So Long Ordinary

Happy Thanksgiving!  I thought of you all when I found this in the grocery store yesterday.  It gave me good chuckle anyway...  Not definitely, but probably the best in Indonesia!  No unattainable promises here.  Gotta like the honesty in the marketing department at Shira Potato.  By the way, these are diet potatoes, as you can see on the bar code sticker. Yes, diet potatoes! Probably. Nothing says yummy diet potatoes like the Tasmanian Devil, and I'm sure no copyright laws were infringed upon.  Probably? As you've noticed I've been on a sort of an unplanned hiatus from blogging.  Our October was crazy - very good, but indeed very crazy.  Apparently, the craziness continued through November and here we are nearly into December.  Oops! In my defense, I did attempt to blog several times over the past few weeks only to discover that Blogger and I were having technical difficulties.  Well, I think we've got those things figured out and ...

A few weeks ago, when the moon was full and reportedly very close to the earth, we headed out to the MAF dock to try to see the rising moon.  It's hard to find a good place to watch the moon rise when there are tons of big trees all around and the land is flat as a pancake for miles and miles.  Sean's grand idea was that we would climb up on top of the hangar roof.  At first, I thought this would be fun...until I saw what that meant.   Somehow, scurrying up a wobbly ladder and up onto a steep metal roof with a 100 foot drop into a muddy river is not my idea of fun.  Not really. Fun fact: my feet sweat when I'm nervous.   I was nervous. And I was also wearing flip-flops.  Sweating feet and flip-flops are a bad mix on a steep metal roof.  Ugh.  I don't even know how I shimmied up to the peak of the roof, but I'm pretty sure it was done with a few tears and some harsh words for my husband who was so helpful by telling me to "just stand up and wa...

Happy Thanksgiving! This is a day like any other for us in Indonesia - Sean went in to the office and we'll be doing English Club later today. (The girls and I are taking the day off from school, though.)  We'll have our big Thanksgiving meal on Saturday with a large group of friends - most of whom aren't even American!  I love that about our missionary life - friends from all over the world who will willingly join us for our own traditions as though we were family. We ARE family, actually.  I'm thankful for them, these Dutch and Swiss and Indonesian and British and American friends who help make the holidays special despite the fact that we can't be with our families back home.  It helps, ya know, having each other. Maddie was up early this morning and wanted to join Sean and I on our morning walk.  She was excited to practice riding her bike.  Sean has raised her training wheels so she's a little wobbly but she had a great time...unt...

  Let me just say, everybody is fine.  But that picture up there, in Brooklyn's sweet note to her Daddy, pretty much sums up our weekend.  Blood.  Lots of it.  Flowing out of Sean's foot.    On Sunday afternoon Sean was using a weed-eater to try and tame our wild, jungle grass in the yard.  This weed-eater, rather than having a nice, docile nylon string was basically a little metal machete propeller.  Which, incidently, is not so safe when you accidently get your foot in its way.   Ugh.  Let me just say that seeing my husband's foot bleeding profusely was mighty disconcerting.  I worked in a dialysis unit, mind you, and regularly dealt with people's blood.  But when it is somebody you love, it just can't be helped to feel a little woozy and worried at the sight.    Praise God, it wasn't a toe and Praise God it wasn't any worse.  We were able to drop the girls off with our teammates and get him to t...

There's this great swimming pool about 30 minutes from our house.  It is a lovely spot, set far away from the city of Palangkaraya and tucked in a quiet village on the only hill for miles around.  We love going there on Saturday nights.  We order chicken curry and watch the kids swim.  I like to get in the tepid water for a quick swim and enjoy the little chill-bumps that raise on my skin when I step back out of the water into the fresh night air.  Last time we were there, there was a huge storm rumbling as the sun set.  By the time the kids were in the pool, it was a downpour.  Our friends were with us, and while the kids jumped into the pool, we adults found ourselves a spot out of the rain where we could visit. Every time the lightning struck, I'd glance nervously around, start counting the seconds that passed before I heard the thunder.  I was a worried wreck.  Five precious little people, including 3 of my own, w...

The girls have these books about four big chickens who get into all sorts of trouble.  I adore these books and so do the girls (and so does my mom, who gave them to us).  They are hilarious adventures...and becuase we have chickens, we know how accurate the books really are.  Just so you know, chickens are stupid and ridiculously skittish.  I love having them for the eggs and the entertainment value. I was washing dishes the other day when one of our hens suddenly jumped up pwocking and squawking and rammed her head into the wall next to the window over our sink.  She jumped a good 20 feet in the air and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.  No other creature was around, nothing was chasing her.  One of our hens, we're not sure which one becuase they all look the same, has found a fun place to lay eggs even though she has a perfectly lovely nest box for that.  To this hen, right next to Sean's saw and the spare umbrella in the garage seems ...

