A Jolly Bali Beachy Christmas

Christmas this last year was quite different, for a few reasons:

• Kennedy stopped believing in the big fat man in red.
• We weren't at our own house or sleeping in our own beds. 
• We didn't have extended family gatherings/dinners/parties/etc.
• We were out of the country. And in a foreign country that didn't really celebrate Christmas.
• There was no Christmas tree.
• There were no presents on Christmas morning.

But it was probably the best (and most memorable) Christmas I've ever had, for other reasons:

• We were with my mom.
• We were with my brother.
• We were with my sister in law.
• We were with my nieces.
• Kennedy was with her cousins.
• We focused on being with each other and how happy that made us.
• We felt like we had everything we needed.
• I WAS AT THE WARM SUNNY BEACH!!!

      ('nuff said.)

And 'nuff babbling. I can only be sentimental and serious for so long. Time for pictures.

On Christmas Eve (day), we went to the Goa Gajah Elephant Cave Temple (I told you there were temples everywhere). It rained.

This seriously cool cave/temple was built in the 9th century. Do you know when that was? A long, long, long time ago.

The cave was pretty impressive. And large. And detailed. And I don't know about you, but if I'm going to go worship or take sanctuary somewhere, I'd probably choose somewhere a bit less.. um... creepy.

Notice my (and Jen's) colorful clothing? Well apparently they thought we looked like skanks when we strutted on in there, because they made us cover our bare shoulders and knees with clashing sarongs. (Most temples down there actually have that rule. No skanks. Also, women can't show their bare shoulders or knees.) Aren't we cute? And happy? Because we are. Both.

 After the temple, we went out to eat at a lovely restaurant. I forgot the name of it. But here we are. Trying to dry out from the rain:

And here is my fancy food.  Have I mentioned, yet, that food is uber cheap down there? Well it is. This fancy pork dish probably cost around $4. I nearly threw up when I came back to the US where they charged $12.00 for a salad.

That evening (yes, Christmas Eve), we exchanged presents.  The most well-received one (besides my mother's FOUR HOUR SPA TREATMENT), was Aysia's cute little baby. She was so dang sweet with that thing.  (Gol, I miss that little girl...*sniff *sniff)

Before we retired for the evening, we were bid goodnight from Bali by way of a gloriously colorful sunset. Wow.

Goodnight, little frog on the window.  (He and his friends sweetly serenaded us every night while we slept. It was darling.)

The next day was Christmas! And what better way to spend Christmas than with your family at the beach in Bali? No other way, I do declare.
The drive down there was an experience in and of itself. It was beautiful.

And full of statues...of cops. If they are there to make you think they are real, it worked.

We stopped for lunch at a cute restaurant which had a beautiful view of a pond.

Hi girls!

Kennedy requested that I take her picture, in her new sunglasses and in her swimsuit, in front of this entryway. "This would be a cool picture, mom! Take it!" 

After making a few wrong turns then finally asking for directions, we found the holy White Sands Beach. 

And because I don't think you can have too many pictures of a place this beautiful, I will post a few.

*sigh...

The classic 'sandy toes' picture.

Yes, the water was this clear. Yes, it was that blue (although the coloring in the pictures don't do it justice). Yes, I want to go back. Yes, I'm wondering why I still live in Utah. Yes, I'm going to go cry, now.

Man, I sure wish there were some place for me to worship while I am sitting at the beach... oh look! Another temple! 

And just in case you wanted to fly a kite, a guy would gladly sell one to you.

People will also come to your chair and offer to give you hour long massages for $10-15 dollars. Brandon opted for the $7(?) foot massage. 

It was finally time to leave the beach. (Sad.) But the drive home was full of laughing, talking, and singing every Christmas song we could think of.  (In many different accents, which made it more entertaining for the little girls.) We also made up words to Holly Jolly Christmas, which we performed and recorded for the world to see (here or here). 

I love my family so much.

That was, by far, the best Christmas ever.

A little Bali

Good idea:  Traveling to a tropical paradise to spend the holidays with your beloved family.

Bad idea:  Leaving said tropical paradise and beloved family to return home to 9 degree weather.

Brrrrr.

