Catching up

Hi friends-
This, dear ones, is a catch up post...

So- Easter has come and gone, here are a few pics from our first major holiday in Indonesia!

We have been doing some of the Sunday school lessons from our church in Charlotte, a plus side of living in Indonesia- no construction paper palm branches!  Fun to teach Ethan the story of Palm Sunday and wave real branches (granted they were banana leaves, but just as effective!) as we reenacted the Triumphal Entry.

Never mind Ellie's quest for freedom! :D

We have several family traditions that survived the move, we dyed Easter eggs together...

Ethan debates what color to do next & Ellie's vital role behind him... ;D

The finished product!

 It was interesting to learn that a few traditions are the same here and in the States- our church had an Easter egg hunt which was really really fun.  Jon's family always did this growing up so he took his "Dad duty" of egg hiding very seriously!  Unfortunately, in the excitement of getting to the egg hunt, Ethan completely wiped out as he was running, hence the teary face.  After some comforting and coaxing we managed to convince E that his leg was not going to fall off and to keep looking for eggs- so he was pitifully limping, whimpering, then excitedly proclaiming, "There's an egg!" every time.  Ahh, the joys...

We managed to put together an Easter basket for Ethan- the 'grass' is green construction paper cut into strips and crumpled and stuffed in a banana basket.  We picked up a little candy here and raided our stash of toys we brought to give throughout this year. E was thrilled!

We have now wrapped up Unit 2 (of 9) of language school and this week began Unit 3!  I can't believe it!  It's pretty amazing how much we are able to communicate at this point-Jon often acts as a translator for some of the other families who arrived after us.  We are still learning new words and how the Indonesian language works, but we are also beginning to really dive into understanding the culture as part of our language learning.  Good stuff!  I know there's more to say and fill you in on but Indonesian verbs are calling my name, asking to be translated... homework- here I come!

It only took 3 1/2 years...

I'm sorry, friends, that we have been silent for so long.  We are finding our rhythm here in Indonesia and in some ways it seems like there's not a lot to say- what we considered victories 6 weeks ago now feels like "just another day at the office."  Still, there is rarely a dull moment between language learning, Ethan, well, just being three, Ellie becoming more and more mobile and the logistics of living in the tropics.

We have been having trouble with our washing machine for a few weeks now and whenever it would drain the water would end up all over the kitchen floor.  Our short term solution was to use towels or rags to soak it up, but early last week Jon and our friend Pak (Mr.) Deni began working on a real solution. 
 I'll set the scene- it was early afternoon and Ethan had been in our room "taking a nap."  Our room is across from the bathroom which is next to our washing machine.  As Jon and Deni worked together on the drain issue, Deni happened to glance around the corner into the bathroom.  Wide-eyed he looked back at Jon, "Siapa?!" (Who is that?!)  Jon and I looked at each other perplexed- "Who?" "Di sana!" (There!)  We both looked around the corner and, finding no one in sight, asked, "Di mana?" (Where?)  Deni looked again, he didn't see anyone either.  Going into the bathroom, we still didn't see anyone- finally I looked in the tiny (seriously maybe 6 inches wide) space between our shelf and the wall- there, peeking out at me was this-

 

Turns out Ethan wasn't actually taking a nap- he was discovering the wonders of Mommy's makeup bag.  Don't know if you can see it on his shirt but he'd also made a nice pile of mineral powder on the floor.  This is mascara- "I saw how you do it Mommy and I did it, too!" 

So this is how I look like this when I wear mascara?!  

Thankfully it wasn't waterproof, after 3 washes of the face it was mostly gone although he did still look like an emo kid for a few days as the residual mascara (gotta hand it to him, he got it on his eyelashes!) took a while to come all the way off.  

Quite frankly, I'm amazed it's taken him this long.  I fully expected an incident like this when he was 2- I got an extra  year and a half out of that!  There was lots of laughter all around, after all this only happens once- or maybe twice, right?  Here's hoping anyway- that's my only mascara! :D