So Nice

On Veteran's Day, Nate told me he would wake up and get the kids ready for school.  He got the day off, they didn't.  But, when he woke them up, the begged him to let them stay home.  He's a sucker.  He let them.  Well, it felt like a holiday should, so we were happy.

I slept in a bit, and when I woke up Nate was making chocolate gelato and mango sorbet with the girls. Nice.

Then we went swimming.  Nate throws the kids in the pool.  He stands outside the pool, and chucks them as hard as he can!  It's pretty entertaining, especially since there hasn't been any injuries yet.  This time I got pictures.

 The first toss with G is always super high.   Probably because he is the lightest.  From then on, he asks Dad to not throw him so high.  

 They start making faces and hand gestures.

 Sometimes they even shout out movie quotes.

 More fun.  This is my favorite.

Timing the jumps with the boys was a little tricky.

After swimming, we went out to lunch.  Sate Senayan.  The kids don't love it as much as I do.

It was a good holiday.  Maybe I'll let them stay home on all the American holidays.  We'll see...

I'm Laughing at Clouds

There was no lightning, so I let him go out with an umbrella.  He thought it was the coolest thing ever.  Or at least he said it was.  He might have been too embarrassed to admit it was lame after he asked to play with the umbrella like 738 times.  That day.

Rain is usually a pounding rain.  It sounds like hail.  And the thunder is like I've never heard before.

Not One Tootsie Roll

A little story about Halloween in Indonesia...

We put up our spider webs and hung our bats, so on the inside it felt like Halloween.  We didn't see the leaves change this year.  We didn't feel the chill in the air, but Halloween was a much bigger deal than I thought it would be.  There were decorations for sale at the grocery stores, and I even went to a mall with a whole costume section.

It wasn't a big deal at school.  Only Mads had a party.  But in addition to the 2 parties already mentioned, we had another one on Halloween after school.  It seemed like we weren't missing out on anything by being in a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday.  Plus we got to trick-or-treat!  We had a mini trick-or-treat session in our little American compound.  It was great.

I missed the cool weather, but we had bats flying around us.  That was a first!  It felt like we were on a real haunted street.  I've seen depictions of Halloween with bats in the moonlight, but never lived it.

I'm so used to cold weather on Halloween that all day as I was planning my evening in my head, I kept thinking I would need to change out of my flip-flops and put on some jeans.  I had to laugh at myself.  Really though, it was nice not to worry about snow, or the kids getting too cold.

Here the boys are opening the cards Grandma sent them.  They were so excited!


Nothing beats our Halloweens in good ole WJ, but this one was pretty good.

Monster Mash

We got dressed up on Saturday for a rockin' Halloween party...

BA the punk.  She's got the look.

Dare the ninja.

Rhon the viking.  She's got the look too.

G the other punk.

Mads the other ninja.  Mads made a great ninja.  Always posing and being stealthy.

The group.

I just liked these pictures.

The party.

It was a great party.  There was a haunted house that the girls got to help out with.  It was scary enough that it brought a few little kids to tears.  My boys included!  There was also games, and great food.

I didn't post our picture, but even Nate and I dressed up.  It was a small miracle that Nate wore the costume I got him.  Even though he took it off after about 30 minutes, I was happy.  So were the kids!  That's a side of Dad they have never seen before.  We were both 80s work-outers.  Nate had a track suit, and I was complete with leg warmers and hot pink tights.  It was totally awesome that we were able to buy stuff for our costumes right here at the regular clothing store.  I think that part was way more fun than wearing it...  

Safety Pins

 This is G "getting into character" before the preschool Halloween party.

He had been so excited about being a punk.  There was a lot of deliberation about what costume he wanted to wear.  One day while we were trying to decide, I showed him a bunch of costumes online.  It took him about 3 minutes to go through about 10 costumes that he was excited about.  He would confirm what he wanted to be, and then change his mind about 10 seconds later.  He started out with werewolf.  I tried to change his mind because that seemed hot, and not very easy.  Some of his other ideas were:  coyote, punk, skeleton punk, a monkey, and all the Star Wars characters.  And after I showed him each and every Jedi, he said, "Show me the cheetahs."

 I really wish this picture was in focus.

So after that whole process of deciding, he decided the punk sounded the best.  He was so excited.  He told everyone he saw.  All that changed when it was time to actually dress up.  I painted his nails.  That was a big mistake.  So we took it off.  The only way I was able to even get him to wear his costume was by saying that he couldn't go to the party without it on.  So we got it on.  Then I did his hair.  He was not happy about that either.  Then I put eyeliner on him.  That was a HUGE mistake!  He was so mad at me.  He cried and wiped his eyes enough that it was gone.

