Pictures

After spring break, it felt like we started the home stretch to summer and our trip back to Texas!  The weeks have been flying past.  What have we been up to?

Tennis! I'm not the only one working on my game in this house.  Alex and his friend Annabelle, Jill's daughter, have been taking lessons at JITA together.

They're so happy having a friend to talk to during lessons...just like their moms!

Ben had a fantastic school trip to Bali.  Sure beats a field trip to the museum!  Even if you have to be at school at 4:30am to catch an early flight.

He and his group did some white water rafting, camping, hiking, and learned a lot about Balinese culture and religion.

We didn't get many pictures this year but I was happy to see his smile each day.  It's a long week for the moms without getting to talk to our kiddos at all.

Rainy season hasn't quite left us yet but there has still been plenty of pool time in our eternal summer.

On a PIE holiday, Alex and two of his friends got to try out the new virtual reality game at the mall.

Alex was a pretty big fan and couldn't wait to go back with Ben.

The 7th grade science classes wrapped up their cell biology unit with a giant cell tour. 

This science geek was in heaven and so proud of Ben for answering questions from the other parents.

We have to make our own Easter fun here and last year I dropped the ball by not planning an Easter egg hunt for Alex.  It's one tradition he's not ready to quit.  Ben wasn't sure middle schoolers should still be hunting eggs, so I made sure his friend Forrest was there, too, because he's one month older than Ben!

We used my friend Norma's fantastic backyard for hiding a few hundred eggs.  This particular golden egg with Rp 50,000 (about US $3.75) was going to be quite a challenge!

 The kids fretted over it for a while until an adorable and determined Aussie girl swam straight out for it.

We attended our second Aggie Muster here right around the corner.  It's wonderful feeling connected to home even though we're so far away.

Just when the city started closing in on me, I got in a Sentul hike with some friends for a little fresh(er) air and green space.  It does the soul good.

Raja Ampat Underwater

The sea life in Raja Ampat was absolutely overwhelming.  The color and variety and sheer number of fish and coral was more than we could even take in in most places.  It was unreal! And yet we kept discovering new creatures every time we went out.  

There is no possible way that we could have captured the magic we found every time we dipped our heads into the water.  That was the biggest disadvantage we found in snorkeling versus diving because it's tough to get the good pictures, although we were making memories at every turn.  Sadly, my underwater camera sprung a leak about 10 minutes into our first snorkel, so we had to borrow a resort camera for a few days to capture some memories.  I'm sharing a lot of them, in no particular order and nowhere near as glorious as they were in person.

The poisonous stonefish.  Alex had heard of these and he took off screaming.  I'm pretty sure they're only a problem if you step on them, not just swimming overhead.

The titan triggerfish

We saw thousands of drifting jellyfish that didn't sting (although the plankton that they feed on did give us little stings here and there) but thankfully only saw a few moon jellys.

Indiana Jones wore his hat most of the week because it was impossible to keep enough sunscreen on his head.  The kids sang the theme song for him each time he jumped in!

The redtoothed triggerfish became one of my favorite new discoveries.  They were really common there but new to me.

Sometimes the fields of coral went as far as we could see.  Boats are generally really careful not to drop anchors so we saw little damage in most places. In other places, the coral was completely destroyed because fisherman used to use dynamite.

The little colorful creatures on the color would disappear and hide if we waved our hands nearby.

Ben's favorite - the parrotfish in every size and color.

Alex was a huge fan of the anemones and clownfish.

The giant clams were amazing.

This little pipefish was very cool

Beautiful little nudibranch

We saw lots of black tip reef sharks but weren't able to get many photos while we were snorkeling.

The amazing bumphead parrotfish - they were each at least 2 feet long.

 We saw lots of sea turtles and always had to get closer and say hello!

A Napoleon wrasse in the background

Sweet-lips

Matt getting a better look at the barracuda

We saw several moray eel as well

From our own porch, we saw sting rays constantly throughout the day

We also spotted octopus below our porch several times, but they were so difficult to find!

If we happened to be lucky enough to see one swim, we could watch him for a while.  They were fascinating!

We watched this eel go in and out with the tides

 There was a lovely school of parrotfish that hung out near the dock every day.

 The walking shark, only found in Papua.

Baby black tip reef shark.  I had to yell "shark!" every time I saw one and the kids got pretty tired of hearing it!

And the cute little beach cat...