Happy Halloween!

Halloween is obviously not a big thing here but it's a really fun reason for people to get together with friends!  We went to a big Halloween party the Saturday before the big day so it was time to break out this year's costumes.

Alex wanted to be a stick man Neptune (trident not pictured).  Not sure why exactly, but he's reading Percy Jackson and apparently loves Neptune?  Regardless, the costume cost $3 and an hour of time so I was on board.

Ben chose possibly the most appropriate thing ever...a t-shirt with a "costume not available" error message that he designed himself.

Since the party fell right on Matt's birthday, he went as the birthday boy!

And I, well, I decided to go as the hostess.  In her own house.  I even got dressed in her bathroom!  This is her daughter saying "You're my mom!!" when I walked downstairs.

Thankfully, Andrea thought it was hilarious, as did pretty much everyone else at the party because I won best female costume!

Tons of fun being Laur-Andrea for the night!  But a little confusing to her kids.  And her husband.  And her husband's boss.  All in good fun!

The rest of the night I had to go big so I could hang as Andrea!

This was no half-done deal...real Andrea knows how to throw a party! 

The little trunk or treated in the garage, which was fortunate because it was pouring most of the evening.

The older kids were going to hit the pinata but it wasn't quite as strong as the adults hoped! 

The kids hung out to watch movies while the adults enjoyed the band outside.

One of the best things about Jakarta - you can get almost anything done at your house.  Want to hire Mongolian barbecue for dinner?  No problem.  And really cheap.

Java Beats did their thing on the stage while we danced and sang along.  Always a great time.

In true Andrea fashion, I took a dip in the pool at the end of the night.  After all the dancing, it felt pretty amazing.  Perfect way to end the night!

On real Halloween, we joined our friends in Astoria/Executive Paradise compound for real trick or treating.  They had a few dozen families handing out candy and a lot of excited kids collecting it.

It kind of felt like home!  It was safe for the kids to run in the streets and we saw lots of friends.  It's so worth the effort to give the kids the memories they'd be making in Texas.

Sekolah Kami

Alex's school collects fresh fruit every Friday to send to neighboring schools where kids don't normally get much in the way of fresh produce.  The fifth grade classes got to take turns visiting one of these schools, Sekolah Kami (Our School), to deliver the fruit and see how the kids live.  Sadly, this ties into the unit they're studying on poverty.  I was unprepared for the experience and how truly poor we would find the people in this community.  They make pennies a day by going through trash to find anything that can be sold or recycled.  The school is there to give the kids and education and skills so that maybe they'll be able to break the cycle of poverty and have more options in life.

I thought we were going to help out the school but they did so much for us!  They welcomed us with a few songs.

We broke into small groups and we were shown around the community by a guide and a few students who live here.

This man described how he sorted the trash and what he was able to collect.  A kilo of plastic will earn him about 5 cents.

We got to visit a few homes and meet some of the younger kids.

My group of boys with their local buddies.

We dropped in the 1-2 grade classroom.  One of the kids was 9 years old and so excited to be at school, even if he started a few years later than the rest.

Next, the school kids taught our kids how they create handmade recycled paper.

I was happy to walk by and see the big bowl of fruit we were able to share.

Another group of students showed our kids how they use their paper to make cards.

Their creations were beautiful and can be sold for almost $1 apiece.

Alex really enjoyed making his own.

The final lesson was handmade soap.  (Ironically, no soap in the bathroom here)

All the kids enjoyed this lesson as well and got to bring home the soap they made.

The kids got to play some games together and it was so much fun watching them interact once they all warmed up to one another.

To practice their Bahasa, all the PIE kids interviewed a Sekolah Kami kid and had to try and translate all their answers.  A very cool assignment.

But we found that flossing is the universal language...

Finally, it was lunch time and all our kids brought lunches for their buddies.  We also brought big trays of chicken nuggets and mie goreng to share with the kids that didn't get to buddy up and they were all gratefully received. For some kids, it may be their only meal of the day.

We got a quick dance performance before we had to say goodbye.

It was a really incredible experience for me and hopefully for each of the kids as well.  We take so much for granted, like clean water and electricity in our homes.  These lovely kids didn't own much in the world but shared everything they had with us.

My crew on the way home after a memorable day.

BWA Golf Tournament

I finally competed in my first golf tournament with my golf ladies and we had a great time.  I'm not going to say that I played all that well but I made a few key shots to help out the group and we all had a really fun experience.

The day started at 6:30 with golf cart decorating, which means we left the house before 6am because of Jakarta traffic.

Andrea and Pam put some time and creative energy into our carts, and Andrea was even smart enough to order us matching outfits from the US over the summer.

We looked pretty great in our color coordinated carts!

The theme was the Olympics (and boobs, since it was a breast cancer screening fundraiser) this year and this cart was the best!

It was a great day with these ladies!  They're my Jakarta crew.

Pam had an incredible drive on the hole with the longest drive competition and she had the top shot for a woman when we passed through.  We found out later that she won for the day!

One hole required pool cues instead of putters, just for fun.  Harder than it looks!  And check out the caddy...I'm pretty sure we had one real caddy and three dudes off the street who were more interested in picking mangoes than finding our balls.

We were pretty excited to find our coach Ken at one of the holes.  I'm pretty sure we're his favorite group to coach because we're a lot of fun :)

We hired him to make the drives for us and birdied this hole.

Birdy celebration!!

We won second place for best dressed and cart.  Can't be too sad to lose to the Boob-sled team.

As far as golfing, we finished up at 82, which wasn't too shabby and only 8 strokes behind the winners.  It was a really memorable day with lots of laughs and some golfing, too.