Friday, April 30, 2010

Our Week in Snapshots

After the second night of the school play "Peter Pan" in which Marshall played the Lost Boy "Nibs". Here he is with other performers, unfortunately he changed immediately after the performance but you can still see the wild hair! :)

A very proud little sister, showing you her brothers name in the program!

Haddon has been studying the Rain forest...so they made one in their classroom. Too cute! One day we were standing upstairs in a store when she looked out the window and said, " Huh, I can see the canopy and a little of the emergent." Crazy kid!


Just in case you were worried that she had lost some of that personality.....she hasn't, notice the scarf on her neck! LOL!

Sometimes I wish my eyes could act as a camera, I see so many unbelievable things on the road here daily but it all passes so quickly you don't have time to get pictures, but here is a fun one right outside my drive. This is mild compared to one where two men were on a motorcycle carrying two 20ft long bamboo poles driving through town! Crazy!

On our street, a man has his drive repaired so they mix the cement by hand on the spot.

This is how they dry rice. I am unsure of the whole process but wherever there are large rice fields they also have these huge concrete pads to spread the rice out on. For smaller farms they spread them out on tarps in their yard. So....if you ever wonder why you can have tiny rocks in your rice......now you know!


Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Big Change-Blog Going Private

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been my desire to keep this blog open access, however at this time I feel it is in our best interest to go private. What this means is that now, if you would like to read this blog you must send me your email address so that I can send you an invitation. After accepting the invitation you will then log into the blog to read it. I hope you won't find this an inconvenience and will still keep us with us through the blog.

If you are currently a "follower", it will keep you as one in name only, you still will not have access without receiving an invitation, which kind of stinks, but that is Blogger policy, again just send me your email. I know some of you have already sent me your addresses and I am adding them as I get them in, thank you! I just wanted to give those of you not a FB a chance to send in your email address also.

Also, since the death of the laptop we lost all email addresses that were on it, so this is also a good way for me to get those back! :) Feel free to send them to us at pacrim6@gmail.com or you can contact me through Facebook.

Thanks for understanding, your friendship, comments to us, and comments to the CEO on our behalf mean so much....you will never truly know!

Furniture Frenzy

After months of planning, searching online, and making my list of wants, needs, and things that are practical. We have made most of our major purchases for our move. Everything, except for our appliances, was custom built. The price we got was amazing compared to what those items would have cost in the US, by the end, I was pleased by the result of all our bargaining. Our tutor started us off and when the final order was made the builder came down even more......it just never hurts to ask! :) Now, we'll just wait and see if it all turns out like it is suppose to!

After we ordered the furniture the man started giving us free items, it was bizarre and kind of cool. Like this hand carved Rhino!

And these hand carved elephants!


We purchased this carving, not sure where it will go but the colors were so pretty, I saw them painting it the first time we came for estimates, it looks completely different from that time because of the process he put it through, the colors are brighter than the photo shows.

He also gave us the bottom two trunks for free! Yay, I think the larger one will go at the foot of our bed! I think after the inch of dust is removed, I'll like it even more! LOL!! But I know better than to look a gift rhino...er...gift horse, in the mouth! :)

This is what the inside of the furniture factory/store looked like. It is wide open daily so when I first came everything was covered in dust, this was an improvement. :)

They cleaned up the animals and coated them in wax before packing them up for us to take.

From another large city we ordered our sectional sofa. When we went to look at the Tamu set that our friend were selling we saw they had the sofa we were wanting. Theirs had already sold but they gave us the name of the store where it was made with all the measurements! That was such a blessing! We all love it! But...I was not expecting it to arrive like this....I thought they were pretty bold bringing it like that during rainy season to a town an hour away! But they made it, and not a scratch was on it! No complaints!

So...here it is! Let's just say that the fabric selection was limited, and the first pillow fabric that we picked with polka dots ( and was ADORABLE) was no longer available! So we decided to add color, they zip right off so we can change when we want to. Our dining room chairs are five different colors so we just got colors like those. Barry calls them our traffic light pillows! LOL!

This was taken at the Laura Ashley furniture factory here in our town. Funny, but when I see Laura Ashley furniture I never pictured it starting out like this in the middle of a Macchiato jungle! It was an eye-opener! They make $1.50 US for an 8 hour day! YIKES!

This is our Tamu (guest) Set. A family in our company is having to move to another country due to an illness and they sold this to us. Typical homes here have a small room in the front of the house when you first enter and it is customary to have a set like this to receive your guests.
Hope you enjoyed the little tour, it was a ton of fun picking stuff out as well as a ton of stress but it is done and hopefully the rest of the wood pieces (beds, dressers, table, chairs, desks) will turn out just as great!
Please lift us up as we approach our one year anniversary, we have a small glitch with our visa renewal, hopefully we can fly to the capital city in a month or so to sign our new one! I don't have the time to tell you all of the issues we have been faced with lately, but due to a delay in receiving our wood furniture it looks like we won't be moving until after our meeting in Bali which is around the end of June. Never a dull moment around here! And I am really tired of making decisions let me tell you, it's been a stressful month but I think we just need to resign ourselves to the fact that it is what it is.....and keep moving forward! :)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

More Random Pics

The boys (I love these guys) at one of our favorite restaurants! Can't believe how much they have grown!

