Happy New Year...

Hi All...I will work hard this weekend when we return from Bali to get you caught up on the rest of our trip. Just going to enjoy the last few days with the family...

We wish all of you a safe and happy New Year's Eve! May 2014 bring you health and happiness...

(Written with rocks in the sand at our hotel)

Bali...The First Few Days...

We are here in Nusa Dua, Bali. This vacation was booked back in June while we were still in the States as it was just a place I never, ever, thought I would get the opportunity to visit. And, now, it's just a short plane ride away.

We're staying at the Grand Mirage - an all-inclusive. We don't do the all-inclusive thing all the time, but it's so easy when you have kids and really don't want to think about every drink you order or each time the kids want a dish of ice cream. This place has been perfect for us - the staff is friendly, the resort is nice without being over-the-top fancy, the drinks are good and the weather has been picture perfect.

As someone said, the view from our room does not suck!

This vacation is really all about relaxation...and it has truly been that. The kids have been incredibly courteous and grateful (I don't think I've heard so many please and thank yous.) We've all had fun shopping, seeing cultural shows and having massages.

Friday night we had the pleasure of meeting up with Amy An, her husband, Phil and her son, Drew at the Devdan show. Amy brought with her the LeBron XI basketball shoes I ordered for the boys and a present from my friend, Becky - and some Tootsie pops. She makes a fabulous "mule."

The show was quite enjoyable. Think Cirque du Soleil (along with lots of song and dance) with a native twist and then throw in a random dash of hip-hop. The kids loved it due to the fire and rain aspect of it - definitely a show that would keep adults and children entertained - even if it was a bit touristy. The final dance of the night - or it was close to the final dance - was about the Papua penis gourd. Now, I can't make this stuff up, but there were men dancing with quite large penis sheaths on stage. You can read about the penis sheaths here  - in case you think I'm lying! (All I can tell you is that I've seen lots of penises depicted in various forms here!)

Me and Amy and some presents from home

Before the show on Friday evening, we did some shopping with the boys. While we had every intention of grabbing dinner before the show, none of us were overly hungry. So that left us with some time to kill. The boys voted for foot massages - their first ones. Massages are so cheap here...think $6 USD for one hour. Caleb thought the foot massages were "amazing." And Grayson thouroughly enjoyed it, too.

New hats were purchased!

Foot massages for everyone!

Saturday was a lazy day...just hanging at the hotel. Lots of time in the pool and at the beach. We met two moms from Australia who are here with their little boy, Pheonix. They recommended a massage place down on the beach that would also do tattoos for the kids. We asked how much the massage was - 50,000 rupiahs per hour. At the current exchange rate - $4 USD per hour. WOW! Can we say massages every day!? We took the kids down with us...they each had a 30 minute massage while Blaine and I had the one hour. The kids also thought this was fantastic - although they really only came for the tattoos!

Your view during the massage and Nico doing tattoos

All tatted up! 

All right...that takes you up to Saturday evening. I'll try and pick it up there, as Saturday night had us seeing another dance here at the hotel...I just need to get the pics downloaded as I took them on my "real" camera - and not just my phone!

Fab 5 Friday...

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas!! It's such a great time of the year...no matter where you are or who you spend it with. While we missed our family and friends, we were thankful for new friends who made it special.

Time to to share this week's Fab 5!!!

1. Christmas Eve At The Pool. We spent some time Christmas Eve at the pool with new friends. When we originally told the boys we were moving to Malaysia, I played up the fact that they would be able to swim at Christmas - so we needed to keep our promise. It was fun to hang out for a while and then we headed home to maintain the Christmas Eve tradition of homemade pizza. Christmas Eve was fun for the Blackburns.

Hangin' poolside

2. Christmas Day. Christmas Day was filled with presents, friends, and good food. We spent the morning with the kiddos doing the present thing...they made out like bandits. (Really, no one can be surprisedd by that!) Then, we were off to the Ritz-Carlton for Christmas brunch. We had no idea that brunches were so popular, but soon learned that most places were fully booked for Christmas Day - so glad I made reservations weeks ago. The Gallaghers joined us for Christmas...which was fantastic! The more the merrier! The Ritz was great - tons of delicious food (could've lived off the seafood platter alone), champagne flowing, and lots of activities for the kids! We had a wonderful afternoon and finished Christmas grateful for all we have.

