Photos: 24 - 30 October 2005

A few photos from when the boys were still trying to figure out what to be for Halloween. These boys of ours give us so much good material. At some future point when we need to embarass them, it is going to be difficult to decide which photos to use.

The above shots are from the night the boys went Trick or Treating.

For lunch today Luke made himself a sandwich -- just your standard cracker, carrot, and cheese sandwich. In case you can't tell, it is supposed to look like a face. And yes, he ate most of it.

Letter: 23 October 2005

Dear Family & Friends,

Here are a few of the things that have been happening recently here in Jakarta:

Rainy Season

It is Sunday afternoon and it is absolutely pouring rain outside. The rainy season has officially begun. Jakarta has two seasons – rainy and dry. The rainy season lasts from the end of October / beginning of November until about March. The thunder and lightning are incredible. It stays the same temperature all year long, though.

Ramadhan

This month is the Muslim fasting month, and it lasts until November 2nd, followed by 2 days of celebration called Idul Fitri. It has been very interesting for us to experience how Ramadhan is practiced here in Indonesia. During the first week of Ramadhan, while we were on the way home from church we noticed about 10 guys on motorcycles with matching jackets. Our driver explained that they are a group of extra holy Muslims who go around to restaurants and nightclubs to make sure that they do not sell alcohol during Ramadhan (alcohol consumption is forbidden in the Muslim religion, but during the holy month of Ramadhan, some extreme Muslims try to make sure that it is not available to anyone).

As you probably know, during this month Muslims fast between about 4:30 am and 5:45 pm. They post the exact times in the newspaper every day (not sure exactly why it changes each day) if you don’t happen to hear the “call to prayer” being broadcast over the loudspeakers of one of the thousands of mosques in this city.

One night last week our company met together for a short prayer service then for Buka Puasa (breaking the fast dinner). We have had to make sure we are extra careful about what and when we ask our household staff do things. We need to make sure we don’t ask them to do anything between 5:30 and about 6:00 pm so they have time to pray and then go eat. Heidi says that the staff does their normal work during the morning hours, but that for most of the afternoon they are pretty lazy – the effects of getting up early to eat and then not eating the entire day.

One other Ramadhan comment – last week I was talking with some co-workers and we were joking around about something. One guy suggested that the other person should say something untruthful (not anything serious – he was just kidding around about something). She (also in a joking way) said that she couldn’t do that (tell this untruth) because she is fasting and Muslims aren’t allowed to lie while they are fasting.

Mallory

Mallory is still the cutest girl in Jakarta. Her bottom two front teeth finally broke through (after one particularly long, sleepless night). She is standing up on her own now, and has added a few words to her vocabulary (it is really cute to hear her call for Nash – if we are downstairs and yell upstairs for Nash, she will mimic us and call out her version of “Nash”).

Halloween Costumes

This is Heidi now. I went to the Jakarta Women’s and Children’s Clinic this week. I had read that the women there sew Halloween costumes to sell to Americans. The money they earn goes to supplement their family’s income. I decided to go to see what I could find. They had the cutest costumes -- not a huge selection but we ended up getting a super hero costume, two cowboy outfits, and we ordered a long scientist’s labcoat for Nash to be a mad scientist -- they took his measurements and said they’d make it this week.

The Halloween thing has been very interesting here. They obviously don’t celebrate it, but a couple of American Moms have set up Trick-or-Treating here in Pondok Indah for all the kids that go to the school so on Thursday I will stay at home and hand out the candy and Creed will take the kids around to the houses that signed up.

I had to try to find some Halloween candy and that was a trick, not to mention it cost me a small fortune! I found some imported bags of candy but they were $7-9 per bag!! I’m hoping we don’t have too many kids come or I may have to start handing out some of the boys’ toys.

Primary Program

The Primary program was today. All the children had to give their own talks and then we put the music in-between. I was thankful I brought the chimes so we had a little variety for the music. Everyone did such a great job.

