Centara Grand Mirage in Pattaya, Thailand

We just returned from a fabulous family vacation to the beach. This weekend was Songkran, the Thai New Year.  The Thais go around shooting each other with squirt guns and rubbing white slime on each other and have a blast!  Trucks drive around with the back full of people and a bucket of water.  They each have little buckets and get into water fights on the road.  The few shops that are open usually have someone out front with a hose, spraying people as they pass.  It's so Thai!  Chris had a four day weekend for the holiday, so we decided to take a trip.  This beach is only a two+ hour drive from our house. Unfortunately, this beach is pretty dirty and gross.  But, the resort was fabulous!!!  I forgot to get a picture of this awesome resort from our room, but this is very close to what our view looked like.  Wow!  So many pools, waterslides, a lazy river, cabanas, and a playground to choose from.  We had a blast!

This photo of Centara Grand Mirage Beach Resort is courtesy of TripAdvisor

The hotel went all out on their decor.  It was incredible!

 We had several pools to choose from.  Our two little water babies were in heaven! The smaller pools were surrounded by nice sand, so we felt like we were at the beach.  

 Our kids really enjoy playing together.  Kyle tries to copy everything Wendy does and often gives her new ideas for things to play with, so they are both happy.

Sometimes the small pools got pretty crowded so we found this nice shaded cove to hang out in. Kyle could climb, Wendy could explore or swim with us, and we were all happy.  It's also the top of a series of waterslides and pools leading to the bottom.  The slides were very mellow at the top and grew in intensity on the way down. Our kids were giddy with delight.  And we really enjoyed ourselves.  It's one of the rare times your kids want to do something 50 times in a row and the parent is excited about it.  It's a good thing Chris and I love the water so much!

 Our little climber! This boy has no fear! He thinks getting splashed or dunked is usually pretty funny.

 For most of the slides, one of the parents would go down the slide first and the other parent would send the two kids down before following.  This was a very tame slide so we tried sending Kyle the first time.  He giggled the whole time and danced in excitement.  We laid him mostly on his back and he curled up in perfect slide position to go down without flipping around.  There came a time when Wendy would want to ride with mommy, but Kyle was happy either way.

 There were several families from our neighborhood at the resort, so we went to dinner with a couple of them one night.  Penny and Wendy had a good dance.

 The beach looks beautiful from this distance.

We stopped at a furniture store on our way home and then told our kids we were heading home.  When we pulled up at our house, Wendy yelled, "No, not this home!" She was sure we were going back to the hotel home.  She was devastated that our amazing vacation was over.  We all had such a blast!!!