Present time

Checking things out

Basketball socks, new running shoes and pajamas

The Ritz

Yummy!

Caleb loved the popovers!

Champagne and desserts

Awesome friends!

Face painting

All of us full and happy!

Would totally go back to the Ritz next Christmas! Great for kids and adults!

3. Caleb and soccer. So here's my mommy brag moment...Caleb was chosen to play on the 9U soccer team for MKIS in the tournament at the French school. I was so pleasantly surprised by this as he has never played soccer until he went to a one week camp this past July and now he loves his Saturday mornings at MKIS. I don't think it will ever beat out baseball or basketball, but I could not be prouder of his commitment, his effort, and his dedication.

4. Bali. Yeah...big surprise here. We're in Bali right now and I'm in heaven. I'll blog more about it later, but I just love the ocean and the beach and a breeze...

The Grand Mirage, Nusa Dua, Bali

5. Amy An. And, Amy gets her own place in Fab 5 Friday this week. I know Amy from our time in Iowa...and she happens to be in Bali this week. So fun to see a familiar face - even though it was brief. She also made my boys extremely happy by bringing the LeBron XI basketball shoes I ordered with her - along with a gift for me from Becky - and some Tootsie pops for the kiddos. We met her at the Devdan show, along with her son, Drew, and husband, Phil this evening and my boys could not put on their new shoes fast enough! Thank you Amy for being a wonderful "mule"! Hope you enjoy the nutmeg!

Me and Amy, Pandora from home, and new LeBron's

That's it! Smile and go enjoy your weekend! I know I will!

Zombie Gingerbread Men and Christmas Carols...

So Sunday was another day where we worked on finding our Christmas spirit. We started the morning with a gingerbread man/snowman cupcakes class at BIG with the boys. They were pretty psyched about this as "Miss Mabel" was going to be there helping...and as luck has it, she helped out at their station.

So there was two projects on the agenda - gingerbread cookies and snowman cupcakes. Let's just say that my children take a more modernist/abstract approach when it comes to the creative side.

Hard at work!

Snowman cupcakes

Yes...some more snowman cupcakes.

Zombie Gingerbread men - and one on stilts!

Alien invasion!

The kids said this class was a blast! These are not exactly the cookies I envisioned, but hey...whatever. They had fun!

Then, last evening we went to see the Selangor Choir perform at the Damansara Performing Arts Center. It was a lovely performance of traditional and contemporary Christmas carols. For part of the program they sang in Kristang, which is a Malacca-Melayu-Portuguese creole. It was quite beautiful...here's a taste of it:

We all loved this...as part of it was a sing-along! We knew most of the tunes and while we're not a musically inclined family, we sang loud and proud last night!

After a nice dinner at Porto Romano, it was home for Christmas cookies and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" - which had the boys laughing their asses off! Between the swearing and the cat getting electrocuted - who doesn't laugh?!

Getting closer to the big day! Hope you're ready for it - and all the fun it brings! 

Saturday Catch- Up...

It's Sunday around noon and we've had a jam-packed weekend so far...I'll do my best to get you all caught up on Saturday at the very least...

Yesterday we started our morning with a gingerbread house class at BIG. The whole family came...and there were lots of kids there that the boys knew...making it even more fun.

Cutting gingerbread for cooking - Caleb and his friend, Liam

Everyone hard at work!

All the makings of a great gingerbread house!

Construction begins! (And Owen starts sampling!)

Adding the decorations

Work continues

The finished project

The whole family poses with our house.

So...from the photos, the house looks like it's fairly sturdy. But, there were some major architectural flaws...as we left BIG, she started to fall apart. 

By the time we got home our house looked like a trailer park after a tornado has torn through!

Ah, this is our house after we got home!

