Friendsgiving 2021

I was really excited to host our first Thanksgiving in Jakarta!  On Thanksgiving day, we had a special dinner as a family, but it's difficult to do much because it's a regular school and work day for us.  We had planned a big dinner on Saturday and invited several American families (and one French 10th grader who was curious about Thanksgiving) to come celebrate with us.

Our group grew to 23 people, so it took some work and lots of borrowing to make sure we had tables, chairs, plates, and silverware for the entire group.

Thank goodness Kayla had tables and chairs to put together a great table for all the kids.

I was pretty excited to decorate the table!

Had a little fun with the selfie stick again when everyone started arriving!

Alice made an awesome fruit turkey! Everyone really chipped in to get all the food we needed.  Amanda's dressing and gravy were pretty important and all the other majors sides were covered.

The kids had fun shooting their table from upstairs with nerf guns!

We were really thankful for Bubba, our barbecue guy, who fried our turkeys and sent them over at dinnertime.  My EZ bake oven could never handle a big bird.

We got (almost) the whole gang before dinner!  I didn't realize I'd cut off Ben and Noa on the right side until later. Such a wonderful group of friends.  They are very high on our thankful list this year!

Ahh, dinnertime! This table suddenly got very quiet.

Dinner was amazing, or so I heard.  As soon as I sat down, I realized I wasn't hungry at all.  About 15 minutes later, I was hit with pretty terrible food poisoning and I spent the rest of the night upstairs locked away in our bedroom.  I was grateful that I'd had a few hours to enjoy everyone's company but sick enough not to care that I was missing the rest of the party.

Amanda's desserts looked amazing!

We also had pumpkin, pecan, and apple pie!

The kids went upstairs to take over the game room and the adults moved to the kids table to play some games.

We had a 4-way tie for the closest guess of M&M's in the jar!  Since they couldn't all share the grand prize of Chick-fila sauce, they had to figure out some way to split all the goodies.  

Really thankful for our friend family here in Jakarta. We couldn't do this without them and they make it a pretty awesome place to live. But we're also pretty dang excited to spend the next big holiday with our actual families!

Grown Ups Having Fun!

Sometimes it seems like the kids are having all the fun, but sometimes the grown ups get out there and make their own fun as well!  The high schoolers have been planning get togethers every weekend with girls and guys (pictures strictly prohibited) and we can't be outdone by a bunch of teenagers.

When we found out that the karaoke clubs had reopened, we didn't waste any time getting a fun group together and spending an evening at Happy Puppy!

It was a terrific group of people, including a real guitarist and singer/songwriter.  The rest of us were just having fun...I'm sure we sounded amazing!

When Happy Puppy closed at 10pm, we took the party to Brett and Sandi's house because he has a full-on music room and real equipment.  The fun continued!

Their kids were asleep upstairs (or so we assumed) but they let their parents know the next day that we're not as talented as we thought :)

November Pokeeno night! It was hard to know where to sit because I love all of these ladies and we had a fantastic evening together.

We decided to give high tea at the Raffles a try on a Friday afternoon and it was a terrific find.

We got selfie sticks as a free gift and I was pretty entertained for the rest of the day!

The food was so gorgeous and inventive.

The chefs came out to meet us and one of them had a terrific sense of humor.  These "prescription chill pills" had to be his idea.  They're actually tiny cheesecakes bites!

Love the selfie stick!! ha!

And for a typical Jakarta day, we got in the car on a very stormy Friday evening and realized it was 1.5 hours to get home.  Thankfully, we'd been to a bazaar and had wine in the car and were able to stop and buy cups from a kaki lima on the side of the road, so the ride in Jenny's party van was much more fun!

Bali Buddies

Farrah invited us to join her in Bali with all the kids while Brian was traveling.  Naturally, we were excited to go on a long weekend when the kids all had a day off school and Matt will never say no to surfing!  As usual, first stop was Don Juan's.

For some added fun, Alice and her daughter Georgia joined us and Kayla came solo.  It was Kayla's first time to Don Juan's and she's now a fan for life.

Then we just had an entire weekend to relax, play, surf, and spa! We stayed at the Padma Legian this time because they were running a great deal and it's been highly recommended.  The kids gave the slides 5 out of 5 stars.

The pools were really beautiful. Unfortunately, the only pool with an ocean view was closed.  That was my biggest complaint about the resort - it's right on the beach but that's the only place with a beach view.  Seemed really odd.

We did of course enjoy the beach because it was just steps away, but I love to see it and hear it all day as well.

It was one of the rainier trips we've had in Bali.  Most of the time it rains in the evening and overnight, but this was more classic Jakarta rainy season weather - big downpours in the afternoon and light rain overnight. We had great porches to enjoy in the rain, though.

The skies cleared after the rain and Mt. Agung came out to greet us.

The kids had a ton of fun together.  Ben and Alex had their own room and it quickly became the clubhouse for everyone to hang around in together. Tate slept with them and Macy and Georgia managed to talk their moms into switching rooms so they could have a sleepover.  The best part?  The entire group was tired and happy to be in bed by 9pm! Adults included!

Saturday morning was really gorgeous and we all enjoyed the pools and Matt got to play golf. As the only guy there, he was pretty free to go and play wherever he wanted!

Kayla has been to the Padma at least 10 times and clearly the staff remembered her! They were so excited to have her back.

We did corral the kids occasionally for some food but they were a pretty self-entertaining group.  It was a great resort for them to run off and play.

As I had my morning coffee on the porch, I noticed that most everyone was wearing their hotel slippers to breakfast.  I finally tried it and I have to say, it's pretty comfy.  I went full out on the comfort at the pool, much to Farrah's chagrin.

The big pool was really beautiful as well.

Matt took all the kids surfing at the nearby break and everyone had a fun time, even Alex who absolutely didn't want to go but ended up catching the most waves!

The second evening, the kids all stayed and ate at the resort and several us of went next door for dinner.  We stopped for some cool pictures on the way back.

Sunday morning was pretty relaxed and we spent some time playing at the beach.  We all had flights at different times so we slowly said goodbye as each group left.

We were happy to be able to stay through lunch and enjoy the sunny day. Once it started raining, then it was much easier to pack up and say goodbye!

Thanks for a wonderful weekend!  And kudos to Matt for being so outnumbered all weekend and having so much fun.

Never get tired of seeing the volcanoes as we leave!  See you again, Bali!