First day of School

Yes, the first day of school was back in August, but somehow I missed these photos so I'm putting them up now. Emma started Pre-K so it was her very first day of school ever. The other kids were a bit nervous about starting a new school again, but it has proved to be a wonderful school and just what we all needed. This is also a picture of the kids and I standing in front of our house before the "bus" comes (they actually just ride in a six passenger car with 2 of our neighbors). It's very quiet where we live, it's extremely peaceful all you hear are birds chirping, roosters crowing, and the wind in the trees. We get the occassional cars that pass on our street but they are infrequent.

Thanksgiving

We had 2 Thanksgiving feasts this year. One on Thursday (the real day) with 2 other families, and then a large community potluck on Sunday afternoon. I can't find the pictures I took of our Thursday celebration (bummer), but here are photos of the Sunday afternoon feast!

Dallin didn't even sit with us for this feast, he joined a table with all the boys between grades 5-8, so we were joined by one of Marion's friends Shrishti. It was really fun, everyone mixing and mingling and eating delicious food! There were Thankful tress on each table with autumn leaves for each person to write what they were thankful for, what a clever idea. The only thing missing for me was playing card and board games after the food.

Large Bugs

One of the exciting parts of living in tropical east Asia are the ginourmous bugs! Here are 2 that Mike took pics of. The snail is about 5 inches long and 2-3 inches wide which technically isn't considered a "bug", and the scorpion is a good 8 inches long! YIKES!

Emma's First Haircut

We have reached a monumental stage in which Emma no longer wants me to brush her hair at all. And with hair this long, you can imagine how mangy and wild it was looking. So she agreed that it was time to eliminate the tangle factor by cutting it to a bob. It turned out so cute! But I miss her ringlets.

Halloween

Halloween was awesome this year! I enjoy it almost as much as the kids. We actually did trick-or-treating on Friday, November 4th as much of our camp population was still returning from R&R's. We went with our new friends the Ryan's. In the first picture you'll see Maggie, Matthew, and Ian along with our kids. Then on Saturday, there was a school Halloween Carnival with a haunted maze, pumpkin golf, donuts from a string, a cake walk, monster bean bag toss, and a carved pumpkin contest. Lots' of fun all around.

Many of you already heard about Dallin's costume this year. He wanted very badly to be Commander Fox from Star Wars the Clone Wars. We could never have found or had mailed a costume like that here so we got a seamstress, who works here on camp, to come for 2 days. I had a printed online picture of the costume Dallin wanted and she finished it in 1 day! Incredible!! I paper mached his helmet, which took about 5 days but all in all it turned out amazing! The next day the seamstress made Marion's bride costume and sewed a pirates vest for me with some leftover material. She costs the equivalent of $8.50 per day and works from 9am-4pm. AWESOME!

So, just for clarification purposes... Mike and I were pirates, Dallin was Commander Fox, Eden a witch, Marion a bride, and Emmalyn was Wonder Girl! You'll see she was a worn out wonder girl by the end of the night.

Himlen

Himlen: Heaven in Swedish.

In December of 2010, we bought some lake property in Powderhorn Bay on Lake Coeur d' Alene. It's a beautiful, quiet place with lots of potential. We will be spending most of our summers there in the future, developing the land and enjoying the lake with the kids. The property came with 2 trailers on it, which has proved to be quite convenient. We did have to spend a good portion of time making some repairs this summer. Here are a few pictures of the trench we dug trying to find the septic tank. It was probably 3-4 feet deep and about 6 feet long and after all that digging it turned out the lid to the septic was just hidden by some overgrown bramble bushes. Ugh! Mike also had to replace a portion of the floor inside the trailer that was rotted out and we built a small rock wall on the shore to keep the land from eroding away further from the waves.

Family Reunion

We are finally settled in our new home in Sumatera, and I seriously need to get a handle on our blog...I am recommiting. Now if I fail, it's not just me that knows...haha! So, I'm going to begin with our Hough Family Reunion. We had such a wonderful time being together with everyone. It was a very large gathering with not only 'blood family' but the 'family members' that we have collected over the years. Here are some of the events that occured during those fun five days: We had a family temple trip, we played whiffle ball baseball, we played on the lake in water tubes, skiis, wake boards, and boogie boards, we played 'Minute to Win it', took many family photos, witnessed Eden's baptism, celebrated Ashton's birthday, played endless board games, sang a family song in Sacrament Meeting, and ate till we were sick! Here are some pictures of the fun!

Palaeontologist in the making

Dallin and Popo working to extract dinosaur bones. A Christmas gift from Aunt Lokien... she comes up with the coolest stuff! I'd love to know how she thinks of these things.

Monas

We took my Mom and Dad to visit Monas, which is a huge structure built to commemorate Indonesia's Independence from the Dutch on 17 Aug. 1945. The structure includes dimensions that relate to the date of their independence which I think is pretty cool. It was really high which of course meant that my palms were sweating incessantly, but the view was excellent. There's a picture of their Declaration of Independence... just a teeny bit shorter than the US'.

Mirasol

The American Embassy owns a piece of property up in the mountains called Mirasole. On this property there are 2 villas, and our friends Cherylyn and Tanner, who work for the embassy, booked this place for all of us while my parents were here visiting before Christmas. It was a wonderful weekend get-a-way! It was beautiful 'chilly' weather (about 65-80 F) during the day, then in the evenings it got even colder. Unfortunately it rained a lot while we were there, so we weren't able to spend too much time outside. But when the weather was nice we enjoyed the large beautiful lawn, which you just can't do in the city because there is no lawn. The kids ran, and explored, we played botchie ball, and went to Taman Safari. When it rained, we stayed inside playing ping pong, card and board games, watched movies, and made smores in the fireplace. Eden actually lost her 2nd tooth eathing said smore. The pool was freezing!!! But all the men sucked it up and got in with the kids...way to go Dads!! We were warned before we left, that on Sunday (which was the day we were going home) the mountain road closes every 2-3 hours and changes directions. We were told to leave before 9 and we would make it down in time...ya...they were wrong!! So when we got on the road at 8am, we traveled maybe 2 miles down the mountain when we came to a dead stop and stayed there, not moving and inch for 3 hours! Seriously!! So, we did a little walking on the roadside with some views of the villages from above.