Bali, Indonesia

We just had a great trip to Bali. Here are some pictures of the hotel in Ubud where we stayed. It was beautiful and we were lucky enough to have a fountain right in front of our "cottage." The girls took it upon themselves to clean all the rocks daily. 

We also loved the mosquito nets and they proved to keep spiders like the one we found outside from getting in our beds. Sorry about the lack of perspective with the spider, no one wanted to put their hands next to it. From head to tail it was 3 inches, so the legs were probably another 5 inches. Luckily it was his little brother we found on the ceiling of our bedroom. The staff made short work of that one.

The first day we were there, the island was decked out for a religious holiday. Ryan got this great picture of the women with their offerings balanced on their heads. 

 Here are the girls outside one of the market with a bunch of great spices from the Spice islands. 

 Here is some fabulous Balinese architecture (note that we are in the shade) where we stopped to see some traditional paintings and enjoyed a cool treat afterwards.

I got to take a great cooking class. I'm cooking ground chicken with spices on the left. I also made yellow chicken curry, rice baked in banana leaf baskets I made and the green banana leaves were filled with steamed fish puree (not my favorite).

After a few hours of driving the back roads of Denpasar, we finally found where the small LDS branch met. It was only a corner room in a small strip mall, and there are only 3 families who attend there regularly. In the last picture you can see Carl making some new friends at a restaurant. In Bali a family is considered "complete" with 4 kids, so we made quite a sensation as we traveled around with the locals, and the tourists for that matter.