Our Family

I meant to post this entry at the very beginning of the blog... but I never went back & posted it.  I have updated the ages (since Miss O and I have had birthdays) & a couple of other things.  Here it is:

I think on this blog, I will be a bit more discreet about our family.  I won't mention Dano's job.  I don't plan to use our last name.  Also, I don't plan to use our children's names, but I will use their initials along with their ages.  However, I will post pictures!  So as stated in our profile, this is what you can expect:

Our family:

Fearless Leader - Dano

Wife and Mother - Melinda

 Oldest Daughter - Miss O10

Oldest Son - Mr. D8

Next Daughter - Miss E6

Youngest Son - Mr. W4

Youngest Daughter - Miss V2

The Whole Gang

All ages are in years.  I will not include mine & Dano's ages on every post, but for the record he is 40 (for a few more months) and I am 39.

Feel free to let me know if you plan to be reading along (or have been).  You can let me know by commenting below.  Many of you have subscribed to our blog via e-mail or read posts on facebook so you may not actually "visit" the blog.  BUT if you get a chance, drop by the blog to comment every once in a while to let me know you are along with us on this journey... and the blog comments will stay with the blog entries as a type of diary for us.  If you have trouble signing in to leave a comment, just click anonymous, and you can include your name in your comment.

Thank you for being interested in our journey & family!  =0)

Blessings!

Pictures by K.G. Photography in Middle Tennessee

REWIND - Jet Lag!

In case you've ever wondered WHAT jet lag looks like, here are some pictures of our kiddos experiencing it!  (These are pictures inside the VERY NICE temporary house we stayed in for 2 weeks.)

The day we arrived in country.  It is a little after 4 pm in
Indonesia... but that means a little after 4 am at "home."
This was after 30+ hours of travel.
We could NOT wake them up!  

About 30 minutes later & Mr. W4 joined them.
Miss E6 was wide awake.  She had slept well on the plane!

An hour later... still snoozing... couldn't wake
them to feed them!  Unfortunately, they woke
up around midnight, I think, starving.  =0( 

The next day after nap we tried to wake Miss V2 and
brought her downstairs... she would NOT wake up.
All of the kids had passed out WITHOUT eating supper
AGAIN!  It would be another midnight supper!  These pictures
were taken around 8:30 pm new time... so 8:30 am at "home."  

This time even Miss E6 had passed out!  

THIS is tired!  

I've always heard in order to overcome jetlag, you need to start functioning in your new time zone ASAP.  If it is daylight, when you arrive... stay awake.  If it nighttime, go to bed.  I've also been told that if you have kids, it usually takes 1 day per hour of time change before they will be adjusted!  Well, we had traveled 12 time zones EAST... so we were looking at a 12 day adjustment period???!!!!  

After being picked up at the airport, we were driven about 3 hours to our temporary house (with a stop at KFC).  After the lunch stop, one by one the kids passed out and eventually, I did, too.  Dano can't remember if he did or not!  After arriving at the house, the kids just moved locations and stayed passed out!  Dano & I were awake, but decided to take a nap despite "advice" to stay awake til bedtime, but the two guys here to help us did suggest we nap!  I'm so glad we did since the kids eventually woke up & were ready & "to go."  

I don't remember much about the day by day play of what was going on, but I do remember being BUSY making the most of our time with the 2 guys who had come to help us get settled.  We did start functioning in the new time zone, but the kids kept passing out before eating supper... so we just started eating supper earlier!  Unfortunately the middle of the night wakings continued for several more days... but overall, I think the adjustment came quickly!  I'd say in 4 days, Dano & I were adjusted.  It may have taken about a week for the kids.  I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO thankful it did NOT take the 12 days we were expecting!  Some people say that flying EAST to WEST (instead of WEST to EAST) helps you get over jetlag faster.  This is what we did... I'm not sure if that had anything to do with our fast adjustment or not.  Some people say when you fly 12 time zones... it doesn't really matter which direction you fly!  =0)  Whatever it was, I am THANKFUL!  

