Bali Girls Trip

It takes a lot of planning and organizing to get 12 women to go away for a weekend. Thankfully, we have Kayla to spur on the plans here and we came up with a pretty amazing weekend together at the Ayana in Bali. We were scattered among several flights and I was happy to be part of the early crew. We had our feet on the ground by 11am and were ready for a great day!

Naturally, I asked my group to stop first at Don Juan's because it's a tradition and it had been months since I'd had good Mexican food.

Next stop - the Ayana at Jimbaran. It's a gorgeous resort complex with 3 separate hotels connected by trams and pathways. First things first - always lock up your valuables.

Jenny was my lovely roommate and I had her bed all ready for her when she arrived after lunch.

We loved the afternoon sunshine and sharing laughs as more and more people arrived!

Katrice joined us from Singapore!

We had an amazing dinner on the rooftop at the Segara with a really fun waiter. I think he was enjoying our laughter as much as we were enjoying him!

Saturday morning, I took a walk early in the morning and found the spot where they feed the monkeys, smartly away from the hotel guests!

The Ayana straddles Jimbaran and Uluwatu and the coast along the front is gorgeous! But only a small patch of beach where you can swim.

Breakfast was quite generous!

Our trusty planner Kayla had us booked into the hydrotherapy massage pool - a very cool experience where you move stations every 90 seconds and targeted jets massage your back, legs, feet, and head.

Lunch poolside afterward!

Another challenge of having 12 ladies is that there aren't many times we can all be photo ready and in the same place at the same time. We had booked a resort photographer to get some group photos and in honor of King Charles' coronation that evening, we decided to go with a tiara theme for the evening!

Through a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings, we were all at the designated place but the photographer was not! Thankfully we had a professional in the group and someone else had an amazing phone, so we just took our own photos. The location was beautiful but it was SO hot. We took some shots quickly and then headed off in search of cold drinks.

Kayla, Jerilyn, Susan, Emily, Asha, Nancy, Katrice, me, Alice, Jenn, Kyra, and Jenny

We spent our evening at the Rock Bar, a pretty amazing bar and restaurant built into the cliffs. I'd always wanted to visit and it did not disappoint, but dang, it was so hot in the afternoon sun!

Our view was a little limited while we hid from the sun!

We met up with a few other friends that live in Bali and happened to be staying in the villas for the weekend. They're all influencers on social media and they were more than happy to keep our dress code for the evening.

When the sun started going down, we stopped sweating and really started enjoying our evening. The DJ was playing from her own little island and keeping us entertained.  Apparently, we were entertaining to her as well because she was wondering if we were famous!

We watched the king's coronation live from our table!

The DJ came down to meet us later in the night!

Our Sunday was so relaxed. Several of us spent most of the day at the cliffside pool and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The views were amazing and no kids allowed. Several people flew home throughout the day but I'd elected to spend an extra night with some other stayers and was so happy to have another day to unwind.

We had a great dinner at the seafood restaurant down on the beach. I'm always happy with my toes in the sand.

Fun concept where we picked out our seafood and how we'd like it cooked, and then enjoyed every bite of it.

On Monday morning, Alice and I checked out the putting golf course. 

We showered up and checked out and found out we had enough time for a foot massage at the airport!

On our way back home! We even made it back to our respective houses before the kids got home from school so it was a pretty wonderful weekend. I've been so fortunate to meet some really amazing ladies here and make memories together.

May Days

May is always such a busy time of year and this one was no exception. We kicked it off with a partial solar eclipse. Since we didn't have any special glasses, the only way to tell was by the reflection in the camera.

We needed to replace a lovebird, so Ben and I made a trip to pet street and came home with a new buddy. This traveling case was functional but probably not the best!

Gringo is a cute little guy and has been a fun addition to our flock.

The kids enjoyed some time at the waterpark during one of our many holidays that make the school year seem to drag on forever!

Watch out for flying balls! This did show us that the screens on golf carts really aren't designed to stop balls.

Happy anniversary to us! We had a lovely dinner at Henshin and celebrated 21 years together while the couple next to us got engaged.

A fun little poker night with some of our friends and their kids!

This was a golf course first - bananas for sale from a little stall just off the course.

A nice little snack while we played!

In preparation for the goodbyes this year, we decided to honor our friends Amanda and Shane by taking them for photo shoots around Jakarta.

While they were watching their son graduate, paper Amanda and Shane were hanging out in front of their house...

...and by the gate they used for school...

...and at their favorite graffiti.  They visited a lot of their friends and we had a pretty funny slideshow ready for their farewell party.

We celebrated our 17-year old with a stop at Chao Chao so the boys could see the cool rooftop.

But the main event was Tom's steakhouse. Ben loves a good steak and this tomahawk was pretty amazing!

Back home on his real birthday, we celebrated our favorite 17-year old! It's hard to believe this incredible kid is so big and only a year away from heading out into the world. We can't wait to see where he's going to go in life.

JIS organized a tennis tournament for students, teachers, and parents together. My partner Jenn and I were ready and even had the best shirts! But sadly we lost in the first round. It wasn't our day.

Alex and Georgia made a great time and easily defeated the ladies that knocked Jenn and I out of the bracket. They went on to round 3 and lost a tough match to a very talented father/son team.

We had our annual Booster Hut dinner and it was full of laughs and drama, as I would have expected. I decided to step down for the coming year and take on a new volunteer role at Parent Welcome, so it was also a fun chance for me to say goodbye to the friends I've worked with for 5 years.

You just never know what's for sale at the golf course!