Home

I have been formally studying Bahasa Indonesia here for the past two months.  It's a simple language in many ways, like the verbs have no tenses.  You would say "I go today" or "I go yesterday" instead of "I went yesterday".  It is still challenging because I have never really studied another language (latin in high school doesn't really count), bahasa is not latin-based so almost all the words are totally unfamiliar, and many words have more than one meaning based on the context.

For example, I may think I've learned a word like baru to mean "new".  On my box of crackers in the kitchen it says RASA BARU! (literally flavor new, so new flavor in English)  But then I read a sentence that says "Aku baru selesai mandi" and I know the other words mean I, finished, and bath.  How does new fit in there?  In this context, baru means "just".  I just finished a bath.  Tricky, tricky.

But I found this little lesson pretty timely last week when Ben asked why I call Texas home and our house here home.  I always do believe that wherever I'm sleeping in my own bed, it's home, but Texas will forever be my home, so when I use that word the kids have to figure out which home I mean.  I think we're pretty lucky to have two places to call home in any context.

It is amazing how quickly the time has gone and that we've already spent 3 months in our house here.  It certainly has its quirks but it's a pretty great place and feels so much like our home now that we're finally completely unpacked and have our things up on the walls.  Come have a look...

The entry way

 

 Our study off to the right of the entry.  It's a little odd because it's two small rooms, so Matt got the one with the air-conditioner and I got the desk next to the window.

Out to the left of the entry is the guest room and then the main living area.  Right now this is just a huge open space but eventually we'd like to get a table or something in the middle.

The other side is the kitchen and dining room.

Dining room

Kitchen

Living room

 The upstairs landing is so pretty.  The doors on the right lead to the service stairs and it's a creative way to get some natural light in a very dark part of the house. The houses all share walls here so there are no windows on either side, but the skylight over the service stairs helps brighten the second floor.

Alex's room

Alex's study area in his closet

This was a piece of furniture that came with the house and it's a pretty awesome lego table - all four shelves slide out!  Finally, they have a place for their Minecraft kingdom where I won't ask them to move it.

Ben's room

Ben's study area - he chose this bedroom because his desk can face the window.

The upstairs game room.  The kids love this, too, because I rarely go in there so they can build stuff and leave it for weeks.

 Our bedroom

We waited several weeks to hang things on the walls because I was having quite a bit of framing done.  The prices are pretty amazing here and I was so happy with the quality of work.  We bought this painting and another about 8 years ago but I never wanted to cough up the money to frame them.  I'm so happy to finally enjoy it!

 

Ben is excited to have some cross-stitches that my grandmother made decades ago.  The original frames were in pretty poor shape and there was quite a bit of duct tape on the backs (thanks, Papa!), so they got a face-lift, although I was careful to match the style almost exactly so Ben wouldn't be upset.

On Mondays, I usually meet Ben at school after Tae Kwon Do so he doesn't have to wait around for the late bus.  It was a rainy afternoon and he was beyond thrilled that we caught a ride home in a tuk-tuk.

What would have been a 10-minute walk took just a minute, and it was worth all 75 cents it cost to get dropped off right in our own garage!

Alex and his friend Minan have signed up to work at the school store once a week and I had to drop in and see them.  So cute!  And such a great idea to get the students to help out.  (Plus, they were good little salesmen...I bought more than I had planned!)

VPA Performance

Ben took part in his first Visual and Performing Arts performance at the middle school and it was a pretty impressive evening.  We got to see the band, dance, choir, drama, and finally, the strings orchestra.  The beginner's strings class was small but it was amazing what these kids have accomplished in just 4 months.

 

We loved getting to watch Ben on stage!

It was over all too quickly but so much fun to enjoy all the talented kids.

They don't have uniforms here, just black on the bottom and blue batik shirts of their choosing.  I love that Ben chose to wear his black boots!  A true Texan in Indonesia.

Sentul Hike

I got the opportunity to get out of the city and hike in the hills with my Wednesday morning workout friends.  It was a rather involved process because we have to leave at 6:30am to make sure we can start hiking at 8am, so I had to arrange for the maid to come early to get the kids on the bus at 7am and wake up extra early to get everyone ready, but it was so worth it to get some fresh(ish) air and beautiful views.

The weather has been clearer lately due to two small cyclones that affected East Java.  We got a fantastic view of Mt. Salak.

These were the clearest skies I'd seen since we moved here in August.

At the top of the very steep hill with all the ladies.  We had three guides with us as well, although we didn't need much assistance aside from making sure we were on the right path because it hadn't rained in several days and the ground was nice and dry.  The hills would have been even tougher if they were muddy.

