Creating a birthday for a seven year old

Almost 2 weeks ago now, on Tuesday 7th August we caught a ferry (just half an hour) back over to Koh Samui to meet Mum and Dad off the plane (en route from Alaska & Canada !) and to celebrate Matthew's birthday.  Koh Phangan does not have too much in the way of activities for children, other than what we have been doing everyday - creating our own fun on the beach, in the pool, exploring by jeep around the island, markets and so on.  So we had spent a bit of time researching options on Samui and come up with a few for Matthew to choose from.

Our first day there was spent organizing a few presents, a cake and finalizing our activities - "Football Golf" and a water park.

Matthew had originally voiced that he wanted to go to an animal show - preferably a monkey show as "a monkey show will be funnier than an elephant or bird show".  Whatever one's view on animal shows, they are on offer in Samui in abundance, and we were prepared to go if this was his preference.  However, after checking out the monkey show on TripAdvisor and sharing the reviews and scores with Matthew, he decided against going to it -  as the ratings were very poor and there were lots of comments about terrible conditions for the animals.  Many of the other animal shows appeared to be in the same vein, although not perhaps quite as bad as the monkey one.  Matthew was quite affected by the information and it took him a while to get over his sadness that people would do this to animals.  Another learning experience.

Mum and Dad arrived in good spirits on the 8th, having started their acclimatisation to the heat and time zone with a few nights in Korea and an overnight at the Bangkok airport hotel.  So our first night together we went to an amazing restaurant called Spirit House - in an open walled brick building that had been moved down from Chang Mai, set in a tranquil garden and pond environment, then all gloriously lit with candles and lamps. The service and food was equally divine - including many salads and dishes we had not seen on other menus.

We had rented a lovely spacious 3 bedroom villa just north of Chaweng for a few nights which was perfect for catching up, cooling in the pool and creating a birthday ambience for Matthew.

Matthew's birthday breakfast started on the morning of the 9th August with his requested chocolate croissants (he had developed a taste for them in various hotel breakfast buffets & had been recently suffering withdrawal!).  These were sourced from at one of the French bakeries nearby, which we consumed with an ever divine selection of fresh tropical fruits.

Next up - a treasure hunt around the villa for his presents.  These included, as highlights - a remote control boat (which worked well in the swimming pool) from Annabelle, his first watch from his Nana and Grandad, and longed after birthday-money from his Grandma and Grandpa in NZ.  Mike and I had idiotically left our gift in the house in Phangan so had quickly collected a number of smaller items which he also enjoyed - a catapult, Muay Thai boxing shorts (& a promise of a lesson at Mike's gym), an Angry Bird t-shirt, a dinosaur puzzle, glowsticks, some lollies and so on.

Football Golf Champions !

We then drove (in our hired, purple, pope-mobile, with Matthew and Annabelle enjoying riding in the boot) to Football Golf, which is a great game, apparently invented here.  It consists of a small 'golf' course around which you each kick a soccer ball, the object being to kick it into the hole under the flag and counting up your score/kicks as you go.  I think it was par 63.  It was quite hot - but coconut tree shade to stand in while waiting for your turn, reviving drinks bought to us on the 9th hole, and the motivation of getting the best NZ score of the month on the countries results board spurred us on.  Actually - the only NZ score at that point !  It was great family fun - and would certainly go down well in NZ.  We finished, with Mike the champion of our group, and Matthew in second place, so all was well - and Mike indulged  the birthday boy, so Matthew got his name up on the board.

Waiting for our turn on the fairway

We definitely needed food at this stage and had been unable to find Matthew's request (yum cha/dim sum) so popped into a favorite inexpensive Thai place in Chaweng for Pad Thais before heading a further 20 minutes South to a small waterpark.  It consisted of a number of waterslides, several aimed at the younger end of the spectrum but 2 of them thrilling enough for our 7 and 10 year old and Mike and I too !  We spent an hour or two there keeping somewhat cool in the water, while mum and dad took the opportunity for a rest in a shady spot.  At that point we drove back to the villa arriving hot and dusty and ready for another swim and cool down.  Aaah !

Double the fun on the waterslide

Matthew had chosen his own cake at Swensens (yes it is here, right beside Starbucks and Macdonalds in Chaweng!) which we had managed to bring back to the villa without melting the previous night.  I had to redecorate ie remove the disliked cherries which seemed to be the standard decoration on them all - so replaced with Oreo cookies,  M&Ms and candles and it then looked like a fine cake for a 7 year old.  And an ice cream cake was indeed a perfect choice for the climate. 

Another quick swim and we were on the move again in a busy birthday agenda.  We headed off to one of our favorite areas - Fisherman's Village in Bophut for a massage and dinner.  Dad and I went off to choose the Italian restaurant (pasta and prawns had been Matthew's request) and sort out ferry times for the following day, finishing these chores with a Plantation cocktail on The Pier - the lovely spot where we had spent the 50th birthday drinks.  Meanwhile Mum, Mike, Annabelle and Matthew enjoyed their massages and then we all walked down the street to dinner.

The restaurant we had chosen hadn't kept the table we booked less than one hour previously (?) which was rather disappointing, so in order to still enjoy the beachside location we got rather crammed in a corner.  However, the birthday boy was happy, ate the meal he envisaged and we all headed home.

The day was capped off by the lighting of a floating lantern which took off into the sky and a couple of big rockets on the back lawn.  What a lucky boy !

Breakfast on Chaweng Beach

The next day we breakfasted on the beach, shopped, swam some more and in the late afternoon travelled 'home' to Phangan, where Matthew got to open his forgotten present - a camera which he is now enjoying using.  (Although he was hoping for an iPod touch or a DS.)

It had been an interesting exercise to create a birthday that was to be so very different from the ones Matthew had grown accustomed to in Auckland.  The big thing for him was no party and no friends around him, nor all the accompanying presents.  However he definitely appreciated his Nana and Grandad coming for his birthday.  The trickier thing for us was that as we were all together virtually 24/7 he necessarily got to be much more involved in the planning and decision making - even down to selecting his own cake out of the freezer!

A few more football golf shots: