Bali - Family Trip 2012

We spent half of our Winter Break in Bali.  There are so many great WARM locations in Southeast Asia, to pick fun places to spend our Christmas holidays.

The kids looking for snails and crabs

Kate, Maximo, Denis

Kate & Maximo swimming - Maximo insisted on wearing his swim cap,
so his goggles didn't pull his hair.  Delicate soul.

Lola and Ceri playing at the beach

With Maximo and Lola, beach vacations are the best.  They are very content swimming, eating, sleeping, repeat.  John and I are pretty happy with vacations like that as well, with some beers, massages and reading thrown into the mix.  The beach was nice and calm, which was perfect for the kids.

Lola in the pool

Lola in the ocean

The hotel we stayed at was great for us.  It was really kid friendly (without being over run by kids).  The larger pool was almost empty, except for us.  The food was good at the hotel, but we did get tired of it after eating at least a meal a day there (usually lunch by the pool, before naps).

Besides deciding weather to "beach" or "pool" it, we did a couple of things around Bali.

We went to the Bali Safari Park which was FANTASTIC.  It was a well done zoo with great natural looking enclosures for the animals, who looked healthy and happy.  It even included a safari ride through different areas showing animals from Indonesia, Asia and Africa.

Lola and Dima making funny faces

Los Lemleys Chicos

Checking out the elephants on the safari.

A few days later, we ventured off the hotel grounds again to go on a boat trip.  I saw a flyer at the airport, and we arranged for it.  It was good for the kids, because it was a half day event, but it was a bit of a crazy business and it was in a really busy area of Bali - Nusa Dua.  We were able to go snorkling and ride a glass bottomed boat, which took us to Turtle Island.  While the animals looked healthy, and Maximo and Lola enjoyed looking at the animals, we arrived at the island, where there were at least 100 boats anchored at the shore.

Baby turtle

Maximo snorkled and saw fish!

Linda spun the girls around and around over and over again to happy squeals!

And this trip was so great because we traveled with our good friends,  the Tyler-Hilbrechts and the Schatzkys.   It was relatively easy with 3 two year olds and 3 five year olds.  

Everyone had playmates!