Really, all we could do was laugh! We have the worst luck with gingerbread houses...yet, each year we continue to give it another shot!

Then we were off to a party in Klang. Blaine's controller was throwing a massive Christmas open house at her father-in-law's place. We really had no idea what to expect, but we packed up and headed to the party. There was tons of food, booze, music, kids, people...it was quite the festive event. There were a few other Cargill folks there and we enjoyed some cocktails and food and holiday music.

Listening to music and enjoying the food

We met this crazy (and quite drunk) man at the party. He was going table to table collecting bones (and perfectly good food) for his dog. He then proceeded to tell us all about his travels, property and how amazingly fit he was!  (Yes, all of this was repeated several times in the span of a 10 minute conversation.) Come to find out, no one is quite sure who he was and he spent a good portion of the day trying to convert people to Buddhism...Perhaps he should lay off the wine a bit!

Fit, drunk man at the party

Caleb getting some lamb

Then, we left the party and headed to I-City to meet some friends from M'KIS. I-City has a wax museum, carnival rides, a haunted house, a trick art museum and some other things. We were going to look at the lights, but had time to hit the trick art museum and a few rides before it got dark!

Trick art musuem

More of the trick art museum

The whiplash inducing bumper cars

There were a ton of lights and it really was quite pretty. You could ride in this little car (on a track) and be up in the lights - which the kids thought was quite fun.

And just as we got off the ride, the skies opened up and a huge thunderstorm was upon us. We made a dash to the car, but we were soaked! Nothing worse than driving home wet and in a deluge, but we made it!

Today has been another fun-filled day and I hope to have time to blog about it tomorrow!!! Enjoy what's left of your weekend!

Fab 5 Friday...

I can't believe it's Friday already and Christmas is just a few days away. It seems a little unbelievable! I'm feeling like I haven't done enough to prepare for Christmas this year. Things are definitely different...and I'm just going with it!

Here's this week's Fab 5!

1. Brownies. So...Blaine and I usually make these enormous cookie/goodies trays around Christmas. We spend a whole day baking and a whole day delivering...we probably made trays for 25 different neighbors and friends last year. This year I was going to skip the whole baking thing, but I just couldn't. It's my thing...and it actually relaxes me. I like to spend time in the kitchen. So...I banged out a bunch of brownies this year with cream cheese frosting. Definitely not the same as years past, but it got me in the spirit...

Brownies ready to be delivered by my little elves!

2. Package from Cargill. We received an amazing package from  the Cargill folks this week! Thank you SOOOOOOOO much! Deodorant, aspirin, Swedish fish, presents for the boys, make-up, pepperoni, our favorite BBQ sauce...I can't even remember what else! We completely appreciate everyone who has helped us to get some of our favorite things or things we can't find here!

Presents from home!

3. Soccer. The boys finished up their first round of soccer...and we couldn't be prouder of them. They showed great improvement for kids who hadn't really played the game until this past July. And they're even signing up in the new year for another session. While it's still not my favorite sport...I love that they enjoy it. You can see it in their faces when they have a good Saturday on the field.

Grayson with his medal and friends

Caleb's team getting psyched up! They played a really good match! They lost 9-8 in penalty kicks!

Caleb and his friends

Grayson showiing off the hardware!

4. Dehydrated Nutmeg. So, we went on a scavenger hunt for dehydrated (dried) nutmeg fruit this week! And what a search it was! Mabel was the winner of this hunt! She found it for us at a "tidbits" shop. Phew! I was not heading to Bali without this stuff! But, we have it in our hot little hands and we can't wait to bring it to Amy and Drew in Bali!

The prize!

5. School Holiday Parties. Caleb and Grayson had their Christmas parties yesterday at school and they were lots of fun. Caleb's class had a ton of food and we were able to see their latest projects involving the 'green screen' and their endangered species report. Grayson's class had several stations where the kids played games or worked on projects. I think the kids had a great time!

Okay...that's it for this week. We have a very busy weekend planned - so I'm sure I'll have lots of blogging to do next week. Hope you are all enjoying this hectic time of year...