 

We did a big, hard-earned 4-mile loop and ended up back in a small village at the very end.

Seeing the local village life was almost as interesting as the views of the volcanoes!

Indonesia is such a beautiful country.  It's amazing that we get to experience this!

Alex's Festival of Lights

The elementary school does a fantastic semester performance.  Thankfully it's broken up into early years and older grades, so we got to enjoy just 3rd-5th grades.

We dropped Alex off with his class and Ben and I went to get seats, not really having much idea at all what to expect.

The choir performed first and did a wonderful job.

Then each grade went individually to sing and perform three songs.  As the kids were coming in and out, they showed videos of students talking about the songs.  I was so surprised to see Alex on the big screen!

I missed the first part of what he was saying but caught a little at the end. 

 

 Alex's class did a terrific dance to the first song, but unfortunately the video is too long to post here.  Alex looked like he was having such a great time dancing.

 

 The fourth graders had some really great songs to share with everyone.

 Afterward, we checked out the art exhibition outside and found some of Alex's work.  What a fun evening!

Getting In the Spirit

It's always been tough to feel like it's Christmastime when the weather is hot outside.  Houston may still be hot in December, but by now we would have at least pulled out sweatshirts a few times.  We were excited to see that Pondok Indah mall had a Christmas skating rink because it definitely feels like a winter activity.

 

The kids have only ice skated one other time so it took a little while to get the feel for it again.

 They were going pretty slowly at first.

Alex's favorite part was the powder in the corner so he could toss snowballs up in the air.

A great trip!  They were doing really well by the time they finished up.

While the boys were skating, I'd run over to Ace hardware to buy a tree and some ornaments.  It just didn't feel the same here without a tree!  I did bring one box of Christmas decorations, so at least we have a few of our favorite things from home to get into the spirit of the season.  It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Bangkok

We had the opportunity to visit two families we love in Bangkok and we jumped at the chance to spend the weekend in Thailand.  Our family has changed a little since our last trip there!  This was actually Alex's first flight from Singapore to Bangkok in October 2008.

 

 
October 2008:

November 2017 (and don't you love our pants??  We forgot the temple dress code this time around and had to buy clothes to cover our legs and my shoulders.  I'm wearing 3 shirts, shorts, and pants in this picture.  I am NOT pregnant)

We arrived late on Friday and caught up with the Smith family, who so graciously hosted us for the weekend.  First thing Saturday morning, we went to a wet market they recommended hoping to see a little bit of everything.

Pink eggs!

Once we made it out to the seafood and meat, things started to get interesting...

Pig faces, anyone?  I was dying to know what people did with these.

The chickens were very fresh, and the next round was on deck.

Mmm...eel...

 

The kids did okay through the pig guts and the skinned frogs, but they were losing it by the time we got to the huge piles of insects.

Pretty sure these were rats.

And naturally, huge durian at the very end!

After we finished walking through the market and the kids lost their greenish faces, we went to the Grand Palace.  It's such a beautiful place that I couldn't wait for the kids to see it.

The palace itself hadn't changed in 9 years, but the crowds were unbelievable.  Many places were wall to wall people, so it wasn't nearly as enjoyable to explore but we still found some quiet places to investigate.

I asked Ben for a picture of us in our awesome elephant pants and he zoomed in so much you can't see the palace at all!

A very serious guard on the way out.

Ben was absolutely dying to ride in a tuk-tuk but traffic had been bad and several streets were closed because the late King's ashes were still open to the public, so it was difficult to find a good place.  Finally we hopped on one for a 30-second ride down the street and made him happy.

Finally, we made it back to the Nichada expat compound to spend some time with our friends.  Ben and Alex were beyond thrilled to see Maddie and Michael, neighbors from our street who moved 3 years ago.  They picked up like no time had passed at all.

 Meanwhile, the adults got to do the same!  We always loved having Jen and Dan as neighbors.

Next, we were off to dinner with Clint and Candi (and Jen and Dan joined us later) to complete our reunion. It was SO wonderful to catch up with families we will always love!

 

And while the kids were all busy with a babysitter, we also jumped at the chance to do a little late-night race car driving.  Another great fashion statement for the day, since every one of us had open toed shoes and we had to buy closed toed loafers to race. We tried hard to get the Smith's driver to join us but he prefers driving real cars.

 

 It was a really quick trip but so wonderful to see friends and explore a little.  Definitely an upside to expat living in Asia!  Candi even made Ben a doggy bag of real American bacon to take home and he broke into it the second we got on the plane.