Alabama

Matt arrived about a week after us and we headed to the farm in Alabama for some country time, cooler mornings, and plenty of driving.  Once we arrived, I barely drove anything because of all my willing chauffeurs!

I'm not sure many things make Ben happier than driving the old blue truck on a dirt road.

Alex was my 4-wheeler driver most days.

And a little practice behind the wheel around the farm.

Early summer is great for picking blueberries and blackberries and we grabbed snacks all along our paths.

The boys did great shooting skeet.

Everyone loves a good campfire in the evening!

Oops.  Lessons in how to get unstuck are just as important as driving lessons!

After a fun trip together, we decided to give Alex his birthday gift just a little early and he was pretty thrilled.  Welcome to the apple world, buddy!

 

Back to Texas

We didn't waste a minute of summer! As soon as school ended, we packed up and headed straight to the airport to get to Houston.

Cheers to another year done and another great summer ahead!

As an added bonus, my friend Amanda was leaving on the same flight to move back to Virginia! It was fun getting to head out with her.

One of our favorite sights when we land! Behind the smiling faces of our family, of course.

Alex didn't even make it home before he crashed.  Thank goodness it was later in the afternoon so we didn't have long before bedtime welcomed us.

First things first! A very important stop.  Arriving on Friday evening makes tex-mex less appealing because no one wants to wait for a table after that long trip.

Number one priority for Ben - get behind a wheel!

And Grammy kicked off the summer in the best way - with their favorite cookie cake.

We had a great weekend together, enjoyed Top Gun Maverick and seeing ratface at the theater...

...and taught Grammy to play some fun new games on the ipad. It was so good to be together again!

 

Farewell, McCulloughs

In keeping with the Saturday party theme, we had a big farewell party for Brian and Farrah at Alice's house.  Naturally, we needed a traditional Jakarta flower board to properly greet our guests.

We had also learned how much fun the photo boards are from the other parties and had to have our own made! We sure love all these kids and hate that Tate and Macy won't be back next year.  The kids just dropped in for some photos and dinner and then enjoyed their own evening at our house.

I sure do love these two women as well! We've been a pretty awesome trio for the past couple of years and it's so hard to know we can't keep up the fun next year....at least in Jakarta.  We're planning to take the party global at some point.

This is probably my favorite photo of the night because it captures all of the fun we have when we get together!  Pure joy!

Amanda made two really amazing cakes.  One for Farrah and Brian, headed to Korea...

...and one for Amanda Morgan, headed to Virgina. 

I thought this captured the sentiment of the evening perfectly! There were some tears, of course, but more laughter than anything else.  Exactly what we wanted.

It was also a reunion with the Mongolian BBQ people here...just as good as we've remembered it! And what's not to love about a catered dinner where everyone gets their dish cook exactly they way they want.

Our entertainment for the first two hours was Alice's incredibly talented piano teacher.  He did not pause or take a break for exactly 120 minutes.  Pretty impressive.

We enjoyed a lot of talking and laughing and eating

The ladies who will (hopefully) be back in August!  Katrice is currently on the fence so we maybe said goodbye to them as well, but we sure hope not!

We had some toasts...

...and some cake...

...and then some karaoke.  The Pavlas' have a mobile karaoke machine now so we'll never have another quiet party!

He may not admit it, but Matt is a pretty dang good singer and he has a great time when you hand him a mic.

Keith, the middle school drama teacher, was a little harder to coax out, but he can sing and perform as well!

Even Festy got in on the action.

As all good things do, our celebration had to come to an end.  These friends are 100% what makes life great here and we're so grateful for each of them! We're going to miss the McCulloughs terribly next year but we have so many happy memories together to keep us going until we meet up again somewhere.

Moving On from Middle School

JIS celebrates the milestones so well.  Sadly, Ben missed his Moving On ceremony at the end of 8th grade, but it made Alex's all the sweeter.  It was the first time in two years that we attended a big event on campus and it was a wonderful afternoon.

Alex's group of friends ready to finish up their middle school days! (photo credit to another mom who was able to coax everyone to stop for a picture)

I was only allowed one photo at the table and then Alex left with me to go see the rest of the party.

There was a really nice party area set up on the middle school patio.  It was great to see kids and parents we hadn't run into in years.

Ben did wander through to check out the festivities and steal a cupcake. I know he would have loved this when he finished 8th grade.

How is it possible that our baby is ready for high school?! And he's suddenly almost as tall as we are??

There were two ceremonies by Learning Community, so ours had about 100 kids.

Alex with Noah Bohnen, the principal, who I've only met at Waterbom in Bali!

The slideshow with baby pictures and current pictures was a lot of fun for parents and kids alike.

Landon, Alex, and Alex

They are so fortunate that they all met and became friends in 5th grade and made it all the way through middle school together!  I'm so thankful Alex found friends that were living in Jakarta for many years as well. Landon's family is packing for a local move right down the street from us (yay!!) and ran across this picture from 2017.

On to High School for this guy!  We are so excited to see him stretch his wings next year.

Sadly, Ben is about to say goodbye to one of his besties when Tate moves next week.  Such is the life of an expat kid.