Moved In!

We are moved in to our new house. It's Great! Will update as soon as our internet is connected this week!

Audrey Fix

I just noticed I have not posted any pictures of Audrey in a while. Now that just cannot continue. Here she is being cute in bed this morning.She coos and smiles and we've even gotten a little giggle out of her here and there. She is sleeping great at night and just snuggles into my Moby whenever I drag her along for the ride. She is getting some chubby cheeks and cute little leg rolls. Everyone loves to look at her, and the ladies were passing her around at the spa and then when my friend and I went to lunch afterward, she was a little bit fussy. One of the hostesses came up and wanted to hold her so I could eat my lunch in peace. It was great, and she charmed everyone working at the restaurant. What a spoiled little girl she is going to be.

Spa Day!

So they announced in church that the Relief Society was doing their monthly spa day this week (I know..awesome right?). I wasn't planning on going just because I don't have anyone to watch my kids yet and then after we found out that we are moving to our house tomorrow, I figured I would be getting everything pack up again and ready to move today. But my friend convinced me otherwise and once again offered up her maid to watch the boys. Audrey would get to come along with the girls. Boy was I glad I went. I needed it bad and IT WAS AWESOME. My friend signed me up for a manicure, pedicure, and a cream bath. The cream bath was actually the best part. They wash your hair in a moisturizing cream and give your head a massage and then your neck and then your shoulders...for 90 minutes. The manicure and pedicure also included a massage of arms and lower legs so I pretty much got a full on massage plus a manicure and pedicure. There were 6 of us and one of my friends brought her two cute daughters to get manicures and pedicures too! They sat us in a big circle so we could all talk and there were about a dozen ladies working on all of us. At one point I had three ladies working on me...all while I was nursing Audrey. It was hilarious. We had a great time chatting and we ended up being there about 2 hours. I promise if you come visit me, we will go there and it will be my treat! The icing on the cake is that the cost for the two hours of bliss plus beautiful nails, toes, and hair is....drum roll please....

~$25...and that includes tax.

Not kidding.

Here is my receipt to prove.Notice it is a whopping $10 for a manicure AND pedicure.

Have I convinced you to come yet? Who cares about how much a plane ticket costs when you can get a mani and pedi for $10 ladies! :-)

Keys to...

Tonight Tanner brought home the key....ahem, keyS to our house.


I didn't realize we were moving into Fort Knox. There are 10, count them 10 keys to our house. And they gave us two sets! Yay for 20 keys?! Apparently, we can lock ourselves into our master bedroom AND lock the boys into their bedroom. AWESOME...now we just need to put up rubber walls in their room and we'll be good to go!

Haircuts and a Toy Store...Indonesia Style

We found out yesterday that we get to move into our house this Friday! Woohoo! It has only been two weeks instead of four and so I am really grateful to whoever it was that made this happen faster than originally stated. Since I know we are going to be out of our hotel in a couple of days, I decided to be a little more adventurous with the kids and walk to the mall and get the boys haircuts. So they have these places that cut kids' hair and they go to the extreme to make sure these kids stay happy during their experience. The chairs are some kind of vehicle (car, helicoptor, truck, motorcycle, etc.) and then each station has an lcd tv hooked up to it and they can either watch a dvd OR play Playstation. It's kind of ridiculous, but kind of fun too. Also, they have the person cutting their hair and then another person who is making sure they stay happy the whole time. Andrew got the royal treatment by having the extra lady blow bubbles in his face, while riding on his truck, while watching a show...all while having his haircut. Did I say it was ridiculous? They enjoyed it though, but it wasn't a super cheap experience...$10 a piece.

Then we decided to take a walk through a big toy store in the mall. It was pretty much like Toys 'R'Us, if you don't count the employees that were standing at the end of every other aisle singing and dancing to the music that was blaring from the speakers throughout the store. We were pretty much the only ones there in the store so walking down the main aisle with literally 30 employees singing and dancing in unison was pretty hilarious. It reminded me of that part in Annie where she goes to the movies with Daddy Warbucks and everyone is singing and dancing just for them. Kinda cool...but a little strange. It was a fun outing, and the kids mostly behaved themselves, so today ended a lot better than yesterday!