Stay tuned for "Our Home - part 2" coming soon!

Our Home - part 1

The front of our house.  The area on "this side" of the gate is the road!
Our house is VERY close to the road... the very busy, noisy, dusty road!

Many friends and family have asked to see our house.  I've been debating on how to best do this.  I finally decided that I would do several posts focusing on different sections so you can see WHERE we live. 

I'll try to describe each picture the best I can.  This is the house we live in.  It is kind of like a duplex.  Our family lives in the main part, but the family we rent from lives in another section of the house.  We each have our own entrances.  The door that connects the two parts on the inside is behind our refrigerator and it is covered with thin pieces of wood on both sides.  When you look at the picture above, the section to the left that is forward is our part of the house (and it continues pretty deeply into the back).  The part on the right that is set back is the section our landlord's family lives in.  They are living in a very small portion of the house.  It is three rooms (four if you count the bathroom):  a kitchen & two bedrooms (one doubles as the living room).  They spend a large majority of their time outside.  Before we moved here, they lived in both sections of the house.  How many live there?  The mother & father, their 13 year old daughter, & their 2 young sons (9 and 7 years old).  They have a 17 year old son who now lives next door with his aunt & uncle and his grandparents & two cousins.  

I'll describe the inside of our house later... preferably with pictures!  =0)  

Our "teras" which sounds a lot like terrace...
but you have to trill the "r" and the "a" sounds more like a short o.

I thought I would add a close up of the front porch (aka teras).  It is a great outside place.  It is white tile like the entire inside of our house.  During the dry season (which we are currently in), it gets so dusty and dirty so fast.  Of course the chickens that leave deposits don't help either!  We have our helper sweep and mop it in the morning and again in the afternoon before she leaves.  It is important to keep it clean!  Also... another teras note... every night, as soon as it gets dark... you MUST turn your teras light on & keep it on til morning.  Why?  I don't know... but if we forget, our neighbors come tell us!  =0)  I have been told they think it wards off evil spirits.  

You may find the unusual colors of our house to be... hmmmmmmm... how can I say this... less than desirable??  A couple of years ago, I probably would have, too!  However, when we first pulled up to this house to look at it, I had tears in my eyes?  I knew it was the house for us!  You may think that is odd... but you see, this bright green has become one of my most favorite colors.  It is the color for Lymphoma Cancer Awareness.  In October 2010, my father passed away as a result of Lymphoma.  He had planned to come to Indonesia with us to help us with the kids and just to come along... because he was that kind of Daddy!  So whenever I look at our house it makes me think of my Daddy... and in some ways, he IS right here with us!  So... I LOVE the color of our little green house!  

Our street (unusually calm) looking down to the left.
You can see the sawah to the right of the picture.
This is the same sawah we have had in other posts.

Our street... looking to the right.  Again... unusually calm.

Again, looking down to the right.  I zoomed in so that you could see a
 little more of the village down the road. You can also vaguely see the
mountain and the sun beginning to set.  

Next time... I think I will show you the rest of our outside area before we move inside or around the neighborhood... I hope you'll visit again!  Be sure and leave a comment!  (If you don't know how to sign in...you can be anonymous then just sign your name in your post if you want to.)

Crossing the Street

The above video is a typical street in Bandung (the city about 30 minutes away).  Actually, this is kind of a "light traffic" road.  I took this video just after I crossed this street.  The traffic NEVER stops.  It is a continual flow.  There is no crosswalk.  There are no lights at this intersection.  If you want to cross the road, you just step out in traffic and hold your hand out similar to what a traffic cop might do if he wants you to stop.  THEN you just keep walking with authority!  Don't stop... don't question your right to be there... just keep walking!  

