Bali day 1

Last week we got the chance to go to Bali for a long weekend. We had a lot of fun but it sure seemed to wear us all out. Tatum fell asleep during quiet time today, hence my record early start on blogging about the trip.

We left Thursday in the middle of the day. As usual the kids were crazy at the airport. But I guess I would rather they get as much crazy out as possible before we get on the plane.

 "Take a picture of this crazy face, mom."

 Watching the airplanes. Declan is in little boy heaven.

 We had a driver meet us at the airport to take us to our first hotel, in Ubud. The trip had barely started and the kids were already exhausted.

 It took us probably about an hour and a half to get to Ubud. We got settled in our not super nice room and immediately headed out. This was our first trip without the stroller. It was exhausting but I'm not sure the stroller would have been super helpful since sometimes there was no sidewalk and when there was it was very bumpy and would randomly have huge holes.

 Motorbikes everywhere you look.

 Tatum alwasy has to stop and pick up any lonely flower she spots.

 Street performers.

 We had dinner at Cafe Wayan that night. The atmosphere was awesome, the staff was really nice and the food was delicious (and cheap!). I kind of wish we had just gone back over and over during our stay haha.

 This worker took the kids to see the fish in the ponds.

 When you have kids sitting on the floor to eat is actually a lot less stressful than chairs, I decided.

 There was another couple at the other table in our hut for the first little bit but they left not long after we got there. Then it was like we were in a private restaurant. So nice!

 Brennan's food. He was mostly pleased with his choice, but I think he liked mine better. :)

 After dinner we headed further up the road to try to find a cultural dance performance to go to. We ended up at the Barong dance at the Lotus Pond. We were sitting on the ground and had to wait awhile for it to start which wasn't super comfortable.

It was a beautiful backdrop though.

 Tatum was too scared to come up close to the lion for a picture afterward, silly girl.

The Barong dance features Barong, or the lion you see with the red face and purple hair. The dance tells the story of the fight of good vs. evil with Barong being good and Rangda being evil. I'm glad we went, the music and the dancing are so different than anything from our own culture. But to be perfectly honest, I got quite bored. The very brief synopsis I just gave you I actually read online. During the dance I had no idea what was going on. I was just watching a lot of finger and hand movement and creepy eyes going on. The kids were mesmerized, the entire time, which was a blessing. But let's just say Brennan and I didn't leave dying to go to one of the other dance performances another night. We were glad we went, but one was enough.