I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged! Aunt Sam arrived 8 days ago and although we haven't gone too far from home we have kept busy. Matt's 14th birthday was on Thursday but he and Abby were at retreat, and so Matt, Abby and Sam all arrived at our house within one hour of each other. Within 5 hours of her arrival, we took Sam to Eastern restaurant, one of our favourite local Chinese food places, and we celebrated Matt's birthday there. The pretty box he's holding is my sad attempt at wrapping his birthday gift. There was actually nothing in it but a note, which said "this is an invisible wii key." We had his Wii game rekeyed for Indonesian Wii games so now he has even more playing options.

The same afternoon that we got here there was an earthquake which registered 6.5 on the scale. I don't think that there was any damage (I think the epicenter was between two Indonesian islands) but we felt the shaking.

Because of the last 2 earthquakes we've had some cracks grow in two corners of our cement home. Thankfully the school sent a repairman and our home is safe once again. I had expected him to just fill the holes with cement and was pleased when he took apart the crack, made a hole, filled it with the appropriate materials and repainted right away. I took this photo to show you how our home is made...rebar, bricks and cement, with tile floors and ceramic roof tiles. If you look carefully you can see the workman's fingers poking through from the crack on the front of the house through to the crack on the side of the house.

Mostly what we've been doing together with Sam is seeing the local sights...very local, as in Lippo Village local with a few trips into Jakarta...and getting Sam pampered. So far she's had a mani, pedi, cream bath and massages. I think she's enjoying it! One day we spent floating and tanning in our friend's backyard pool and it was just like being on holidays somewhere in our own private pool. Speaking of holidays, Sam and I head to Bali for 2 nights this Tuesday.

I mentioned that it was our nephew Tristian's birthday on October 18, but I wasn't able to put up a photo because I didn't have a recent one. Since then Jen has sent me one and this is what he looks like as a 9 year old, and this is the weather they're experiencing in Bavaria, Germany right now!

Tris' update is that he is working hard at strengthen his shoulder muscles and although they don't look like he'd like, the muscles are improving and it looks like the surgery was a success.

Thanks for reading.