October 26, 2025
On the walk to breakfast this morning we didn’t notice the water buffalo roaming the grounds until we walked right past one! Breakfast was more of the usual— Len eating 4 pieces of toast with jam (no butter, jam only is his newest hyper fixation) and Ollie having a bowl of chocolate cereal.
For homeschool today, Ollie wrote a letter to his pal Dean to celebrate his birthday. Today was one of Ollie’s more efficient letter writing processes and he knocked this one out quickly. He also took a few multiplication quizzes and continues to thrive when it comes to math. Len is trucking along with his sight words and continues to improve with math as well. Sometimes, during a drive he will blurt out, “Mama! Five plus eight is thirteen!” just to show off his greatly improved addition skills.
Our adventure for the day was a trip to Nahm Dong park. The park was a 30 minute motorbike ride away on a super bumpy, dirt road. My hands were numb from holding on so tightly by the time we arrived. We were passed multiple times by locals zooming past but I couldn’t have imagined going any faster.
We had lunch at the park before starting the zipline. Both kids were maybe antsy or excited or both, but this meal was brutal. Ollie started by breaking a glass, Len ran around and when returning to the table somehow got my curry in his hair and both refused to eat anything but white rice. There was also a huge fight when Ollie pounded Len’s lemonade supposedly by mistake. Can’t win em all.
The zipline group was our crew plus two others – a guy from Denmark and a guy from the UK. The Brit’s name was Robbie and he and Ollie became friendly during our 6 ziplines and mini hike we did together as a group. Robbie is traveling solo for ~5 weeks in Asia and was very kind to the boys. He and Ollie were walking ahead of me and I overheard a bit of their conversation.
Robbie: Do you want to hear my job?
Ollie: Sure!
Robbie: I work at a trampoline park. Its the best!
Ollie: Whaaaa! You have fun and get paid to jump around?? Awesome.
Everyone was impressed with Lenny’s lack of nerves but I suppose hes a zipline expert by this point. Ollie had brief flashes of being nervous but soon got over it. The only hiccup was when Ollie used his zipline brake too early and got stuck on the line for a bit. The guide was able to retrieve him pretty quickly so no big deal.
Ollie had a freak out about feeling itchy after we finished the zipline. We weren’t sure if the harness rubbed on him or if the sweat combined with unfamiliar laundry detergent made his skin feel so uncomfortable. We went for a quick swim back at the hotel and he had another round of freak outs when the chlorine hit his skin. After a shower, he was thankfully back to normal with no marks left on his skin. The itchiness remains a mystery! Len somehow managed to fall asleep despite the crazy bumpy motorbike ride home. It was quite the challenge to avoid potholes and balance Len on my front, but we made it.
This evening, I went into town to another yoga class– this one a Yin style class with Tibetan sound bowls at the end. Kyle took one for the team and brought the boys to the night bazaar/ carnival that they had been dying to go to. We all met for dinner at the taco restaurant from the other night.
When Ollie came into the restaurant, he looked at me and went, “oooooh Mama I have a story for you that you are NOT going to like.” He proceeded to tell me how he got into a fight with two boys on the huge inflatable slide at the carnival. “They were showing me their middle finger and yelling six-seven so I fought back! I know how much you hate fighting.” Kyle said it was mostly in good spirits and that Ollie had a smile on his face for most of the interaction.
At dinner, a deliriously tired Lenny was so mad that Ollie put one piece of toilet paper in the toilet that he punched him. In tears, he explained that he thought the toilet paper would clog the toilet and impede his ability to pee for the rest of the night. Kyle went in the bathroom and realized that both kids were not strong enough to push the button to flush the toilet. Once pushed it flushed without issue.