Silence is Golden

Today we met some of our friends to go swimming. I gave the boys a lecture before we left about the behavior I expected out of them. They seemed eager and willing to please at the time. When we got there, before I could even get Andrew into his swim diaper, he had pooped in the current diaper he was wearing. Cue someone else helping me with Audrey while I dealt with that mess. Then I tried to swim with Andrew while Clark played inside at the play area where they have a nanny on duty, but Audrey wouldn't cooperate and I had to hop out of the pool and nurse her while she and I both sweated it out in the 90 degree weather...AWESOME. Then Clark came out and wanted to swim and within five minutes, he had fallen from one of the steps in the pool and took with him on his way in another one of his new girl friends and they both started gasping and drowning.

Cue me and her mother running in to save them both while I was still holding a fussy Audrey.

We decided to all move to the kiddy pool where we were sure no one would get injured or drown...but everyone underestimates Andrew's abilities. Even though the water only came up to his waist, I had to save him TWICE....still while holding Audrey. Also, I think I told Andrew at least 50 times to stop whining throughout our little excursion to the pool. In the meantime, I had also told Clark numerous times not to run around the pool.

He didn't listen.

He fell once and barely missed his head on a sharp concrete edge.

Phew.

Then we had maybe five minutes of peace, and then he decided he didn't want to give up a toy he had STOLEN from one of his cute new little girl friends and he hopped out of the pool and his feet came right out from under him. This time he really konked his head good. Lots of weeping and wailing ensued and outwardly me trying not to be too angry with my child for hurting himself due to disobedience...while at the same time being inwardly happy that he got what he deserved and maybe he will think twice next time. What a NICE mother I am.

Decided it was time to go.

While changing the boys...Andrew had pooped AGAIN, this time in the swimmer diaper...which is almost the worst thing EVER. Finally get everybody changed and sorted and head out in a chorus of whines and moans about being hungry and not wanting to leave etc. etc. It doesn't matter whether you are in Virginia, Indonesia, or in Outer Mongolia...days like this are the pits of parenthood. I only write this so that when I am 50 and try to act like I have it all figured out, I will be set straight so that the next generation doesn't think they are utter failures because they had a bad day with their kids. See, I really do have their best interest at heart, this isn't just for venting...no really!

Anyway, I get everybody home, sit Clark and Andrew down on the couch and explain in a very calm yet stern voice WHY neither of them will be having ice cream after their lunch. More weeping and wailing...and maybe even a little gnashing of teeth thrown in there for good measure. Serve lunch. Serve up my boys to their beds. Nurse Audrey to sleep, and now it is completely silent. It's the best noise I have heard all day.

Weekend Roundup

I was so excited for the weekend to get here because it is a whole lot easier trying to get some things done when two adults are around...or so I thought! The kids were really difficult while we were running errands all day Saturday. Clark and Andrew seem to have endless amounts of energy and they have such a hard time sitting still. I can still hear my mom's voice in my head from my childhood saying "Sit still!" Oh, how I am now paying for the times I didn't listen to her then. Granted, we went to all new places the boys had never been before and they just want to explore and check out every nook and cranny. We are trying to be more patient, as it seems we get better results that way, but man kids can be so difficult! We ventured out to the grocery store and it is still a little frustrating for me because prices are so much higher than I expected. But, after talking to a friend I realized it will be better when our pembantu (maid) does the shopping because she will go to the local markets and get all of the fruits and veggies super cheap. I am definitely going to have to buy some stuff online and have it shipped here, just because of the cost difference.

