Bali Baby: Hangin out

Tonight we went out for dinner with a European couple (Marcel and Heike) and their 11 month old baby, Tom. Tom is actually only three days younger than Joey and looks a lot like him! Well, maybe not that much like him, but he is likewise afflicted with baby baldness

Here is a blurry picture of the two of them playing

Can you tell who's who?

Anyway - how we met the three of them was earlier at an internet cafe when we were drinking our cocoa banana drink (banana, soy milk, coconut milk, and a hint of cocoa... so...gooood...) They came in with Tom on their back in a hiking backpack for babies and we quickly struck up a conversation that ended with them inviting us to dine with them.

When six o'clock rolled around pretty much the last thing we wanted to do was go out with these strangers. It seemed a lot easier to just go out and eat when we were hungry and put Joey to bed at 7:30 as we did every night previous. However, we had made a commitment and we didn't want to go back on it... especially since they were to be meeting us at our hotel.

We were a bit nervous that they were going to take us to some expensive restaurant that we didn't want to spend a bunch of money on and decided that we'd just suck it up and go wherever they recommended. It turned out that they took us to exactly our favorite restaurant when we were staying at Tegal Sari :Warung Semesta - a great vegetarian, organic restaurant that was also, as luck would have it, cheap.

The two and a half hours that followed were of course spent talking about our travels and theirs, and about our two little boys and what life is like with them.

It was a nice evening.

Here is Heike, Tom, Joey, and me after dinner:

A nice end to a lovely day full of walking, eating, and shopping around Ubud.
Today I actually bought a few things to bring home.

I met a woman in a wooden jewelry shop, sitting in the back corner crocheting a beautiful pattern. When I asked her what she was working on, she held it up. It was a shirt! She told me she had been working on it for the past ten days. We talked for a while and I found out that she had recently married and was hoping to be pregnant soon .We talked about marriage and babies and our husbands. I tried on the shirt she was almost finished making and bought it for around 17 USD. I'll pay that for ten days of work.

Stuart and I bought some nice salad tongs, also. Not much else, though. I bought a wooden ring and some wooden earrings. I almost got Joey some overalls with lizards on them and another pair with monkeys eating bananas, but maybe I'll buy them tomorrow. My bartering skills weren't great today.

This afternoon a monkey came onto our porch and we got some awesome footage of us standing behind a giant glass window in our hotel room. Joey pressed his hand against the glass and the monkey pressed his hand to the glass where Joeys hand was! It was sooo precious.

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Here are some pictures from the last two days. They're not in any particular order

The three of us at one of our favorite restaurants enjoying some Gado-Gado. - Yes, those are real flowers in my hair! I get to put beautiful flowers in my hair every day here. They're all over the sidewalk!

Daddy and Joey after a long walk through town after visiting the Champuan Hotel and walking through its award winning gardens in the middle of the afternoon.