A Little Culture

The Branch had a progressive dinner last night. We split up into 3 groups – our group met at one home for appetizers, our house for the main course, then the all 3 branches met at one house for dessert. It was someone’s 40th birthday so her husband had us all sing happy birthday to her and then he opened the door, turned on some music and in came some traditional Indonesian dancers. It was something else. We were amazed at their movements. The costumes were amazing. The culture in this country is really amazing.

Nash: 23 October 2005

Jakarta is very different from America. I am now used to the junk on the side of the road and many vendors trying to sell things to us.

My school campus is very big. It has about 25 classrooms in 7 buildings. Mr. Behse is my teacher. He is sometimes strict and stubborn. I have after school activities at my school. I was lucky to get the 3 activities that I picked, which are: computer class (Wednesday), Mad Science (Tuesday), and strings (Monday & Thursday). I play the violin. I am now comfortable enough with my violin hold that I can hold it without any hands – with only my shoulder and my jaw. In Mad Science we do many experiments, like making crystals. Me and my friend, Rish, are the only people who answer the questions. Everybody else is there for the explosions, not the knowledge. I love baseball. I am going to start being in one of the JIS little leagues. Grant is in the machine pitch league and Luke is in the t-ball league. I am not very good at pitching and I didn’t even hit the target board on the tryout test. On the machine pitch test, the ball came hurtling out at 50 mph with great force. One of the balls hit my finger on the bat, even though my hands were not too high on the bat. My finger started to swell and it turned purple. It really hurt! I am excited to start baseball and I hope to get better at it.

Rish came over last Saturday and he brought Crazy Frog. I doubt that you know what Crazy Frog is, but it is a band that plays “mixed” dance music. We bought the CD at Pondok Indah Mall.

I love to play computer games. Luckily, at Ratu Plaza (which means Queen Plaza), they have a computer store where they sell cheap computer games. For my birthday I got 2 computer games – one was Railroad Tycoon and one was Moon Tycoon. However, when I opened “Moon Tycoon,” it was actually Airport Tycoon. And Railroad Tycoon can be installed, but when I put in the disk, it says “Please insert disc 2” and when I insert the other disc, it says “Wrong Disk.” I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Airport Tycoon had problems on my computer. Those problems were: the mouse would not move when I opened a window and I did not understand the game because it was so slow. Luckily, downstairs on Mom & Dad’s computer, it works!!

I am adjusting well to this new life and hope to see you all when I visit you or when you visit me.

Grant: 23 October 2005

This is Grant, I want to tell you a poem. It’s called WORLD, WORLD.
This is how it goes

The world is very different here,
But you don’t live very near.

I like my school it’s true,
Our colors are white and blue.

I miss having parks around,
I only have the school playground.

The food here is very weird,
And no one has a beard.

My friend Haneef is from Malaysia,
That’s another part of Asia.

My ceramics class is almost through,
A lot of my things were painted blue.

I miss you all very much,
Please remember to keep in touch.

Written by Grant with a little help from Mom.

Luke: 23 October 2005

This is Luke. I love school. In two weeks I get to go all day. I can’t wait. I started my swimming class last Monday. We are learning to write. I got to bring home Tim and Sam (stuffed Dalmatians) and they have been doing things with me all weekend. I get to write about it in the class book. My best friend is Abbi. He is from Indonesia. I like to help Mallory walk and play. She has two teeth now. My Mom has an itchy rash on her arm. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting today for the primary program. I’m going to go trick-or-treating on Thursday. I had character dress up day this week. I dressed as a cowboy from the book about Bubba. I like that book. We had a book fair at school and I picked out five books. That’s all.

Photos: 23 October 2005

Grant and Luke reading one of the books they bought at the school book fair on our Javanese bench.

Grant dressed up as a cowboy, as well, for the school book character dress-up day.

Grant and his friend, Jonathan, having fun in the pool.

Mallory, smiling in her crib, right after waking up from a nap.

Luke is in the middle of the picture dressed as a cowboy and holding his book.

Photos: 23 October 2005

Luke brought home two stuffed dogs from his classroom for the weekend. He wanted to take them on a bike ride, and he insisted that we strap the dogs to his body using a belt. Luke, Grant, and I rode around the neighborhood for a while Saturday morning with Luke toting the dogs. Yes, people stared at us. Oh, and Luke decided to make himself a wig out of paper. You can see the tape he used to keep it on his forehead. You know, if Luke ever goes bald, all he needs is a piece of paper, a crayon, and some tape and you'd never even be able to tell.