Anyway, we found a car that we are going to buy that just happens to be silver blue, just like our Saturn. It is a van that seats eight, so the extra room will be nice. The person who is selling the car to us offered us her driver and the car to run around town Saturday morning. Seriously, expats here are so nice and flexible about stuff like that. When Clark saw the van he said "Our blue car grew up Mom!" So cute. We will have it by the end of the week. We were also interested in her driver since he will be looking for a job as well, but when Tanner started talking salary and offering him to continue what he is currently getting paid, he proceeded to hand over a page outlining his "new standards". It was ridiculous, and Tanner pretty much said no on the spot to his wage increase, his demands about not working AT ALL on Saturdays, and a few other things. It kind of put a bad taste in our mouths the rest of the day about the process of hiring household staff. So now we will have a car by the end of this week and no driver yet. We had been told that some people try to take advantage of the expats by making demands, particularly if they know you are interested in hiring them, so it is important to know what we want and what we are will to pay for it and to be firm about it. It was just kind of cruddy having that experience with someone attempting to take advantage of us.

In the meantime, I received an email from our sponsors who happened to be interviewing for an additional pembantu for their household and recommended two that she interviewed as being perfect for our family situation. I have to admit I have been somewhat nervous/gun shy about the whole process of interviewing and hiring. I tend to want to be a pleaser and not want to haggle or wrangle with people over money or tasks, but we had been told we needed to be very direct in exactly what we want and expect out of our pembantu. The language barrier doesn't help in the process either. But I was really grateful our sponsors had effectively screened applicants for us, and we interviewed one tonight and will interview one more tomorrow. We actually really liked the one we interviewed tonight. She is young, but has been working since she was a pre-teen...which is sad really. She is super nice and seemed to really take to the boys. She had a happy and kind face (very important to me). She speaks English pretty well so communicating should not be much of a problem. She had great references, so we are pretty much sold on her, but feel we should at least interview another one before deciding for sure on her, especially since she is the first one we've interviewed. While she was here the boys were watching a show and Clark had a drink of water on the couch. He apparently finished his water and just put the glass on the couch. About 10 minutes later the boys were playing with each other on the couch and she popped up from the table and went over and grabbed the glass off the couch. The impressive part about this was that you could not see the glass from where we were sitting. She just remembered that Clark had been drinking from it while sitting there and assumed it was on the couch and might fall off while they were playing. So I took that as a good sign that she is conscious of things like that. Truth be told, she is probably more aware than I am about stuff like that right now since I feel very scatter brained!

Some new friends in the ward were also kind enough to invite us over for dinner and share their Father's Day with us, and we had a great time at their home. Me and the other mom are already planning on taking a tennis class together and maybe put our kids in swimming lessons together...so that will be fun. Our kids all played great together so that was great too.

I feel like the only thing holding us back on not feeling more settled is not being in our house with our stuff yet. I can't wait to get in there...maybe it will be done early? Not likely. Just a couple more weeks though to go.

Getting Out

So our new friends who we will live two doors away from and who also happen to be lds have been wonderful this week inviting me and the kids to all kinds of activities. First off, there is a mall almost every half a mile here in downtown. They are all really nice and have great stores. Everything is pretty comparable price-wise to the U.S. or it's maybe even a little pricier. To really get good deals here, you have to shop locally in the street markets, and I haven't ventured that far yet. Anyway, in almost every mall there is some kind of play place or fun zone for kids. It actually seems more family friendly here than in the states. Anyway, the one we went to was really cool. The boys had a blast...they had a zip line, trampolines where they hook the boys up to a harness, slides galore, a ball room that shoots mounds of balls into the air (Clark's personal fav). They even had an area where the boys could fish for little fishies to take home. We took some home but they died the next day because we didn't get food for them in time. They may also have suffered severe concussions from Andrew's 'gentle' shaking of the bottle on the way home.


In other news, we are getting used to using bottled water for EVERYTHING since the tap water here isn't safe for drinking, but apparently it's okay to shower in? We our still awaiting our bout of cyclospora or giardia, maybe with a little Dengue fever mixed in. ;-) Everyone says it's inevitable, and I am sure I won't be so cavalier about it when it actually hits, but the medical office at the embassy knows how to handle it all, so I'll take confidence in that. This week I also got a local cell phone...okay, WAY easier than in the U.S. Granted, someone gave me a cell phone, but I hear you can get a cheap one for $20, and then you just buy a SIM card that already has a phone number attached to it, you buy some pulsa (minutes) and you are good to go. No contracts or anything. The only down side is that the cell phone numbers here are TWELVE digits...I know it's only two more than in the states, but it just seems like a lot!Me and the kids have been taking taxis on our own all this week, and I haven't ever felt unsafe, but I will be happy once we get a car and driver...hopefully soon. Above is a pic of the boys having a blast in our taxi. The kids are over their jet lag, but Tanner and I are still falling asleep at about 8pm every night this week.

