Bloody Mary's and Sleepovers

I love when a lunch date turns into Bloody Mary's by the pool, cards and then a girlie sleep over.  The boys went away for the weekend so me and Lola have had the run of the place.   We had a great time with Kim and Sean, they taught me a new card game and we brushed up on their cuarentha.   Then Sean left us girls to have a bottle of wine and solve all the problems of the world.  It was my first sleepover in ages.
Today Lola and I had a some time at the beach and were busy preping our spare house for our newest exciting venture!

 Favourite veggie restaurant, well just famous restaurant period.  Love it

 First time fully in the pool.  I am such a wimp, has to be hot water for me to get in.  But I think Kim's Bloody Mary mix gave me the added courage to brave the warm water.

 The yummiest, most disgusting looking dip ever.  It seemed to have all natural ingredients, advacado beign the main ingredient, but looked fairly dodgy.

 Lola having a rest.

A night of cards.  A lovely Saturday surprise, as did think it might just be me and Lola all weekend.

Two House Benefits

We knew there were many benefits to having two homes next door to each other.  For example:
1) Having a guest home for all our guests
2) Potential rental income
3) A house for us to holiday in just in case we got bored of ours
4) A party house and a living house (hence one is always clean)
5) Well just the fact we get to say we live in two 
Benefits that we did not see coming
1) That when gas runs out of stove in the house we use that is gas operated we can walk next door to use the electric stove.  Really we are just lazy and should find out how we buy more gas.
2) If one house almost catches on fire due to electrical wiring problems, therefore causing total electricity shut down you can move into the other house.
So that is what we did yesterday when I saw the switch on fire and sparking.  It was great being on holiday in our other home.  We of course stayed in the spare room there as Juan is in the Master.  The best part was Lola had to choose which twin bed she slept in, mine or Luis's, I was pretty nervous for a moment but not really sure why I doubted her great taste.

Of course I cannot always win, especially with two boys in the house.  She has always been a bit of a flirt!

Cool Dad's and BBQ

Last night, we got invited to a BBQ at Jacqui and Brian's in honour of her father, Martin, who has been visiting this past week.  We met him on Wednesday when we went to do the pub quiz.  We arrived and realised it was not on and spent the next couple hours having a great old time.  Next we met up in Krabi for dinner and Luis and Juan had Martin's trip to Ecuador all mapped out (the trip that he now has to book!).  So last night we were very happy to be back with Martin, we had some interesting debates and I think I even have a very special Aunt all lined up for a date (we also discussed him going to Barbados).  I just really love meeting parents, especially ones like Jacqui's Dad, just a really cool guy.

 Kim and Shaun, lovely to see them after our break

 The three amigos.  I should say a little more about Juan, Luis's best friend.  He was meant to be the best man at our wedding but do to a sailing trip to Australia, he could not make it.  He has now been with us two and a bit weeks and will be going back to Quito this week.  It has been great to have him, Luis has been a very happy man.

 Martin and luis in their matching polo shirts.

A lovely night, with some lovely people.  It is taking time here to meet the staff properly, but we getting there!  

Ao Nang

The town we chose to stay in, Ao Nang,  is one of the more well known ones in Krabi and I can imagine in the high season it is pretty packed.  This trip there were people but I could just see it is one of those spots that grows tens times its size during the season. You can take loads of tours from there and visit the nearby islands.  We did neither of these things, instead deciding to relax on the beach, in what was another fabulous day.  We have been so lucky with the weather as other people from school who stayed in or close to Phuket have had loads of rain.  The only real day of rain was the day we returned to Phuket to get Lola and Juan for trip two, and well our trip back today.  

 This place was a real find, about ten minutes from the beach, but with hourly free shuttles and the cliffs that surrounded it were spectacular.

 Lola just could not figure out where her plate of food was, so sweet!

 Tired girl, to much chasing crabs, sticks, coconuts and braving the high waves.

