the beach [bali days 2 & 3]

We woke up our second day to rain. And not a gentle, soothing rain. It was pouring! The kids were a bit disappointed as we had talked that we would head to the beach that day. But we reassured them that in the tropics it rains a lot, but often clears up at some of the day (we were hopeful). Our plan was to get breakfast, then if it was still raining go next door to Starbucks for coffee and free wifi (because it was NOT free in our hotel). Walking out of the hotel, this is the view down the street. Believe it or not, there is a sidewalk on either side of the road. Or at least normally there is.

But much like we predicted, the rain cleared up. Though the day continued to be overcast and moody, we took a walk on the beach.

With the sun not out it wasn't really hot, so we didn't put on swimsuits. We started out walking.

Then progressed to wave jumping.

And quickly the kids were soaked.

T found a stick and couldn't resist drawing in the sand. She wrote her Chinese name: 美恩 (pronounced: may-uhn).

I must confess that I was not overly impressed with this portion of the beach. There was so much trash. Both in the sand and that was washing up in the waves. But later that afternoon, I went for a run. I turned the other direction out of the hotel and found a beautiful beach less than a 5 minute walk away. The following day, we donned swimsuits and a thick layer of sunscreen and trouped down to the other beach.

If you look in the distance, you can see the other beach we had been at the day before. Hard to believe these are so close and so different! We enjoyed having this little stretch of sand to ourselves.

Sand construction is serious business.

Those teeth are finally starting to come in.

 But the waves were HUGE. The kids waded in them and jumped in them, but they were just too big for swimming safely.

But even jumping in the waves doesn't get old.

Even if it does, kung fu -- water-style is an option.

Humors me how they match. How cute are they?

 The sand was so unique. Further up the beach, away from the crashing waves, the sand was much darker. We read that this is volcanic sand (there are beaches in Hawaii that are similar). The receding waves made such a intriguing design.

Even with the rain, a great start to vacation.


We even kept the sunburn to a minimum, which for Wilcoxen is an impressive task.