Monday, March 14, 2011

My Backyardigans part 2

While the butterfly we found couldn't fly very well, it could still flutter a little bit.  When it flew from Paige's arm to her hair, she decided quickly she wasn't so fond of the pretty butterfly.  

The butterfly also made a little jaunt from Brooklyn's arm to her face.  She was really brave with this and didn't freak out at all.  I did have to remind to to breath though.  She was a great sport.  

Saturday, March 12, 2011

My Backyardigans

A few days ago while the girls were playing outside they found a butterfly that had just emerged from it's cocoon.  Since it's wings we still drying it was having a hard time flying away, so we had fun with it and let it walk on the girls arms.  

Brooklyn is always the most interested at this point with all things nature.  She loves to understand the in's and out's of why things work and how they live.  It is always a joy to explain to her what I know.  Stay tuned for more pictures from our butterfly encounter...they are pretty funny.  

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Borobudur Part 2

Here are a few of the thousands of chiseled stories carved onto the walls at Borodudur.  Certainly they all tell a story or history that I don't know.  I suppose we could have hired a tour guide, but that would have went over like a box of rocks with our 3 busy girls running all over the place.

It always makes me wonder what scenes like this would really look like if brought back to life today.  I am ignorant to most of the ceremonies and rituals that occurred there hundreds of years ago.  Maybe it is better that I don't know.

Supposedly the above carving is a princess on her way to give birth to the future prince of the area.  Some of the pictures ironically showed things that we still see in one way or another on a daily basis; horse drawn carts, large gatherings paying homage to someone, or just monkeys, elephants, and other wild animals.

While we were at Borodudur there was a large group of Spaniards all gathered around this man.  It was a bizarre thing to watch them all chanting something while bowing, dancing, and kneeling around him.  I couldn't tell if this man was happy to be there or just annoyed.  Borobudur holds a "Mecca like" importance to Buddhists and Hindus alike.  Yearly they gather by the thousands, usually in May, to pray and celebrate together.  

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Borobudur Part 1

Yesterday, Becca and I took the family to nearby Borobudur because Brooklyn had the day off from school.  It was a great trip and it was a fascinating place.  Trying to contemplate it's almost 1300 years of history was hard.  

At the very top are numerous stupas, each with it's own Buddha idol in the middle.  Knowing this complex was all made by hand over 1200 years ago without modern machinery and tooling was hard to fathom.  Due to this fact it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Later this week I will post some more pictures from a closer scale showing some of the innate carvings that line most of the walls at the temple site.