Ahhh, that school's-out-for-summer feeling

School ends.  Check.
Soccer season ends.  Check.
Violin recital caps our lessons for the summer.  Check.

SUMMER IS HERE!!!  It's that chest-expanding, clear-headed joy that comes with the end of our routine responsibilities, waking up to alarm clocks, eating on schedule and schlepping from one lesson/practice/appointment to another.

Letting no moss grow, however, we quickly started summer with a trip to Yosemite where Ed and his childhood friend, Cliff, crossed an item off their bucket list: summiting Half Dome. 

Yosemite is fantastic in June.  Granite cliffs stretch up to perfectly blue skies with views that make you forget to breathe.  Like these:

That last one's Half Dome.  Beautiful and awesome in the "I-am-struck-with-awe" kind of way.  And that's what Cliff, Ed and their friend Joe (who wanted to work on conquering his fear of heights short of jumping out of an airplane) set out to climb.

The hike to Half Dome is about 16 miles round trip, up an arduous trail that hits the summit about 8,800 feet above sea level.  It gets really hairy in the last 400 feet up the summit where hikers use metal cables to scale the rock.  I particularly liked this about the Park Service's description: "Since 1919, relatively few people have fallen and died on the cables."  

We casually speculated over dinner that some 400 people climb up the trail every day and maybe one person a year dies, from being unprepared, out of shape, careless or, say, from a lightening strike (you are, after all, on the tallest point in Yosemite Valley and hanging from a metal cable).  When the boys left at 5 the next morning, a still half-asleep Sophie did the math and warned Ed, "Daddy, be careful.  You have a 1 in 146,000 chance of dying." Gold star for our 5th grade math teacher, Aaron.

Thankfully, the guys made it up safely and quickly, reaching the summit by 9:40 when they texted us from the top!  Everyone also returned with all limbs intact, although Ed reported that the Park Ranger at the base of the dome said he had carried one person down in a body bag during his tenure.  Nice.

The pictures of their climb are spectacular:

Ants on a hill

Getting close

Up the cables

The summit!!

The girls, for their part, did 1/8th of the trek by getting to the top of Vernal Falls after a leisurely breakfast on the terrace.  It was plenty work out for us and we were graced with a double-rainbow vision on the way up the trail.

Here's a link to the rest of our travels with the Rigbys.  Looking forward to their next visit and can't wait to find out what's next on the bucket list!

On the Mist Trail

Make a wish

Double Rainbow!

With Caroline at the top  

This is me trying to catch up with my 2012 self

It's been nearly a year since we were here at The Honeychurch Chronicles.  Last January, I got stuck trying to post the last bits of our Asia vacation, and then life intervened.

So, this is me trying to get unstuck and bring us into 2012.  It's important because re-booting the blog is my New Year's resolution.  Here we go, starting with the email sent to family and friends in January 2011:

Happy New Year! (Or Selamat Tahun Baru! in Indonesian)

Dear Friends & Family,

Happy new year! We are surprised to find that 2010 is already over. It was a very, very busy year.

Nicole has had her head down and nose to the grindstone for months and, no, she didn't achieve last year's resolution to exercise more (thus, setting the stage for a lame, lordy-am-I-that-old-already hip injury last fall). Ed has been busily expanding his product line and mapping the best eats and longest lap pools in Bentonville, Arkansas. And the girls? Well, of course, they're nothing short of remarkable. And somehow they developed into real people with opinions. Vocal opinions, in fact, which demand to be heard. Family dinners have never been so much fun.

Notwithstanding Nicole and Ed's busy work schedules and the girls' program of school, violin, theater, soccer and gymnastics (do you get tired just reading that? we do), we did a good bit of traveling this year as well, including New York, DC, Hawaii, Vegas and Utah. But the most incredible trip was over winter break -- we visited Bali, Hong Kong and Nicole's family village in China.

We documented all of our trips, including the recent adventure in Asia on The Honeychurch Chronicles, although it's taking us a little while to finish posting the last days. For now, be sure to check out our work in a Balinese rice field. We also had 2 great days of surfing and pics are on the way, so keep checking in!

