Swim Meet

This was the first swim meet Dallin and Eden have ever participated in and it was so much fun! One of the blessings of being such a small community is that everyone places! So even the worst swimmers got ribbons in their heat because there were sometimes only 3 kids in that age group doing that particular stroke. It was a real confidence booster for many. Mike was MC for the meet and Emma and her friend Samantha below were just two of many young siblings cheering on their older siblings. After the meet had ended, they did a couple silly relays with the adults. Rolling a watermelon from one end of the pool to the other without using your hands, and swimming across the pool with a shirt on then switching it to the next team mate. It was hysterical!

The View

The lighting is kind of weird on the second photo, but the first is a picture of Marion riding toward our front yard, so this is a view of the neighbors yard, and the second photo is our backyard, which is really as green and bright as the first photo but just came out strange.

Park Play

This is an average day playing at our neighborhood park. We can't usually spend more than 30 minutes out there, it just gets way too hot and uncomfortable. Just look at Eden and Emma's faces, they are so red!

January

I officially deem this, the longest month of the year! I don't know if it's because of all the anticipation leading up to the end of December and then ringing in the New Year, but after that... this month lasts FOREVER!!

Marion Learns to Ride a Bike

Marion learned, in just 2 days, how to ride a bike without training wheels. She had one good fall on the 3rd day. She was going too fast around a corner, but she has learned very quickly when to slow down, how to lean and turn, and how to start on her own.

Temple Square

On our way back to Indonesia, after a marvelous and spledid summer in Idaho, we had a 7 hour layover in SLC. When we arrived in the airport we saw large signs advertising tours of temple square in just 2 hours. So we went for it. It was a really wonderful opportunity to take our kids there. Dallin was the only one who had ever been there with us before but he was only a year old at the time. The kids really loved it! The only thing we didn't get to see in our short time was the conference center. Maybe for our next layover!

Marion Throws a fit

I was watching the girls playing Barbie's together at which point Marion got really frustrated because she couldn't get a shirt or something on one of her Barbie's. She threw the Barbie at the couch at which point I started recording this video. I thought her temper tantrum was hilarious but what followed the tantrum turned out to be even more funny.

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!