Miss Haddie Beth cannot wait to get her hands on a piece of Peanut Butter pie with Reeses on top that was at our Easter dinner with the dorm!

Apparently, the whole school went for a walk today! They were so funny waving to us as we drove up to our school.

A tired Haddie lounging on a Saturday morning after Campbell brought her breakfast to her.

Spring Soccer has begun and this season they got cute new uniforms!

Go Eagles!! Campbell has really enjoyed learning the game!

Hudson got a snazzy goalie jersey, I wasn't sure I would ever get him out of it, he is very proud of it!

He is a really good goalie, not bad for a kid who didn't want to play soccer when we first moved here!

Haddon having fun with Campbell! They are so funny together!

HAM!! Man, were we excited to hear that they found a place here to buy it! It was tasty cooked with fresh pineapple!

Easter Egg Hunt after services at the International Gathering

Baskets are in the crate (not sure really) and I forgot bags...but they made do!!

Easter Morning

Everybody cleaned up alright despite no water or electricity Easter Sunday!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Day I Thought Would Never Come...

....our last day of Language School. After months of laughter, tears, joy and frustration, all of them amid feelings of both failure and accomplishment we have completed all 9 Units. I have to be honest here, if you have followed me on this journey through my blog or Facebook, you know it has been a hard long road. I can think of little else in my life that I have hated as much as writing those essays for my class, not to mention giving presentations! However, I always loved the topics and information we gathered to write them. So today, the day I couldn't wait to get here, was good.........but sad in a bittersweet kind of way (huh, that was unexpected!). We have come to love our Pelatihs. Those guys and girls have a great sense of humor, an astounding amount of patience, a gift for teaching their language and a love for the CEO! After seeing them daily for about a year, they kind of become like family. They will be dearly missed.

At school your schedule can change month to month, so you never know who you will see at class or who has been moved to another time. Most of these students (American, Swiss, Dutch, Korean, Malaysian, Australian) are in the very early levels, and although we didn't know them as well, they all gathered around us today since we are leaving, and spoke to the CEO on our behalf, it was a very sweet time.

The graduating class of April 2010. This sweet family, J and C are from Korea. Barry and I were in Units 7 and 8 by ourselves, but we were joined with them for Unit 9, they will stay on this island to work.

Our "Karya Tulis", or term papers!! We turned them in on Monday so they could be read before our evaluation on Wednesday morning (Tuesday night at 10:30pm, US) They looked pretty snazzy due to our cool new laptop! :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have walked this journey with us and supported us by your petitions to the CEO, we could not have done it without you!! Now on to getting items for our home!!!! :) I will blog more, now that I have some extra time...we have lots of catching up to do!!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Not your Momma's Mathis Brothers Furniture

The work room at one of the furniture makers store. Wow, not what I was expecting!


As you may know, we are currently starting the process of buying furniture and appliances for our home in "Folgers". I don't have time to go into the whole process now, but let me just say that it is quite involved. There are very few(read affordable) places around that have pre-made furniture. Usually you go to a furniture maker with a picture and measurements and they build it from scratch for you. Sounds like a dream doesn't it? Getting to pick out the wood, teak or mahogany, the size, length, height, etc. sounds wonderful....until you go to the place and they want every single measurement like how long should the arms be on the chair (really?), the measurement from the back to the front of the chair seat, etc. Then you sit for three hours while they figure out the price only for you to realize it is all more than you can afford. Frustrating!! We did get some other bids that were in our range but yikes, how do you really know what you will end up with? It was a little overwhelming the first day but I have been able to take a step back and make a better affordable plan for our family and am at peace with whatever happens.


Anyway, it has been an experience to say the least. Not sure what we will end up with but I am learning some things like a) make sure you tell them to make the drawers go all the way back or they will make them short to save wood, b) clarify the size, if you are getting a vanity but want the drawers on either side wider, make sure to tell them to widen the seating area or they will make the drawers wider but you won"t be able to fit into the area where you are suppose to be sitting, same for a desk. Ya' know, those are kind of important details.


I wasn't sure what to think when I asked one furniture maker if he dried his wood long enough so that it wouldn't split, he assured me that all I would have to do is get wood filler and put it into the crack...thanks, really, but not the answer I was looking for there buddy! :)


I hope to write more later but we are crazy busy in this last week of school, speaking in chapel, giving a presentation, writing our term paper, and finishing reading a novel for class! After that, our final evaluation and we are done!! Please lift us up during this time that we would finish well! Homesickness has been strong here lately for several of us, not sure if it is because of the impending move or what but emotions are running a little high around here please ask for peace and comfort during these times! Thank you for being a lifeline to us!! We love you guys!

Friday, April 2, 2010