... that we went to Thailand: Day 1

We woke up early the next morning and drove the 2 hours to the airport to drop off the Rexs. Cutter was still pretty sick, and now Kell was looking like she wanted to die too. It was a pretty somber goodbye at the airport, but before we left, we huddled together in a quiet corner of the airport and the boys gave Cutter, Kell and Finley blessings. It was a special little family moment in their time of need, and it made me so very grateful for the priesthood in my family!

Matt and I had decided a long time ago that we wanted to take an extra week off and go somewhere else after we visited Mom and Dad, and we finally decided on Thailand! So while the Rexs headed home, we were getting ready to board another 5 hour flight to Bangkok!!! Kell was seriously regretting her decision to not join us, but she was pretty much on her death bed, so it was probably a good thing she didn't come. Sorry Kell!

Matt and I had a few hours to kill before our flight to Thailand, so Mom and Dad decided to take us back into TaiPei for one last round of Bing!

So great! Then we jumped back into the car and into some bumper to bumper traffic heading back to the airport. Anyone who knows me knows that I have what I like to call "bad airport karma," and this trip was no exception. We got into a little fender bender on the freeway and had to pull over to wait for the police to come! But Matt and I were going to miss our flight, so Mom decided that we needed to WALK OFF THE FREEWAY to catch a taxi to take us the rest of the way while dad stayed with the car. So Matt and I had grabbed our bags and were getting ready to walk, when an empty taxi just happened to drive by and see us! He quickly pulled over and said he was on his way to pick someone up from the airport! Perfect! We gave Dad a quick hug goodbye and jumped into the taxi, praying that we could still make it on time. The driver was really nice, didn't mind us taking selfies with him, and had U2 on repeat for us.

Good times.

We made it to the airport and even had enough time to grab some food for the flight! We were actually stuck on the runway for a little bit for some reason, but we had our food and didn't care at all.

They kept saying things on the intercom in Thai and Mandarin, but we couldn't tell what was going on. Finally a stewardess came and let us know that we would be taking off soon. After she left Matt turned and said, "You know what that means, right?" I asked him what he meant, and he responded, "We are the only Americans on this plane." I looked around and started laughing. She had come to give us a personal message because we were the only English speakers on the flight! Hilarious.

We landed in Bangkok and had a short wait to catch a two hour bus ride down to Pattaya, where we would be staying on the beach for a few days! I was really really excited to get to the beach, but I was SERIOUSLY nervous about our hotel situation. We had booked two hotels in Thailand online, both with good reviews, but not too expensive, and I was really really worried that they would be sketchy. I basically prayed the whole bus ride down that our hotel would be clean and comfortable! We got dropped off at the bus stop and found a little taxi truck to take us to the hotel. As we drove through the surrounding neighborhoods, I was getting more and more worried. It looked like Sketchville for sure. I was starting to panic when we pulled around the corner and saw this:

The Siam Bayshore Resort. I think I cried tears of joy.

It was clean! It was air conditioned! It was beautiful! The bellhops brought us wet towels and cold glasses of cranberry juice!

I could not have been more happy!!!!! There was a short moment of terror when they couldn't find our reservation and I just knew they were going to kick us out of this glorious City of Enoch, but everything was sorted out quickly and they did in fact give us a room.

I still miss it.

We love Thailand!!!!!