Crumpled Home

It’s a beautiful, bright, sunny day and RJ and Mom are in the garden. Deep within a ferocious tangle of tomato vines, Mom is pulling up plants and getting the garden ready for a new season. RJ walks purposefully outside… He clearly has an agenda.

RJ: Mom, is there anything that I can do to help you? … And then maybe earn a prize? … Like a new Beast Quest book?

Mom: Ummm…Okay. You can empty out the pool so we can put it away for winter.

The pool is four metres in diameter and 80 centimetres deep… It holds a LOT of water.

RJ: And if I empty out the pool, can we go to the bookshop right away?

Mom: Okay… It might take a while though!

RJ starts industriously emptying the pool, tiny bucket by little, tiny bucket. After half-an-hour the water level has dropped a little, but not significantly. Mom feels sorry for him and steps in to help out.

Ten minutes later, she has had enough and is seriously considering suggesting that they just go to the bookshop and leave the job for Daddy.

RJ: I know it’s hard, Mom. But if we want that book, we just have to keep going.

Mom: (Feeling guilty, desperately wishing the child hadn’t just said that, wondering if it’s bad parenting to discourage such industry) Mmmmhmmm.

Time passes. More water is emptied into the garden.

RJ: We’ll just keep going, won’t we Mom?

Mom: Okay…

RJ: Because we might not like it, but it just has to get done.

Mom: (sighs)

RJ: Even if it’s really hard work. We just have to keep going.

Mom: Yeah…

RJ: Because if we don’t do it, who will? There’s just nobody but us. So we have to get it done.

Mom: (looking around for candid camera set up by Dad) Argh.

RJ: I know, Mom. But we can do it.

RJ: (pauses, thoughtfully) Maybe you should get a book too, Mom. You’re really working hard.

More time (and water) passes and eventually they emptied the entire pool.

All of it.

And they got a book.

And Mom got a coffee.

Read on to find out about our exciting adventures with dangerous oversized animals at the Ulun Danu Beratan Temple at Lake Beratan. We get drenched by a massive tropical thunderstorm, and are amused/delighted/revolted by some hot beverages. Finally we end up having a meal at a great little place on the coast.

Mom leads the kids off to the Ulun Danu Beratan Temple!

Found it!

But it's guarded by lions... hungry lions... Careful M!

Look out, LR!

We'll ride the magic giant fish off to safety!

The sign said, "Beware of Giant Eagles", but did they listen? Oh nooooooo.... "No giant eagles around here," they said. Here's your freaken giant eagle, buddy.

"Spin us, Uncle Paul! As fast as you can!!!" ... The kids learned a valuable lesson that day.

Mom and P take M and RJ on a WILD ride on the swing.

On the way back down the mountain, we ran into our first tropical thunderstorm.

Rice paddies and farms on the side of the mountain.

On the way back to the villa, we stopped by this nice little coffee shack and tried their various coffees and teas, as well as the infamous, "Poo Coffee."

Poppa is awfully suspicious. In the background, you can see a big poster describing the process of feeding coffee berries to the lewaks, collecting their valuable coffee-bean-caffinated turds, and the washing that takes place before roasting and grinding the beans. They did mention washing the beans, didn't they? Lots and lots of washing?

No RJ! Don't eat that bit!!! Ha ha... Actually, the hot chocolate made from their own cocao beans was really fantastic.

Mom refused to try the crappy coffee, but did give the lemon tea a go... and it was actually great stuff. The kids loved it too.

After a long day, we went to the Potato Head Club to relax and have a great dinner. The place was extravagant, decadent and completely over the top... and we loved it. Aunty Bron, Uncle Troy and Poppa enjoy a drink while trying to get Shazam working on their phones.

Aunty Carrie, Grammy and Uncle Paul sit down for a cup of tea... Hang on a second, that's not tea in that pot!

Mom watched whle the kids had a brilliant time swimming and jumping around in the pool.

We even enjoyed a tiny, 2 minute sunset. There was so much cloud that the sky didn't really light up.

The kids kept swimming and playing into the night while our dinner was prepared.

Sophie checks out the menu... Yep, just about everything on there looks delicious.

Uncle Paul waits for Auntie Carrie at the bar... The place felt like a scene from a movie.

After dinner, LR and the other kids danced on the grass to the loud, thumping music, while Dad cheered them on.

