What a day and it's only 11 am!

Today is a day off of school for the kids but a professional development day for Tris (unfortunately so is Saturday, too). Of course you want a little fun and excitement on your day off so Janet Weeda, another Janet and myself piled our 9 kids into 2 vehicles and headed toward the closest nice beach. It should have been about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive in nice weather. Ours was cut short because we ended up turning around near the end of the drive...the rain and thunder was thick, loud and rather intimidating when you're driving in it. So we didn't get to the beach but we did picnic in the car and did get to see some mountains, rice paddies and carabou (not sure how to spell it in Indo), as well as workers with their round, pointed straw hats sludging through the mucky fields. For me, the mountains were worth the drive, even in the rain.

These are the two Janets, trying to decide if we drive onward or turn around. Look at the sad umbrella I threw at Janet Weeda to use in the rain...some protection!!!

Our final decision was to drive back to my house, rearrange the cars (ie/ park mine in the driveway and the others head to the mall while I have a nap) and continue on with the fun day. As soon as we all piled out of the cars Ibu Sri came out and said "Mrs. Kim...snack!" "Please help, snack!" and I was thinking huh? Why is she so excited over food? Well, again, things do get lost in translation. I came in and looked where she was pointing...at an ular, or snake, in the main floor bathroom. What was the most exciting part about this particular moment was that my friend Janet W had JUST left the same bathroom where she'd used the facilities and of course, had the door closed while doing so. This means that she was in a tiny cement-tile room with the door closed, and the snake was sharing the space with her.

Sri called outside to two street sweepers and they came in with a big stick, which they attempted to kill the snake with. Unfortunately it wasn't a very strong stick and it bent alot. Thank the Lord that the gardener had left his tools out in the front yard. The men used these to kill the snake to "partially dead" (you know, like on Princess Bride) until they got it outside. There they killed it completely. It wasn't a terribly large snake, nor was it poisonous (we didn't find this out until about 20 minutes after the killing), but it was in my house uninvited. It's one thing to have an open door policy with your friends; this snake took this just a little bit too far.

The snake is the long brown thing in the front; the stick that 'mostly' killed it is the brown thing in the back. These are our hero snake-killers.

Apparently poor Sri had seen the snake under our fridge 2 hours earlier and somehow chased it into the bathroom (down some stairs...can they climb up???). Last night our power went out and I had to go outside to flick a switch around 3 am so our air conditioners would power up again. I wonder if that was when he got in? From now on I am pretty sure that unless the power is out, I will be flicking on all lights as I venture downstairs in the middle of the night. What is kind of funny is that we have black cords laying all around our computer area (various reasons) and when I walk over them I give them a little kick to see if they're alive. Needless to say, I've been typing most of this with my feet on my desk chair.

I just had a very lovely treat...Eugene Graham skyped me while he was at Northgate worship practise, and I got to see and talk to Naomi and Rebecca. I have a big smile on my face now:)

Thanks for reading.