Absolutely Random Photos of the Last Month

SPH International School: Abby and her grade 5 buddies on their last day of school. The little one in the front is her Korean friend So Young, behind is Canadian Abigail, in yellow is Indian Darsini, and finally at the back is Soe Young, her other Korean friend. Sadly, Soe Young is returning next week to Korea. She was Abby's first friend that we met in Indonesia.

Here's a photo of Tris and I at the Marriot, one of our favourite places to celebrate anything we can think of to celebrate. This evening was a special event as about 30 of our friends and colleagues joined us to honour Tris for finishing his masters. Recently Tris received his transcripts...surprise, surprise, he's an A student. What a man! He worked very, very hard to get those marks.

This is a little friend that we found in our front yard. A satpam (security guard) came around to see why we were all crouching and staring at the ground. He picked it up and stretched out the wings, which it obviously wasn't happy about. We Canadians were a bit freaked out by the whole "picking up a bat" thing. Hope he washed his hands:) For the record, he went and put the little guy into a nearby tree.

All these kids in white are Matt's classmates. The tall guy on the left is Mr. David, our Scottish Senior School principal, who is married to the lovely little lady to his right, Matt's homeroom teacher Mrs. Anne. After hanging with the class yesterday during their good-bye party, I decided Anne needs a medal. A really big medal. Great kids, but they're in grade 7. Anne and David Cameron are leaving our school for retirement (otherwise renamed "repositioning" around here) back in Scotland. We are blessed enough to get one more good visit with them when our family, the Comries and the Camerons will meet at a restaurant in Bali during our holidays. Abby's piano teacher Grace is also Matt's homeroom teacher as well. She's on the far right. Matt's the good-looking blonde in the middle on the floor.

I love this photo of Dale because it's when she's desperately trying to get out of the bird market in Jogjakarta. It's the place where animals from all over Indonesia are crammed into small cages. There is everything from owls to songbirds, lizards to rabbits, puppies to pythons, weird looking creatures that I cannot remember the names of to fire ants running free over baskets of rice (the ants are used as food and they will bite if you get near them). We had a self-appointed guide stick with us and he kept wanting to show us more than we wanted to see. I was getting frustrated as the guide kept grabbing my arm and poking me to show me new things; Dale was overwhelmed with the overall sensory overload. Eventually, I admit, we feigned sickness and I had him lead us out of the market. Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Speaking of girls, these three lovely ladies are Mel Carpenter, Abby, and Hannah Paten, a bride-to-be in two weeks. This is a shower for Hannah and the main game was for 3 groups to make a toilet paper wedding dress for their appointed bridge. All they got was 3 rolls of tp and 5 paper clips. The titles are "Shotgun wedding," "Innocent Bride," and "Bride in motion." Hannah, on the right (and in the small photo), had rolls of toilet paper unravel as she walked. Very innovative! I think this is Abby's most grown-up dress yet.

The model for the shotgun wedding dress is Mel, and she's due in September (married to Abby's teacher, Mr. Jonathan). Both ladies are leaving for Adelaide, Australia this weekend, to start a new page in their lives. Babies and weddings do that!

A few weeks ago Mel came over and we took a few hundred photos of her in 'pregnant poses' as a gift for her husband's birthday. She did an awesome job of being very relaxed and pregnant:) These are two of Tris and my favourites.



That is our last month spent in a variety of ways. Dale's visit, a wedding and a baby shower, taking oodles of photos, celebrating the end of school, celebrating Tris finishing his masters, and sadly, saying goodbye too many times.

Thanks for reading.