Celebrating Father's Day

So after Bali we stopped over in Jakarta to keep working through visa stuff. It fell over J's 1st Father's Day & since he loves ocean animals so much E planned a trip to Indo's SeaWorld. Was fun to watch Lij watch the fish, etc., exciting to think what'll be like when he can talk about his thoughts!

Maybe someday Lij can ride a live sea turtle, E's actually seen one in the ocean not far from our home. Unfortunately @ "our" beach the fishermen like to sell their eggs for eating.


Gotta love those tunnels where you're riding through a lifesized aquarium.

Now here's a whopper! Whatcha think of this one Pop?! :)

Took this pix & video especially for Lij's Aunt Crissy - he's so interested in looking @ this dugong!

Broken Record..!

Happy to be a broken record because there is good reason to say yet again, read our "In More Detail" link for well, more details :)

Bali

Wow are we overdue on posting! We also just posted a great story on our "In More Detail" link, email us if you want access to the site.

So here's a blip from our time in Bali. Most of our time in Bali was spent @ our yearly conference (no pix from the mtgs, would be too boring) however Jason was in charge of organizing the youth trip this year so they went white water rafting :)

The place was called Sobek Falls...

Here's the crew grabbing a bite to eat:

And of course we had fun moments as a fam too (gotta love that laugh!)

This clip was taken the same night - Lij trying fresh mango juice (as well as drinking from a straw) for the first time - yum!

A final clip on the day we left Bali...

Random Compilation

We're not sure exactly when these snapshots/videos were taken exactly, just as we saw Lij in a fun pose or when the mood hit us right!
Trying out finger foods...

Thanks J & B for this great chew toy!

Didn't stage this one, 2 of his favorites: "beary" & his blue blanket.

Just enjoying his walker...


Getting more handy w/ his bottle as weaning continues:


Fun shot w/ Dad!

Our sweet next door neighbor named Winda - she just loves Jah :)

Didn't realize how well Lij has gotten his roll technique down 'til the other day...


Here Elijah grabbed his playgym & it got stuck on his walker. He seemed happy enough to haul it around though ;)


Failed attempt @ trying to combine 2 shorter naps into one long one...asleep @ the dinner table.

Saved the best video for last...

Pit Stop

OK, back to our normal posting...once we got to Banda Aceh we made a quick ferry trip over to a nearby island called Sabang. The only other time we made that trip was for Valentine's last year when E was just pregnant & feeling nauseous. It was so much nicer to carry Lij on the outside this time!!

We wanted to check out retreat possibilities for fellow workers here in Aceh. Here's a couple pix from a yummy fish dinner that we had after meeting some fishermen on the beach & buying their catch...

Whatta Hubby!

Well J made a really sweet video that originally had audio problems but now is fixed so if you watched the soundless version, try again when you have a minute :)

Anniversary and B-day

Hey E,

So glad God made you and gave you to me! This is a little video to celebrate you.

Heading Out of Town

Our internet's been down for awhile but we're up & running again so we'll pickup where we left off... So in order to get to our yearly conference we took a 7 hr. drive to the capital of Aceh (Banda Aceh), flew from our island (Sumatra) to the island of Java & after 2 days of traveling we got there (a little late!) Here's the 1st leg of our trip, the beautiful drive up the coast of Aceh.
In this video J's referring to our favorite "warung" which means cafe :)

And we get to cross bridges like this free of charge! (Notice the box to the right before crossing for donations to fix it...)

Settling In...

Well, this'll be a hodge-podge of things but basically sums up the few weeks we had home before we headed out again for our yearly conference in Bali...

First thing we did once getting back home was to head over to see Jos & Yuli's new baby named Alden. We're so happy w/ Jos & Yuli! He was born while we were having to deal w/ visa stuff in Jakarta.




When we got back home folks also stopped over to see Lij (not really to see us!) ;)

Here we enjoyed dinner on the seawall outside our home/office with a few friends. Elijah got all bundled up in his Indo cloth carrier to ward off mosquitoes.


We also enjoyed a beach trip to our favorite "secret cove" with our friend & intern Joel as well as some of our national buds.






A couple times a month we like to get together w/ likeminded folks across different organizations. Here's one of those meetings in our livingroom. Look @ our prego friends Lily on the left & Berta on the right, so cute!




Here's Elijah enjoying his "Johnny Jump-up" on our front porch (our office in the background) as well as taking parts off of his walker to eat them...


Every morning behind our home as we eat breakfast we see fishermen (like our friend Bal here) pass by from the ocean back home - sometimes they're carrying fun things like hammerhead sharks or stingrays too!

Another fun random pix, J trying a temporary fix on the hole that our neighborhood cat made in our screen door (Lij looking on w/ great interest ;)

Lij trying his new sippy cup!


Which evidently wore him out...;)

We're enjoying reading books with Jah these days - every once & awhile kids in the neighborhood like to listen in too (the translated version of course)


And us just hanging out :)

Ahh...Back Home

Here's a couple videos & pix of hanging out with our next door neighbors...


And a final snort from Lij makes everybody laugh :)

Baby dedication ceremonies here are important - notice the gold on this baby's wrist, a family's way of saving.

Everyone wanted to hold Jah (or actually Yusuf, he's called by his middle name here)

A Few Furry (& not so furry) Friends

So this post is dedicated to the ever present animal life around our home, some more amusing than others! One morning E saw a cow in our backyard that had gotten into our neighbor's trash can. Wasn't long before a quick back scratch put this guy on his way to a trash can lid free day.


Here's a video of an especially friendly goat that ate a mango seed of ours like a piece of candy...

So these next pix aren't exactly around our home but rather on the way up the mountain to the village where we're working - here's J's foot in the middle of an elephant footprint.
As well as our friend Arifik's hand...great guy.
Wouldn't want to leave out the pix of the motorbikes in this spot where it looks like the elephants were dancing...


This pix was an attempt to capture a new find for us - lizard eggs in the keyhole, oh brother.
While visiting our teammates Jos & Yuli & their new son Alden, we got a chance to show Jah some cute chicks. Why do we feel our life is like one big petting zoo...?! Ha :)

And a couple videos to fill in the details...



Since we're on the "animals on the porch" theme, thought we'd post our fav animal clip in awhile:

In the cows (slight) defense, here's a quick clip of what a storm looks like (hence they run to our porch!)