last day [bali day 8]

As we are getting ready for a short weekend jaunt this weekend, I need to finish the Bali story. Our last day in Bali, we took a boat out to an island that has a sea turtle sanctuary. On the way to the island, we stopped for some snorkeling. I must say that the snorkeling was disappointing. Especially compared to Tioman Island. But at least it gave the kids perspective on how amazing the snorkeling was there! Where we were at in Bali, the waves were huge and kept crashing over us and the current was really strong. In fact, T spent exactly 5 minutes in the water and she was done. But that is how it is when you plan these things, you just never know how it will turn out. But Turtle Island (the sea turtle sanctuary) more than made up for it.

Baby sea turtles. The sanctuary helps sick turtles and after a year or so, they are released back into the ocean.

Picking up a medium-size turtle. This one was about 8kg (or 17.5 lbs.).

So funny that Becca was making faces here. But as you will see, there is no need to doubt her bravery.

Given the opportunity to get in the tank with the bigger turtles, Becca was the first to jump at the chance.

These turtles are about 120kg (264.5 lbs.) and around 65 years old.

 T loved feeding them kelp.

 B was a little uncertain about this lizard. Can't say that I blame her!

 T would only touch it with some Daddy assistance.

Anyone questioning her bravery now?

She did NOT want the eagle on her shoulder.

Can you read his lips? He is saying, "Ow! That hurts!"

 But after the eagle was placed on his shoulder, he was ready to show a big smile.

The eagle was trying to nip at my sunglasses. I laugh every time I look at this pic.

Yeah, that is the girl that was cringing at a sea turtle. Holding a bat.

These are such crazy birds. I have no recollection of their name.

The boat ride back was fun through the big waves.

Then we got back in enough time to spend the afternoon at the hotel pool. We had brought our sinkers with us. Who knew that 4 rings could provides days of entertainment?!

T freaked out several hotel guest with her goggles. One lady kept saying, "they are just so weird."

Writing postcards to friends in the US. Something we try to do whenever we travel. One small way that helps our kids stay connected with friends in the US.

5 scoops of absolute yumminess. We each picked a flavour of gelato. I think we choose: cookies and cream, ferrar roche, carmel, chocolate chip and nutella.

Doesn't this day just keep on going? Our flight left Bali at 2 AM. Isn't that craziness? Tori didn't even make it to the check-in counter before she fell asleep. After we checked in, Andy carried her through immigration, and plopped her in her seat on the plane. Later when she woke up, she asked, "Have we taken off yet?" We had already been in the air for 5+ hours!

Of course, J has his kindle!

We had such a great trip. But are glad to back in the routine of life. I was glad to have the break of not even thinking about adoption paperwork for a whole week! But we are back in the thick of it and our home study is next week.

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.

buying the essentials [bali day 1]

After our crazy day of travel, we woke up ready to enjoy the beach. But there was just one problem, the kids and all of my clothes still had not arrived. But the airline had given us some money, and we headed to the mall next to our hotel to buy the one essential thing for the beach. . . swimsuits!

Thankfully our sunscreen and most of our other essentials had been packed in Andy's suitcase. We lathered up, and spent the afternoon at the pool. Later that night, we ate at one of the restaurants at our hotel by the beach and were given quite the show. Look at this marvelous sunset. (these are in order of when taken)

Mightier than the thunders of the great waters,

mightier than the breakers of the sea --

the LORD on high is mighty.

Psalm 93:4

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;

let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.

Psalm 95:1

Truly magnificent.

We got back to the room, and our suitcase still had not arrived (much to the dismay of the kids). But after they were in bed, wearing the same clothes for the 2nd full day, the luggage finally made it.

Sprint through Seoul

I have been absent. But with very good reason. We just spent a week at the beach with limited internet. But I am back in the land of wifi, and have many stories to share.

Our adventure started with just getting there.

We flew from Shanghai to Seoul, then Seoul to Bali. Almost 3 hours to Seoul and then from Seoul to Bali was 8 hours. We flew a new airline, Korean Air. And I have nothing but good great things to say about them. On-demand TV, kids' meals, and enough leg room. But transferring in Seoul?

Was a nightmare.

We had an hour and a half. Which would seem like enough time. But our plane was slightly delayed, and when we got off we had to wait in this incredibly long line to go through security. As we stood in this group that was not exactly a line, people got ugly. Name calling, cursing at others, and just general nastiness. YIKES. And all the while, the line was going nowhere and we were running out of time. I stayed in line, while Andy searched for someone to help us out. After talking to several not-so-helpful people, finally one attendant showed us that there might be another security line. We ran down a hallway, found the other security that had no line. As we went through security, we heard the final call for our flight. Ran down another hallway, and gasping made it on to the plane.

The flight was uneventful, but we arrived in Bali at 1:30AM. But the fun was not over yet. As I waited at the luggage carousel, I saw a sign with our name on it that we needed to report to the service desk (never a good sign). Neither of our bags had arrived. We waited in another line and after another 30 minutes, one of our bags arrived. Another 15 minutes in line, we found out that our other bag would not arrive until the next day. Of course, it was the bag with the kids' and my clothes in it. We got through immigration, found a taxi and got to our hotel at 2:30AM.

You can imagine the state of the kiddos. Honestly, you can imagine the state I was in. But our mantra the whole time: Just get there and tomorrow the beach. (And we said it many times throughout the day!)

