Splashin' around SoCal!

We had the most lovely weekend! We did a lot of fun stuff but in the most relaxing way. (By the way, SoCal = Southern California hehe) 

On Saturday we celebrated Father's Day early with a trip to SeaWorld San Diego! We got up and ready early, gave Qee his present (both seasons of House of Cards!! Can't wait for him to start watching, SO good!), then headed to SeaWorld! 

We got there about half an hour after the park opened and it was super quiet! We went straight to the big rides and went on over and over with no lines whatsoever!! Woo! We also, because it was Father's Day, we're obligated to embarrass ourselves in public on Q's request! We tried to stay in the SeaWorld theme...

Haha no one really saw us, thank goodness.. That is, not until the video made it's way to facebook! Haha we had fun though. Next up we went on the river rapids ride and got SOAKED!!

We were truly drenched so we tried out the clothes drier things and it didn't work too badly! Han had a couple Marilyn moments in her dress though... Look out SeaWorld!

We saw all the shows - Shamu the whale, a dog/cat/pig? Show, cirque de la mer, and the highlight: the seal/otter show! So cute!! We also went and fed the seals - they reminded us SO much of Chewy and Fudge, definitely the dogs of the sea!

We ridden all the rides and seen all the shows earlier than we expected, so we decided to leave the park and got to a restaurant nearby that Brian and Brittany, who lived in San Diego for a couple years, said we absolutely had to try! It was a Mexican place called Lolita's and Brit and Bri were SOOO right! Ohmygosh it was probably the best Mexican food we'd ever had, unreal! Upon their recommendation, we tried the California burrito which is basically a normal steak burrito but with fries inside. WOW. The combo worked better than we could've imagined and we are officially hooked! It may be for the best that it's 2 and a half hours away..!

After dinner we headed back to Mum and Q's, had a dip in the spa, then got a reasonably early night in preparation for another full day the next day!

Yesterday was the first time we actually managed to get up earlyish and leave mum and Q's around when we planned for! We didn't have much choice though because we were entertaining at 12:30 and had to stop by Ralph's on the way home. We had such a great BBQ/pool day with almost all of our best friends in LA! Brian, Brittany, Sullivan, Drew, JT, and the two of us had such a relaxing time eating turkey burgers, potato salad, and Bri and Britt's homemade olive dip, yuuum, and floating in the pool. Sullivan came back up to our apartment with us afterwards too and we all hung out while Luce made a cake to take with for GoT night. It was Mike's birthday last Saturday but GoT wasn't on on Sunday so we made a cake for last night instead! Game of Thrones is based off the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, so we went for a red velvet cake with vanilla cream cheese icing: a Cake of Ice and Fire. Boom. That and a bobble head Joffrey (the main antagonist in the show) completed the prezzie! Mike absolutely loved em and the episode last night was SO SHOCKING!! Luce literally fell off the couch. Wow. It was an awesome and successful GoT night, that's for sure!

Today we've been taking it easy and trying to get back on the wagon as far as eating better goes. We both have our callback for Yosh's webseries that we auditioned for the other day at 4:00, then Luce has GGGG rehearsal, and we're going over to Sullivan's for Sprinkles cupcakes and the Bachelorette tonight! (Yes, I realize that the sentence before the cupcake one talked about a diet. Haha we're really not very good at it but yolo). It's sure to be a super fun arvo/evening, hopefully it all goes off without a hitch!

Merry Christmas!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! We've had the most wonderful couple days here in Koh Samui! We arrived to this dinky little airport in the morning on Christmas Eve. There were little shuttles driving us over to the baggage claim and uhh immigration? Haha it was a very different experience to US or Aussie customs.

We drove to the house and it's absolute paradise! Beautiful inside and a lovely pool and deck chairs outside. We spent the morning and early afternoon by the pool, tanning and relaxing.

Later on we went on a bit of an adventure and drove all the way around the island. Poor dad had to catch on pretty quick to the, uhh, different road rules in Thailand - it was pretty crazy. Just driving around we really got a glimpse of a whole other world. We passed markets and shops and food stalls - lots of places to go back to! We got somewhat lost and decided to pull over into a parking spot and explore on foot. 

We happened upon the Chaweng markets that were just setting up and continued on a little way to an absolutely stunning beach. We walked along for a while, taking in the sea breeze and serenity, then came to a Thai restaurant on the beach that looked perfect for our first dinner here. 

We ordered a feast of mojitos, satay sticks, spring rolls, pad Thai, green curry and for dessert, the highlight, coconut sticky rice with mango, yum!! 

We strolled back through the markets after dinner to the car and, by some miracle, managed to find our house again. The kiddies put out milk and cookies for Santa and we all got an early night, very excited for Christmas!

At 5:00am, we woke to excited whispers outside our door - "Santa's been here!" We ran out to share in the Christmas morning joy and did our best to keep Eddie and Will quiet for a little while before they couldn't wait and went and woke up Dad and Claire to do stockings. We got some funny and yummy things from Santa - Eddie told us we better enjoy it because "next year's your last year of getting stockings"... Not sure who decreed that! - and it was all over by 6:15 haha. 

We had a big brekkie of eggs and what we thought was bacon (it was actually pork belly and tasted just like crackling when we cooked it up, when in Thailand!). We did the rest of the prezzies a little later and it was so fun watching Eddie and Will getting so excited about everything, big and small. We got lots of spending money which is SO great, the best thing we could've gotten, really, and beach bags and journals that will also be perfect to while we're here!

We had a relaxed day and met up with the rest of the fam later for Christmas dinner at Mick's Bungalows. We chatted and sipped on drinks while we waited for the big roast dinner to be ready - it ended up taking 3 hours! It was worth the wait, though, and we had some delicious mussels and prawns to get us through. Since it took so long, though, we'd all had a fair bit to drink and we're getting rather loud and silly. We were all seeing who could whistle and asked  Sir (Roger, Claire's dad) if he could he said he could but wouldn't show us because he's "here to watch the idiots - not be one of them!" hahaha it was a pretty great line. We had our yummy dinner with Christmas Pud and apple pie for dessert then headed home happy and tired. Such a lovely day!

Today we slept in then went to a nearby beach. It was beautiful!! There were huts on the sand to lay out on, yummy food and drinks and, best of all, a Thai massage place! For about $10 US each, we had an hour long massage listening to the sound of the ocean - actual paradise right there! 

We ate, tanned, and had a swim in the Gulf of Thailand, then came home to get ready to go out to night markets tonight! Can't wait! Ahh we are absolutely loving Thailand!