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!