This beach is long and touted as pristine. I believe it - I have never seen so many shells on one beach, nor encountered so many alive sea creatures outside of an aquarium!Mommy was all curious and excited to explore, track, encounter, and study all sorts of new critters, but Grace and Jasmin are of the opinion than skittering crabs on the sand and live fish in the water with them is creepy rather than fascinating. Grace we can convince to watch and learn, but Jasmin insists on being carried or at least wearing shoes!

All the same, Jasmin couldn't resist the delight of wonderful fine sand for castle cake building, nor Grace the waves and water beckoning.

We spent our first whole day on the beach. Mommy tried to enforce an after lunch rest time, but other than being horizontal instead of vertical, there wasn't much resting that went on! Of course, that meant an early bed time and sleep sure came quickly!

This is where we are now:
Blue Beach on Dolphin Bay. Our journey here was a bit stressful as we attempted to come by bus to a place we had never been to, nor anyone we knew! Knowing Thai would have made a BIG difference to the experience! We made it here safely though; the only major hiccup was losing Sticker Lambie, Grace's favourite teddy.After a heartfelt cry and a comforting talk of adoption and replacement, she was over the loss. In fact, when Mommy mentioned it the next day, she was trying to comfort Mommy!
Breakfast is served latish here, so the girls have time to play before breakfast. One quick evening walk and that first morning they had quite an array of shells to play with!

And this is sweet -

the night before Grace had been restless (she slept on the bus) so we let her sit up by the window under the curtain to read their Bible. In the morning Jasmin insisted in having her turn!

Last week we were in Bangkok for meetings. Mommy was rather apprehensive about how it would go as this was a working trip and not arranged with kids in mind. Thankfully all went well. Again, we are deeply thankful for such adaptable sunny kids. Even though they were the only kids in the hotel (quite literally!) and had a brand new to them Thai babysitter for much of the week, it went smoother than when we have meetings in Manila and they are staying at home with familiar Ate Bubbles!
They enjoyed the extra attention of the staff and attendees as the only children, especially with their job of ringing the bell to usher people back into the meetings after break times. There was a pool, of course, a fun new sleeping arrangement, and the joy of being allowed to make a mess and have it "magically" tied up every day.
Jasmin had almost as much fun taking pictures of their 'playmates' as she did actually playing with them - which she did everywhere we took them. An excellent activity in the many different situations they had to wait for Mommy and Daddy.
Thankfully the breakfast provided was a buffet with lots of fresh fruit (and even salad!), so Jasmin was able to eat well, without being constantly excluded from something yummy that would be bad for her.

All told, although Daddy was really busy and often rather stressed, it was a good week for us all. We are glad to now be on holiday on the beach now though!

A catch up post:

The girls got an unexpected day with their best friend Alli, when her mom stopped in to drop off some clothes for the girls. She offered to take them back to play on the playground at Alli's school with Alli after school. We were all thrilled that it worked out really well. I am amazed every time how Grace and Jasmin have no problems going off with friends without us - and how well they do while they are gone! In this case, a very good thing, as there is little chance of playing with Alli otherwise, as she lives nearly an hour away (across the city).
The girls had to show off their new dresses of course:
Jasmin is quite the dancer. We are hoping to find her a ballet or some other dance class through the home school at our church come June.