Yeah, sounds pretty scary and ridiculous to me, too!  Actually, on this day back in May, I still wasn't brave enough to do it on my own!  Thankfully, another brave individual came along and I "tag-alonged" beside her!  =0)  Amazingly, this is just the way it is done here... and cars and motorcycles tend to slow down!  Shew!  =0)  

Humidity

The effects of humidity on my wall calendar.  =0(

We are no strangers to humidity!  Growing up in Tennessee and living in FL for 8.5 years... and some other humid places as well... we've met & gotten to know humidity well!

However, we know humidity on a whole new level here.  I guess it is due to the lack of air conditioning in our home.  We do have one small room with a/c (our bedroom), but we only run it at night while we are sleeping.  (Don't feel sorry for the kids... they say they get cold at night with their fans!  They are like the Indonesians in that respect!)

As you can see in the picture above, my calendar is a bit droopy... and this is the DRY season!  Some of our shoes have mildewed.  Eeww.  So have some of our suitcases & things inside them (like my purse).  Yuck.  And of course, when you need your clothes to dry... and it is humid... they don't.

BUT the plus side... is our weather is not nearly as hot as what some of you are experiencing in the Southern United States.  You can always check our weather here on our blog (look to the right).  We pretty much hang out in the 80s.  Sometimes it might slip down to the 70s at night or up into the low 90s during the day.  This is due to our altitude.  When we move to the other island next year... we will continue to have the humidity... but we'll have a LOT more heat to accompany it... all still without an air conditioned house.

Here's to ICE WATER!

Bebek-bebek

A still picture of the bebek-bebek.  Here, they are in

the sawah down the road, not across the street.  They

are camouflaged... so hard to see them!

The sawah (rice field) is all around us.  I've shared that with you before.  I have seen three types of animals used in farming the rice.  Some sort of cow... maybe a water buffalo? You've seen the pictures of the sheep when they walked with us along the road.  Now the third are bebek-bebek (ducks).  In the language here, you do not add "s" to the end of a word to make it plural.  Instead, you double the word.  So to say duck (singular), you say bebek.  To say ducks (plural), you say bebek-bebek!  Unless of course you are using a number with the word.  So, to say 5 ducks... you say 5 (lima) bebek.  The number makes it plural!   Okay... that was just a side note!  Back to the ducks...

I love the ducks!  I don't know why... must run in the family.  My 19 year old niece currently has 2 pet ducks!  But I love the ducks here because they make that great quacking sound ducks make, and I love the sound of them in the sawah.  It is very wet & muddy in the sawah... and their feet just sound great in there.  I don't know what it is, but it just seems like a happy sound!  That may seem strange, but it is true.  

Well, the other morning as we were about to start school, we suddenly heard a lot of quacking and the "duck shepherd" (as we call him) in our yard!  For some reason, the ducks took a wrong turn into our yard instead of into the sawah across the road!  I grabbed my camera & headed to the front teras (porch) as fast as I could to get them on video before they were completely gone!  You can see what I captured in the videos below!  As you can tell, the kids & Dano came out with me! 

What color are the ducks?  I'm not sure.  They always look brown... like the dirt or mud.  I'm not sure if this is their natural color or if they are just dirty all the time.  There does seem to be some variation in their feathers, so maybe they aren't solid white.  It seems like there is one black duck among the group. So, if you know the answer to this question, feel free to let us all know!  

I hope you enjoyed this little video of the bebek-bebek as much as I did!  Leave a comment here at the blog & let me know!  

REWIND - Getting Here!

I could write about 100 pages on our trip here, but I know no one would read that!  So, I will just say we had a GREAT trip all things considered!  I will post a slew of pictures and just comment on some of them!  Just a brief summary of our trip... we took off from Nashville, TN flew to New York and changed planes then refueled in Germany (we still had to get off the plane & take all our carry-ons OFF), then to Singapore to change planes then to Jakarta!  We had to go through security at each stop... carrying ALL the carry-on luggage each time, BUT we were well taken care of!  Singapore Airlines was VERY helpful and had employees help us so much!

