I like dressing up, but I don't really like all the planning and buying stuff that's involved in dressing up. So more often than not, I'll revert to a last-minute halloween costume with whatever's lying around.
...that's the marking for where he does a god damned NECK STAND. I would have been impressed by this alone, never mind that fact that HarMar was singing a song (and killing it) the whole time.
And an extra special thanks to Scott & Leigh! In addition to pulling dance moves like this all night, they also shot tons of footage and interviews of the party...
Towards the end of the night, someone had the genius idea to recreate Meredith's fall from the chair earlier in the evening. Haha. I love how Fatty's reaching in to lend a hand.
...this AMAZING video she edited together for us. It's one of the best gifts I've ever gotten! I smile ear to ear every single time I watch it. It's set to one of my favorite songs of all time (Jump in the Line by Harry Belafonte) and all the edits are INSANELY TIMED to the lyrics! It's SOOOOO GOOD! BTW: The auteur herself makes only a brief, hidden appearance at 2:59. (You can see her blue-painted fingernails reaching out to accept a VDC from the bartender. Haha.)
...because he and Matt were dressed exactly like with matching haircuts and everything. (They're giving Vin & Marco back in their hey-day a run for their money)
We're trying to train Maddy to stay out of the bed but it's really difficult because our bed is really low to the ground (and because she is really adorable). So ended our first month as married folks!
The cold Meredith had been fighting since we got home finally caught up with her. She had such terrible chills that she needed to wear my fur hat in bed. Look at that tan! I've never seen such a pretty sick lady!
For our last night in Bali, we went to the Ubud Palace to see the Royal Gamelan Orchestra! "A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings."
On Saturday morning we woke up to the sound of someone hitting the tiny gong at our weird mini-palace gates! I went out to investigate and it was the hotel staff setting up the 8am breakfast we'd ordered the night before out on the little island thingy in our pool!
After dinner, we ended up going just a few feet down the road and booking a bungalow at Saranam Eco Resort. The hotel's front desk is right off the road at the top of a mountain. In order to get down to the bungalows (which are at the BOTTOM of the mountain, you have to get in a little elevator car and a cable-winch slowly lowers the car down a railway laid on the hill.
...onto a super-narrow local road. Most of the roads that wound up through the mountains were this wide. It doesn't look too scary here, but imagine having a 1,000 foot drop to your left and trying to share it with oncoming trucks whizzing around blind corners.
NONE SHALL PASS! (The guy at the temple didn't speak any English, put he certainly understood the pantomime for "Hey, wanna pretend we're having a SWORD fight for this photo?" Yes!)
The temple was getting ready to close and we were the only visitors! Luckily, there was a temple minder there who's job was to show you around and to help keep the monkeys from getting too aggressive!
REAL MONKEYS! Check out our first customer! Monkey's just so maxed and relaxed! As we got closer to the temple, monkeys were everywhere! We were strolling along the beach holding bags of "monkey treats" that we'd purchased from the locals when suddenly, a large male monkey walked up to us and started reaching up to grab Mer's bag of monkey treats. Meredith tried to play keep away, but the monkey launched himself into the air, landed on her chest, held onto Mer's waist with HIS MONKEY FEET (!!!) and then used his super-monkey-strength to rip the bag of monkey treats out of her hands! TREAT-MUGGED BY A MONKEY!
Right after the mugging, the locals saw us struggling to defend ourselves against a pack of monkeys encroaching on our space intent to steal our second bag of monkey treats and they started waving at us and showing us that we should pantomime like we have rocks to throw or slingshots in our hands and the pantomime totally scared the monkeys away! Good looking out, locals! Thanks!
After I was awoken by a noisy gecko in our room, I went outside to explore the beautiful grounds at the Amertha Bali Villas. It was pretty dark when we'd checked in the previous night and getting to see the resort by daylight was breathtaking. This is the view of our bungalow...
The next morning we woke up before 5am and went downstairs to swim in the hotel's gorgeous edgeless pool that's right down near the beach. (Meredith's in the pool, but you can see the ocean right behind her).
Mike took this great photo of us with some of the Cathay Pacific flight attendants, then we said goodbye and headed to the gate. Thanks so much for coming out to see us off, Mike!
