Why we left Indonesia

It's been a while since I posted.

The kids and I now live in Houston, Mike is still in Indonesia.  Mike and I are still happily married, no one is having health concerns prompting us to come back to the states.  We gambled by splitting our family and moving here, and in some ways have already won.  In other ways, well, we are taking one day at a time.

Over the summer it began to look as though Mike may not stay in Indonesia until the job is complete in summer 2014.  Of course he may, that is the gamble.  If he moves during the school year, however, that's disruptive not only for our preschooler, but also (and scarier) for our 6th grader.

Jack, who is 12, has always attended private schools and the largest class he's ever been a part of has numbered 44.  Thinking about moving him in the middle of the year to a huge public middle school was keeping me up at night.  He's now been attending a huge public middle school in Memorial and he. loves. it.

Mike and Jack in September 2013

He appreciates the anonymity, how chill the teachers are about kids pulling out their phones whenever there's a break (his biggest hobby is definitely technology).  He loves having a study hall, being part of a huge band (he plays percussion).  He's in a class of 435 and he's thriving.  Everyone is 6th grade is new to his campus, even if they attended a feeder, they are all clueless together.  He knows who he will sit with each day at lunch as all the study halls are required to sit with each other the first semester.  He's looking forward to basketball and baseball later this year.  His grades are also fine.  Not all A's, but on par with learning how eight new teachers do things.  These are all wins, folks, and I sleep much better at night.  I won't go into detail about his former schools, they are both good places staffed with great people, but this middle school is probably the best possible fit for him.

The change in Cassie, 4, has been even more dramatic.  She did NOT enjoy her Indonesian preschool last year and I'm not convinced she was safe and learning all she needed.  When we left in May her default settings were anxiety and hostility.  We spent most of the summer at my parents' house and I swear they just healed that child.  If your child is scared and unhappy send her to GG and Pop for three months.  She still fixates on things (fire alarm, shots) but she wakes up joyful.  She attends a church preschool where they emphasize play and kindness.  She is lots of fun to watch this year because she is just blossoming, and can explain how your brain works with your nose, eyes, etc!

Happy Cassie in September 2013.  I don't know where she learned to pose like this.  I was not this girly!

Mike was just home for a visit, we had a wonderful wonderful time with him.  It's tough to let him go and we all need him home.  But every family has their hardship, I believe, and this is just ours.  Jack especially misses his dad, and worries about me, but I know we have a good life and strong family and we can handle this temporary separation.

This is not our last move, this is not our last separation, the kids will change schools again, and we can handle all of it.  We have faith in God and each other and that we will make it through.  And friends and family.  I cannot overstate the importance of having a handful of people I can call or text anytime anywhere who will talk me through (or down).  You know who you are.  I love you.

Houston is a wonderful place to raise a family, and we are in a pretty fun area.  Come visit us!

Telunas

Last week Jack was gone all week on a school trip to Telunas Resort with several grades from his school.  Telunas is a rustic retreat where all the rooms are built over the water.  In addition to regular vacays, they also host team-building retreats.  Two families closely affiliated with the school own Telunas, which is how all this came to be.  The trip was five day, four nights with NO PARENTS!

The no parents thing really freaked a couple of of my friends here.  Fortunately in Jack's previous school I knew an overnight class trip was coming for 5th grade, so he and I both knew he had to be ready to go by this year.   Of course that trip is to Camp Allen, a place that doesn't look much like Telunas (but is still wonderful).

I sent my camera with Jack, but he only managed to get 6 pictures the whole week.  I'm still waiting to see what pics the teachers got, hopefully over the long weekend coming they can share.  Oh and Happy Chinese New Year, welcome The Year of the Snake!  Jack is off two days for the holiday, and Cassie has a week off.

The "Bus".  A wooden boat with a canvas cover and outboard motor.

To get to this retreat the kids headed to a ferry terminal terminal and took a Telunas boat to the island.  The boat ride took an hour.  Indonesia is composed of 17,000 islands.  Thousand!  The resort is on a nearby island.  By the way the families who own the resort are American.  They landed in Batam a decade ago looking for business opportunities.  Now ten years later both families each have four kids, share two businesses (beginning a third) and have been fantastic helpers for all us newer expats.

The "Dorm".  Thanks to having been to Camp Ozark for three years, staying here for four nights was easy-breezy for Jack. 

View from his dorm.  

The pier.

The "Classroom".

