Hiking Merbabu

On his birthday Phil got the chance to spend the night hiking our local volcano, Merbabu. He and a group of guys left our house at 9pm to drive to "the last village". They parked their bikes there for the night and began their hike. They hiked all night to make it to the peak for sunrise. It took them a little under 7 hours to make it to the top. When they got home at noon the next day, they were all very exhausted - and happy. Here's some info on our mountain:

http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunung_Merbabu

They made it in time to watch the sun rise over our town.

My hot hiker man in his shiny silver rain coat (actually, i think that's MY shiny silver raincoat... whatever). They all agreed that they were freezing up there. Though I'm sure it's true, it's hard to believe as I pause to soak the sweat off my brow before continuing to type.

Crazy, beautiful rolly hills.

 Our town is down there somewhere.

karaoke birthday party

On the 10th of this month, we and a group of friends went out for Phil's birthday. We met at the Happy Puppy Karaoke place. Karaoke is something that Indonesians do for fun - so much so that we had to make a reservation for our own personal room almost 2 weeks in advance (there is no such thing as reservations in any other venue here...). We had a lot of fun laughing at each other and singing badly to some seriously loud music.

Phil is having more fun in this photo than it seems.

Some Indonesians, as it turns out, are more shy than they let on... Here, Mas Yovan is DIVING away from the mic. 

And here he is in pain.

Mas Ariel and Mas Hoho are WAY into it...

...and so are Tiffany and I apparently.

Even Angie and Dylan (the hesitant participants of the karaoke event) got into it and sang a song - Little did we all know that the videos matched to the songs were NOT the originals. Their song had some racy content from the discovery channel... which left us in shock and then in stitches. We've not laughed that hard in a very long time.

too many photos of the "baby"

Whatever, people. Get over it. We take lots of photos of her, and we need to show them to you. Enjoy!

This one cracks me up because it looks like it was taken by the paparazzi. Nadia and I look so annoyed that Phil is taking our picture. "Come on, pal. We just want to get to the park in peace! Can we go nowhere that we are not recognized and harangued by your incessant clicking?!" :0)

Ready for a ride on the bike. Those shoes are size 5 and they are almost too small!

She steals things from the laundry basket and puts them on her head. Here she stuck her head through the arm hole of my shirt. I thought it was really funny.

Reveling in her relative filth.

Our little pot head.

Mom, here is one of the outfits you sent - Fits great, and looks so cute!

After a long morning of playing and teething, she's sleepy and ready for a nap.

Also - Mangos are in season. If you're not jealous, you should be.

chillin'

As the seasons change from dry to rainy, our weather is delightfully unpredictable. Once rainy season settles in we can expect rain every day for a few hours in the middle of the day. Right now however, it could rain at any time, adding some mystery to our existence. :0) Also with the new weather comes warmer temperatures and some more humidity. Thank God for cool showers, fans and a local pool.

Here is Nadia cooling off by sucking on a cold lime wedge.

And here is our lens cap cutie, "helping".

having a bad day?

We totally understand.

Here's the wind up...

Aaaaaand the pitch.

We don't understand it all either, baby girl.

i don't know beans

Here are a few language "tricks" we've come across lately.

We know that these are all legumes. Here they are all beans.

Here is a kacang kedelai = soybean

Here are some kacang tanah = dirt beans

 And a kacang panjang = yep, you guessed it - long bean

Cheap, Young and Easy

Whew! Watch out. These three words... yikes. I still don't get them straight. More than once I've told someone that they're cheap, when i really meant to reassure them about their age.

Cheap= murah (say moo-raH)

Young= muda (say moo-da)

Easy= mudah (say moo-daH)

There is no shortage of words like these, but that seems to be the least of our problems these days. We are working on grammar (yuck), and apparently a root word can mean one thing, and when changed with an affix can mean something COMPLETELY different... occasionally dangerous to mix them up.

 

For example:

 tinggal = root word verb to reside

meninggalkan = verb to leave (that seems to be the opposite?)

ketinggalan = adjective to be left behind (oooookaaaaaay)

meninggal = verb to die (WHAT?!? how did we make that jump?!)

kotor = rood word adjective for dirty

mengotorkan= to make dirty, contaminate

kotoran = noun for poop (OF COURSE!)

Sometimes our heads hurt (not to mention our egos... or our friends' feelings). Feel free to pray for us as we work to get this language.

earthquake

Just to let you all know, we are safe and unaffected by last night's earthquake in Sumatra. Thanks for your notes and concern!