More Birthday

Today was a great day, and I think that Matthew had a good birthday. We bought him a small cd player for his room...wasn't the i-pod that he wanted but we're calling it a 'room-pod.' He doesn't think that's very funny. We were told that electronics in SE Asia were way less expensive than at home...that's NOT correct. What would have cost us about $30 in Canada cost us more than $50 here.

I love this shot sequence because it shows just how funny Matt's cake was. It was very plain...just chocolate, but we'd bought continuous candles, so even when he blew them all out, the majority would come back. The Weeda family joined us for cake and we were all laughing pretty hard at how much work Matthew had to do to blow them out. Look at how tired he looks after about 3 minutes of blowing and laughing!


These are the Weeda boys watching Matt unwrap his gifts (Neil, Eric and Mr. Steve). This family is like family to us...they're the ones that were on the same plane as us as we flew out of San Fran but didn't meet them until Hong Kong (they sat directly in front of us for 17 hours!). We're very thankful for their friendship and just how "real" they are.





And these are the Weeda girls and Abby. Hope is 4 and she's Abby's buddy; she LOVES hanging with Abby.

Now for MY really cool news...I have a garden!

When I asked for new grass, I mentioned that I wanted a garden to be dug out around the edge of the grass so that later I could plant bright flowers. Our gardener showed up yesterday with his workers, they planted the front and back yards with grass plugs (see the example of these below) and then showed me a bag of flowers.

Most of the flowers that they planted I have not seen around here very much, so I'm not sure how long they last. They had no idea what kind of flowers I wanted, but I'd expected them to bring me really tropical plants. When they pulled out mini-mums and mini-carnations as well as 2 tea rose bushes (hello!!!!) I think I almost jumped up and down. They laugh at everything I do anyways (it's a really pleasant thing to know that I am a constant source of entertainment for Indonesians) but I think I would have really given them something to laugh about. If you look to the right of the last guy you'll see my 2 red rose bushes behind him. They're potted so i can move them around as I wish. If you look behind the guy on the far left (that's Pak Suki, our main gardener who hired the other guys shown) there's a black box. That's our mail box and that's where all the good stuff gets put, if it ever gets here! Behind the guys is a lamp stand with a ball lamp on the end. For months I have not turned on that light because the yard was such a dump...all patches of grass and dirt, all lumpy and bumpy and just BAD in gardeners terms. Last night I turned it on and to tell you the truth, I kept going back outside to look at the nice yard. Once rainy season kicks in fully apparently the grass will just take off.

For those interested in my childrens' school progress, tune in for my next post. I went to Parent-Teacher interviews yesterday for Abby and she is receiving some awards in about 1 hour at the Junior school assembly, unbeknownst to Ab. I hope to get some photos and I'll fill you in.

Thanks for reading!