Lately I have not been very good at up-keeping the diary aspect of Stumble Abroad. This blog just turned a year old about two weeks ago and its original purpose was to document the our lives as a family of four in the Big Durian. Although I truly enjoy writing about our adventures and travels, sometimes our life is not filled with adventures but rather everyday life. Since I am terrible at photo albums and I have failed at several attempts of making a photo book I will try to go back to documenting a least a little bit of our very common earthly life and what life with two little monsters young men in Jakarta is like. Hence the birth of Jakarta Memento to document a few of the events we experience as a family. In the next few weeks I will also make an effort to revamp a week in snapshots where my Iphone acts as the main photographer and memory keeper.

Chinese New Year 2013

Chinese New Year has almost come and gone and before life with two toddlers takes over I just wanted to share with you a little bit of how we celebrated Chinese New Year in Jakarta.The main event was the CNY party at our apartment building. As the many dragons invaded the foyer of our building our two boys had different reactions to this encounter.

Evan was very concerned to see so many dragons in his apartment and was a bit scared at times. Joshua on the other hand was clapping and smiling and enjoying the show. Unfortunately I was not able to get a good picture of Joshua because he was sitting in the kid area but he was very excited so see so many colors and he was mesmerized by the movement.

Joshua’s friend, Mateo insisted in petting the dragons as many times as he was able to. By this time, Joshua had already gone upstairs to get ready for bed.

Evan’s favorite performance was the martial arts presentation. He kept imitating the kicks and jumps for a few days after the show had taken place.

I had never before seen a dragon dance and I was very excited to see it for the first time. I hope we are able to go to a street festival next time since I’m sure the performances are even more impressive than what I have already witnessed. I loved looking at the dancers jump over the dragon and cheered as they jumped 30 times over it.

A few hours, a couple of beers (on mommy and daddy’s belly), a nice warm plate of noodles and a refreshing coconut popsicle later, Evan enjoyed playing the keyboard as our good friends participated in a beer-drinking contest.

This was a very fun-filled Saturday afternoon that I really hope the boys will remember years to come. After all, we won’t be in Asia forever and we should be able to enjoy the culture whilst we can.