Day 13, March 21st

I will go ahead and warn you, this post is picture heavy. But it was the last day of our sightseeing.

This is the only picture I have of our driver. His name is Gede, (I hope that is how you spell it,) pronounced "G'day." We were about to take a boat ride to an island and while I was waiting on Brent to pay, I just was messing around with my camera and took a picture of this ant.

Our boat was a glass bottom boat. It was really neat. We took some bread with us to feed the fish.

The island was like a petting zoo.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it because Brent doesn't like snakes. I can tell he is laughing with a nervous laugh. He told me he loosened up a little once he saw the snake's mouth was taped.

A HUGE bat!

Brent is the one on the left :)

I included this picture because in another area of the "zoo" they were having cock fighting! I was shocked and told Brent. He casually said, "We are not in the U.S. Rebecca." So I just had to bite my tongue and try not to look over that way.

I also got to enjoy a refreshing Sprite in a bottle!

Before we got back on the boat.

This next picture was one of my favorites from the entire trip. This is in a rice patty. We just pulled over the car and took their photo. After I took this picture, one of the ladies waved at me.

We continued on toward the top of a mountain and got to enjoy lunch at a buffet looking out over a volcano crater lake. This was where we ate lunch.

It was sooooo good. We then went to an area called monkey mountain, where, you guessed it, there were monkeys. We pulled over at a fruit stand to buy some food to feed the monkeys. Brent gave the money to our driver, so that he could buy it at a lower rate. The lady we bought the food from told our driver (in Indonesian) "They can pay more, they are tourists." Gede then told her in Indonesian, "You better watch it, he (Brent) speaks Indonesian." She then turned to Brent and began apologizing. I am glad I was oblivious to what was going on.

Here is Brent feeding the leader.

The little ones have to grab food when they can without the leader seeing them.

I love this picture!

Finally he was full!

Look at the baby!

On further up the mountain there was a gorgeous view of the valley below.

Just thought I would include this picture I took driving by an Indonesian woman.

Another rice patty.

A statue back in town.

This was another touristy area we went too. There were numerous temples of different cultures all together in one spot. The thing that was a little aggravating was that there were people, including kids, everywhere that were trying to sell us useless stuff. It gets old really quick.

Here was one of the temples. You had to wade in the water to even get there, and even then, you had to be a holy man.

Some more scenery on the way back to the hotel.

After this we were exhausted. We went to Bubba Gump Shrimp for supper. The staff all looked at us funny when we said we were from Alabama. (Not Greenbow though!)

Happy Mother's Day!

I know 99% of you have seen this, but I thought it was appropriate for Mother's Day!

Update

Brent is doing well. Everything went as good as could be expected. Now the healing process begins.

However, you know that it couldn't be a uneventful day when it comes to the Hatchers!

The monsoon that began early Thursday morning did not detour us from getting to the hospital, but silly me wore flip flops. When we were walking out of the parking deck to the hospital, I slid down the sidewalk, ripped a whole in my jeans and busted my knee.....while it was raining. We then waited for an hour for them to call Brent back. Then, while we were waiting on them to take him to surgery, I accidentally told Brent that where we were going for his birthday surprise trip in June. Good job Rebecca! I didn't tell him what we were doing though, but the week is not over yet. Brent said that God gave me to him to keep him from being anxious about the surgery, because I was sure keeping his mind off of it.

Thankfully, everything went well the rest of our time at the hospital. Later in the evening when we were all at home I went in to the play room to find Reese hiding under the train table. Uh-oh! I know what this means, but even if I didn't, the evidence was on the floor. He had pooped in his underwear, and then it came out onto the floor. Since my children both have weak stomach's (which they didn't inherit from me) Reese had left a little pile of puke on the floor too. I wonder if he was ever planning on telling me.

So I have:
poop on the floor
puke on the floor
child hiding under train table
husband laid up in the recliner, in pain
and my knee is swelling and all scraped up like I was a two year old.

Just keeping it real!

Prayer Request

Please keep Brent in your prayers tomorrow. He will be having outpatient gallbladder surgery in the morning. It is minor surgery, but as they say, it is only minor when it is not happening to you.
THANK YOU!

Day 12, March 20th

We started the morning off at breakfast at the hotel. It was all open air and gorgeous. Our driver took us to another play called a barong, I think. Barong is a character in the mythology of Bali. Don't let this picture fool you, Brent had a flower in his hair too! They put them above your ear when you walk in.

This was the orchestra. They used a lot of instruments like xylophones.

This was their offering to the gods. You see these EVERYWHERE!!! In front of stores, in restaurants, at every shop at the airport. I MEAN EVERYWHERE!

We left there and went to a shop that made batik cloth. Here they are using a stamp to imprint a turtle image on the cloth using wax. They will then die the cloth another color and take the wax off leaving the orange turtle behind. They will continue this with numerous colors.

Here one of the artist drew on my shorts with wax.

Such talent!

This was all open air.

This was a temple I believe that we passed on the road.

This was where we stopped to eat lunch. It had an amazing buffet.

Brent and his basket of food.

Here was the view of a volcano from where we ate lunch. It is said to be inactive but not dormant. The smoke above is just rain clouds, and about 10 minutes after I took this picture it stormed!
We left there and went to a coffee plantation. We actually got to see them roasting coffee.

We got to sample 2 types of tea and 4 types of coffee. We bought one cup of the "special" coffee. You could buy it in the gift shop for over $50 and that is US dollars!

A coconut tree.

The view from where we got to sample the coffees.

We then went to a temple that had relaxed rules and was open to the public.
Even though Bali is very laid back, and accepting of tourists whom either don't know the customs, or know them and choose to ignore them, they still make men and women cover their legs before entering the temple.

Here was the sign at the front of the temple. But it gets better..Please read number 3.

Before going back to the hotel, our driver took us by the Bali bombing memorial.

The decorative circle in the road is where one of the bombs went off in 2002.

Here is the list of everyone who lost their lives, grouped by country.

and so ended that day with our driver. We went to Hard Rock Cafe and ate some American food! It was a nice change.

Day 11, March 19th

We began our last morning in Jakarta by meeting Brent's dad for breakfast one more morning at the hotel breakfast. We then took a car to the airport to both catch flights. We were flying to Bali and Barry was flying back to Lampung. Back to the domestic terminal we headed. We checked our luggage and went to pay our exit tax. Brent gave me the money and we paid and went and waited at the gate. Later, I found out that Brent had given me the money on purpose to see what the airport employee would do. I didn't notice anything but Brent told me later that when I handed the guy the money he looked at Brent with a "look." There is still a touch of "women are second class citizens" there and I think Brent wanted to test the guy and see what he would do. I was oblivious to the whole situation.

I got to take a picture of a volcano while in flight.
Here was one of the Hindu statues at the airport.When we got to the airport, our driver met us at the airport. Brent had used this same driver two years ago and he remembered what Brent and his dad had done on their last trip to Bali. We decided to head straight to the best fire dance on the island. It is on the side of a cliff, with a gorgeous view of the sunset. It is a traditional Balinese fire dance where everything means something. This is a holy man who was using some kind of oil and incense to bless everything.

I can't remember what all the people represented but I do know that the person in the green is supposed to be a boy god and the other is some kind of girl god. It was amazing.

This was looking to the right of where I was sitting.

And then the part where they actually use fire. It was quite amazing!

After we left there we went to a wonderful restaurant where you got to pick your seafood, literally! Here I am picking out the red snapper!

This is where they take it to cook it.

Our view of the beach. BTW, there was a singing group serenading people on the beach, singing American songs. We actually heard them sing "Sweet Home Alabama!"

It was wonderful!!!