Hou Hin, Thailand Vacation

Gabriella- Gettin' her Snorkel On

All Ready to Go!

Isabelle... Ready to Eat

Pool at the Dolphin Bay

Gabby Playing in the Corner

Loved that Water Slide!

Beach is Just Across the Street

View of the Beach

Relaxing...

Isabelle and Mama

Time to get my roots done. Ha!

All Dressed up and Ready to Swim!

Isabelle and Caitlin

Waiting to get her her Braided

Braids!

Night Market- It was so hot!

Karissa and Gabriella- New Buddies 

Tebo Family Portrait

I love family beach vacations, and I have to say... We seriously deserved this break. We work our booties off at ISB so we needed some quality family time.

We had a driver pick us up at 4:30 am on Saturday, which means we woke up around 3:15... I know, brutal. The plane ride was uneventful... Moments of hell mixed with relief. When we got off the plane we had another driver pick us up and we drove four to five hours to a place called Hou Hin and we're staying at the Dolphin Bay Resort. I'm a bit mixed about the place. Now that I've seen awesome beaches, I'm a bit of a beach snob now.

The positives... Our room is right next door to the massage room. You know I love that! It's super cheap to stay and the street food is good. The pool is absolutely perfect for both Gabriella and Isabelle. It's clean and has a water slide and a huge pool that's not very deep. Our room has a kitchenette (a must now with G's diet) and two rooms, so we can still hang out while Isabelle either takes a nap or goes to bed. The massages are amazing and super cheap and I only have to walk next door- yay!

The negatives... The food is just so-so. I love Thai food so this was disappointing, but to be fair, we were warned. The beach is not the beautiful blue of the islands and there are a lot of broken shells so you need to be careful where you walk. Everything closes down early, so if I wanted to party with friends we'd have to hang in our room.

Since we're Tebo's, we've met some people and Gabby made a new buddy. The family we met are also also teachers and work in Japan. We went to a night market last night and Travis is taking Gabby to ride the elephants today. Loved the night market! Lots of Thai crap but I love what they sell. I bought Gabby and I a dress. Also, our friends, the Armstrongs, are here and they have kids Gabby and Isabelle's age. In fact, Jack and Gabby are in the same class. All in all, I would actually go back, mainly because it's cheap and the pool is great for my girls. Our days have pretty much consisted of pool time, eating, hanging out, massages, and more swimming. Not too shabby for a vacation. Tomorrow we leave for Bangkok. We're staying at my favorite hotel... The Shang Ri La... Aaaaawe, I just go to my happy place just thinking about it...