October 16, 2025
Today is our 7 month travel-a-versary!
Our morning started with Paw Patrol Uno at breakfast. Ollie is running away with the Saigon Uno tournament and none of us stand a chance at this point. I reminded him when Lenny was crushing us in the last tournament and he was lagging behind how he wanted to quit but now that he was in the lead he wanted us all to remain engaged. Ollie still loves to have “rap battles” and will practice his random rhymes incessantly out loud. There is hardly a quiet moment unless an iPad is out. One of his nonsensical rhymes this morning while playing Uno was, “You better shut your mouth or I’ll send you to the South!”
After some free time and life admin in the room, we went to the hotel’s business center for homeschool. Ollie did some creative storytelling and drew a made up scene that he then added narration to. I could tell he was completely making it up as he went but he had fun with it. While he was drawing, we each took an ear bud and listened to a bit more Harry Potter 6 which delighted him. He likes to remind me that early on in the trip, I told him I didn’t think we’d get halfway through the Harry Potter series but now it looks like we might finish the whole thing. We initially started the trip with me telling him he’d have to wait a few years before we let him watch the later movies but now I’m thinking we’d just let him watch them all.
After homeschool I took the boys to the pool while Kyle went to the gym. The boys had a breath holding contest but each could only manage 9 seconds when I used my phone’s stopwatch to properly time them. Ollie was convinced he held his breath for much longer but he couldn’t break 10 seconds. After the breath holding contest tired them out, they spent time in the 2 feet deep kiddy pool playing some Pokemon fighting game they made up. When I went to check on them, Ollie had a noticeable red mark on his face. I asked if they had been “real fighting” and Ollie assured me they had been punching but just “light face punching.”
Before dinner we went back to the Central Post Office to actually send some postcards this time. We made it just before the post office closed but the boys were fading fast and getting through just a few postcards was a challenge. After we mailed our postcards, we went in search of new water bottles for the boys. When we got coconut coffee a few days ago on our Saigon tour, we saw a few perfectly sized water bottles for sale at the coffee shop (Cong Ca Phe). Luckily the store had just two bottles left and we snagged them. Kyle and I look forward to getting rid of the kids original water bottles which despite our best efforts have gotten pretty gnarly. We created a challenge where if the boys kept their water bottles clean and in good shape by the time we reached New Zealand we would get them each a new game on their iPad.
We walked a few blocks to Au Parc cafe for another mediterranean meal. My stomach has not been feeling great and Kyles been under the weather so we opted for some familiar comfort food once again. The boys ate a ton of hummus, bread and pesto pasta. I tried to sneak babaganoush into a flatbread rollup I made for Len but he wasn’t having any of it. We played more Uno with Ollie continuing to be in the lead and me in dead last.
Back at the hotel, the boys begged to stay up and watch a show but I reminded them that we have 3 big days coming up– a travel day to Cambodia, a full temple tour day and then a floating village tour. For song requests tonight, Ollie chose “the Other Side” from The Greatest Show, Len chose the Paw Patrol theme song again and I played them “All I Ask” by Adele from a Key Change playlist I’ve been listening to. Ollie had a lot of questions about the Adele song but I was able to sidestep most and urge him to go to sleep.
