First Major Train set-up

  Quick shot of the ever-evolving train set-up that has taken over Max's room.  Rich was impressed that I constructed this.

Thailand Holiday

We recently spent a week in Thailand on holiday.  Rich had been working a lot and the break in Phuket, a resort island, and Bangkok was well needed.  We first spent seven nights at a resort and had lots of relaxation time and going out to eat in the little towns that dot the shores around the island.  Most of our time was spent by the pool, as the water was a bit rough - as attested by this wave that soaked all our stuff despite our being almost as far away from the surf as possible.

The one hiccup on the trip was Max having a 102 – 103 fever for three nights.  We actually took him to the hospital on the fourth day (the Phuket Bangkok hospital being the nicest hospital we have ever seen) but fortunately by then the fever broke.  He seems to have started a pattern with getting sick on holidays.

We then spent two nights in Bangkok.  We splurged and stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, which was a bit over the top for us.  The service was great and each floor actually had a butler if you had the need for one.  All the staff knew Max by name and they even had a little bathrobe for him to lounge around in.

When Max pressed the butler call button and asked for a milktini, truffle chocolate chip cookies and to have the pillows refluffed we realized we had set ourselves up for trouble.

It felt much hotter and humid in Bangkok and that first afternoon Rich and I left Max with a sitter in the hotel play room.  We  took the river taxi up to Chinatown and wandered through small alleyways lined with stalls selling foods, textiles and other completely random stuff. Rich sampled some street vendor spring rolls for which he paid a small additional price for the next day.

We then got caught in a deluge (it happens to be rainy season in Thailand in June).  After waiting under an awning for about 20 minutes the rain broke enough for us to continue onwards, but we had to improvise some rain gear. I started with an elegant plastic bag "rain sheath”, and

then Rich located a person selling rain ponchos – probably 1 millimeter thin plastic. It kind of balanced luxury of the robes.

And here are some pix of the Golden Palace and the Reclining Buddha at Wat Po...

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Max

We celebrated Max's third birthday last weekend. Saturday the 30th was a relatively quiet day with me and Max shopping and baking. (Rich spent most of the day in the office.)  

That evening we sang happy birthday over three cupcakes,with plans to have the big cake the next day.  That evening I completed the birthday cake for the big party on Sunday and packed up all the decorations, paper plates and such and finished up the cardboard box cars for the party.  

On Sunday morning, Max opened his presents which included a new train set with "blue tracks" that he had been asking for for months.   

We had 11 kids coming that afternoon and I needed to transfer all the party gear downstairs to the community hall we rented and decorate.

As expected, it was chaotic and a mess, but the kids had a lot of space to run, play with the cars I had schlepped from our apartment, race track, speedway, etc.  We decorated cardboard box cars and the girls ended up being more into that than the boys. 

The cake was a hit. It was fun and easy to make and Max really liked it. And the kids devoured it so it must have tasted ok as well. More suger-infused running around followed cake time and then the guests trickled home. Our dear friends Fumie and Seiji stuck around to help us clean up and bring every thing back upstairs to our apartment, including a boatload of presents. 

We have some extremely generous friends and in addition to other great gifts, Max received additional trains and track sets. His room is now taken over by a pretty big set-up that I put together.  (Rich was actually impressed.)

There two were trouble...here they are trying to accost the cake

Birthday Boy