Bali Video

Just when you thought the Bali posts were over, I also made a video. #overkill

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Music - Michael Franti, Hello Bonjour

Birthdays

Given that we just returned from Bali and we are heading to The States soon for a visit, (we are mad I tell you, MAD) we kept the Birthday thing simple.

On my Birthday Jamie picked up some of my favorite pastries, and then we put the kids to sleep and he grilled us some fish for dinner.
Hmmm wonder what the kids can't wait to have.

I also picked up some sparklers. 

On Ben's Birthday, the following day, he woke up to balloons. He then enjoyed cleaning up the cake mess.

Moon Cake!!! This is about the extent of my cake decorating talent. Ben loved it, he loves the moon.

We did the cake when Annmarie got home from school.

We also let him blow out his candles a few times, he was having so much fun with it.

We opened pressies.

Moon!

We ordered in pizza and used up the rest of the sparklers.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Bali - Part III - Days 8, 9 & 10

Day 8

We found this amazing beach club - Finn's Beach Club. Gorgeous, right.?

We were some of the first people to get to the beach this day. I started the morning off with cappuccino. The Balinese coffee was good, but nothing beats a good cap.

The tide was high when we got there, but it was starting to go out. You couldn't really swim yet so we just played in the surf and sand.

I want to go back there. Now.

A offering left on the beach.

Having them share a juice never really worked.

However, they would easily share the phone.

We stayed long enough for the tide to go out and have a swim. Annmarie even went out with Jamie and looked for fish in the coral. The water temp was perfect too.

Sadly it was time to go. I love how we always clean the kids up and they leave in dry clothes and I'm always a wet mess.

Waiting for the inclinator.

The operator offered to take our picture and went a bit crazy.

Hi!

Hi!

Hi again!

One more.

And this one too.

Some snaps of the resort where the beach club was located. I wouldn't mind staying here.

Heading back to the villa and this is how we traveled. It's so counterintuitive - we live a in place where there are rigid traffic laws and car seat regulations and then you go to a country where there are no traffic laws and it's complete chaos and kids do not sit in car seats. We just went with it. 

Driving back and seeing cows on the road. This guy was right by our villa.

Most days you couldn't see the volcanoes from the villa, but they came out on this day.

We had dinner that evening at M's place and called it a night.

Day 9

We went out to breakfast, bought Annmarie and Ben 40 cent watches and came back to the villa to swim and relax. Jamie headed into Kuta to do some shopping. I was totally fine not going to Kuta, as I'm not sure I could have handled the chaos. Kuta is also where the bombings occurred in 2002. That evening for dinner we stayed in and picked up food from M's warong. M had gone spear fishing that morning and we had one of his catches for dinner - yum.

This is the only picture from the day.

Day 10

We had a 11:00 pm departure time so we had a full day ahead of us. We decided to go back to Finn's Beach club. I had another cappuccino and then followed it up with this baby.

We messed around and waited for the tide to go out and had lunch.

Cheeky. I want them to recreate this picture when they get older.

Once the tide was out we all went swimming. Here are Jamie and AM looking for fish.

What happens when you wake up at 5:00am. Again, we went with it. He slept for two hours like this. We took turns swimming with Annmarie and resting next to Ben - not a bad way to spend our last day in Bali.

Cheese! (BTW - I'm not clawing Ben, I'm trying to tickle him to get him to smile.)

We went back to the villa and packed up. This was our driver Made' when we were in Bukit. He was awesome, even Ben warmed up to him.  Everyone was so great with the kids. He took us to a Balinese rib place before we headed to the airport. The food was great, however the ribs where smoked and we all ended up smelling like smoked ribs when we left the place. 

The kids somehow stayed awake until we got on the plane at 11:00 pm and then passed out during take off and slept the entire flight home. Major score.

A post about Bali would just not be complete without a picture of Bintang Beer. I would compare it to a Heineken.  We consumed a lot of this.

Some closing thoughts:

Nine nights ten Days - it was a bit ambitious with kids and we were ready to get home. We did have a great time and I would totally go again.  I can see why a trip like this may not be for everyone. It is and isn't child friendly. There's the driving thing and hygiene/water thing that you need to think about. However, the kids were very welcomed everywhere we went and so were we. The extra help you get is a big bonus. The Butler/cook at our first place was awesome and the housekeeper at the villa in Bukit kept the place clean and did our washing everyday and even pressed it. I felt totally safe there and even learned that Indo has tight gun laws. 

I asked Annmarie what her favorite things were about Bali and she told me - swimming everyday, the sculptures and the food. She asked me why my chicken doesn't taste like their chicken.?

It was awesome for us and I hope we all get to return one day. 

The End.