I think maybe I should have taken Jen (my brother's wife) up on the offer for her to "accidentally" misplace our passports. I mean, come on- what could they REALLY do? (wait- don't answer that question.)

The only negative thing- and I mean the only negative thing - about our magnificent vacation was the flight(s).  After flying from here to L.A. (2 hours), then from L.A. to Taiwan (14.5 hours - where my little sleeping Kennedy laid sprawled out on her seat and kept flopping her limbs on the poor lady next to her...), and then from Taiwan to Bali (5.5 hours), we finally arrived. (I love the nifty travel maps they have on the seats of the airplane.)

 

In the airport, we encountered some of our first Balinese statues (the first of many).

My brother and his driver picked us up from the airport. I have never been so happy to see Brandon in my life. I think it's the longest time we'd ever been apart. (When we were teenagers, I think the extended absence would have been graciously welcomed. My how things changed once he realized I didn't have girl cooties.)

Driving back to his house, we saw tons more statues. They were everywhere.

And some of them were very beautiful. (Although sometimes strange...with random laughing pigs. )

When we arrived at his house, we were happily greeted by my 3 darling nieces, my wonderful sister in law, and my fabulous mother (who had arrived about 5 days prior). And there was much rejoicing.

(The 3 darling nieces, as well as my own darling daughter)

Kennedy had been most excited to swim with her cousins. No time was wasted. She almost dived into the swimming pool fully clothed. (It wasn't until a bit later that we realized the trick would be getting them all to actually wear ANY clothes while swimming...)

One might think that spending 2 weeks with my amazing family in a tropical paradise couldn't get any better. And then you add on an incredible view like this: (this is the view from their massage room, looking toward the swimming pool.)...and you think you may have died and gone to heaven. (Luckily I didn't die. And it wasn't heaven. But it was probably as close as you could get. Or maybe even better.)

And this is the view from the back door of the house, overlooking the rice fields. (Brandon is doing his daily practice of Chi Kung - some cool chinese meditation. thing.) 

Brandon and his family live in the beautiful city of Ubud.  It has such a deep-rooted culture, which is evidenced by many statues, festivals, parades, and the thrice-daily spiritual offerings by the Balinese people who live there. What surprised me, though, was that there were quite a few foreigners (Europeans, Americans, Australians) who lived there, as well.  English is spoken by quite a few of the locals, so it was fairly easy to communicate and make your way around the city.

The day after we arrived, I got in touch with my inner-hippy, and we went to a hula hooping class. It took a few tries, but I learned some super cool tricks. I think I would fit right in at the hippy park down the street from my house. Perhaps I will join their drum circle next summer.

After the hula-hooping, we went to a dance class. Where they play all sorts of music, and you just.... dance. It was SO much fun. Please ignore the sweat under my boobs. (Or as I like to call it: swoobs.)

I of course had to get my picture taken (with swoobs) next to Ganesha, a very popular Hindu statue. (That's Jen and their friend Sabina, being very mature in the window).

Next on the agenda was to visit the Ubud Monkey Forest. Where they have lots of monkeys. No really. A LOT of monkeys. Monkeys who are not afraid of people. And actually, if you have food, YOU should be afraid of the monkeys. 

SO cute. Doesn't this just melt your heart?

I'll bet this does, too.

Another thing that there is no shortage of in Bali is temples. They are everywhere you look. Even if you don't look, you can find one. Like in the Monkey Forest (I guess even monkeys need a place to worship, right?)

I can't seem to recall what we did for the rest of the day, but I'm sure it involved eating delicious food, singing, playing, laughing, and avoiding being defecated on by one of these little (big) guys who hung out on the walls/ceiling.

Next up- Christmas Eve. And our thirst for gelato.

Wrapping it up, New York style.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. This is the last entry for my October vacay:  New York. From what I had heard, it was a helluva town. That the Bronx was up, but the Battery was down. But I preferred to make my own assessment of the renowned city.

The morning we went to New York, we woke up bright and early (technically it was still dark, since it was like 5:00 a.m.), and Casey's aunt (as well as his mom) was kind enough to take us on a day long tour through the Big Apple. That woman knows her way around the city. 

We saw nearly all of the major attractions, starting with Times Square. It was just as cool as it looks in the movies. Namely, Enchanted.

