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.