Look Down

 My bud.

We went to the Mexican restaurant by our house one day for lunch.  It looks like Mexican food.  It has all the ingredients of Mexican food.  But it's not quite there.  I think I will eat nothing but Mexican food when I get back to Arizona.

He left that car there that day.

 I went to an exhibition about Batak weavers.  It was not as interesting as I was hoping.  But there was this band there.  When they were not playing, I picked up the drumsticks and started banging on the drums.  A bule can get away with just about anything here.  They thought I was hilarious, and had me sit down, and the other dudes started playing with me.  They kept trying to tell me to do something.  I couldn't understand them, so I just kept banging away.  I sucked, of course, but why not give them something to laugh about?  I'm not even going to mention the dancing that happened later...

 We got another package from Uncle Ry and Aunt Kristy!  And I agree with Ry.  The chocolate-vanilla ones are the best.

 Mads got to go to a birthday party at Lollipop's.  This one was in a different mall, and they had this game there.  Those ropes are elastic, and the dude would pull him down by that rope hanging between his legs (I know), and then shoot him up in the air like a sling shot.  He couldn't stop laughing.

 I almost feel completely put together at home.  The bare walls are depressing, but I was still able to have a mini party.  We had a gang over, and it was the kids' primary teacher's birthday.  We put 50 candles on that cake!  And the best part was, he blew them all out in one blow.  It was truly amazing.

 Nighttime is perfect for critter-catching around here.  The kids love searching for geckos and toads.  They are getting braver.  They are starting to catch them.  I don't know if any of them caught any with their bare hands, but it's a great improvement from not wanting to go near them.

 Love that Dare reads to the boys.

We are loving having our books back.

 And our piano.

Indonesian fabric store.  See those white chicks in the back?  Those are my friends!  I wish I would have gotten a better shot of the sign on the top of the store.  "We are on sale!!!"  Funny.

Accent Puppet

Life has felt pretty normal over here on the other side of the world.  

One way Nate entertains the kids at dinner is to do accents and impressions.  They repeatedly ask for his Scottish and Irish accents.

The night I took this picture was a special.  We had an awesome time listening to Nate.  Everyone loved his Dobby impression.  He didn't stop there.  He did a French Dobby, and a German Dobby.  Good times.

He is resistant at first, but once you get him going, he likes to perform.


And no, we are not fancy at dinner.  It is something I'm working on as I move into older kid territory.

Soccer and Hoops

Here's a bit of what's been going on lately...

More to come!

Also, I just wrote my first post on another blog I started for my experiences overseas.  It still needs work, and I haven't even decided if I will continue, but maybe check it out.
CLICK for Parallel Radar

Level Orange

 The last morning some of us did some fishing.  Owen and Neil each caught a squid.  The girls really felt bad for the squids at first.  They were planning a rebellion where they would throw the poor things back into the water.  It wasn't long before they were dead, and they enjoyed picking them up and scaring each other with them.

 See that island behind BA?  That's the last island we stopped at.  I guess it was a good area for fishing.

 We saw these fishing huts (?) so we knew there were fish around.  And then we snorkeled again and saw all the fish.  It was amazing!  More fish than even the day before.

 Took the opportunity to get some shots of the kids.

 They are looking in the ice chest.  There was only drinking water in the cabin, and it wasn't cold.  Since no one wanted to drink room temperature water, and everyone avoided going into the cabin, we drank a lot of soda.  Note to self:  Bring bottled water next time.  Lots of it.

This is where we dock and go home.

I almost forgot to mention we were supposed to sail to Anak Krakatau.  That is the island that formed in the place where Krakatoa blew itself up 100+ years ago.  It was supposed to be one of the major features of the trip.  But it was too windy the day we started going that direction.  So we played it safe.  We were all very disappointed.  But we had a great trip anyway.  It just means that we'll have to go again sometime in the next 20 months.

I'm sad it's over!

The Sun Is Out And I Want Some

This would be day number 3...

Breakfast.

Meals were provided.  It was really nice.  We were happy we didn't have to think about food, or prepare it, or clean up after it.  With a group that big, we would have spent a lot of time messing with food.  We loved that we could relax and enjoy the time just hanging.

  

That's a lot of kids on one tiny little boat.  I asked one guy if he thought the driver could save a kid if he fell off.  He just laughed.  I don't think he understood me.

Ready.  Set.

Jump!

Jumping of the boat was great fun.  This was right before Mads lost that pair of goggles forever.  Stinker.  We told him not to use them.  But the water stung his eyes.

We snorkeled a little more that morning before we were off to another beach.

This one had waves, so we spent a lot more time in the water.  It also had a little water fall, with fresh water from the mountains, that ran all the way down to the ocean.  It was like a little creek right there in the sand.

We didn't see any animals on this beach, but we saw cat prints.  Big ones.  It was kind of freaky.

I totally didn't have them pose for this one.  They were just doing that.  It was surprising.

Yeah right.

The whole crew of kids.  Eleven kids to 4 adults.
I originally wrote 13 kids.  That's because I can't do math.

These kids have a great time together.  We are so so so so so so happy the PGs are in Indonesia.

More sand castles.  The beach is so dang fun!

It was fun to watch the sun come up and go down everyday.

Going Sailing

So we started moving in the middle of the night.  I'm pretty sure everyone woke up.  You could feel it.  It was not a smooth ride.  The 5 girls were in a room together, and at one point I woke up and heard them all talking and giggling.  Some people slept on the deck too.  It's a special treat to be able to see the stars when you live in Jakarta.

