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.

Bali: How can so many people be so nice?

For winter break, we traveled to Indonesia and Malaysia with friends from AES who were friends from Maine before that.  Our time on Bali was divided into two parts; eight nights off the beaten path in Pemuteran, located on the north west coast followed by eight nights in Canggu, a surfer town in the southern part of the island, just outside the big tourist areas. While in Pemuteran, we did two snorkeling trips to the waters off Menjangan Island, helped our Winter Solstice baby celebrate his fifth birthday on the Summer Solstice, and slowly made our way from beach to pool to cabana. From Canggu, we did a few side trips: first to Waterbom, a super fun waterpark in Kuta; then a bike tour in the area around Ubud on New Year's Eve day; and on our last day, we took a drive to check out Sanur, a mellow beach on the east coast.

The one downer of the vacation was the infection of Jonah's right cornea which hit him the first night in Canggu.  After three days of pain and seclusion in a dark room, one visit to the ER, and a few different treatments, Jonah went to an ophthalmologist and things finally turned around. We were very grateful to be in an area with access to good medical care and insurance that covers us wherever we travel (although in this part of the world, one can simply pay out of pocket for any/all of these services). Happy to report that Jonah is doing just fine now but if you notice that he was squinting in a lop-sided way in some photos, you now know why.

All in all, the travels were easy, the food was delicious, the people were delightful, and the scenery was stunning. Looking back on all the pictures we took, it is clear that we did not do Bali justice. We took many photos of the kids but not nearly enough (or any!) of the stone carvings and sculptures, the people, the food. Hopefully will return to Bali someday (or perhaps better yet - get over to Lombok which is supposed to be the undiscovered paradise that Bali was thirty years ago) and focus our camera on the culture of this island which makes people want to return again and again. 

Here are a few favorite photos. You may click HERE for many, many more.