Sean and I in unison when Paige was sniffling and complaing about a runny nose:  "BLOW YOUR NOSE!" Paige: sniff.  "Where's the blower?" ................................................................................................................................................................... Madison proudly proclaiming after I reminded her to brush her teeth:  "Yes, Mommy! I already brushed my teeth....with Daddy's toothbrush!" .................................................................................................................................................................. Madison, who knows "fat" is an unkind word:  "Mommy!  You are really.... fluffy under your tickle rib!" ................................................................................................................................................................ The other day I was lecturing Paige.  I was pretty close to her face, tryi...

So, Sean does this thing when we are at hotels. When we get off the elevator on our floor, he starts speedwalking, which immediately makes everybody else speed up their pace as well. Eventually, everybody is running pell-mell down the hall (what does pell-mell mean? did I use that right?) trying to be the first to the room. Of course the girls all giggle and it is such fun until Paige starts to fall behind and then it becomes screaming and crying for her. I'm usually bringing up the rear (and shushing everybody) and I usually wind up grabbing Paige's hand and running with her, letting her at least beat me. (Yeah, I like to think I am still capable of beating a three year old in a foot race. This is what I tell myself, that I am letting her win.) So that was what we were doing, racing down the hall, Paige and I, hand-in-hand. Sean and Brooklyn were long gone but Maddie was still with us, sort of struggling along with her large, wet beach towel. Maddie then had a great id...

So earlier I mentioned a few catastrophes that happened in our time at the hotel on Brooklyn's birthday. Well, the week got hectic, our homeschool stuff arrived, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (quick, what movie is that from? It's one of my favorites) and well, I'm only just now getting around to telling you all about it. Here's the first... Paige has a thing about locking doors...see Exhibit A and Exhibit B . Really, she has a thing about locking doors and then freaking out and not being able to unlock them herself again and she will not be coerced into trying the lock again. She just sits in there saying, "I tan't! I tan't!" while her parents cajole, coerce, bribe, and threaten from the other side of the door. This is a very unfortunate habit to have in Indonesia where there are so many doors, so many locks, and so many doors that lock but have no child safety features built in for parents of children addicted to locking themselves into rooms. ...

We can get the Olympics on TV here and we've been watching it at odd moments throughout the day. Usually, they only show badminton (HUGE sport here and Indonesia got 6 gold, 6 silver, and 6 bronze in it, by the way). Today, though, we managed to catch some swimming and gymnastics - or "germnastics" as Maddie called it. While we were watching "germnastics," Maddie was quite enthralled. Her favorite was a girl from Russia but she wound up losing to an American which Brooklyn thought was awesome. Maddie was disappointed in her Russian but then I told her, "Oh, she still did very good, Madison, she got silver!" Maddie was silent for a while and I could see her sort of fidgeting in her chair until she finally asked the question that was going round and round in that little head of hers, "So....Mommy? They just give her silverware?" Posted with Blogsy

English Club went quite well, by the way - there were 61 - and afterward, because I was too exhausted to bake up our usual Friday Night Pizza, we went out to eat. The name of the restaurant, believe it or not is "Steak Aroma" and they serve "steaks" - chicken steaks, fish steaks, burger steaks, paper-thin T-Bone steaks, and hot dog steaks. Thus the name Steak Aroma. Kind of. Anyway, if you happen to be in Palangkaraya and you are in the mood for a steak you are out of luck but if you are content with a thin little hunk of meat slathered in sweet BBQ sauce, this is a great place to go! "Steak Aroma." It's right next to "Giggles Bags 'n' Whatever." Can't miss it. If you pass "Slurp," the goth clothing store, you are not on the right street. If you are more in the mood for chicken of the fried variety, I highly recommend "Red Crispy." It's on the same street as "The Pank Salon" (you know, i...

Our cat, Princess, is in heat. And boy is she ever. She can't seem to control herself - she's your typical hormonal adolescent. This is her first time experiencing all these new feelings and you can tell she isn't real sure what is happening with her so she's just going with it. Apparently, her mother was too embarrassed to go over the birds and the bees with her before they parted ways. She meows pathetically all day long. We can't stand her! I get really mad at the girls if they wake her up from a nap because she starts all over again. Twice she has managed to push her way out of a window in our kitchen that has a loose screen. We are so careful to keep her inside because we've had cats disappear twice from our yard - we have a lot invested in her and, besides, she's one of the only cats in Indonesia that has a full tail! We're very lucky to have found her both times she got out. What we don't know is how long she was out at night...we don...

We're all doing well. Busy, busy, busy. (but not with homeschooling, which is SO nice) This week we're extra busy with company. Two different families are in town - a family with Wycliffe that visits 3 times a year and our newest MAF family visiting during their break from language school! Any increase in our Western family count is cause for great joy and celebration! ;-) Our Indonesian staff is on a retreat with other Indonesian staff from the other side of Kalimantan. Please pray for them to have a great and blessed time. We highly value these men and their families and we know they need encouragement in this ministry just like we do! Please keep praying for the English Club. It just keeps growing. There were 59 last week but half of them were new and several regulars were missing, which means we're shooting upwards of 60 if everyone comes! I am unable to do as much craft-type projects with them because it is just too much - too expensive to get all the material...