I missed part of the morning because I was sick.  I don't think it was motion sickness, but I heard a couple of kids puked into the ocean that morning.  Actually, I didn't 'hear' it, I was told that's what happened.

This is what we all woke up to...

Ocean in all directions.

Fishing boat.

This is the boat we stayed on for 3 days.  It was supposed to be a 3 hour tour.  If not for the courage of our fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost.

Just kidding.  It was called The Cecilia Ann.

First stop:  Ujung Kulon National Park.  This was an island called Pulau Peucang.

The water was the perfect temperature.

This beach was perfect for finding seashells.  There were so many different varieties and sizes.

Mads was doing this thing where he would jump up and then land in the splits.  I promise I haven't been letting him watch 80s rock videos.  I have no idea where he learned it.  It was pretty entertaining though.  And it didn't even hurt!  The sand was amazing.

(He just told me he learned it from Gru on Despicable Me.  Then he showed me his whole dance.  Hilarious)

Perfect perfect sand.

My obligatory feet-in-the-sand picture.  Plus, I don't ever want to wonder if I was there or not.

There were monkeys on the beach.  I think this is the one that drank my diet coke.  They warned us not to bring food because the monkeys will riffle through your stuff.  There were a ton of them.  You could see them watching us in the trees.

We also saw a couple boars, a deer, and a monitor lizard.  The pigs were eating jellyfish.  So strange.

Building castles.

I think he tried to bury himself.

Making Dare a mermaid.

Going back to the big boat.

I know I said 'perfect' a lot.  But seriously.  It was pretty amazing.

After we had a late lunch, we moved the boat to another part of the island (or another island, I can't remember) and we went snorkeling.  I didn't take any pictures!  I am kind of upset with myself, but there was a lot to do and see.  I think the PGs have some pictures though.  All of us snorkeled except for G.  I couldn't get him to wear the goggles and look in the water long enough to see any fish.  But the rest of us saw fish.  Tons of them!  It was so great.

Long Waits and Fish Eyes

I should be blogging about the super interesting holiday that took place during August.  And about the reason we had days off of school and work.  And about fasting, and what that means, and all the other traditions.  But I am too excited, so I am going to skip all that and go straight to...  we took our first vacation!

Day one was picking up Nate from work and driving to another city to get on our boat.  We had to stop for dinner.  And for a potty break.

This is the bathroom outside the restaurant we stopped at.  So colorful!  There is nothing that these kids can't handle.  If nothing else, the bathrooms in Indonesia will make us all stronger people.

Inside, waiting for food.  Nate ordered.  I guess because he could read the menu.  We got satay, and some fish.  It was scary and tasty, but mostly scary.  Nate ate a fish eyeball.  Owen thought that sounded fun, so he ate the other one.  Gr-oss.

The outside of the restaurant.  It looked so festive.

The guy in charge of the boat wanted to have everyone listen to the rules and go over where we were going.

The plan was to start sailing at 2am and go to Ujung Kulon National Park.  Since we got to the boat pretty late, we mostly just found somewhere to settle, and went to sleep.
We were so happy the drive didn't take the 7 hours we thought it would.  It was less than 3.  Miracle?

Like Nobody's Business

G and I have had a lot of alone time since school started.  He loves it.  He hasn't said he misses the kids yet.  He is soaking it all in.  All the attention, that is.

I love it too.  We have a good time.

We keep busy.  There is always something to do, and even going to the grocery store takes up quite a bit of the day.

He never leaves my side.  He wants to see what I'm doing on the computer.  He wants to be on the counter when I'm making food.  I can hardly shake him when I want to take a shower!

We spend a lot of our time talking.  That boy sure loves to talk.

Most of our conversations begin with him asking why.  I will answer.  I'm usually right, he doesn't ask that hard of questions yet.  And he will respond with, "Actually, it's because of this..."  So he totally doesn't believe my answer, or he is just testing me to see what I will say.  I'll correct him again, and we'll just go back and forth with our own answers to his why questions.  He uses the word 'actually' way too much for a 3 year old.

Or, he'll ask why, I'll answer, and he'll then say, "But why?"  My answers are never good enough.  For example...
G - Why is that guy smiling at me?
Me - Because he thinks you're cute.
G - But why?
Me - Because you are cute.
G - But why?
And so on, and so on...

Holy Hippo Ears

I guess my stuff isn't at the bottom of the ocean after all.

 This is called a big box of irony.

Let me tell you why...  The first time I went grocery shopping here in Jakarta, I was disturbed because I couldn't find anything I needed or wanted.  It is better now, and I quite like shopping actually.  But back then it seemed like the stores only had 2 things:  nutrition drinks, and single serving noodle mixes.  They have aisles dedicated to noodle mixes!  You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.  Whole aisles!  I was shocked at the time.  I couldn't believe that there were so many brands, and so many flavors!  And of course they are dirt cheap.  Like about 7 cents a packet cheap.  So you can imagine my horror when I opened a box full of Top Ramen.  This was carefully chosen to go with us in Utah.  It was stored safely while we spent our time in DC.  And it was shipped on a very large, slow boat so we could receive it (16 months later!) in a country that has more noodle mixes than they know what to do with!  We laughed.  It was fun.

Here's what the kids did the day we got the stuff we haven't seen for 16 months...

Put on old Halloween costumes and watched TV.