House Photos: 23 October 2005

Some people have been asking about what our house looks like, so we took some photos of the kids around the house today.

More House Photos: 23 October 2005

Letter: October 9, 2005

Hi, everyone,

In no particular order, here is what has been going on over the last couple of weeks since we last wrote:

Last week was the first week of Ramadan here in Indonesia, and it has been interesting for us to see it first hand. On Tuesday night, the night before it officially started, several employees from the office came in to see me to ask my forgiveness for anything they had done (they were going around talking to everyone in the office, which is apparently one of the things Muslims are supposed to do before the fasting month begins). I decided to forgive them this time.

Early Wednesday morning most Muslims woke up early (2:30 or 3:00 am) to make and eat a big meal before the first Morning Prayer of Ramadan. The only other main thing that we have noticed so far is that traffic isn’t quite as heavy in the morning on my way to work. Someone told me it may be because people sleep in and go to work later than normal because they have gotten up early to eat and pray, then they go back to sleep for a little while.

A week ago I went to Medan (the largest city on the island of Sumatra – population over 2 million) with 3 other people from the office for a work event. The Ford dealer in Medan had invited about 500 people for an event to introduce the new Ford Focus we just started selling here. I gave a short speech, then a couple of other people made speeches, then there was dinner, “entertainment,” (which was a group of 10 people dancing to various pop songs from the last 3 decades – I thought it was rather funny), the official dramatic unveiling of the Ford Focus, etc. We returned to Jakarta the next morning before the sun was up. It was a quick trip, but good to get out of Jakarta and to see another city and to get to know the dealer up in Medan a little bit better.

I’m not sure what to say about the Bali bombings you have all probably read about. The son of one of our Ford dealership employees was one of the 25 fatalities last week. I guess I would say that it has been a reality check for us – both at work and at home. At work we are making sure that we are all up-to-speed on our emergency procedures. Additionally, we are having our international security consulting company come to our house tomorrow (it was already planned to take place this month) to train our household staff and guards and to evaluate the security of our home. I went to the US Embassy on Friday morning for a briefing by the US Ambassador and the RSO (regional security officer). It was interesting to hear their reactions to the events of the past week and to get a general reminder of the precautions we need to take.

Two monkey sightings for you in the neighborhood: About a week ago our driver and security guard pointed to a tree across the street & river from us. High up in the tree was a monkey. We think it stayed there overnight, because the next day one of the boys saw it from their classroom windows. And then yesterday morning while Grant and I were on a bike ride in the neighborhood we saw a monkey at someone’s house. It was chained to a tree, though, by a leash.

Also on Saturday I took all 3 boys to the school to sign up for baseball – it is a community-run league that practices and plays at Jakarta International School. The boys haven’t played on a team before, but they are all pretty excited to get their uniforms and to start practices and games. Right after baseball sign-up our friends, the Willis family, came over. We left the kids at the house and Heidi and I went with Dave and Jenny to our favorite restaurant, Koi, for lunch, then we went to a Batik show at the Jakarta Convention Center. We picked up several inexpensive Batik items – a skirt and sarong for Heidi, a couple of table runners, and a plate, etc.

The boys had parent-teacher conferences this week, plus a half-day off Wednesday, then full-days off Thursday and Friday. I am told they spent most of the time with friends from church or school, including swimming quite a bit, of course.

Well, no photos for you this time. I just checked the camera, and the only new photos taken since the last time we posted are of the boys’ Lincoln Log creations. I think I’ll just leave it up to your imagination.

Mallory still has yet to sprout teeth. She loves to show her gummy smile to anyone that will look. She is 11 months tomorrow and we are all looking forward to her big 1year birthday next month. The boys can hardly wait. She is still the most popular person around. The house help all love her and smile and laugh at everything she does. Our maids walk endlessly around with her holding her fingers. She loves it. They are so good to climb up and come down the stairs over and over with her. She is in heaven when they do that with her. She has discovered that she likes to take out the matchbox cars from the bin and then if she puts them away we all clap so that’s her favorite thing right now. She’s just getting over a bad cold that wiped her out pretty much all week last week. It’s her first bad cold, so no complaints.