Our 11 blue bins... they could not weigh more than 50# or
we would have to pay a HUGE fine.  We did pay extra to
bring 4 or 5 extra bins... it was cheaper than shipping
anything or paying the fine for overweight bags!  We were
allowed 2 checked "bags" per person, 50# each, with a
total dimension that I now forget!  BUT it wasn't big
enough for us to have 2 blue bins per person.

Our other checked baggage... each had to be 50# or less.
They are smaller than we wanted to take, but the airline policy
requirements of the total dimension forced us to have small
bags.  It is hard to get 50# in these bags.  Most were only 30#.

Our carry-ons.  Yes... this is too much!  More than I "planned"
but in the end... this was the result.  Each was about 15#!

Miss V2 and me on the "small" plane from Nashville to NY.
She did GREAT on this flight.  It was 2 or 3 hours.  The
following pictures are all the others on the same flight & more
of Miss V2.  There was plenty of room on this flight, & we spread out.
This was the FIRST flight for all the kids!  They did great!
They all LOVED it!  =0)

Mr. W4 playing a little digital game from Wal-Mart that
was just a dollar, I think.  It was race cars.

Blurry picture... represents our trip... a BLUR!!
This was in NY.  The very helpful guy in Nashville
said we wouldn't have to go through security again
til we landed at our final destination.  He was WRONG.
We had to go through security EACH time with ALL our
carry-ons, but only after carrying them on about a mile trip
each time through the airport!  ha!

Riding the train from one terminal to another in NY.
Miss O9 has her American Girl Doll that was given to her by
a special friend in that bright colored bag.  Dano looks thrilled, huh?
Miss V2 rode in her carseat attached to a suitcase.  It didn't work
perfectly, but it worked okay.  Later we checked the chair gate side,
and she rode in the umbrella stroller.    

This is normally how we traveled through each
terminal... Dano led... then the kids were in a single
file behind him and I was at the very back.  We said
we were a sandwich:  Dano was a piece of bread and
so was I.  The kids got to pick what they were.  They
actually thought it was fun.  =0)  We made them earn
their keep.  They carried backpacks and/or pulled carry-ons.  

In New York, we landed about 7 or 8 at night and had about 2 hours, I think, before our flight took off so we thought we had enough time to eat... and we thought we should eat not knowing when our first meal would be served and since we had not eaten supper.  So once we arrived in our correct terminal we ate a fairly quick supper of pizza (if anything ever happens quick with 5 kids) with a bathroom break before and after.  Then we headed to our gate. The picture above is what we saw when we started the journey... a HUGE line for security!  Oh my!  We suddenly realized maybe we didn't have time for that supper!  BUT then a lady asked us who we were... we told her, and she was there to escort us to the plane.  She took us to a short line & helped us get through security quickly and helped us get all the way to the gate!  She was like an angel from Singapore!  Also... some young guys (from the airline) helped us, too!

This was the next "morning" in Germany.  This was the

only picture I took while in Germany.  This is the plane (I think)

we flew into Germany on & left Germany in. 

The first night, Miss V2 had her carseat in her

seat by the window.  It started out great... but then

during the middle of the night she started crying 

and didn't want to be in her seat.  =0(  So... I ended

up holding her a lot.  So neither of us got a lot of sleep.

So when we landed in Germany and had to take everything

off the plane, we just checked her carseat "curbside" along

with our umbrella stroller.  So this is how Miss V2 got some

sleep on the next flight.  Ahhh... much better!  =0)

Miss O9 traveled great... the only complaint
was about the food!  BUT... she's often complaining
about the food... so that was normal!  She sat with me
and Miss V2 in our row of 3 seats next to the window.

Dano & the other three kiddos in the 4 seats in the middle.
The kids were watching movies on the back of the seat.  We
had just bought the Tangled DVD for Miss E6 for
her birthday and watched it about 100 times before
leaving TN.  Guess which movie was one of the
FEW kid movies to choose from... yep...
TANGLED!  The kids did not mind!  They
could also play video games on that TV.  

