash) and for recycling bins….which are very rare in Southeast Asia.

Here is Adam’s tracing of my body….let’s all just hope it’s not true to size.

It looks just like me!

The trip started with some delicious dumplings for dinner. The net morning I was pretty excited to see George and Audrey!  It’s such an amazing thing to have friends whose kids you love so much. But it’s also pretty easy when they’re this cute.

After some early morning cuddles, Kate and I left the kids at home and went to Zuma for a fun champagne brunch. The food was amazing and the company was even better!

Lunch was followed by some fun shopping, back home for more baby cuddles and a yummy steak dinner at home followed by a girly movie. Pretty much the perfect day for me!

The next morning we headed down to the beach with the kids for brunch. Just when I think I can’t love Hong Kong anymore I go somewhere new and realize how amazing a town it is. This little area was like a mini Asian California boardwalk to hang out on. I even got to capture a smile on this one!

And after 10 years of being friends, Kate and I finally took a good photo together! This one is a framer people! (ps- Kate, can you believe it’s been 10 years!!??)

And of course here are the boys having the best time with daddy back in Manila.

One last story to leave you with. I decided to get the boys a new snow globe after the DC snow globe disaster. Adam snuck into my room in the morning and got into bed next to me. He waited for me to wake up and then asked me if he could have his present. He then told me he wanted to guess what it was, and guessed it was a snow globe! I was pretty freaked out for a minute that he was psychic, until I realized that he had looked in my bag.

He was so excited to get a snow globe! As was Malcolm, except that about 2 minutes getting their snow globes, Malcolm cracked his into Adam’s at full force, but only Malcolm’s broke. Adam’s is miraculously still not broken. Can someone please remind me to just get Malcolm a plastic snow globe next time? .

I also loved watching Malcolm play with his friends at school. He has really been adjusting so well in school and loves it. His parent teacher conference is next week so hopefully his teachers are happy with how he’s been doing.

Before we knew it it was time to board the bus! Adam of course wanted to sit next to Tyler. Luckily I had Malcolm to sit next to me this time.  These two were so cute, they held hands the whole way to the bus and then say together the whole hour there and back and I didn’t have to intervene at all! I think Tyler is definitely Adam’s best friend.

Malcolm was so excited to get a name tag!

When we got there we had a briefing from Teacher Maureen and then we were on our way! Adam’s interest in the briefing is clear….

Here is Malcolm climbing the ‘spider web’ as Adam calls it. He did a good job!

We of course went fishing!

Adam spent a good thirty minutes fishing but they just weren’t biting.

But Lady Luck was shining on this one and Malcolm caught a fish.

Feeding the rabbits was loved by all as always.