Show Us Your Life - Favorite Vacation Spots

This week's Show Us Your Life topic at Kelly's Korner is favorite vacation spots. We love vacation and we love Bali, I thought it was the perfect time to reminisce about some of our past trips.

We have taken several trips to our favorite vacation spot, Bali! We used to live a short (30 minute) flight from there. Here are some the links that tell about our trips.

Our first trip to Bali was to attend some work meetings and celebrate our 2nd anniversary. We stayed in a hotel in Nusa Dua.

Part 1

Part 2

Vacation

Our second trip was a long anticipated vacation that took place the day after we found out we were expecting our first child. We stayed in a villa in Seminyak.

Family Trip

Our third trip to Bali was when my mom and brother were visiting and I was about 27 weeks pregnant. We stayed in a different villa in Seminyak.

And our last trip was when our baby boy was just 6 weeks old. We went with some friends and stayed in a villa in Seminyak.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Now that we live in Bangkok we are a little further from Bali, but we are hoping to take a nice family vacation there sometime in the next year.

The Aquarium, The River, The Tuk-Tuk and the Vacation That Wasn't

There is a big aquarium in the basement of one of the big malls in Bangkok. We have been wanting to check it out for a while and decided that we would wait until Mimi and Mel were with us. Asher has a DVD all about fish and the ocean, so he was very excited to see real fish at the aquarium. It was dark throughout most of the aquarium, so we didn't take many (good) pictures.




Oddly enough Asher's favorite part of the entire place was the musical about a horse and a mermaid. The whole thing was in Thai and he sat there like he understood and then wanted to go see the big horse when it was over.


We also enjoyed a boat ride down the river. We were cheap and instead of paying to take a tour we just hopped on one of the free hotel boats, rode down the river to a hotel and did some exploring near the hotel.


Outside of the hotel we found some tuk-tuks sitting around and decided to take Asher on his first tuk-tuk ride. We paid the guy about a dollar to drive us around for ten minutes. The longer we were in the tuk-tuk the more excited Asher became.




Definitely the best dollar I've spent in a while.


On the way back we checked out the super nice hotel lobby and the view of the river.




To end their time here we decided to drive down to the beach for the weekend. Hmm, how to sum up the beach weekend? Well we were back in Bangkok less than 12 hours after we left, we never saw the beach and for a while we thought Asher might have had a concussion.

We went swimming and Asher looked cute as always.


Then he slipped and fell on the super slippery tile that was everywhere by the pool and inside the house. Unfortunately he fell into the corner of a concrete wall and dented his head.

(No Pictures Available)

Because of that and a few other problems we decided to just head back home and enjoy our last few days of Mimi and Mel at home.

Five Years Later

Mimi graciously offered to keep Asher overnight so that Roger and I could celebrate our fifth anniversary. After spending weeks trying to decide what to do on our big night out we decided to be nostalgic and return to the Conrad Hotel where we stayed on our honeymoon.

Here we are on our Honeymoon in 2005.


And here we are in 2010.


When we checked in they found out it was our anniversary and soon afterwards chocolate and flowers arrived in our room.


We spent the evening eating some wonderful French food (we've wanted to eat French food ever since watching Julie and Julia), watching the season 4 finale of Lost and enjoying the view of the city from our room.


The next morning we slept in as late as we wanted to...until 7:30! Breakfast was wonderful and then our very best friend came to see us.




He brought Mimi and Mel with him and we all went swimming.


Asher splashed around with us for a while...


Then he found Uncle Mel and had even more fun.


You know it's been a good day when it ends with wrinkly toes!

The View From The Top

We had to do some touristy things while Mimi and Mel were here, so I took them to the top of the tallest hotel in the Kingdom of Thailand to see the city.


Of course Asher spent most of his time in the tuk-tuk. I should also mention that Asher has learned to say tuk-tuk and can spot one a mile off in heavy traffic.


This time he shared the tuk-tuk and let Mimi drive.


Asher posed for a picture with Mel.


Asher and Mimi posed for some traditional Thai pictures. Asher is a handsome little prince.