Today we went over to another new friend's house for a pool party and the kids had a great time. Clark and Andrew seem like they are settling down a little bit and it's great seeing them make new friends so quickly and easily. Most of the kids in our neighborhood that are Clark's age are girls, so I actually think that will be good for him since he already has a brother he can rough and tumble with anytime he wants to. It seems things are settling down a little bit in general now after a week and I don't feel so crazy....I was feeling a little bit of the crazies the end of last week. Thank goodness for the church, neighborhood families, and nice people!

First Sunday

So everyone that has church at 9am and complains that it is too early should count their blessings. Our branch meets at 8am! There are actually some good reasons why we meet that early, and actually since our kids generally get up at around 6:30am sans jetlag of course, it might not end up being so bad after all.

We took our first family taxi ride this morning to church. We have been told to only use Bluebird brand, or other reputable taxis. They are bright blue taxis, and if you want to go luxury you can take a Silverbird which is a black mercedes. The taxi rides are very cheap and since we don't have a car yet, it's pretty much our only option. So there are no carseat laws here at all. It is actually laughable for me to write that...there are pretty much NO laws AT ALL when it comes to driving here. Come visit us and you can have a first hand experience. It's like Mr. Toad's wild ride at about 20 mph if you can imagine it. The traffic is bad enough that nobody can ever go much faster than that, but it's a crazy ride! Back to the carseat problem. We decided that while we are using taxi's we are pretty much going to go without carseats, except for Audrey. The boys have a blast in the backseat with me and Audrey and Tanner sits up front. We took a Silverbird taxi to church today and there was plenty of room in the back seat of our Benz for me and the kiddos. We got to church and immediately saw the branch president, who is Australian. He was very nice and told us where sacrament was being held. Yes, we needed directions to the chapel. It is a cool church building, two stories, and the chapel is on the upper floor and you get to it from the outside. We walked in and there were all of about 6 people in the room. The branch president told us almost all the U.S. families are gone for the summer back to the states to visit family, so we actually will only be having 2 hour block church until the first week of August when everyone gets back. No complaining here!

People began to file in and there ended up being about 50 people there. We were asked to come up and bear our testimonies, and I of course bawled my way through mine, partly because I usually do anyway, and because I am so T-I-R-E-D. Most of the branch is made up of U.S. Embassy employees, oil company execs, USAID employees, and church welfare missionaries. We met some nice people and I am excited to have some friends already. Two women are coming to visit me tomorrow, so that will be nice. Afterward we came home and it was a whopping 10:30am! What to do with the rest of our day of rest?! We have just been chilling here taking it easy and we will be going to our sponsors' house later this afternoon.

Yesterday, we actually got together with a family in the ward that works at the embassy and also lives a few doors down in the development we will eventually live in. They sent their driver over to pick us up and we visited with them and then ran over and walked through our house. It is being worked on right now and is kind of a disaster. They took out the A/C units that they had and are putting in central A/C. Woohoo!!!! We have been told everything should be ready in about 3 weeks, but I'll plan on 4-6 and then just be happy if we get in earlier. Our house is all tile on the ground floor, but the family that lives a few doors down asked for carpets to be put down over the top of the tile. I think I like that option. We have four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs and they are all a good size. I really like the neighborhood, beautiful homes outside the development and beautiful greenery and trees, and its super quiet. There are kids in every house and apparently everyone plays outside together and runs from house to house. So we are excited to move in.

