It's A Long Weekend (for some)

It's the beginning of an unofficial long weekend here due to Nyepi holiday. Unofficial because Nyepi (the Balinese day of silence) itself falls on Tuesday, March 16th, so we actually have to work on Monday, but some people probably will find a good excuse to skip it :)

Notes about Nyepi Day:

Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The main restrictions are: no lighting fires (and lights must be kept low); no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no traveling; and for some, no talking or eating at all. The effect of these prohibitions is that Bali’s usually bustling streets and roads are empty, there is little or no noise from TVs and radios, and few signs of activity are seen even inside homes...

Although Nyepi is primarily a Hindu holiday, non-Hindu residents of Bali observe the day of silence as well, out of respect for their fellow citizens. Even tourists are not exempt; although free to do as they wish inside their hotels, no one is allowed onto the beaches or streets, and the only airport in Bali remains closed for the entire day.

So if you have plan to visit Bali soon, mark on your calendar that you can't do that on Nyepi day as the airport there will be closed.

As for Evan, it is a confirmed long weekend for him. In fact, he gets the whole week break next week. We haven't planned anything for his holiday yet, as we're now still focusing on his grandma's corneal transplant this weekend. Hopefully everything will be fine.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

MM: Something New for the New Year

Oh I'm so late to post this meme. This week theme is about something new that our kids get during this holiday season. Since we don't do gifts on Christmas, I had to wait until New Year came to create this post.

When I was a kid, my parents never put gifts under the tree on Christmas. Never talked about Santa's bringing presents either (Zwarte Piet was more popular those days). If they wanted to buy us something, they would do it long before December 25th and never wrapped them as presents.

It was their way to teach us that Christmas is not only about presents. They wanted us to focus on the real meaning of Christmas instead of being busy playing with new toys on Christmas day. However, sometimes they surprised us with some gifts after the season ended, usually on New Year.

When we grew up and had our own money to buy gifts, we still carried on the tradition even until now. We didn't wrap gifts for Christmas, instead we would do that on New Year. We would buy simple gift for everyone just to mark that a new season has begun.

Anyway, here's what we bought for our kids during this holiday season. We bought Evan some new outfits and a pair of shoes before Christmas. He loves wearing his new Avatar shoes. Today he got two additional gifts, Power Ranger and Ben 10 wristbands.

Eldrick also got some new outfits for Christmas and today his gift was a new baby rattles.

Everyone else in the house also got gifts today, including Evan's grandma and our two maids.

Click the button above to see other mom's story about this theme.
Thanks for stopping by everyone and have a happy new year!

Happy New Year to All!

On the last minutes of 2009, I want to wish all of my friends and fellow bloggers a very happy new year.

The year 2009 is coming to an end, and it's time to welcome a new brighter year. Let us continue sharing our loves, experiences and stories in 2010.

Selamat Tahun Baru 2010

A Long Weekend - School Breaks Started

 

It's a long weekend here due to Islamic New Year and it also marks the beginning of a three weeks school break. Yesterday we came to school to get Evan's report card for the first term of this school year. His teacher reported that Evan has been behaving nicely at school. He's polite, obedient and attentive during his lessons, which is good to hear it. Just wish he could do the same at home! And I do hope she was really talking about my kid, not got mixed up with other kid, lol!

Anyway, we received the report card along with his workbooks and photos of him from the latest events inside a big brown envelope decorated with a Christmas tree. Nice isn't it? The teachers are really prepared for this holiday season.

So starting today the school is officially closed for holidays until it starts again next year on January 11. For us that means we have to say goodbye to quite peaceful morning for about three weeks and prepare to hear his loud voice, and see him playing and running around the house all day long again. He surely will keep us busy! However, on some occasions he can help us watching over the baby :)

As for the baby, having his brother near him means he has to prepare for a surprise peek-a-boo or stolen kisses from him...

Do you think Eldrick enjoys having his brother around?

 What do you think?

Happy long weekend everyone!

WW: Blessings On Eid

Sorry mom, I'm busy

See my money?

