summatime

today i'm missing...

fresh berries

eating dinner outside on the patio

no schedule

picnics in the backyard

and everything about summer, really.
you could argue that it's always summer in sing, but it's not the same ("endlessly humid" comes to mind).

my brother sent this photo a few days ago, and i love that he captured sage's deep blue eyes while we were hangin on the hammock.

pulau ubin

pulau ubin in an island between singapore and malaysia, and a mecca for bike riding. 

we rode over on a little bumboat with a few friends, rented semi-old school bikes, and biked to the wetlands.

our adventure according to the iphone...

 

we hiked up these tower stairs...

 to this view:

these two crack me up.
j is about five months younger than sage, and obviously was not interested in her attempts to hold his hand.

 but sagie thought it was all kind of funny.

i'm convinced we need a bike with a baby seat now.

mischief is the name of the game

forget toys and books...anything that can be opened and emptied is top on sage's list.

it's never a good sign when she stands on her tip toes...

messes galore!

bali: uluwatu

we spent our last day in bali near the southern tip of the island.
the waves were pretty big at dreamland beach, so we settled at padang padang beach.

the sand was soft, the sun was hot, and lunch consisted of magnum bars. perfect.

after the boys got some surfing in, we went to check out uluwatu temple, situated on a cliff above the ocean.

the trip was a balanced mix of relaxing and doing, and the company couldn't have been better. 

it's always a good idea to leave while you're having fun, and we all agreed we could have done a few more days.
i guess that means we'll have to come back here someday...

bali: harvest moon

in the village of lodtunduh is a cluster of villas that look out onto the endless rice paddies. 

we stayed at the harvest moon villa...incredible, serene, relaxing, and the perfect backdrop to this fun trip with matt and belize.

the villa was both indoor and outdoor, including this bath tub in its own koi pond. sage loved it.

at night, the boys would fill it with hot water and we had our own hot tub.

we waded through the rice paddies on skinny little trails and watched the kids come parading out with their kites. apparently, it was excellent kite flying weather while we were in bali because the skies were constantly filled with colorful kites.

breakfast was made in our villa every morning by a sweet crew of people who seriously never stopped smiling. such happy people! banana pancakes, scrambled eggs, toast, fresh tropical fruit, and papaya, watermelon, pineapple smoothies.

our last night in ubud, we had a cooking class at our villa with wayan suriani.

 she laughed at how outgoing we were, and giggled incessantly when nate messed up the balinese pancake he was in charge of flipping.

the best dish we made was mie goreng. those noodles melted in my mouth.

 

these green crepe-like pancakes are colored with crushed duan sugi and pandan leaves, then filled with a mixture of toasted coconut, cinnamon, and brown sugar. uhhh yum. 

belize was the master scribe and carefully wrote down each recipe. 

now if only i knew where to pick pandan leaves in singapore...

after the women cleaned up the kitchen, they chopped up banana leaves and cooked an egg. they quickly prepared twenty offerings for the gods. wayan told us that her mother said to always bless the kitchens she cooked in. belize and i went with the sweet women to the villa temple, and all around the kitchen and property as they placed these offerings to bless and protect. 

staying at harvest moon made all the difference in our trip. we'd definitely recommend it!

bali: tegallalang

standing in the middle of the tegallalang rice terraces was unreal.

we stopped for lunch at a little cafe that i'll remember for making my "top ten worst bathrooms i've ever had to use" list.

but this was our lunch view... 

 matt was our videographer 

 

we hired a little boy named dodi to be our guide, but first he chopped open a coconut for us.
 

 i think nate was the only taker on the coconut water

 

nate's shoe had an unfortunate encounter with the mud 

 

 the view after crossing the valley and beginning to hike over the hillside  

dodi showed us how he catches the tiny fish in the paddies

we met this woman along the trail and she motioned for us to try balancing her bucket on our heads too.
what was she carrying? oh, just a machete.

 

as we hiked further and further into the terraced paddies, it became just the four of us and dodi (and sage who slept through the whole shebang on nate's back). 

what a peaceful place...so quiet and just incredible as it was all built by hand.