So Long Ordinary

Here in Indonesia, it has quickly become apparent that just about every plastic container worth it's salt must have some form of poetry on it...and it must be in English. Here are some samples, straight from our house to yours: Good Morning When the sun goes shining, The flowers bloom, Beetles and butterflies flying around My heart goes shining too Duocaili Sprinkling sprouting flowers a rather rainbowish sort of garden. -FLOWERS ON THE HILLS- Fly Flower a flower entwined with anioy I only find it comical because I know that my use of the Indonesian language sounds just as funny and odd to native speakers, if not more so! (Okay, definitely more so.)

I promise, more original and interesting posts are on their way. But until then.... I was pretty sick at the end of the week. I'm not sure if it was a nasty bug or a nasty parasite, but I seem to be getting better. All I can say is...ew. I hate being that kind of sick. I was so scared I'd have an episode at school, that I stayed home on Friday, even though I was mostly better. We've seen no volcanic ash or any other indication that a volcano is erupting just 15 miles from here. If we didn't check the news once in a while, we'd never know it was happening. Weird. You probably saw Sean's blog pos t which included a photo of our whole family on the scooter. Yeah. It's comical, to say the least! I never imagined we'd get around that way, but transportation of some sort is a must here in Salatiga and that scooter is what we could afford to get right away. We don't go very far with all five of us on there - obviously it isn't really very sa...

We're fine. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami happened a long, long way from where we are and affected a different island. We're also pretty far from the coast here in Salatiga. We're fine. Though the erupting volcano isn't very far away from us as the crow flies (15 miles) we are protected from lava flows and dangerous gases by Mt. Merbabu, another mountain. We can't see Merapi from here, though if it were clear we might be able to see the ash plume. As it is, most people here in Salatiga don't even know that Merapi is erupting! Honestly, if I hadn't heard from family back home that this is going on, I wouldn't have even known! Indonesia has really been in the news lately! And now, we can say that Sean was in the Indonesian news too. I'll let him fill you in, but let's just say that the gawking foreigner who decided to skip school so he could see the action was pretty much the main attraction for reporters waiting for the volcano t...

Long sigh. Our internet has been giving us fits off and on since we got here. It would work and then it wouldn't and then we'd try something and we'd think it was fixed only to have it go out again. Frustrating! Anyway, last week it was worse than ever. Every time I'd sit down to do something on the internet, it would go out or be incredibly slow. (That was when the electricity was on...that's gone off a few times lately too!) On Friday, our internet connection completely stopped working. And so, for the past 5 days, we've been internet-less. It could have been worse. But I quickly began to realize how dependent I am on the wonder and magic of the Internet. I can go without Facebook or even my favorite blogs or news pages. What I can't stand is to be without any communication whatsoever with my loved ones! (Mom, I hope you are prepared to talk with me today, cause I'macallin soon!) Our internet has gone out for several reasons in several differe...

Last Thursday was Madison's fourth birthday. I had big hopes of doing a lovely post about my precious middle child that day, but alas, the internet was not to cooperate with my plans. No biggie, it just meant I got to spend more time with the birthday girl and less time writing about her! But I have to tell you about my Madison now that I can. She's the middle child and for some reason, it appears that being the middle child is synonymous with being a wild little clown. She's a handful and always has been. But what I love about Madison is that she loves a good joke and she's not afraid to turn any situation into a comedic event. I honestly can't repeat many of her jokes here, but suffice it to say, she's very in tune with her body...and everybody else's. I'm glad she's not a boy. It could be worse - or so I hear. This girl has got potty humor down to a science. Madison is also, somehow, even more talkative than her big sister. Sometimes, we...

Oh! I have so much to tell you. But not the time to do it. And if I do have time, the internet isn't working. So bear with me, please? Our internet was out for a couple of days last week. It's working again...and at the moment working really well, so I'm going to work on getting you all caught up on the news here the Cannon House of Salatiga. It'll have to come in bits and pieces, though. I don't have the mental capacity to do it all at once, and I'm pretty sure there is a limit to how long a blog post can be. Amazingly, I haven't reached that point yet..but I would today, trust me! It's been one of those weeks! And it's already Monday again. Where does the time go?

I've had a cough for three weeks now. It's getting old. It's annoying. It's sinus-related. I have no idea what to do about it other than hack my way through class and wait it out. They say there is such a thing as a 100-day cough in Indonesia...I'm beginning to believe it. This is the last week of my first unit of language study! Yay! I'm encouraged, though it is a looooong process and I've only just begun. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to volunteer to learn a FOURTH language.... Paige is getting downright adorable these days. She loves looking at books and pointing to and naming animals. She's getting pretty good at it! She also is an expert at saying "stop," "don't", and "no!" She says "mau" whenever she wants something - that's Indonesian for "want." Maddie turns four years old this week. I'm not sure how to feel about that. She's growing up so fast - too fast. I lo...