Gotta put them in my Mickey bank

He got almost a million rups (about US$ 100) during the two days festive from his uncles & aunties who celebrated Eid ul-Fitr :)

Evan's Nanny "Mudik"

As the Ramadan month is nearly over, here comes “mudik” season. “Mudik” literally means going back to ones’ hometown. It's an annual event here in Indonesia marked by millions of people from big cities migrate to their childhood home to celebrate Idul Fitri with their family. Yesterday, we said goodbye to Evan's nanny, Atun, as she went mudik to her hometown in Central Java.

No nanny to bring him to school for the time being

This was the second time for Evan to see his nanny mudik. Last year he clung to his nanny's hands, cried and didn't want to let her go. This year he could handle it much better. He still cried when we drop his nanny off at the bus station but didn't hold her hands anymore. In fact he managed to wave goodbye to her, with tears off course.

"Have a safe trip mbak Atun, enjoy your Idul Fitri time with your parents. Thanks for taking care of Evan for almost two years now and hope you'll come back to work for us again after the festive ends."

Independence Day Long Weekend

We have a long weekend here because tomorrow, August 17th, is our Independence Day. As for our little boy Independence Day holiday means time to participate in various events in our neighborhood. Last year he joined a bicycle (or tricycle in his case) parade. Though no parade for this year, there are still other interesting games/races he can join or watch tomorrow.

Last year's Independence Day carnival

Happy Sunday and Dirgahayu Indonesia Ke 64 tahun.

Ascension Day

"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men to myself." John 12:32 (NIV)

Today is the Ascension Day of Christ, it's a public holiday here and also the beginning of a long weekend for my little boy, his school is closed until next week, but I still have to go to work tomorrow though. We'll be gone for the Ascension Day service this morning and having lunch at the mall after that. Happy Ascension Day, and enjoy the one day holiday!

Some Updates

It's been a week since my last post now, and my mood for blogging is still gone with the weather (yes, I blame it on the weather, don't expect me to confess my laziness here). With the stormy weather we had almost every night I hardly could go online using my DSL connection. And whenever I could I usually just did my dropping round as fast as I could (yes, I might cause your bounce rate increased for the last few days).

Anyway, enough with excuses, these are some updates I want to share:

This week I decided to join Adgitize, I've seen many Entrecarders also have it in their blogs and I thought I would give it a shot. So if you have Adgitize, please scroll down to my lower bar to find it. I probably will add another one near my EC card to make it easier to be found. So far I can see my traffic is increasing since I join Adgitize and I hope more bloggers with Alexa will visit my blog to help my rank going up, it's been flat at 243.xxx for months. That's all I can say about Adgitize for today (mentioning it four times in one post is enough).

My EC cash out application has been awaiting for weeks now and I'm beginning to feel that they won't approve it at all. Even though my reason of joining EC was not for money (there was no paid ads at the time I joined btw), but I wouldn't mind if they want to share it with me :). Now I'm stuck with over 10000 credits on my account and don't know what to do with them. I visited their market but nothing really interest me there yet, maybe I'll check again later.

Today is Waisak Day, it's a Buddhist holiday and also a public holiday here in Indonesia, so Selamat Hari Waisak and enjoy your weekend (whether you celebrate it or not).

Tomorrow some countries will celebrate Mother's Day (Indonesian Mother's Day is on December 22nd), so Happy Mother's Day to all fellow mothers.

Have a good weekend!

It's Resurrection Day!

...You lived and You died

You rose again on high
You opened the way
For the world to live again
Hallelujah
For all You’ve done...

(Reuben Morgan - For All You've Done)

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's a long weekend we're having here due to the Chinese New Year on Monday. We'll be going out of town for awhile and on Monday we'll be busy with relatives and friends. 

If you are also celebrating it, we want to wish you a Happy Prosperous New Year! Kionghi.. kionghi.

Ang pao na lai? :)

Mount Tangkuban Parahu

"Hurry up dad, it's freezing...!"

Another place we visited during our New Year holiday was Tangkuban Parahu, a still active volcano at the north of Bandung. We did not stay there for long because the wind was too cold for Evan. Even after I put on an extra hat and scarf on him he was still shivering. Besides, the sulfur smell was unbearable, it got stronger once you came near the craters. At the picture above you can see one of the craters behind Evan. I forget how many craters there but I remember there were more than one. 

