Drab to Fab!

There's no two ways about it - our first half day in Bali (yesterday) was a steep learning curve.

We arrived completely exhausted:

And were a little grumpy, because this had been our changing table for the last two days with no baby wipes:

And this had been our bed:

We weren't really able to do a whole heck of a lot that first half day except get take out food and eat it on the bed while Joey had a nap... then play around in the room (much needed playtime for Joe).

Dinner last night was a total bust. Even though the food was AMAZING - it was hard work with Joey. We didn't bring our high chair to dinner with us. Frankly, I was too tired to think of anything like that and Stu's never had to, so he didn't either. No high chair and no toys = cranky Joey.  He was impossible with glimmering moments of adorable as we scarfed down our food (me standing the entire time).
The chicken satay with peanut sauce, and super thin crust aussie pizza were good grab and go foods that we didn't have to worry about cutlery for.

Arriving back at the hotel after our meal and take out hazelnut/oreo gelato (which was hastily scarfed down while bouncing Joey) He promptly went to sleep... and so did I.
I honestly have no idea what happened or the events leading up to me passing out on the bed. All I remember is waking up at 4 am with a sore neck. It must have been from flopping on the bed face first.

New Beginnings:

This morning started for me at 4 am. I couldn't fall back asleep because of mega jet lag, so I spent about an hour in the lobby before deciding that I needed coffeeeee in a serious way.
All of the roads, including the main backpacker drag, were completely pitch black. NO light. And there were motorbike guys coming up to me every 2 minutes asking if I needed a ride somewhere. But that's normal. Everyone is a taxi driver. however, even though I knew I didn't really need to worry, I felt it would be safer to try to find something REALLY near to our hotel.
Nothing was open except this 24 hour outdoor bar, and I would've walked past it in a hurry if not for the sweet looking girl waitressing the empty bar. Since she was a girl and the place had no people in it but her, I felt like it was a good place to park it and read my book for a little while and enjoy a latte.

When the sun finally came up I went down to see the beach for the first time. It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo magical. Like, the nicest beach with the craziest waves and blue and sand as far as the eye can see.  I did some writing there for a few minutes and came back to my two boys playing with the hotel safe, one on the verge of tears.  (I'll give you a hint, it wasn't Stuart).

We played in the lobby for part of the morning, went and had a SUCCESSFUL breakfast as a family with our portable high chair (an absolute life saver. We would die without it at meal times and it has been such an amazing thing to have.)

After that we headed to the beach and Joey fell asleep on the way, leaving us ample time to walk down the beach with him in the stroller, covered by a sarong, and even about 45 minutes of R and R time at the beach.

We came home after an awesome morning, showered, played, and went out for ANOTHER successful meal as a fam.  The waitresses were in love with Joey and distracted him with peak-a-boo while we ate. It was really nice for us and he was super happy and social.

We came back to the room and Joey snoozed while I went for a long walk to get us some more gelato.  It all pretty much melted by the time I got back to the hotel because of how far away it was, but Joey was up anyway at that point and ready to parrrrty.

Blah, I'm getting really tired, so I'll say the rest in point form:

-Down to the beach to watch sunset/beautiful
-HORRIFIC time at restaurant because Joey needed to fall asleep desperately and service was non existent
-finally home and really tired

It was all in all a GREAT day, though. If every day could be like today we'd be laughing! Here's to a great Bali adventure!