Dano snoozing!

No pix in Singapore... we were too busy racing
through the airport to get to the next terminal.  Really
we had NO down time between flights!  RUSH, RUSH, RUSH!
This picture is in the airport in JAKARTA, JAVA in Indonesia!
We made it... approximately 30 hours after we left!  This is the
immigration line... notice how short it is?  This is AMAZING!
This process was much quicker than we could have imagined.  Also,
I'm not sure if you noticed... but everyone (except Virginia) is still
wearing the same clothes as when we left the US!  While we had time
to change on the plane, we didn't really have ROOM to change on
the plane. If we'd had more TIME in the airports, maybe we would
have been able to change at least once... but NOPE!  So we arrived
at the immigration desk feeling a little less than "fresh," and
hoping they would overlook that and let us in!  Thankfully,
they did!  Of course, I think the kids helped smooth the way.
We had no problems at all... all our paperwork & visas were in order!

For the first time in our lives, this was the line we got in.

These are the exhausted kids waiting while our
paperwork is looked at.

This is what an exhausted 4 year old does!  Thankfully,
no fit was involved!  

When we went to get our luggage, it had already been
collected for us by all these gentlemen!  Unfortunately,
one bag had been left in Singapore.  While I went to take
care of the paperwork for that, Dano & the kids entertained
these men.  When I returned, the men were taking turns
having their picture taken with our family (minus me).
They especially loved Miss V2 who was enjoying all the
attention!  Thankfully our missing bag was delivered
the next morning!  Yea!  It had all our shoes!  Before
we left the airport, we had to go through customs.  It
was a breeze!  Everyone seemed excited to welcome us
to their country!    

Outside the airport...

Our ride taking us from Jakarta to Kota Baru... notice...
no boosters, no seatbelts, no carseats!  There were none!
Of course, we had Miss V2's seat... but you can't install it
without a seatbelt... besides there wasn't even room for it!

You think they look tired??  Hot??
I was sitting next to (or under Virginia).  Dano sat in
the front next to the driver (from our company).

Can you see the Pizza Hut sign?

Jakarta... the capital... about 2 or 3 hours (depending
on traffic) away from us now.  There isn't a lot of traffic
in this picture... it got much worse!

Yep... that says Starbucks!
We don't have one near us, but there
is one about 30 to 40 minutes away.
We haven't been yet!

This is where we stopped to eat lunch
on the way to our temporary house.
That little truck has all our luggage.
Is KFC the same here?  The chicken
does taste the same, but instead of a
biscuit... you get rice.  And much to
Miss O9's disappointment... they don't
have mac n cheese.  I can't remember
what the side dishes were... we just had
fried chicken and rice and water!

Not sure why I took this picture... this is a nice clear spot
of traffic.  In Jakarta, it was bumper to bumper and door
to door!  AND people would be working along the side
sweeping up the trash!  I wish I had pictures of the
beautiful landscape we saw as we drove.  

This was our final destination... our temporary
housing in Kota Baru.  It was NOT what
we were used to in America in some areas,
but it was VERY nice and had many rooms.
We called it "home" for two weeks and 2
days while we arranged our permanent housing.
It was in a very nice neighborhood with many
"cookie cutter" houses.  This is where middle
class and upper middle class and rich people
live.  This is where a lot of expats live.  Also,
Indonesians who have a lot of money may have
a weekend home here in Kota Baru.  This is VERY
different from how the "average" Indonesia lives.
We are now living like the "average" Indonesian
in a lot of ways... but not really.  Eventually, I will
show you our new house! 

We are so thankful for the wonderful trip and for arriving safely and for our company helping us get from the airport to our temporary housing (which they arranged) and the week or so they stayed to help us get settled and learn our way around!  

Okay... that might have been close to 100 pages... and it only scratched the surface of our trip!  If you didn't fall asleep, please leave us a comment!