Happy 4th Birthday, Theodore Harman
We had a great day yesterday for Theo's Birthday. Theo was awake at 7am knocking on the door to our room to get in "It's my 4th birthday today Daddy, I'm just wondering what might be in my presents". Presents, as you can imagine, featured heavily.
Once all his presents had been unwrapped (A hand-crank electric train, extra carriages for the train, an all blacks t-shirt & shorts, a lego plane, a book from Granny+Bilby) we all got ready and packed up for the big adventure of the day, a Speed Boat & Snorkeling Trip!
The Taxis arrived and we set off, back down to close to where the horrid Tiger park was. It was a bit further than that, I think everyone was starting to wonder what we'd booked. Finally we made it though and there was a nice speedboat waiting for us. We set off and Theo had a HUGE grin on his face, told us it was exactly what he wanted for his a birthday, a speedboat that goes fast to ride on.
We drove past a few Islands, before getting to the snorkeling point. We only snorkeled for about 15 minutes though, no one seemed very keen apart from me and Sarah. It was a bit hard though, it was low tide and it was very easy to float over the coral and then there was very little room for error before you accidentally touched/scraped them. Theo told us that "He'd seen the beautiful coral colours" and that we need coral otherwise the fish will die. Man it's hard to hear that, I mean he's right but the way the world is going... Anyway, he had a good time. He liked his full face snorkel for a little while, but after a bit of water got in the spout he really didn't want it anymore and just went back to his plain old googles, which he much prefered even though it meant to see anything he had to hold his breath. It's pretty amazing a 4yo is an adept snorkeler though, I have to say. Beth also was amazing, she just jumped in and off she went, following the fish around, swimming here and there. You have to hand it to Jillyfish, they really have done an amazing job of making the kids both very confident in water. I mean even I struggle to just jump in and go, I have to freak out a bit about the snorkel and that, but not Beth. She didn't think twice.
Anyway after a short burst of snorkeling, we got back on the boat and headed for lunch. Lunch was served on a little Island (Koh Tan) and also on the island was a little floating waterslide thing. So 100Baht each child and we got the 4 kids on there, which was quite a lot of fun if a little bit of hard work. Then we were served the most amazing Thai "share meal" I think we've had, coconut Tom Yum, fried chicken, lovely fruit etc. It was basic but it was very, very tasty. We sung a little Happy Birthday song for Theo, which he was pretty stoked with. Then the staff, bless them, came out with a few little sponge cake strips and a little candle for him! Se we sung Happy Birthday again and he ate his little Koh Tan Island impromptu spongecake birthday cake. It was very cute, and a very kind gesture by the locals!
Once back on the boat we stopped at another bay. This was the sort of bay that you see the brouchures, so of course 500 muppets were all trying to take that perfect Instagram pose. I hope the Instagram culture dies out, but it only seems to be getting stronger and stronger. Anyway we had a great time splashing about in the knee high water. Holly/Adrian both swear that some sort of "sucker thing" was in the sand and tried to suck their feet a few times.
Then speedboat back to the start and into the Taxi's home. Poor Matt looked a bit worse for wear, very very sunburnt on his face. It had been SUCH a hot day, the sun was just beating down the whole time. I put sunscreen on the kids about 5 times and we were only in the sun for about 4 hours (lots of water of course though so I was always worried it was washing off)
What a great day it was!