Millie woke up excited this morning to FaceTime with her Papa Jeff and her great grandparents. How cute is this?

She was desperate to show them her new camera but it was out of batteries. We tried to recharge it but it wouldn’t turn on. We left it charging all day and it still won’t turn on. It wasn’t super cheap, but it feels super cheap. Nick says it’s the universe acting on our regrets of buying her a camera that looks like a phone.

After FaceTiming, we got ready and headed out to the mall to fulfill another one of Millie’s birthday presents: seeing Zootopia 2 in the theatre! This was her first time seeing a movie in a movie theatre.

It was almost exactly like the movies in the US, with a few big differences:

• The candy selection was limited and normal sized. She got a small pack of M&Ms.
• Thai subtitles
• They played, no exaggeration, 45 minutes of trailers and commercials before the movie started. We were all losing it. And at the end of those, they did a bizarre tribute to the King in which they asked everyone to stand.

We all liked the movie, especially Fortune Feimster’s character, Nibbles.

On our way out Millie noticed a big play area and spent 90 minutes literally jumping off the walls. While she did this I did a secret shop around the mall to get her some Christmas presents. On her birthday she was shocked that we secretly got her presents, and spent a while trying to figure out when we were apart.

We are limited due to lack of space in our bags, but I got her a Christmas stocking, a little travel watercolor set, a pink pearl necklace, and some princess sunglasses.

After the mall we went to a Christmas market and met up with some friends from home who just happen to be here on vacation. It was such a treat to see familiar faces! Millie hasn’t seen their kids for over a year and didn’t remember them. She became FAST friends with their sweet 6-year-old son, Calder.

All 7 of us squeezed into a Grab and rode to the Old City for the big Sunday night market.

We walked through the busy market trying not to lose any children, and then settled down on a little table at in the food area and got a variety of things to taste. We kept remarking on it felt like we were chaperoning a first date between Millie and Calder.

By the end of the evening they were leading the way, holding hands and giggling. We overheard him say to her “I like you even more than I like my dad”. Brutal news for our friend Byron, but very cute to me.

She started getting whiny about not being bought random things at the market, so we broke off and took a car back home to get to bed.