I have still not ventured out of the hotel with the three kids by myself. We went downstairs and played on the playground here at the hotel, but that's as far as I have been able to take it so far. It is daunting to think about taking all three kids out on my own, but I know I just need to do it, starting maybe for just a half hour. I will need to go do grocery shopping this week, but I am going to wait until Tanner gets home from work and then go by myself so I can fully focus on finding what I need and get the money thing down. There are about 10,000 Indonesian Rupiahs to 1 dollar, so the numbers can seem a little crazy until I just start thinking about taking off four zeros. Anyway, I'll be sure to report on my first shopping experience this next week. Our tasks for this week are to find a car, get cell phones for both Tanner and I, possibly start interviewing potential pembantus (maid/cook), and a driver. Lots to do all while keeping the children happy. They are doing great and love pointing out the Indonesian flags when we travel in the car. It will be great to get a maid because she will end up doing all the shopping for us, which will make life a lot easier!

The Indonesian people continue to charm us. They are economically poor, but are happy, smiling, and wonderful to talk to. They look at Audrey in awe, and smile when they see our towheaded boys bobbing and weaving about. I love listening to Tanner speak to them in their native tongue and I am excited to learn the language myself. I have a feeling we will be learning a lot from them.

Jetlag...

When we moved to England when I was 9 years old, one of the first things people said to us was, "are you getting over your jetlag?" I thought it was some kind of serious illness and was worried about what other horrific things England might have in store if we already got Jetlag and we were just there a couple of days! My family soon set me straight after much laughter at my expense and apparently, I was so traumatized by their jeering that I have never forgot about it...thanks fam! ;-)

I have thought about that over the last couple of days as our entire family has been getting over our Jetlag...Indonesia style. The first night we were all up at some point between 11:30pm and 4am...AWESOME for Mom! The second night we did a little better, but Andrew was up for about 3 hours straight although he was good and just laid in his bed (we have caved and given him his pacie back while we adjust...yeah yeah I know...SAVE IT). Last night was a lot better...both boys made it through the night, but Audrey decided to act up, and Tanner keeps waking up and wanting to talk between 2am-4am. I am just grateful for any sleep I get when I can get it. We did actually see the end of the England vs. USA soccer game live. It was on at 1:30am here! But I must say, there is one perk of having jetlag...and there really is only one...

(the view from our living room window at 5:30am)

We've Arrived!

We are here!!!! We arrived safe and sound after a 5 hour flight to LAX, a 4 hour lay over, a 14 hour flight to Hong Kong, and then a final 4 hour flight to Jakarta. The kids actually did great considering the amount of time we were on airplanes. It was mostly tough just getting them to settle down each time we got on a new plane. At one point Tanner said on our plane in Hong Kong...What is this? A jungle gym? To which a stewardess who was walking by said in all seriousness "This is a 777". She actually thought Tanner thought it was a jungle gym. Hilarious. Gotta love the language barrier.

It was great arriving at the airport, we were quite the spectacle, but people are so nice and smiley. When we walked out of customs, there were these two people waving frantically and jumping up and down so excited to see us. They were our sponsors! I almost cried I was so happy to see them. They are so wonderful and we just had a great time chatting with them while on our way from the airport to our temporary housing, which is pretty much a hotel, although embassy families do live here. It is very nice, and we will be happy to live here until our house is ready in a few weeks. They had dinner delivered for us and our place was stocked with some items from the grocery store. It is so nice not having to worry about running out immediately to find a grocery store.

From what I have seen of the city, which is super limited I will admit...Jakarta isn't as dirty as I thought it would be, at least the parts we've seen...there is lots of greenery and flowers, even on the highway. It was funny driving by Dunkin Donuts, Sizzler, and a few other "American" restaurants. Hopefully we will have time and not be jet lagged enough to get out a little bit this weekend, but for now we are just going to hunker down and try to get ourselves on the right time! Andrew is in love with all the motorcycles on the road, and Clark has seen nothing of the city because he was completely passed out in the car from the airport to the hotel. We have quite the view, and he has decided this one building looks like an alien spaceship, but he doesn't seem to concerned! Will try to post some pics soon!

P.S. I totally want to go back and check out Hong Kong at some point. It looked like a super cool place from the air. Hopefully we will since our temple district is Hong Kong!