OFF TO BALI: April 2011

Friday

IN Bali! We Are!

We wanted to make a post here to say... we've made it to the beautiful island home we've been dreaming about. IT IS a dream come true. Heather will be blogging at

www.abaliblog.blogspot.com

Bryan will be setting up his own blog too. We never would have made it without the love, support and encouragement of our friends and family. Thank you so much. You are missed, loved and INVITED to join us!

Monday

the long wait is OVER!

We are sitting at the gate. It's 12:56 in the morning. We load in 20 minutes. There's nothing left to do. They weighed our luggage and we passed. They said, "sure you can stuff a backpack in that duffle bag with the car seat and not pay anything extra!" EVA air. What wonderful service. I've never had an airline take such good care of us. We had to change our tickets three times and our friend at the EVA desk in Vancouver helped us over and over. He even called us to remind us to get our airline mileage program numbers. What a gem. So... off to do that now.

Here's a table to help you all call us in Bali. Just dial the 360-746-2687 from any phone or try our skype names. We'll look forward to hearing from you!

Our emails haven't changed and we're both on Facebook!

Our Bali Young Musicians Project

On our Bali trip in 2008 we met a young man named Iwan playing guitar at an Italian restaurant in Lovina, a small beach town on the north shore. He invited Heather to sing with him. After thumbing through his huge homemade song book, she found When You Say Nothing At All, which they performed to big smiles around the room. A few days later, we sat on the front porch of Iwan's bungalow, playing guitar, trading off songs, eating his wife's Gado Gado and soaking in bits and pieces about the life of a young musician with a young family in Bali.

A few days later, Iwan gathered some friends and we rented a music studio (basically a room with a sound system and set of drums) for a two-hour jam session. We also made the trek to an Ubud jazz club where 6 young twenty-something musicians, much like Iwan, played standards and their own compositions for an evening.

After these two experiences, Bryan had the inspired idea to help young musicians like these improve their livelihoods by recording CDs to sell to the tourists they entertain. Our project would involve setting up a studio in a restaurant/cafe setting where musicians could record their own "Live at the ____" (insert catchy name here). As partners in this venture, we would sponsor their CD productions and as they begin to sell CDs, a portion of the proceeds would come back to help expand the program for future artists.

And lastly, as you might have guessed, we would find our way onto the stage as well, fulfilling a long time dream: making playing music together the cornerstone of our family life. We hope that our friends and family will join us when we've found the home for this venture, even if only through the internet... did we mention webcasts? Stay tuned... the possibilities are endless...