Counting down to New Year

With the weather turning colder and rainy, we are starting our countdown for Chinese New Year. CNY is really early this year. The official day is 23 January. But we leave for vacation in just over a week, 19 January.

For Andy, CNY does not start until the company New year party is over. Each year, he gives a speech to start the dinner off. The past couple of years, he has given the speech entirely in CHINESE. Needless to say, he prepares for this for a long time and it stresses him until it is over. The company dinner was this past Saturday and he did an AMAZING job. I was so proud of him as he looked relaxed and gave a great speech. [just to brag a little more on him, he talked for more than 5 minutes!]

You know it is successful when you tell a joke in another language and people actually find it funny and laugh. Because I have found that humor can be so unique to culture. He told several jokes in Chinese and each was greeted with laugher. Success! Countless times, I have said something that I thought was funny and no one laughs. Then other times, I say something, everyone laughs and I have no idea why.

So now we are looking forward to our annual trip. Each year during CNY we visit someplace in southeast Asia. This year we are going to Bali, Indonesia. Beach, jungle, volcano . . . bring it on!

**Just as an aside: Honestly, we have a great camera that takes wonderful pictures. But do you ever find that it is just hard to always have it on hand? I must confess that I am amazed by the blogs where every picture is phenomenal. Because while I love to take pictures, sometimes in everyday life it is just not practical to drag the camera on the bus (or e-bike). So I make do with my phone. And as a result, share crummy-quality pictures with you.

How is it that every picture I took of Andy giving his speech he had his eyes closed? One would think he was concentrating really hard or something!

 Part of the New Year's party is games. In the past they have hired performers. One year there was a magician who was entertaining. There were dancers one year that were slightly alarming. I wanted to cover my boy's eyes. But overall, the employees prefer games that get people on stage having fun together. Because the company has only 2 foreigners (Andy and an intern), all of the games were in Chinese. Some I didn't quite get everything that was said (understanding Chinese through a microphone is hard much like over the telephone). But one was a game that a team of 2 people had to make various letters of the alphabet. They started out with easy ones like A and D. But the grand finale?

T.

Here they are thinking about how they are going to pull it off.

The end result?

And yes, the picture quality is terrible. But I think I was laughing too hard to keep my phone still!

Becca so wanted to be part of this game. A bit later, she got her chance as they asked if any kids would like to participate.

Can you tell the letter? I really enjoy the mom (who is the HR manager) giving directions in the front.

As we are down to just days before vacation, I am wondering if we are going to get our medical check done for the adoption before going. [sigh] We are still waiting to hear about to-notarize/not-to-notarize.

I continue to furiously gather papers and put things in motion in the US. Thankfully, all of the things I need to do right now are just on the US-side. Because nothing is going to be happening in China for the next couple of weeks. This country shuts down for a couple weeks around CNY. Just as an example, Tori's Chinese school gets 3 weeks off!

While I know that delays are part of the process, I so want things to keep moving forward. One thing I know this journey is going to teach me every step of the way is patience.

Tioman Island - Snorkeling

On our second full day on Tioman we chartered a boat to take us snorkeling. This island is well-known for its great scuba and it has a lot of shallow-water reefs that are also great for snorkeling.

Geared up and ready to go!

Tori had a mixed reaction with the snorkel at first. She loved seeing and being able to breathe, but it kept bothering her. And then fixing it was complicated. Because she could never quite explain just exactly how it was bothering her. It just was. But when we went a second day she had gotten it.

We spent the morning at two different locations, but on our way to another island the wind picked up and it started to rain. With the wind blowing the kids were freezing. I had to buy two beach towels because they were just so incredibly cold. They had warmed up some by this picture but before their lips were a little bluish.

Time to refuel with chocolate pancakes. Lunch of champions.

With her cute braids and sea-salty hair, I kept calling T my little island girl. Here the island girl is warming up with some hot tea.

Can you see all the fish just swarming around Josh? How cool is that?

Tori, Andy and Becca

Becca is such a fish herself. For part of the time, she was not even wearing her life jacket. It kept happening that we would look up and she was a bit away from us. But even with all of her adventurousness, she had mixed feelings about the swarm of fish being right on top of her. Loved seeing the fish, not so crazy about them bumping into her face. I gave her the advice that if she kept moving then the fish would avoid her. Later I would look at her and she would appear to be just flailing around. At first I was confused because she is an excellent swimmer, but then I realized all this flailing was to keep the fish at bay. Love that crazy girl!

 Amree and T found an anemone. Or as Tori kept calling them: sea enemies.

Just a little slice of paradise. The tiny little island on the right side was our favorite spot to snorkel. There we saw countless clown fish, anemones, amazing coral, countless kinds of fish, and even a sting ray gliding along the bottom. What a unique experience!

So you might notice that is a marked lack of pictures containing me. Well, the reasons for that are two-fold. Even though Andy and I normally both take pictures, I took most of these. Secondly, do you have any idea what you look like after having your head in the water all morning? My vanity reared her head and for once I am letting her have her way. It was not pretty. Think I will leave it up to your imagination.

But we had a wonderful time. So much that on our last day when we gave the kids a choice of what to do, they unanimously choose to go snorkeling a second time. We will all cherish these memories.