We out to the revolving sky deck, but Asher and Mel thought it was hot and bright, so we didn't stay too long.


Asher and Mimi went for a hot air balloon ride.



After that morning of excitement we had a very long ride home and everyone (except for me and Roger) took afternoon naps.

The end.

Mimi and Mel in Bangkok

Mimi and Mel have come and gone. We had so much fun while they were here and we miss them so much already! Every morning Asher wakes up and asks for Mimi and then once we are downstairs he takes a walk around looking for Mimi and Mel.

We didn't know exactly how Asher would respond to Mimi and Mel when they first got here. He hasn't seen them in person since December, but he has seen them on skype and we have lots of pictures of them around the house. Asher was a little confused when they went to get him up the first morning, but after a few minutes he was excited to see them.


Asher took Mimi to see his car. He was using a branch to clean the wheels, he is very proud of his car.


He gave them lots of smiles and was generally pretty excited to see them.


Of course Mimi came with a suitcase full of goodies. Peanut butter Twix for Roger, Peanut Butter M&M's for me and clothes and shoes for Asher. Lots of shoes. Check out his Sperry's...he looks like a preppy little man.


Asher also had lots of kisses for everybody. He's just stopped the big open mouth kisses and is way into kissing everybody (and every thing) that he likes.

10 More Days

Mimi and Mel will be here in 10 days and we are getting pretty excited about their visit. Today we made a Countdown to Mimi and Mel calendar and put it up in the living room. I did most of the work, but Asher colored on a few of the pages for me.


Yes, I know my baby has sloppy joe on his face. But they were really good sloppy joes (The Pioneer Woman) and I can't blame him if he wanted to save some for later. He's still sweet and he still can't wait to see his Mimi.

Christmas Day 2009

Asher had a wonderful Christmas, he had no idea it was Christmas, but I still think he had some fun. He was a little more into opening the presents, he actually tried to tear off some of the wrapping paper. Actually he was only interested in trying to open the first present, the other two he never really noticed.

Asher got three gifts this year, but he has only gotten to play with one so far. The other two are staying in their packaging until we get to Bangkok (in 34 days). We got out his new truck for him to play with and he loved it.

He spent most of the day driving his truck around the house saying "car" and making lots of car noises.

His other two gifts were some wooden blocks and a bead roller coaster. Thank you IKEA, I did all of Asher's Christmas shopping in about 5 minutes.

Of course one of the best parts of Christmas was getting to see Mimi and Uncle Mel. They came to Vancouver for a week to see Asher before we move to Bangkok.

Asher in Virginia - Week 5

Another week of training finished, another week closer to moving somewhere else. Here's another week of Asher in pictures.

Sunday night after "Sub-Saharan African Peoples Worship" we went down to the lake to get some photos of Asher. The light was perfect and Asher was full of smiles. By the way, Asher loved the African music and bounced and clapped the whole time we were there.

Monday evening after dinner we skyped Mimi. Asher had taken a few steps before this, but while Mimi was talking to him he stood up and walked all the way across the room. Look closely in the background of the picture and you can see Mimi on the computer screen. Some additional random trivia: this outfit is identical to the one Asher wore the first time he met Mimi at the Surabaya airport.

Tuesday afternoon after school Asher practiced pulling up. He learned to walk before he learned to stand.

Wednesday afternoon after school Asher was checking out what was going on outside of the quad. He is getting better at standing on his own, especially when there is a door to hold on to.

Thursday evening Asher and Daddy had fun while Asher cruised around the bed.

Friday evening we put Asher in a box and tried to mail him back to Kentucky. It cost too much so we decided to keep him here with us for the next 3.5 weeks.

Saturday we went to Washington, D. C. to explore our nation's capital. We visited The Capital Building and The White House. Asher was obviously very impressed by The White House even though we didn't get to go inside and we didn't meet our buddy (and fellow former Indonesian resident) Barack.

Asher's Family

Dada, Mama, Mimi, Asher, Uncle Mel

Granny and Asher

Mimi and Asher