Bali wasn’t exactly on our radar during this visit to Southeast Asia. But soon after arriving in Thailand and meeting up with our friends from A Kings Life, as well as meeting additional traveling families who make a home base in Bali, our 7 year old was begging to go and visit her friends in Bali. “Can we go to Bali for my birthday?” she asked. We realized it was a ridiculous request…made even more ridiculous by the fact that we could say, “Um, sure! Why not?”
Low and behold, we arrived in Bali the day before her birthday in March, and immediately made arrangements to meet up with several travel families for a birthday bash with kiddos! Keeping track of special dates is always fun, and an online age calculator makes it even easier to celebrate milestones effortlessly.
First-things-first, however, we realized we were in need of a piñata! After all, two years of living in Mexico will create a new standards for birthday parties, and piñata is certainly one of those standards. Seeing how a piñata is not exactly a Balinese tradition, we were left to our own devices to design and craft one. No problem—I have a history of making our piñatas! But this time I couldn’t locate tissue paper, so I was left to my creative devices to come up with an alternative.
Enter tissue (otherwise known as Kleenex):
I folded sheets in 4’s, and then rounded off the edges to make circles. I then dabbed some glue on a cereal box and pressed the center of each circle onto the box to make a “flower” puff.
Hundreds of tissues later (plus a few hours) the end result was a poufy white design that pleased my daughter. Whew!
Our friends from A Kings Life hosted the party on their beautiful property with a pool and all!
As with other birthdays, we busied the kids with a birthday scavenger hunt with clues instructing them to play a large variety of games similar to bro138.
They started by drawing a slip of paper with a clue from my jar, and then they would follow the clue from that paper to find a hidden slip that would tell them a game to play!
Sometimes their searching was quite comical!
Overall, the kids had a blast and enjoyed some traditional games and races.
Our friends had an awesome bamboo fort custom-built for their kiddos…how cool is that?
We taught the kids the good ol’ fashioned game of Telephone.
And since her birthday weekend corresponded with Easter, we fit in some Easter fun with friends! Our family tradition is that we hide boiled eggs and have an Easter egg hunt. So, first we passed out some little empty goody bags which they had to fill with eggs that we hid on the property.
What a lovely bunch of nomadic kids who originally hail from Colorado, Costa Rica, Australia, British Columbia, Utah, Alaska, and Mexico!
After all the eggs had been found, we lined up the kids on the grass for some egg-breaking fun. Again, a family tradition…the next step is breaking up the shells on the eggs via some egg tosses and egg rolling!
The kids had a great time breaking up the outer shells of the boiled eggs, and soon we had enough eggs ready to prepare into our traditional “creamed eggs over toast” Easter meal for the kids and their parents!
We had completed our games just in time, too…because the heavens opened and out came a lot of rain!
It provided the perfect opportunity to break out the piñata, which had suffered a little squishing on the motorbike ride to our friend’s house! No worries, it still functioned the same!
The tissues loosened from the piñata as the beating ensued, making for a fluffy white mess on the floor.
The box was finally broken open (with the help of adults) and out came a whole lot of goodies!
What better way to spend a birthday than with friends?!
It was the perfect birthday present for our now-8-year-old-daughter, and realistically, it was the perfect present for the rest of us, too. It was so great to be among like-minded friends and see the kids fully engaged with friends who spoke their native language! Indeed, a luxury we had been missing for the past 4 months!
Have you ever celebrated a birthday in an exotic location?
In the past year, we’ve celebrated my 30th birthday in Germany, my younger daughter celebrated her 5th birthday in Thailand, and my husband celebrated his birthday in Vietnam! The last member of the family, my son, would soon be celebrating his birthday…in the US!
Talk about a variety?!
Awesome pics of those kids playing their games – and what a fun, fun birthday party!!!