Likewise, we haven't had a chance to blog about the trip to the village. While it was a bit of a struggle to get there (with Nicole's limited and rusty Mandarin), it was well worth the effort. Coming off a pretty cushy deal in Bali, the girls were a little shocked by the long ride up the Pearl River Delta and then the 2 hour Chinese bus ride into the village with lots of loud Cantonese folks. And the hotel in Kaiping? Well, let's just say it's not exactly The Peninsula. It would have been nice, for example, if it had heat. But, as we told the girls, Great Grandma took the same trip on a barge and then got out and walked. For days. So, we can all be thankful that harvesting rice is a tourist attraction for us and not a livelihood. Here are the pics of the village. Flip to the picture of Sophie and Anna checking out the old stone rice thresher in our house. :)

We wish you peace and joy in 2011 and hope we'll see more of you this year. Come and visit us.

Love,

Nicole, Ed, Sophie & Anna

**************

And now, a few favorite pics:

On your marks,

Ready, set

Go!

Surfing Kuta waves!

Sort of.

Goofy parents.

A lucky visit with the world renowned puppet master

Special private performance

Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud

Here are shots from the Woo family village:

Pictures of Woo family, including Nicole!, are hanging in the family home.

Cow's Hair Ridge has a fish pond, rice paddies, a dozen houses and six water buffalo. 

Auntie opens the old house.

These are our village cousins.

PoPo cooked in this kitchen when she lived in the village.

The bedroom walls are reinforced with bamboo to protect against soliders and bandits.

Anna and Sophie tried out the rice thresher.

This is a tower to protect the families during invasions.

Phew.  Met my New Year's resolution just in time.  Happy 2012, everyone!

Interlude

This seems like a good time for a musical interlude.  Here are Sophie and Anna playing the bamboo xylophone:

I have a few observations.  First of all, my daughters have seen more of the world than I did by the time I was 20.  They understand passports, visas and how to efficiently get through TSA security.  They can have a knowledgeable debate about the differences between navigating Paris versus Hong Kong.  There may not be much left on this planet for their post-college trip, so hopefully Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space flights are running smoothly by 2022.

Second, not only are Sophie and Anna more worldly, they are also more brave -- whether it's whitewater rafting, riding an ox or playing a funky instrument -- deal them in, they are ready to play.  I was (and continue to be) a better observer than participant, so their courage must come from Ed's genes. 

What's more, the girls are enthusiastically interested in these new, peculiar things.

They are interested in how to carve a piece of soap (carefully),

how to handle exotic reptiles (very carefully)

and how to climb a coconut tree (also carefully).

Is there a phase coming when they're too cool to be interested in these things?  Is there a vaccine against that?  I want them to be enthralled with the world for the rest of their lives.

For now anyway, the girls are both engaged and engaging, and we are delighted and proud.

Honoring Dewi Sri

We like rice.  But the Balinese actually worship rice.  They grow, nurture and harvest it.  They eat it at every meal.  They even have a Rice Goddess, Dewi Sri, who ensures a successful season.  In Tunjuk, we got to follow the life cycle of rice from seedling to table.

We were outfitted with conical hats and bamboo walking sticks to head out into the rice paddies (which surprisingly didn't feel like a cliche at the time). The rice fields are organized under a collective arrangement -- known as a subak -- to make the best use of the irrigation system.  The water floods the field, it is prepared with the use of oxen and then seedlings are planted in rows.

The farmers covered our legs in a protective jelly and Ed, Sophie and Anna took to the fields.  Yes, it's true, Nicole stayed on the (dry) sidelines and took pictures.  A romantic explanation for this is that her grandparents toiled to make sure she would never have to work in a rice paddy and she honored that.  The real reason is that the mud looked kind of icky and she was girlishly squeamish.  Lame, I know. 

It was a beautiful day.  Organically fertilized soil and all.  For the full array of pics, go here.

Rumble in the jungle

We almost forgot a really interesting part of the visit to the family home in Tunjuk.  The cock fight, or tajen.  Here you can see the village men introducing their roosters for a bout:

Cock fighting is actually part of some religious ceremonies for the Balinese Hindus.  They get two big roosters, put specially made knives -- called taji --  on the ends of their feet, and then let them go until one kills the other.  The spilling of blood -- a ritual called tabuh rah -- is believed to expel evil spirits.

