Bintan, Indonesia...

It was a loooonnnnnnggggg weekend...in a good way. Mayah had one of the previous Mondays off for the Deepavali holiday so we decided to take off the Thursday before and really enjoy ourselves. (Ava now holds the record for the coolest birthday location out of all the kids...we were there over her birthday weekend). We figured we weren't going to be in such a great location for easy and inexpensive travel and lodging for too much longer so we might as well take advantage!! We decided on the Bintan Lagoon Resort that is located on an Indonesian island. It was beautiful. It was relaxing. It was perfect. We lived in our bathing suits for the better part of the 5 days we were there and ate way, way, way too much yummy resort buffet food. The best part, by far, was just being able to get in some well needed family time. Mayah and Connor would have to say the water slides and eating in the pool at the swim up restaurant was the best part :-)


Daddy loved the slides too...

Here is Mayah trying to enjoy her meal while the scary lizard is looking for scraps...

We also took some amazing excursions while we were there. My favorite was the snorkeling. We took a boat ride to a nearby coral reef where we we able to snorkel in the warm water. When we got there I noticed the boat driver throw some bread into the water to attract the fish so I decided to ask him if I could have some of the bread so Mayah, Grammy and I would be able to feed the fish ourselves while snorkeling. It was amazing!! All you had to do was hold a little piece of bread under the water in front of your mask and the fish would swarm over to you and eat right out of your hand.

The coral reef and all the cool fish were right under here. The best one was the sea anemone and the clown fish that kept peeking out and swimming back in...just like Nemo's dad taught him in Finding Nemo!

The other really cool thing we did was go on a boat ride along the Mangrove River. This was neat because we were really able to see the Indonesian fishing culture up close and personal as we traveled on the river...we came across many little stick huts right on the river that the fishermen and their families lived in. We also saw snakes curled in the trees and huge lizards...Jason was thrilled about that :-) We even saw a gigantic python...which wouldn't have been a problem if we were viewing it from a distance, but our boat driver felt the need to stop the boat at each and every sighting and let the us drift right under the creepy things!! Not cool! You should have seen Jason try and act like he wasn't about to scream!!

This is an actual house that the fishermen live in. We were also taken by a little village made up of these stick huts where about 20 families lived.