Winter Wonderland

In Noah's class the teacher had turned the classroom into a Winter Wonderland. It was pretty cool!
Noah's class also performed in the Festival of Lights.

Ginger Bread House

Last week the parents were invited to make ginger bread houses at school with Ayla and her class. It was cool to work with Ayla and Mariska on their ginger bread 'projects'.

D&D Bandung

About a week and half ago we ( Scotty, Mark, Butch, myself) took our girls for the weekend to Bandung. A so called DD Trip (Daddies and Daughters).
We left Jakarta on Friday afternoon by train and arrived in Bandung about 3 hours later. On Sunday afternoon we took the train back. The trip was a huge success! The hotel( Sheraton) was great, the girls were fantastic, we had a super daytrip on Saturday and we were able to watch EPL on Sat night in the hotel room.
On Sat we went out to the volcano....we went on a little hike,we went horse back riding,we picked strawberries and checked out the outdoor sites in the area.
What a super day!
Thanks to Mark for organizing!

Noah's Party

As promised..... a post about Noah's birthday party from last week. Here we go.

He had invited 9 boys and the thing he wanted to do most was to have a soccer training with some of my varsity soccer boys (Noah's heroes). So I asked 4 of the seniors if they were willing to do this......and they all said 'sure'
We rented a small bus to drive the kids to school.....at school they were going have their training and afterwards they would go straight to the pool ( at school 2)to get fresh and to play some fun pool games.
Than it was back on the bus to go to Pizzahut for lunch and lastly back home for the birthday cake and to send the boys back home.
Boy, I was really dead after 4 hours with 10 6 and 7 year olds...but Noah and his friends had a great time and that was the main things.
Spoecial thanks to Lance for helping out. I dont think that I would have survived without him.....

Pepernoten Cooking Class

Last week I was in Ayla's classroom to work with the children on a 'Sinterklaas Project'.
First I told the kids about Sinterklaas and his 'Zwarte Pieten' and after that we worked in small groups on making pepernoten. Pepernoten are some kind of small cinnamon cookies / candy that the 'zwarte pieten' usually hand out to the children when they come to Holland.
We made the dough first.....a fun and messy activity.... than all the kids got a piece of the dough and made a bunch of small balls and put those on the cooking plate. The plates went into the oven, baked for about 20 minutes and voila...the pepernoten were ready for consumption!

Noah's Birthday

Last Wednesday Noah turned 7. Since this was a school day ,we celebrated it a bit at home and of course he celebrated at school with his class. He got presents and we went out for dinner to his favorite restaurant...PIZZAHUT.
His birthday party was on Saturday....I will talk about that in one of my next posts.

Soccer Camp

Last weekend Noah joined a 3 day soccer camp at Arsenal Soccer.
For 3 days about 50 kids kids from 6-12 yrs of age played soccer from 9-12 in the morning. At the end of the camp all the players received a certificate for partication. On top of that there were 3 special individual awards handed out. Noah won the TOP PERFORMER award. Needles to say that he was VERY proud to win this.

Thanksgiving!

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends at Scotty's house.

The company, the house and the turkey were all fantastic!

You just gotta like THANKSGIVING !

Sinterklaas in Jakarta

Sinterklaas is back in town ! He arrived last Saturday at a new location in Jakarta, @ Taman Mani, which is some kind of amusement park not too far from where we live.
We went to see the arrival with Rob and his girls, Shayna and Saskia.

Noah and Ayla were very excited to see Sinterklaas and the Zwarte Pieten and when they came home, they started writing letters to Sinterklaas and inmediately put their shoes outside with a carrot in it for Sint's horse....hoping that Zwarte Piet would come by at night to put a present in it.
Ha..great stuff ...bringing back sweet memories from my childhood days.

I love Sinterklaas!

Here are some photos of the arrival.

Go Brazil !

In the JYS ( Jakarta Youth Soccer) league Noah played this year in the U-7 league for team Brazil.
Last year Noah played in this same league for team Netherlands. He was an absolute beginner and his team was very weak. They drew one match and lost all other matches and only scored 6 goals all season.
This year his team won 10 matches, drew 1 and lost 1. They scored about 40 goals and Noah scored 30 of them.....not kidding.
What a difference a year (and every Sunday training at Arsenal Jakarta) can make............!!

Here is some pictures of the final Saturday of the season.

Halloween

Last week I took Noah and his friend to a Halloween party at the American Club. It was really cool! They had a fashion show with the kids showing off their costumes and afterwards there was trick and treating in the parking lot out of the back of parked cars. The kids loved it. Noah just got way too much candy.....Ayla didnt go because she had her own class halloween party. Next year I am sure we will go to the American Club with the whole family!

UN Day @ JIS

Every year at JIS we celebrate UN Day.
The students can wear clothes from their home countries, share food from home countries and at the elementary campus we usually have a flag parade.
It is always a very special and colorful day!