We stopped at F.A.O. Schwarz to check out the Big piano and other fun toy stuff. And to get my picture taken with a man-toy soldier who looks like he is ecstatic to be at work and dressed as a man-toy soldier.

I had my first Subway ride. It was thrilling beyond description. And dirty. Very dirty.

Central Park was beautiful. And gigantic. And beautiful. And a little dirty. But not as dirty as the subway.

We stopped by the 911 memorial. It was much bigger than I had expected. Reading the names on the memorial was quite an emotional experience for me. I am glad we went.

After a bit of cajoling, Casey convinced me to go to the top of the Empire State Building- and I'm glad he did.  

The view was spectacular.

We went to many other places, including China Town, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, etc. I even had myself a cannoli. Yum. We also saw Sarah Jessica Parker as well as Snooki (although someone had to tell me who she was. I'm so out of the loop.).  The last thing we did before we left, however, was go see a Broadway show. What better one to see than the longest running musical on Broadway: Phantom of the Opera. (Notice my cute NY hat? Awwww. I look like a tourist.)

And there's the stage! The performance was fantastic. Although Christine's voice kinda bugged. But whatev.

After the show, we hopped in the car and drove on back to VA for the night.  I waved goodbye to the beautiful city which I had so easily fallen in love with. The energy of the city was so alive. I will totes be back to visit, for sure (see what I did there? I'm still trying to be cool.).
At the end of the day, I had concluded that New York was, indeed, a helluva town.  And I love it. 

See? I have proof.

On the ride back to Casey's mom's house (Friday), we started hearing rumors of a hurricane coming through on Sunday-Monday. We were scheduled to leave on Monday night. Luckily, the airline (bless you, Southwest) was able to move our flight up to Sunday afternoon, and we BARELY missed the huge Hurricane Sandy. Glad we got out of there when we did.

Whew! I'm finished with that exceedingly long update. It was quite a fun and adventure-filled trip.
Next you will hear all about Bali. A very relaxing and extremely wonderful vacation.

(Here's another little sample of it for you: )

If you need me, I'll be over here trying to convince myself (unsuccessfully) that I love the cold weather.

Even more history.

Happy 2013, everybody!! I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year's.  I most definitely did. Why?  Well let me just go ahead and tell you. This year, Kennedy and I traveled to Bali to spend the holidays with my brother, his wife and kids, and our mom. Sounds amazing, right? You'd be correct, although that's putting it mildly.  It was far more incredible than I could have ever imagined.  

Here is a picture so you can have a small taste of it.

Mmm. Doesn't that taste good? Just you wait until I give you more. Holy crapoli, those two weeks were transcendental.  But more on that, later. 

Hopefully sooner than later.

For now, I am very determined to finish my documentation of my East Coast trip.  I only have 2 more posts to go. I could combine them into one, but that would probably overwhelm you with too much awesomeness. So instead, here is number one.  Numero dos will be coming in a few days.

Washington DC. 

Casey's aunt, who lives in McLean, VA (very close to DC), was gracious enough to let us stay at her house for a few nights. We spent 2 full days in DC, yet we still felt like we hardly saw any of it. I took a gazillion pictures. And then a few more. To save on blogging time and space (and to make it less boring for you), I will keep my captions short and succinct. You're welcome.

Arlington cemetery. Beautiful.

Tomb of the unknown soldier. Sobering.

WWII Vets. Emotional. (We were lucky enough to witness a tribute ceremony to these WWII vets. Pretty cool.)

Cat in a sink. Adorbs.

Crooked lamppost. Mildly amusing.

Lincoln Memorial. Grand.

Lincoln. Huge.

Bright vermilion autumn tree. Stunning.

The capital building. Under construction.

Our home states! Adorkable.

Natural History Museum. Mmm. Bronze fish.

Washington Monument. Tall. (That's Casey's cute mom standing next to me.)

Vietnam Memorial. Beautiful.

The view. Amazing.

White House. Smaller than I had expected.

DC Cupcakes. Yummmmmm. (This is actually in Georgetown, DC. A very quaint and charming little area.)

See? Short and succinct.

Next up (and last up for this trip), a day in the Big Apple.