I (this is Heidi now) went to institute this week and taught the lesson. We just started having it since there are more women in the branch. We meet at someone’s house every other week and everyone takes turns teaching. We are studying Joseph Smith. It’s wonderful to study his life and realize what an amazing man he was.

I also went to parent/teacher conferences. There was a very glowing report about our family from Luke’s teacher. She kept saying how kind Luke was and how amazed she is that my boys all take care of each other. She nearly had me in tears. She said she can’t believe how much Grant watches out for Luke and that they actually want to play with each other when they have recess at the same time. She was very impressed and said some very kind things. It was a good ‘pick me up’ for me. She kept asking me how I’ve raised such kind boys. I so badly wanted to say, “Let me tell you about this church we go to.” But it really didn’t seem like the appropriate time. I hope to get a chance one of these days.

I was just watching Fox news and saw a report about the scare of the bird flu. We need to get on the waiting list for our flu shots here. I was told it’s pretty long. We are trying to take precautions but it’s hard when chickens just roam freely on the streets. The school does not serve any chicken at all and I’ve stopped buying it. We just have to keep praying that we’ll be protected. That’s the story of our lives here. Lots of prayers.

We are thankful for all of your prayers and we miss you all dearly. The boys talk about their cousins and grandparents often. We are already looking forward to seeing everyone this next summer. Happy birthday to Grandma Miller and Rosemary this week. I’m sure I forgot someone else’s birthday….if so, I’m sorry.

We love you,
Creed, Heidi, Nash, Grant, Luke, and Mallory

Letter: 25 September 2005

Bahasa Indonesia Lessons

Heidi and I started taking Bahasa Indonesia lessons this week. We take lessons from the same teacher, whose name is Ibu Rin, but at different times – one and a half hours per lesson, two times per week. I have my lessons at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning at the office, and Heidi has her lessons at home during the morning, usually right after Ibu Rin is finished teaching me. Heidi and I both think this is a great time to start taking lessons – we have been in the country for nearly 3 months, we are nearly adjusted to the newness of it all and have gotten into somewhat of a normal living routine. We have also heard the locals speaking the language and are familiar with a few vocabulary words and with general pronunciation rules. Heidi and I both have headaches, though, after our lessons, but it is good to start learning and using what we are learning. I generally try to practice with the driver to and from work, and Heidi practices with the household staff.

Speaking of household staff, our maid Warsi has been talking to Mallory in Bahasa Indonesian, trying to teach her how to say “satu, dua, tiga,” which is “1, 2, 3.” Now all Mallory can seem to say is “dua” (I hear her saying it right now as I am typing). Whenever anyone says “satu,” Mallory answers back with “dua.” It is pretty cute to hear her speaking Indonesian.

Blackouts

One thing we were warned about before moving to Jakarta is frequent electrical blackouts. They were right. One night Heidi and I were minding our own business, watching a DVD quietly at home, when the power went out. After an hour or two the power went back on, but later that night the power went on and off again several times. We never did find out the reason. And about a month ago the power went out at work at 6:00 on a Friday night. Heidi and the kids were on their way to pick me up from work that night so we could go and do something, so I had to walk down 12 flights of stairs in the dark (remember that it is pitch dark by 6:00 here). And no, the stairwells do not have emergency lights. The only light I had was from my mobile phone. After those couple of blackout experiences, we invested in several new flashlights and batteries so that we could put one in each of the bedrooms.

Puncak

We had a great time this weekend with our friends, Dave & Jenny Willis and their family. They arranged for us to stay at a vacation home up in the mountains just on the other side of the Puncak Pass (approximately a 90 minute drive south of Jakarta). It was great to get out of the city and to get up in the mountains, where it was cooler and where the air is cleaner. The place where we stayed is owned by the US Embassy (Dave works for the US embassy) and is available for embassy employees to rent when the US ambassador isn’t using it. It has two homes, a pool, some nice gardens, and several huge, open grassy areas.