 Attitude was not originally part of the costume.

 G and his chick buddies.

 We made monster crackers.

I've decided G loves attention, but only on his own terms.  Once he thought he was choosing to wear the costume, not me, he was happy.  What a punk...

The Club House

Making fun with big moving boxes.

I don't think this thing will last very long because it has to stay outside, and there is a lot of moisture out there.  But we don't want to forget it!  The girls spent hours planning and brainstorming.  The PG girls were involved too, which makes it even more awesome.  They had passwords, club membership cards, cardboard locks, secret names, and secret locks.

*****

I can't believe I only posted 4 times in October!  Where is all the time going?

Taman Safari

We finally did one of the "must-dos" of Jakarta.  Taman Safari.

Columbus Day was a perfect Day.  The kids were off for fall break, and Nate gets all U.S. holidays off, so we went.  It's my new favorite holiday.

It was a 2 hour drive, which was very pleasant.  It reminded me of the drive to our home from the airport when we first arrived in Jakarta.  Seems like forever ago.

As we were approaching the safari, we saw these stands all along the side of the road...

There were so many carrots!  We bought some from these boys.  We bought 8 little bunches, which was about 50 carrots.  We should have bought more.

Looks a little like Virginia, right?  Actually it reminded us more of Jurassic Park.

This was the first sight of the animals.

These animals know we had carrots.  It wasn't hard to get them to come closer.

There was no warm-up to this.  You didn't see a few animals here and there, and then begin to feed them.  We were ambushed (in a good way) by zebras almost immediately after entering the park.

This guy kept bumping the car with his horns.  Those things are dangerous!

Everyone scrambling to get a good view.

Lots of llamas.  We gave them a lot of our carrots because we were afraid they would spit on us if we didn't.

Hippos!  We fed hippos.  Crazy.

The animals were in such great shape.  They were beautiful.

We kept trying to throw carrots to this giraffe.  I don't know what his problem was, but he could not track it.  Or maybe he wanted bananas.  Either way, we chucked some carrots at that guy that went uneaten.

That was cool.  Then we went through 2 big metal gates and the signs said to put your windows up.  We do it, but I don't really believe it's necessary.  The cats can't be that close, can they?

Yes!  Oh my gosh!  I couldn't believe how close we were.

See that road next to the lions?  That's the road we were driving on.  So awesome.

Stunning.

Have you ever wanted to see what a wildebeest looks like up close?

Love this one.

This ostrich was gorgeous.  I never thought I would say that.

So after the drive around part, you get out of your car and go to the zoo part.  There were elephant rides, and camel rides.  They were 30 minute rides, so we passed.  We saw kangaroos, wallabies, crocs (fat ones!), snakes, bears, rhinos, komodo dragons, otters, chimps, bats, and more.  There was also this cool bird exhibit with all kinds of tropical birds.  And we went to a birds-of-prey show.  Dare got to hold an eagle!  Well, I think it was an eagle.  I couldn't understand what the dude was saying. 

Then came the baby animals...

Chillin' with the baby elephant.  He was 5 years old actually.

Baby tiger.  We paid extra money to go into these little pens to take pictures with the cat cubs.

So worth it.

This guy looks a little bigger than a baby.  Look at the size of those paws!

Dare and I got to hold a lion cub.  Seriously, dream come true.  There are pictures, but I was trying to cut down for this post.

Can you even believe this?!!

She was so sweet.  She was 2 years old.

We each got a turn with her.

Seriously one of the coolest things I have ever done.

Bamboo Basket

Sometimes it's cool hanging with just the boys.

The girls all had a party one Saturday night, so Nate and I took the boys out for some dumplings.  It was so fun to watch them enjoy food so much!  They loved making their own sauce.  That's Mads gnawing on a chicken foot.  We ordered them just for fun, but they were a hit.

Their favorite kind was the soup dumplings.  Nate showed them how you put a hole in the dumpling and let the soup run out into your spoon.  They are rather good.  I could just drink the broth and be happy.  Mads said this is his new favorite restaurant, and he wants us to take him there for his birthday. They were very, very happy.  I can just imagine how awesome it will be when we can get them with pork!

The kids are going to love the food in China.  We all will!

Oh, speaking of China, I have an interesting bit of news.  Our next post got changed up a bit.  You remember how I said nothing is ever set in stone?  Well, I was right.  But this new plan is awesome too.  More awesome?  I don't know.  Again, I don't want to get my hopes up.  Taipei isn't next after Jakarta.  We are going to Beijing first.  We just have to learn to live in cold weather again.  And learn Chinese.  So that is the plan.  For now...