January 13, 2013

Gratitude

When the boys were babies, I had a persistent, recurring thought while driving from home to daycare drop off to work. Like those who compulsively believe that the oven has been left on, I was sure that I had forgotten to put on pants. This was an indication of how hectic those mornings were, how insanely tired I was all the time, and how we rarely had the opportunity to slow down. I can recall the constant pressure, the feeling that each morning an hourglass was turned over and the time to do whatever had to be done to keep our household afloat for another day was running out, quickly.

Thinking back to those years during this winter break gave us many, many moments when we simply felt thankful. For the opportunity to travel as a family, for the unstructured days, for our health, for a major holiday without holiday induced stress, for the ability to keep our kids unaware of world headlines, for our parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews who visited us via Face Time....our hearts were filled with gratitude.

We spent most of our time on Lombok, the less famous (for now) Indonesian island east of Bali with a few days on Gili Air and a stopover in Singapore (Legoland!) on the way back to Delhi. The undeveloped southern coast of Lombok was stunningly beautiful, the Gili Islands provided access to great snorkeling (sea turtles!), and the tourist town of Senggigi was nothing much, which was just fine with us. We met lots of wonderful people, had some really great meals (in fact, for the first time we brought home the packed jar of peanut butter unopened), and ultimately decided that this is a place we would like to come back to someday.

Below are some favorite photos and you can click here to see a hundred more. Thank you for reading along and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2013.











1 comment:

  1. I want to go to Lombok and I want to go to Lego Land! That beach picture with the glasses is the best!

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