The Latest

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!!  

It is amazing how quickly the time goes by!  We have now been here in Indonesia for a year and a half!  The first six months are a blur as we struggled with transitioning to the new culture and job, but now we are finding ourselves not even noticing things we used to think were so different or alarming!  Our family is doing well, and we have been blessed by God beyond our expectations!  God has been so good to us and we are so thankful for the chance to work here with NICS at BAIS.  

Perhaps one of the biggest pieces of news for our family is the fact that we now have a car!  It has been a blessing to be able to drive the kids in the car instead of being out in the rain on a motorbike!  Having a car has enabled us to have much more freedom in being able to go where we need to go in a safer vehicle.  It's a Honda Brio, a car made in Indonesia and part of a low cost, green car program on the island.  Before we started shopping for a vehicle, I did not know that many of the cars here are three cylinder vehicles!  This one has four, and gets us around town just fine.  We thank God for the blessing of a car.  

The car was an early Christmas gift of sorts, and the other big blessing was Erin's parents coming to visit!! The kids have loved having them here to talk to face to face, and it has been fun watching them together.

Here's some picts of our latest adventures!

We started out the Christmas break with the boys!  We headed to our friend's house.  I usually don't ride with this many kiddos on the bike at once!  (but it is possible!)

We had a couple days to relax before Erin's parents came on the 24th.  The kids were so excited to pick them up at the Jakarta airport!  Our good friend, Amu, graciously drove us there to them up.  Her parent's flight had been delayed from the start in Dallas, so their whole original itinerary was ditched.  But the flight was uneventful, and everyone was very helpful.  They arrived in the afternoon instead of in the morning, which just meant they got to experience the traffic of Jakarta!  We even took a side road "short-cut" courtesy of Google Maps.  It actually worked out, and we all got to see a part of the town we normally wouldn't- complete with an open air market!    

at the airport!

After a couple of days, we took the family to a neat restaurant up in the Lembang area.  Kampung Daun is a popular place, and has pretty good food!  Everyone made it there before me.  I had to take the car in for its 1000km service (yes, the service schedule is different here-) and was stuck in another part of town that morning.  As I drove up to the restaurant, I was stuck in Bandung traffic- for three hours!  It was a nice place to relax after the traffic.  

Chee (Erin's dad) likes to play soccer with the kids.  The grandparents enjoyed seeing the boys' friends as they came to visit.  Jace learned to ride a bike over the break as well, so now he and Kadin are not only soccer buddies, but bike buddies!

One of the things we like to do with Nali and Chee is to play "42."  Here, Chee is teaching the boys how to play dominoes....

Earlier this week, Kadin had to go to the hospital due to his chest congestion.  When we left, this beauty was sitting in the lot near our car.  It's neat to see the older Jeeps and Toyotas here on the island.  This one was done up particularly well.  It reminded me of the Jeeps we had back home, and the fun adventures we had...

Curug Cimahi is a popular local waterfall.  It's kinda in the heart of the city, which makes it all the more amazing.  It's height is about 85 meters....   I had gone there at the end of summer with the new teachers, but this time it was with the whole family! The boys loved swimming in the area- they were all over the rocks and in the water- and stayed pretty dry- except for Jace- he slipped and fell in!  He dried off pretty quick, and we had a change of clothes!

Just the other day we went right downtown- the ladies to the mall, and Amu and I to a play center in the mall.  The kids had such a blast and were totally worn out.  Here's a shot of them as they zone out while waiting for the pizza to come!  (yes, this is Pizza Hut!) 

That's just the last week or so..... We will try to add some more later, but for now, we want to at least get something up for everyone to enjoy.... (besides- I have to figure out how to transfer some other photos first!)

Have an awesome new year!!  -mekj