A Rainy Afternoon in Yangshuo

We made it back to our hotel after the caves! And the rain had lessoned to an extent.  The girls had been begging to play in the rain, so into their swimsuits they went while Wes and I enjoyed a midday beer on the covered patio.

There is little my girls enjoy more than splish splashing in a muddy puddle (maybe that is why they are Peppa Pig obsessed?).

I was surprised a little bit by Emma, as it was definitely Everly leading the way. Emma in a dress, can't keep her out of the water; Emma in her swimsuit was a bit more shy and cautious at first.  Until Everly showed her just how much fun you could have.

And then she was all in! Quite literally.

They scoped out the biggest puddles and then did everything in their power to make the biggest splashes.

Emma quickly came over and dried off when her milkshake arrived #priorities.

She was pretty thrilled with her drink of choice (that is our taxi driver behind Emma! and if you look up above that is Lily with the umbrella-we cannot say enough good things about these two people-they took really good care of us while we were there).

This girl didn't stop for a break- she splashed the whole time.

While watching my girls frolic in the rain, Lily mentioned to me that she thought it was great that we let our children explore and have these type of sensory type of experiences (she didn't say it in those exact words). My thoughts on this is that rain is not going to hurt anyone.  We watched these two have the time of their lives while simultaneously wearing them out which resulted in great naps! Win for everyone involved ;).

When we woke up from naps, the views were more stunning than before.  More foggy, more mystical, more enchanting.

It is hard to believe this is the exact same view where we watched the sunset less than 24 hours earlier.

It felt like something out of a movie.

The river rushing up - this is the Yulong river that we had floated down the day before.

We took some time just to soak it all in.

We enjoyed a snack on the deck after nap.  And somehow, I managed to capture Emma still looking like a baby and a little less like a big kid.

Ever since we have moved to China, I am acutely aware of how big she looks, and that she is talking more and more like a grown up every day and that she is just growing up so darn fast.  The other day, I realized that she is almost 4.5 which is almost 5 which is almost 18 and then she will be leaving me to go to college.  Ok, not really. That was a bit dramatic.  But this day, in this moment she was still my fiercely sassy, beautiful baby.

And then I got some pictures of our Everly Gracie that I think just capture her perfectly.  She is the sweetest toddler with just the right amount of spunk.

She makes the best facial expressions, is extremely scared of the boogy man (why oh why did I tell her about this - a moment of weakness for sure), tells the funniest knock knock jokes and loves her sister with all her heart (most days ;)).

And ridiculously cute, I might add :).

We ate dinner on the patio as the rain came to a slowing end that night even wandering down the path for a quick walk before calling it a night and heading to bed.

Even though the weather was not ideal on vacation day number 2, we still had lots of fun, got to sightsee and the girls favorite -jump in muddy puddles!