Soon after we took some pictures, we hurried back to our car. Then the boy spotted some horses near the car-park and started begging to ride them. No horse riding on that day though, because I saw his nose became red and did not want him to get cold. We only took a few shots near the horses then moved on.

Our New Year Holiday in Bandung

Bandung has become our favorite weekend destination for so long. The city is not too far from home, only takes about three hours drive. However, it's been awhile since the last time we went there and never brought Evan too. This year we thought it is time for him to know about his mom and dad's favorite place. 

Since we were very familiar with the place, we didn't make any hotel reservation. After randomly checked several hotels once we got there, we decided to stay at Hotel Cemerlang. Their rate was surprisingly low considering it was a peak season.

He loved the Christmas tree at the lobby

Two giant puppets

One of the "must do things" in Bandung is SHOPPING! Now you know why it became our favorite city :). There were so many Factory Outlets to be checked on, as if each one of them was calling your name to come in, and the most important thing is they're cheap! So we stopped by at not as many as I wanted to several FOs and started an early year shop. While mommy was busy shopping, the boy got bored. Lucky for him we found a big chair so he could sit down while waiting.

Trying to amuse himself while mommy was shopping

There is a small city nearby Bandung named Garut, which is famous for its natural hot springs. We took time to go there too and let Evan played at Sabda Alam resort. The resort used hot springs for their pools' water so they were quite warm. Evan loves swimming, he can stay in the pool for hours.

He wasn't too happy had to leave the pool

We also went to other places and will post the pictures later.

Welcome 2009

Just want to share about how we ended the year of 2008. We did not make special plan for New Year's Eve this year, so we just went to church for New Year's Eve evening service then headed back home. Some of our neighbors and cousins came to the house to had a late night chatting with us. They brought cakes and food too. This tradition has been going on since we were kids, visiting each other during Christmas or New Year with (sometimes) food to share. Ten minutes before midnight we started to hear trumpets and fireworks from our neighbor's houses and it got louder on midnight. Then everybody shouted, "Happy New Year".

A day before I had an end-year gathering with my co-workers at my boss' place. With global economic crisis going on right now, we were grateful that our office was still running smoothly, so we endded 2008 by having a friendly dinner and fun games. Happy new year friends, let's face this new year with more confident and new hope for better future in 2009. My friends from the office are Evan's friends too, so I put their pictures here.

Boss & me, and the rest in our division

On the first morning of the year we unwrapped our gifts. Unlike other families who do this on Christmas, our family open up gifts on New Year. This tradition started years ago when we found out that it was a lot easier to gather all family members on New Year rather than on Christmas. Of course we made an exception for the young boy, he got presents both on Christmas and New Year.

We'll be going out to Bandung during this long week-end but haven't decided where to stay yet. Anyway, once again Happy New Year everyone from Evan and family.

Yes, today dress code is yellow :)

Our Christmas Holiday

Christmas holiday is over and New Year is coming soon, so I have to make this post quick before it's too late. This year we spent most of our holiday with relatives and friends. On Christmas eve we went to church together, the service started at 5pm. The kids church was full so Evan had to join us in the family service. 

Christmas day morning, we gave Evan a new battery operated car as his Christmas gift. He was the only one who got present that day since our family don't do gift exchange on Christmas, we usually do that on New Year. Then we took some pictures under the tree, like we always did every year. Evan loved photo session, he sang and danced around the tree. In the evening we went to my cousin's house to have Christmas dinner together with our extended family. I forgot to bring camera so no pictures from there.

On the 26th we went to my father's cemetery to put some flowers there, it's our new ritual since he died last year. Later some relatives and friends visited our house to give us Christmas hugs. We received many hugs and kisses that day and more gifts for Evan too.

With cousin Julio

Sunday afternoon we went to Bogor to visit my mom's cousin who got stroke years ago. We haven't seen seen her for months so we decided to visit her this Christmas to share our love to her.

With grandma Momo

We still had holiday on Monday due to Islamic New Year, but we did not go anywhere. We spent our day at home to rest because tomorrow have to go back to work :)