We felt like we were in heaven. We had packed some games for the kids to play inside and outside, and both Heidi and Jenny had brought food for us to eat, so we didn’t have to go anywhere the whole time we were there. It was great to get away from the traffic and pollution of Jakarta. The weather was perfect (probably in the 70s, though I never checked a thermometer), and for several meals we ate out on the patio. The kids had a great time playing together, exploring the grounds, playing Frisbee, badminton, ping pong, playing board games, etc. Even though the water in the pool was frigid (or shockingly refreshing to some), the kids swam 2 or 3 times, but for no more than 15 minutes each time. On Saturday afternoon, Dave and I took the kids on a walk on a trail to find a volcanology research station we had heard about. We ended up leaving the road and walking on a narrow trail for about 30 minutes until the trail ended. It didn’t matter, though, because the kids had fun walking through the jungle.

We were all fascinated by the many different plants and animals we saw up there. I guess instead of animals, I should say reptiles and insects. There were surprisingly few mosquitoes, which made it pleasant. We did, however, see two or three different varieties of beetles, several lizards (the largest was only 7 or 8 inches), and a baby cat eating a dead snake. Oh, and we also saw some bats at night.

Mallory and her Shiner

Mallory, unfortunately, took a horrible fall on the hard marble floor this week. She was in so much pain that she just moaned for about an hour. We were pretty worried about her during the night so we watched her closely. She seems to be fine now, but has a large bruise on her forehead and a black eye, the poor thing. She still smiles at everyone though.

Everything Else

On the way home from church today we saw someone selling monkeys by the side of the road. Cartim informed us that it is illegal, so we didn’t stop to buy one.

You’ll be happy to hear that so far we have managed to avoid the avian flu. You may have read that they closed the Jakarta zoo because a few people have died recently, supposedly resulting from the avian flu. Nash’s school field trip (in fact, all school field trips) to an area outside of Jakarta was cancelled due to the outbreak. People are quite scared about it.

I came home one day this week and thought I was in a Pier 1 imports store. Heidi has, with the help of some friends, found several shops to buy very reasonably priced pottery, baskets, wood carvings, and other decorative things for our house. I guess that makes sense, though, because I’m sure that Pier 1 imports gets a lot of their merchandise from Indonesia and countries like Indonesia.

Photos: Puncak Sept 24, 2005

Photos: Puncak Sept 24, 2005

Photos: Puncak Sept 24, 2005

Photos: Puncak Sept 23, 2005

Photos: Puncak Sept 23, 2005

Photos: Puncak Sept 23, 2005

Letter: September 18, 2005

Bugs and More Bugs

We are all in shock with our house help and their attitudes toward bugs. Warsi, our maid, often steps on ants, spiders and other large bugs with her bare feet. The other day she was laughing at me because two large dragon flies were in our house and they scared the jeepers out of me so I jumped and screamed. She simply came over, picked them up with her bare hands and told me they make great toys for children and started to fly it around. WHAT?!! I’m sure we are rather comical to her.

I finally had an extermination company come out and spray in the house and fog outside. Although, the smell was horrendous (and we stayed away for a good three or four hours after) I see little difference. There aren’t as many ants about, but we still have the random bees that are somehow getting in the house. I’m hoping it’s an accumulation thing and we will see improvement each month.

Church

Our branch has really grown and the boys are happy to have other children in church as well. I have been called to be the 1st counselor in the primary, which means, since it’s just me and the president and two teachers for the entire staff, we’re doing everything: playing the piano, chorister, sharing time, singing time, scouts, activity days, writing the program and hall monitor. There is so much to do, but it’s fun to be with the kids.

Lizards and Goats

One afternoon, our driver came in holding a water bottle with something moving inside. I looked closer and noticed it was a pretty large lizard – 15 inches or more, including the tail. It basically looked like a small alligator. I called the boys down to look at it -- they were in awe. Our gardener had found the lizard by the river and shoved it in a bottle for the boys to see. Just one of many animals the boys are getting introduced to. As long as they aren’t the ones catching them and bringing them in the house, I’m okay. Grant did beg to keep it, but after my look of utter horror, he quickly withdrew the request. I already share this house with too many unwanted guests thank you very much.

