After lots of sightseeing, 5 nights at Dolphin Bay Resort was just what we needed. The girls enjoyed the pool so much, that we barely made it to the beach. Hannah and I never left the Resort and Anthony and Amy left once to go to a water park.

Pool time!

Dolphin Bay is a small Resort with about 50 rooms. It is family-oriented  with a playground, a kids room,  a water slide in one of the pools and of course lots of ice cream!

Another Hannah going down the water slide pic! Ice Cream!!!  Lily & Amy had to have the same flavor (of course!)

On Christmas Eve, there were activities for the kids (including a bouncy castle), a buffet dinner, and a surprise visit from Santa! Christmas Eve is also when the girls and I got our nails done.

Whose feet? Santa!

The girls opened their presents Christmas morning, then spent the rest the day in the pool with the other kids. This is when the girls met Lily, and Amy and Lily were inseparable after that. Boxing Day was much more subdued with Amy and Lily heading out to the Waterpark.

The presents came even without a Christmas tree. Amy keeps telling me about how I have to go on these water slides

The girls spent the last day at the Resort watching a movie in Lily’s room, going to the pool with Lily, and finally spending some time at the beach…with Lily!

Look what we made…a river!

It was great for Anthony and I to meet other parents too. We met Americans who live in Nepal, Beijing and Shanghai, most of whom were teachers. We really enjoyed Lily’s parents, Megan and Ron. It was nice having dinner with them on our last couple of nights at the Resort.

Us with Lily and her family. We may have to visit them in Shanghai some day!

After Dolphin Bay, it was back to Bangkok for a night, just enough time to catch up on some homework, then off to Chiang Mai.

View on the drive back to Bangkok. There were lots of pineapple plantations near the Resort, so we saw a lot of pineapple stands on the side of the road. The pink taxis of Bangkok. They have other colors too, but these stand out!

We didn’t explore much of Chiang Mai the first afternoon because we stumbled across the hair salon. It took a good couple of hours to do the four of us. A couple of the cats there reminded us of Sammy and Sacha. Their antics had us all giggling! It’s moments like that that we relish about this trip. We look forward to more such moments in our last 8 weeks of travel.

We did come across this Buddhist Temple, as it’s close to where we’re staying. Final product!