In 1981, the Indonesian government banned gambling on cock fights, although the religious ceremonies continue.  Which is not to say gambling doesn't happen.  Wink, wink.  The girls were a little disturbed by this.  Ed was kinda fascinated.  Here is a video of a fight, which looks a lot like Muhammad Ali taking back his title from George Foreman in 1974 -- the Rumble in the Jungle.  Be assured, the roosters do not have taji knives on their feet and no roosters were harmed in the filming of this scene:

Om Swastyastu

Om Swastyastu is a local Balinese greeting.  Roughly, it means "We pray you will be kept healthy and happy through the mercy and blessings of God."  It's a nice way to start a conversation.

We were greeted and blessed by the families in the village of Tunjuk, visiting their school, homes and rice fields.  This was a day packed with so many neat experiences that we've been struggling to put it in the Chronicles.  So, we're going to do this in parts.

Tunjuk is a tiny village in the western Balinese district of Tabanan.  Really tiny.  We couldn't find it on a map and we're not really sure how our driver did.  But it is big enough to have an elementary school which serves 150 students in the area for 1st through 5th grade.  The education is free, but the families must pay for their child's uniform and school books.  Class starts at 7:30 am and ends at 12:30.  They say it is really too hot for school in the afternoon.  The students learn Balinese, Indonesian and English in school and they were eager to practice English with us:

 

We also got to watch the boys' football match -- barefoot in the mud, but utterly enthusiastic!  

Sophie and Anna were struck by a couple things.  First of all, this school is not like their school.  The school grounds aren't quite as well taken care of -- no one seems to cut the grass, for example.  In fact, there's not much grass.  Also, the students have to wear uniforms, but apparently not shoes, even when they play football.  But, like, all kids, they are very interested in new people from different places. 

Next, we walked across the street to a local family home.  A typical Balinese home actually has multiple buildings on the property and multiple families -- some buildings are for sleeping and at least one is for ceremonies.  Ancestral worship infuses daily life and most families make offerings to their God and family spirits at least once a day, which means they also spend a lot of time making these small offerings -- from young palm leaves, flowers and rice -- every day.  They taught us how to make them, too, but we weren't as fast.

Anna & Sophie make offerings.

Ed makes a temple platform.

The family we visited also runs its own farm with, of course, their cows, pigs, chickens and oxen right on the premises.  Close quarters!  They grow rice with a cooperative of other villagers to efficiently use the irrigation system, but they also plant chilis, cacao, lemongrass and other spices.

Sorting rice from hulls.

Not pets.

Moooo!

Because they are very busy during the day (and because it gets so hot in the afternoon), they cook all their meals in the morning in a small kitchen with a bamboo-burning stove. 

Cooking over bamboo.

Then, they head out into the fields.  That's where we went next.

More pics of the family home here.  See you in the rice fields.

Riding the river

The Ayung River is the longest river in Bali, running 75 kilometers from Bali's northern mountain ranges to Sanur.  It is also a Class 2-3 whitewater experience and a riot of fun!  In Disney terms, a Class 3 rapid is less intense than Splash Mountain, more than Pirates of the Caribbean  (um, minus Davy Jones), and substantially wetter than either.  The Ayung has over 25 rapids in an 11-kilometer stretch and several waterfalls that we personally sampled.  It rained on us for a good portion of the trip but, as Anna observed, that was just like being in a constant waterfall from the sky.

We made a new friend, Christina, who joined us on the 6-person raft, along with our Sobek guide.  As you can see, our guide is very tall and he seemed to know every rock in the river.  He told us when to paddle, when to stop and when to hold on tight.

Sophie says the best rapid was the first one because it splashed us completely.  We all got drenched and Mom almost fell out of the raft.  But she didn't.  Anna got to oversee the entire adventure from the middle of the raft between Sophie and Dad.  She thought the best rapid was the most dangerous one because it was so fast and bumpy.  Apparently someone died in it last summer - kinda wish we knew that before getting in the raft; probably better that we didn't.  In any case, it was fun and we paddled out safely.

Mom and Dad agree that the most unexpected and lovely part of the trip were the traditional Balinese carvings right into the stone walls lining the river.  It took several artisans two years to complete about 100 meters of wall.  (Sorry, no pictures of the carvings.  We were too busy paddling.)

It was a terrific day and we were tired but exhilarated at the end.  The last of the pics are here.