Beach Day at Pulau Ahe

Today our family, along with 24 friends, went to a little island near Nabire called Ahe. It took us 20 minutes in the car and then 40 minutes on a boat to get there. It was so beautiful! Daniel tried out the fishing spear that I got him for Christmas and speared and cooked 3 (small) fish. I spent most of my time keeping Zoe from drowning and nursing Ariella...but I also got to go snorkeling and saw a lion fish and the wing of an airplane from World War II. Zoe loves swimming and said she would float home in her little floatie (why is she so completely unafraid of the water?). Ariella went "swimming" for her first time.

Here are some photos so that you can enjoy the beauty of the beach with us:

Margaret and Andy's Visit

I feel very blessed that my youngest sister Margaret and her husband traveled all the way around the world to come and visit us! Here are a few photos and highlights from their visit:

enjoying mango juice

Zoe got to feed deer (in Bogor, near Jakarta)

We visited a beautiful botanical garden. Complete with huge trees and lovely tropical flowers.

Andy and Margaret with a view of the city of Sentani, Papua where we live.

The pasar (market).

Zoe loved the extra attention that she received from Margaret and Andy.

We visited a river, Kali Biru (Blue River).

Floating down the river in the jungle!

At the beach!

It was so nice to have family members here to show around, have everyday life with, and play board games with! Zoe loves her aunt and uncle (she calls Andy "Annie"). It was good to also see our life here through another set of eyes.

The beach is very nice here! Maybe we will get some more visitors sometime soon... ??? (It's expensive and takes forever to get here....but feel invited!)

First Month in Papua

Hi friends! We have been in Papua (an island in the western part of Indonesia) for over a month now.

Here are photos of some of the highlights of our time here:

I took this photo in the Singapore airport when Daniel and Zoe slept during a layover. While traveling for 2 days was hard, we felt blessed to get some sleep (we slept for a day in Jakarta in the airport hotel before our overnight flight to Sentani, Papua) and we were happy that Zoe did well.

Daniel and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on August 1st at the restaurant at a new hotel in Sentani. It was very nice! We were very thankful to have friends here who let Zoe eat dinner with them while we were out. :) In this photo we are drinking some very strong ginger tea.

Daniel has been loving flying here in Papua! This is a photo he took when he rode along for a MAF flight to see how things work here. I try not to be jealous that he gets to see little villages, beautiful mountains, and all sorts of interesting people.

Daniel went kayaking on the lake near where we live. Fun! Zoe and I slept while he did this. :)

And Daniel also has been bike riding with some Indonesian guys who work at MAF and their friends. I usually sleep when he's out doing this too. Funny how many of his activities are early in the morning...

Zoe is loving getting into cabinets and pulling herself up on things. She can also stand up without pulling up. No walking yet!

She likes crawling into the cabinets too.

Zoe loves swinging. There is a playground right by our apartment here!

And of course playing with Daddy!

We have visited two beaches! This photo is from a pebble beach that had really good snorkeling.

Here we are on our way to a sandy beach.

Zoe liked "swimming"

But she especially liked playing in the sand! I think she ate quite a bit of it!

We visited the beach with our friends the Lundholms. You can see their blog post about it by here. Other people came by from time to time wanting to take pictures with the cute kids.

These blue starfish are really big and I think they're amazing! We enjoyed snorkeling at this beach too!

While Daniel is flying or working in the the hanger each day I spend most of my time taking care of Zoe, doing laundry and other household tasks, hanging out with other wives and kids on the MAF base, cooking, etc. So it's really exciting for me when we take trips to the beach or just get off of base to do other things. Yesterday was our first time going to an Indonesian church (we've been going to a very nice English service at the nearby school). I really liked going to the Indonesian church and hope to go there often! There's still a lot that I don't understand, but I need the language and cultural practice!

I hope you enjoyed these photos! I think we are adjusting well to daily life here.

Lots of love to all of you who are reading this,

Joy

My Parents' Visit and Thanksgiving

I have sooooo much to be thankful for!

My parents made the 40 hour trip to come and visit us here in Indonesia for two weeks!  Zoe, their first grandchild, was the main attraction.

Zoe meeting her grandparents at the airport

They brought all sorts of presents and treats.  Dad, Daniel, and I played over 100 hands of 3-handed bridge.  Mom helped Zoe learn to roll over (on her 4 month birthday) and do other tricks.  Having my parents here made me feel like the world is not such a big place after all.  My familiar people, my family, were able to intersect with my new life here.

As an early Christmas present my parents paid for the 5 of us (well, Zoe was free) to go on a little vacation to a beautiful island North of here called Karimunjawa.  Daniel already wrote 4 blog posts telling all about our trip: one two three four.  The snorkeling was amazing--It was like seeing the Discovery Channel in real life.  And it was great experiencing it all with my parents and having them help take care of Zoe.

My parents are looking for shells on this beach

We took a small boat out for 2 half days of snorkeling

Dad came up with the idea of feeding fish cashew nuts

On Thanksgiving Day we celebrated at my house here in Salatiga with my parents and with friends (the other MAF families, another friend from language school, and Ibu Santi who works at my house).  What a lot of fun!  The only food item that I missed was cranberry sauce.  We made pumpkin bread/pudding/pies out of a real pumpkin...no canned pumpkin here!

Our 4 MAF families here have 5 babies (4-7 month olds!) and 6 more children (ages 2-6).  Lots of fun!

My parents left on Friday and it was hard to say goodbye.  Sometimes I feel guilty to live so far away with their lovely grandchild...but I know that we are where we are supposed to be.  We all talked on skype already and heard about their trip home.  Zoe stared intently at the computer screen and even "talked" to them a little.

Do you have any suggestions for long-distance grandparents?

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?