Christmas in Krabi, Thailand was awesome, very relaxing. Not sure we could have relaxed anymore. The above picture is the view from our patio. Pretty sweet, right? Since we weren't going home for Christmas and we had some other friends not going home for Christmas we all decided to go somewhere together. We settled on Krabi, as we wanted a beach destination and it was one of the cheaper options we could find :) We went with Chantal, Scott and their daughter Ashley and Jaime and Liam. The 7 of us rented a villa on the beach. The villa was a three bedroom U shaped house that wrapped around a pool in the middle. Very nice all the way around, the beds could have been better though. Eric and I had to push together two twin beds that were super hard mattresses..fun..Other than that though, no complaints. We got in and had our driver stop by a grocery store for us to stock up for our 5 days at the house. We got breakfast, lunch, a couple dinners, snacks and of course a lot of beverages. (I wasn't drinking though as we were waiting to find out if I was pregnant!) The beverage situation was a disaster at Tesco. Apparently, they only sell alcohol at certain times and if you are out of that time frame you have to purchase something like 10L worth of booze. We were 3L short I think and they were giving us a HUGE stink about it. We didn't want to buy anything else (of course we should have, because the guys ended up needing some more later), but I think on principal they argued with 3 or 4 different people that barely spoke English for about 30-45 min or so. Crazy, we were all getting cranky and wanting to leave. Finally they let us buy it all, I think to shut us up and get us out of the store. So, off we go on our way to the villa and get settled in.
Our second day we headed into town to check it out and stop by a dive shop as everyone but me and Eric were going out on a boat to go snorkel or dive over the weekend. I didn't go because I thought the boat ride would be too bumpy for me if I was preggers, and my loving husband stayed back with me :) We stopped by the shop so everyone could get fitted for flippers and the like and we walked around a little bit and grabbed a bite to eat at a little restaurant across the way before heading back and getting a little lost on the way. We also had rented a car, and the 7 of us crammed into anytime we all went somewhere :)
Most of our time was spent hanging out at the villa, playing cards, swimming, reading, laying out...just whatever we wanted to do. It was great! Eric and I got up early one morning to walk on the beach and pick up seashells! We got some good ones too!! The guys also attempted a little skim boarding, it didn't quite turn out that great. There were a lot of falls, some scrapes and sore bones, and a little hurt pride I think, lol.
Christmas morning! Woohoo! It wasn't the same as being at home with family, but it was still really good. It was weird not doing the family thing all day, this was our first Christmas away from home :(
Which is why we wanted to do something with friends and go somewhere, so we weren't sitting in our apartment by ourselves all day! I'm so glad we went away with friends, it was nice. We had previously picked names for a secret santa gift exchange and decided to buy a present for a white elephant as well. Luckily we had a kid in our midst, so it was a lot about her. She had tons of little things to open and took a good portion of the morning doing so! Then we all took our turns opening and then guessing who had who, and then we did the white elephant exchange which was fun. It was a fun Christmas morning and a relaxing day in all. I think our first relaxing Christmas ever, lol! We cooked a nice breakfast and all sat around and enjoyed it! The rest of the day was spent laying around some more and playing games. All followed by a delicious Christmas dinner we cooked!
The next day we shut it down and headed home. We all had a blast and Eric and I are so thankful to have such great friends here to enjoy the holidays with when we are so far away from home. We had a great, relaxing trip. Oh, and Eric actually read a book! haha! It was about 500 pages about Slash (his guitar idol). An early Christmas present from me for him to read while we were away, and he actually read it! I couldn't believe it :) I don't think Eric has ever relaxed so much in his life. It was well needed for him. We really had a great time! :)