While on Telunas, the students had literature circle, Jack and his group read A Swiss Family Robinson (all 348 pages!).  They also went hiking, once to an inland waterfall that emptied into a pool full of minerals making the water black.  They also built beach bonfires and went shrimping after dark, eating what they caught for dinner (after the kitchen staff cleaned and fried the shrimp).  

A Native.

We missed Jack while he was gone, as we always do.  Cassie and I were very excited to head back to pick him up at the ferry terminal.  As you can see, there is no rail to keep one from tumbling into the water!  I was very attentive to my little firecracker.  

Finally here they came!  I took this with my iPad, which has no zoom (sorry!).  His boat is slightly right of center.  For the return trip the boat rolled up the canvas sides.  When Jack finally got to us, his (too long) hair was standing on end from all the salt water picked up on the trip home.  He was tired and tan.  And also too tall, he's 5'2" these days.   I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of Jack and his buds at the terminal, I was just so excited to see him and distracted by everyone's amazing stories.

It was a wonderful experience, and even though there are people and conveniences we miss in the states, trips like this is why we uprooted our lives.  And my apprehensive expat girlfriends all ended up so glad their kids went along.  

New Year

December was crazy!

Cassie's birthday was a success--she got to have a swimming party with all the neighborhood kids.  I posted a picture of her amazing pony cake on fb, here it is again.

This cake was put together by two new friends I've made here.  They are stay-at-home moms like me, but they are much more accomplished than I am.  One is Indonesian and the other is Malaysian and those two cute Asian women make this chubby American look pretty pitiful when it comes to hobbies.  Are reading and facebooking hobbies?

Here's a shot of some of the adorable neighborhood kids at Cassie's party.  The boy standing on the right is Bobby, she tells me all the time that they will get married.

Here's some of the food, this is some Indonesian yellow rice (YUM) with various chicken, beef, and veggie dishes you eat with it.  We also had chicken nuggets and fries, but I could have that rice everyday.

As big a deal as Cassie's party was, it was nothing compared to my parents coming!  As I'm typing they are flying back through tons of time zones to Texas.  We had such a wonderful time.   We hung out in Batam for a week, then went to Singapore for New Years.   In Batam mostly we hung out and tried all kinds of food!  My mom has been posting stuff on fb about their trip.

Here's my Master Gardner mother getting a batik gardening hat.  If you don't know her, she's pretty much that happy all the time.  It's never annoying and always refreshing.  

 Christmas day we went to luncheon with some other expats, and they had this fantastic little Indonesian Tejano-ish band.  The highlight was when they played "La Bamba", my parent's song!

 Sometimes my sunshiny Cassie is a little dark...

Here we are in our "buggy" headed to the pool.  My dad finally got some nice goggles and he swam like a fish when we went.  Since his surgery 25 years ago he hasn't been able to swim very much, one eye doesn't close all the way.  That seems like no big deal but it was definitely a highlight for us.

Here's how you buy steak on the island, you get the whole piece then take it home to butcher.  I have no idea how to do this correctly, I just know we get a big pile 'o meat outta it!

Here are a couple of pictures of our finished house.  It's REALLY different from the 1000 sq ft Maryland and the 1400 sq ft Beaumont house.  

front

back, lots of porches and balconies

Here are some shots of the "wet market".  I had to rush through because Cassie's favorite place in such markets is staying in the car.  My parents got to stroll through slower and even bought some coffee from Java!  The unspoken rule about wet markets is to go before 9am.  You don't want to be there during the heat of the day.

before

after

We headed to Singapore for New Years, and I don't think I'll ever go again for December 31.  It must be like New York city at Thanksgiving.  There are a lot of people in Asia and I think most of them were in Singapore for the countdown.  The fireworks were amazing, we watched them from our hotel since Cassie had been asleep for a few hours.

It was very hard to let my mom and dad go yesterday.  I don't know if I'm cut out to make this much more than a few-years adventure.  Of course now I'm missing my aunt, nieces and nephew, my brother, sisters-in-laws and my crazy besties and my dog (who I don't think I get back).  The kids and I go home for a couple of months this summer, and I've heard it's even hard to adjust back after you've been to Target.  I mean glance back up at that wet market, SO not Target.

So not an eloquent post this time, I just copped out with lots of photos.  I'm still a little drained from December adventures.  It was a great month, great Christmas and visit.  Like many of you, I'm looking forward to a calmer January and February.