Speaking of lizards, Creed noticed a lizard the other day that was painted half white. We figure he must have been relaxing on a fence somewhere when someone was painting it.

Creed also saw two men on a motorcycle, and the guy on the back held a goat on his lap – not sure if the goat was a pet or dinner. We often have contests to see who can spot the strangest thing on a motorcycle. I think Creed’s goat wins so far.

Bandung

A few weeks ago, the boys had a couple of days off from school so we decided to get out of the city and go on a little trip. We went to a town called Bandung, a couple of hours from here. It was beautiful when we got there. It’s up in the mountains and much cooler. We stayed at the Sheraton where the pool area looked like an oasis. We had fun swimming and just relaxing that evening. We did a little shopping at the outlets there the next day and went to a couple of volcanoes. It was interesting to be standing at the top of the crater of a volcano. The only disappointing thing was all the hawkers -- they just attacked us. It was really a bother. Most of them can only speak limited English, so we figure if we speak German to them next time, maybe they will leave us alone. The excitement of the trip was Luke announcing he was feeling carsick as we traveled up the winding roads to the volcano. The only problem was, his announcement was a little too late and you can guess what happened when he said, “I think I’m going to throw up.” I traveled the next few meters to the top with my head out the window trying to breathe fresh air and laughing at the situation. Fortunately, we were changing hotels that night so we happened to have our suitcases in the car. After getting Luke changed he looked down at the ground and said, “Hey, there’s my eggs.” Nice.

I Used to be Able to Make Good Bread

One day I was craving some of that braided bread I make. We were having lasagna for dinner so I thought it would go nicely. I put the yeast in the hot water and started whipping up everything else. When it was time to add the yeast, I noticed it hadn’t foamed like it normally does. I decided to add it anyway. Well, after cooking what I thought was bread, I realized I had baked some doorstops instead. They were as hard as rocks and didn’t rise at all. I couldn’t stop laughing and neither could our house help. They ate it anyway.

A few days later, I decided to try it again. This time the yeast foamed nicely, but the bread didn’t really rise. As I was kneading the dough, my driver looked in the kitchen window. I looked over and smiled and kept kneading. I baked the bread and it still didn’t turn out. I thought it was horrible. The funny thing was I noticed my driver telling some animated story to the gardener and our other maid and also the security guard. I wondered what he was saying so I asked Warsi. She started to smile and said he was talking about me kneading the bread. I peeked my head out the door and said, “Cartim, are you making fun of me?” We all started to laugh. Apparently, women don’t do that kind of muscular work around here. I should have known. They never let me lift anything or carry anything in from the car. I donated that bread to the house help as well.

Too Hot

Another cooking story. Did you know the plastic handles on crock pots melt off if plugged into a 220 volt outlet? I found this out the other morning when I accidentally plugged it into the wrong plug. Whoops.

After-School

The boys are involved in a variety of things after school. Nash started violin after school and we bought a very nice ½ size from the strings teacher. He is progressing right along and enjoys it. Nash is also taking a computer class and a “Mad Science” class after school, and Grant is in a ceramics class.

Wrap up

I’m sure you are all glad to see those words. We are enjoying life here. Nash had a wonderful birthday, inviting a friend to go to the waterslide and out to lunch. We celebrated his birthday all weekend. Thanks, everyone for the birthday wishes for him. He had a happy one.

The boys are all very happy in school and making great friends. They love swimming class at school and are learning to swim very well. Luke is learning to read and having a great time in school. Mallory is growing so much. She is officially crawling (not just the army crawl) and loves to go all over the house. Her shirts, knees and toes are often black from the floors. Even though they are mopped everyday, the pollution is so bad that here that it leaves dust on the floors. Mallory is also starting to copy words we say. She holds phones or anything that resembles a phone up to her ear and says her version of ‘Hello’. She has made me realize how often I say ‘Wow” because she repeats it to me when I say it. She loves to clap and will if anyone says, “good job” or ‘Yeah!”. She’s happy as ever.