PA. prepares to launch her sky-shooting glowie -- a tiny light on a pair of wings.

Bali is absolutely packed to the brim with three things: motorbikes, temples and souvenir shops, often mixed in a kind of a petro-spiritual-capitalist melange. The markets and hawkers serve as a tense, bustling, confrontational entree, sitting in stark contrast to the quiet zen-like peace of the temples…

One of the temples we explored was Tanah Lot. Like most of the temples, it was calm and quiet… except for outside the cave containing the Holy Snake (a revered, venomous guardian of the Temple at Tanah Lot). That place was nuts.

We also visited Ubud, a market district renowned for its artists and crafts… and markets and temples.

Finally, we had a great time on the (heavily chlorinated) water slides and rides at the Waterbom water park.

PA and RL stand at one of the entrances to Tanah Lot!

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In April of 2011, we embarked on a terrific adventure to the island of Bali, in Indonesia. It is actually closer to Perth than the other capital cities within Australia, so it’s a popular holiday destination for Western Australians… which is one of the reasons we’ve been hesitant to go.

After a tiny 3 hour flight, we met Poppa, Grammy, the cousins (P. and M., Auntie Bron and Uncle Troy), our aunt and uncle from the US (Carrie and Paul), and finally, our second cousin Sophie and spent a week there staying at an incredible, luxurious villa (Puri Angsa, in Canggu, Bali) together.

It really was like staying in paradise, with each family having their own cottage or series of rooms, most of them directly overlooking the pool. The villa even had their own pet monkeys, which conveniently avoided any potential ‘Enchanted Monkey Forest‘ disasters that we had worried about.

We arrived at our gate with plenty of time to spare and some amazing colours in the sky.

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For the past several days, we’ve had a run of warm humid weather (35C / 95F), and the forecast looks like there’s no change for the 7 days ahead. Here’s hoping that a few pics of the kids in the pool might help cool us down.

To add to her busy after-school schedule, LR has taken up diving and is loving it. The combination of gymnastics and swimming seems to be a perfect match!

RJ is as much of a fish as his sister and has been working hard at swimming lessons on the weekends. His biggest problem is actually spending time near the surface — he’s much happier diving for toys and other objects off the bottom.

LR listens to her coach and prepares to dive.

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The hot springs, geysers and other exciting geological activity isn’t confined to Yellowstone. Thermopolis, a small town not far from Cody, WY is home to numerous hot springs (it’s actually located in the creatively named “Hot Springs County”). The locals were quick to take advantage of a few of the springs by directing their output into swimming pools and water slides. We enjoyed a relaxing morning there, splashing around and having a great time.

The streets of Cody are filled with real cowboys (fully decked out with real cowboy boots, real cowboy hats and really large belt buckles), so no trip to Wyoming would be complete without going to see cowboys in their natural habitat — a rodeo. The events were pretty exciting and did a good job of convicing us that the competitors were all quite insane. An Australian was competing in the bronco riding and we think he won… We yelled out a hearty, “Ozzie ozzie ozzie! Oy! Oy! Oy!” for good measure.

We had such a great time in Wyoming — it was pretty much non-stop activities and entertainment — most of which wouldn’t have been possible without the hospitality of our friends DD. and C. Thank you so much guys. It’s just amazing how much we got done; it really was terrific.

RJ takes to the warm, hot-springs fed pools at Thermopolis!

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Just days after we arrived, we set off on our Yellowstone expedition. After driving about an hour, we entered the foothills and were treated to stunning mountain views, rock walls and cliff faces — but there was no time to stop! We pressed on and entered the park.

Yellowstone was teeming with bizarre and wonderful wildlife of all sorts. We delighted in spotting something new around each corner: bison/buffalo, elk, pronghorn antelope (SPEEDGOAT!), coyotes, foxes, rabbits, marmots, beavers, eagles, black bears and even one grizzly bear (suspiciously, dad was the only one who saw this). As we travelled, little crowds of photographers by the side of the road gave us plenty of clues as to where to look.

There were lots of tourists around, but we were generally impressed by the state of the park — not pristine, but well taken care of and healthy.

The kids even had a chance to play with some snow! It was pretty grotty, mostly melted and covered in black dirt, but it was magical for them.

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It’s summer, so we spend lots of time at or around the water. Having a pool makes a big difference, and so does having summer holidays.

RJ is a cool character while swimming.

Here’s a few water related moments from the past month.

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