The two happiest men ever.  It is great to see them together again!

Holiday 2 - Krabi

We returned from our weekend adventure to pouring rain (no surprise here) but headed for sunshine today in the Krabi province. Really not so far from Phuket, but we could not drive through the sea so took a bit longer to get around the country to it. Juan, Luis's best friend, more like cousin who has been with us the last couple of weeks joined us for this adventure.  We had a speeding ticket incident, where I think I lost five years off my life with nerves, but survived, and ended up in another paradise.

 Our 7 pound a night hotel a night is blinking fantastic.

 Really beautiful spot.

 Lunch with a view

We met with Jacqui, Brian and her Dad.  We had a lovely first night of two.

Trash and Monkies

We have woken up to a fairly rainy day on our last day on the island.  But what a lovely time we have had.

 We have mainly relaxed, read, ate, played some games and well just enjoyed some down time.

But I did spend some time reflecting on the terrible trash situation here and well everywhere (I say this as 80% of the trash that washes up here is not Thai).  Everyday masses amount of trash washes up on the beach and the hotel staff spend numerous hours cleaning it up.  But of course just what we can see, you walk a little down the beach into the woods and there is loads more.  It made me think of a conversation I had with a student the other day about me being veggie.  It was actually a very intelligent thoughtful conversation.  He asked me at one point if I did not believe we were the dominant more intelligent species on the planet.  We debated this for some time.  But looking around these beaches, I can see we are definitely the most selfish, greedy, ignorant species on the planet.  On the way here we saw numerous boats just dumping their trash in the sea, it just makes me so blinking angry.  I was here only three years ago, and I can really say it is much worse. What will it be like in three more?

But not to let this spoil our holiday we found what we believe is probably a more intelligent animal.  Well they did not seem to be polluting and killing the planet they call home, instead they were just all playing and having fun.

 There were so many of them and they were great to watch.

 They were hugging and kisses and play fighting at times.

 They were not scared of us, but certainly disappointed that we had no food to offer them.  

We will now enjoy our last breakfast here, get in a game of ping pong, read a little and then go pick up Lola Cola!  Cannot wait to spend the rest of the week with our girl!

book one and ping pong

What a lovely place to be, it is so calm and serene.  Definitely what was needed after the last eight weeks of three moves (Ecuador, to house one to now our house), starting a new school, learning about Phuket and trying to make some new friends in between.

 One of my high lights yesterday, was playing ping pong with Luis.  A game I love, a game I love even more when I beat Luis twice.

 The colours of the sky were spectacular.  It really has been ages since we have seen such a night.  I hope this means the rainy season is coming to an end.

We woke up to a beautiful morning.  Had a huge buffet breakfast and then began day two of relaxation.

This is the first of three books I hope to read this holiday.  What a great read, it made me laugh out loud at times.  Second book started, looks like another winner.  I have never really utilised having a librarian at a school to help me in choosing books, but so glad I did.  She listened to what I was looking for and the recommendations for both me and Luis are spot on.
Okay back to more lounging in the sun...

Koh Yao Yai

Today is the official first day of our half term break.  We had an extra day yesterday as the school closed to the very sad passing of the King of Thailand. The country is mourning and will be for quite some time for this man, I do not know much about him or his seventy years of rule but he must have been quite amazing to have such an out pouring of love.  The country is still operating though, hotels and businesses are still open and they still want tourists to come and enjoy their beautiful country.  This morning this is just what me and Luis set out to do, we left the house at 7am, took the car ferry to a near by island and were settled in our beautiful hotel by 10am.

 The ferry over

 We passed loads of small islands, a really beautiful trip

 Our hotel is beautiful, very different than our usual cheap as chips hostels.

 Showing off with handstands

 Picture of our lovely little villa.

Lunch, a very yummy pad thai.  For the first time since I gave up fish a few months ago, I did think about having some but resisted and will continue to do so!
Looking forward to a relaxed, hopefully sunny, four day trip.