Happy Thanksgiving

Every year we have a thanksgiving dinner with a group of friends. This group was mainly made up of people who arrived in Jakarta with us in 1997 ; Lissie and Jamie Wellington, Matt and Liz Merritt, Helen Arnold, Loreto Keary, Sally Oxenberry, Tom Bartlett, Butch and Lorly Koltai and us.

As the years went by, people left Jakarta and the group became smaller and smaller . So this year, the old timers Butch, Tom, Sue and myself decided that it was time for some fresh blood. We invited our friends the Murnanes and the Grahams to join our group and to keep the tradition going.

We hosted the dinner this year and we had a great time. Especially the kids loved it.......swimming.......running and screaming....the bird.....cranberry sauce.......dancing....ice cream........and beers (for the adults)

What more can you wish for?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING everybody!

The Puncak

Once a year we get to go away for the weekend, to stay at the school cabin in the Puncak. This is a beautiful hilly area at about 1 1/2 hours from Jakarta. It's is usually a lot cooler, it rains a lot and it has FRESH air. The cabin is in a park with tennis courts, swimming pool and lots of trees.

For the kids the main thing is nearby Taman Safari, which is an outdoor animal park with many special attractions for kids.

This year we only got to stay for 2 days, since we had to be back in Jakarta on Sunday for our Thanksgiving dinner.

On a different note, I finally bought a bike. Can you believe that I have lived here for 9 years and never had a bicycle? What kind of Dutch boy is that? Well, I am sure that horrible traffic and terrible pollution had a lot to do with that. Anyway, since we live in a quiet neighbourhood with little traffic I decided to go for it ( inspired by Butch, who bought one last week) and got a nice mountain bike with kid's seat. The kids love it and fight every day over who gets to go on first.

Sinterklaas Arrives in Jakarta

Sinterklaas came early this year to Jakarta, on November 18 he set foot on Jakarta land. The whole thing was held at ISCI (International Club) and organized by the NIS ( Dutch School).

Needless to say that all the kids were very nervous in anticipation of the arrival of the old bearded man and his black helpers.
Noah told me in advance that this year he was going to shake Sint's hand this year to get more pepernoten (candy) and he did....

Sinterklaas will also visit the kids at the NIS next week and will stay in the country until his birthday on December 5th. Until then kids can put their shoe out at night and if they have been good, they may find a present in their shoe the next morning.

Unfortunately Ayla and Sue couldn't be there because of a birthday party of one of Ayla's friends.

Halloween

On October 28th we were invited by Kristan and Uwe to attend their annual pumpkin carving party for Halloween. It was a great party with tons of kids, who were all very busy carving their pumpkins. Noah loved it! It looked like Kristan bought up all the available pumpkins in Jakarta. It was a very pretty sight to see all the pumpkins, when they were done lit up by candles.

One of the things that Noah loves to do is to get on a bike ride with Sumardji, Sofie's husband. Often he waits for him to come home and then the poor man has to drive Noah around the block again, again and again......

Noah wore a tie for the first time last week, when he took his mother out to the JIS UN Day performance. What a handsome boy!

October Break

In October we had a week off and we went to Bali for a short ( 5 day) holiday. We stayed at a resort in Nusa Dua and we liked it a lot. For the first time ever we took our nanny with us. Yes, very decadent! It was great to have her around and to have the freedom to go out at night, knowing that the kids were in good hands. The kids had a great time in the pool and at the beach.
During this break, called Idul Fitri, everybody in Indonesia travels and roads and airports are crazy busy. That's why we decided to come back to Jakarta early, before the real madness, of people coming back home , started. In fact it was really nice to be home for a few days without anybody at the house, but us. All our staff were away and I don't think that that has wever happened before.

Welcome

This is the first post of our family web site. We will try to keep you all updated about our lives in Jakarta and of course about our travels in Indonesia and abroad.

What have we done so far this school year?

Well...first of all we moved house. We live in the house of our old friends the Merritts now, who moved back to the States. The house is spacious and very comfortable and we all love it.
The kids especially love the pool!

The only thing that we miss about our old place is the garden space. We don't have much of that here. Oh well, you can't have it all....

Sue has gone back to working full time ( after 3 years part- time) and that has not been easy for her. She really misses spending time with Ayla and Noah.

Noah still goes to the Dutch school (NIS) and will probably switch to JIS in January. This is when Ayla will start going to NIS.