Monday Meetings

This is a view at 7am from the hotel lounge.

Well today is Monday. I have to work.

We spent the day at a Minstry. They kindly agreed to host the meeting. The night before I went to bed at 12:30am and woke up at 2:30am wide awake(because remember according to my body it is about 2:30 in the afternoon). My alarm went off at 5:30 right before I started to dose off. I literally think that I got 2 hours and 10 minutes of sleep last night. I was exhausted at the meetings today. They asked me at the last minute if I would like to speak. Would I like to speak? Of course not! but I did. I think my voice quivered. I hate that. It looks so amateurish but I'm trying not to dwell on it. I have to give two presentations tomorrow. I hate it but I suppose if I were trying to see bright side, it does give me more experience which certainly can't hurt.

Just one quick comment about toilets. I promise to sneak a picture tomorrow. In the government office they have 3 stalls: one stall with a toilet and a bucket of water with a ladle, one stall where you stand up and crouch to pee with a bucket of water and a ladle, and one shower area. I can't imagine anyone showering. All of these with NO toilet paper. I guess its bring your own (byotp). I couldn't do the stand up one I just don't have good aim to not pee all over my clothes. I ended up going to the first stall with toilet and ladling water down until the toilet "flushed". Also there was a toilet in the meeting room with a toilet seat and toilet paper which I used a couple times during the day but it just seemed so weird peeing in the meeting room which is why I looked for other toilets. In the afternoon I tried this toilet but I'm not sure people know exactly how to use a toilet with a toilet seat because they had taken this shower hose thing and sprayed the whole toilet and the toilet paper. It was so gross. Apparently, the stand up toilets are just "what they do". Even with all the money they would choose a stand up toilet. Whatever!

So after work, I went down to the Spa for a pedicure. It was great. Here is a picture. Afterwards, I went to the pool - OMG! The pool is awesome. I am so going there tomorrow. Aidan and Leo, you would LOVE it. It is ginormica with a fountain, fake rocks, trees, etc. I didn't have my camera but I will take a picture tomorrow. The pool is amazing.

Cool color right? I never get anything but pink. I'm all crazy!

I have to study my presentation so I am off to bed.

Love and miss you guys!

Insanely long flight: Arrive Jakarta

Depart: Washington DC 6:00am Friday

Arrive: JFK 7:05am

Depart: JFK 10:05am

Arrive: Honk Kong 2:05 pm Saturday

Depart: Hong Kong 4:00pm

Arrive: Jakarta 7:40pm

I left our house on Friday morning at 3:50am: an obscenely early time. I am travelling with a colleague and meet her at the gate at about 4:50am after checking in and going through security. We left for JFK airport on a small, small, small plane that only had 3 seats across. I hate those planes. We got a little breakfast and coffee and got on another airplane headed to Honk Kong. The plane was terribly crowded with lots and lots of screaming babies. The pilot announced that the flight time would be 15 hours and 40 minutes. Are you freaking kidding me???? How could anyone possibly survive on an airplane for that long?

The plane I was on (Cathay Pacific) had over 100 movies! I watched 5 movies: angels and demons (ok), the proposal (really good), the hangover (good but a little dark), and some other movie but can't remember it was from the "recent hits" list of movies. I also watched a few episodes of friends. I ate 3 meals worth of airline food-ugh!! I slept maybe 2 hours and that is generous.

Once we arrived in Hong Kong, I had a cappuccino at starbucks in the airport and then I got on another 4 hour flight to jakarta. I know you are thinking to yourself "how did she get on another plane?" Believe me, I was thinking the same thing myself.

When we arrived in Jakarta someone was waiting for us and took us to the hotel. We are staying in a great hotel. Here are a couple of pictures.

The main entrance to to the hotel

The view out of my room. I am on the 14th floor.

My bathroom. I have a separate bathtub, shower and toilet.

My bedroom. Sorry about the mess. I didn't feel like picking up to take a picture.

When we arrived at the hotel, I took a fantastic hot shower, called home, unpacked my suitcase and went to bed. I requested a wake up call at 9:30am. I slept fabulously and didn't wake up until the phone rang. I went downstairs to the delicious breakfast. They had beautiful juices, cucumber, pineapple, watermelon, honeydew melon, and orange. It is a beautiful rainbow of colors...I'll take a picture tomorrow. For breakfast they had american, european and traditional breakfast with udon noodles, fried rice, dumplings and other food we would typically eat for dinner. I had an omelet, croissant and cheese and watermelon and pineapple juice and cappuccino.

After breakfast, we took a taxi to find a shopping center. We arrived at an indoor mall but that didn't look any different from our malls. They had nine west shoes, perfumes and soaps like you would find in american malls. On the third floor though we found this fantastic market with lots of handicrafts. They have this coffee (kopi luwak) that is supposed to be a delicacy. It is made from feeding coffee beans to a cat like animal and they poop it out and they use that to grind the beans. No kidding. It is poop coffee and it is $150 for a small little container (like a quarter of a pound, maybe less). I found a few really fun things, we had coffee (normal coffee) and then we decided to take a bus to another part of town. The bus was an adventure but we did great.

The other part of town was really poor, dirty and there was not much to do so we decided to get a snack (dumplings and lumpia), a beer (bintang) and water. After walking around that area a little I felt like I had spent three years sucking down exhaust, smoke and pollution. It was terrible. We took a taxi back to the hotel. To be honest there is not a lot to see in Jakarta. Indonesia is supposed to be (and I am sure it is) a beautiful country with amazing snorkling, volcano areas, white sandy beachers, birds of paradise, komodo drangons and beautiful hiking areas. It's just that Jakarta has really nothing to see.

At the hotel I had a hot stone massage, went shopping the amazing mall connected to our hotel and then came back around 9pm, ordered room service and here I am.

Tomorrow we have a meeting at 7am? Who planned that?!?! not me, believe me!

Happy Birthday Oma!

Happy Birthday Oma!

We hope you have a wonderful day and have a delicous cake, cupcake or treat! It is the focus of my day!

We love you lots and wish you a happy, happy birthday and wonderful year.

Love,
Amy, Jason, Aidan and Leo

A trip to the Dentist

Aidan and Leo went to the dentist last Tuesday. Aidan has been to the dentist a number of times before this visit but this was Leo's first visit to the dentist! Whoo-hoo! The day before (Labor Day) we were over at Doris' house for dinner and I remembered they had their dentist appointment and excitedly told Doris that Leo was going to the dentist for the first time. To my surprise he cried and said he didn't want to go! We stopped talking about it immediately! Uh-oh, this did not look good for Tuesday. Let's just say he was not impressed and there is a slim chance that Leo will aspire to be a dentist.

Aidan went first in the chair and as you can see he is an old pro. The dentist said that his teeth look great! She said that he is getting his adult molars and that soon his other baby teeth should loosen and fall out. That was pretty neat.

When the dental assistant came in and wanted to check out Leo's teeth he cried and pretty much refused. She was very nice and didn't force herself or her tools on him and said "let's just wait for the dentist."


When the dentist came, Leo layed on Jason's lap and the dentist's lap and he did really well. No crying and he let her look at his teeth. He allowed her to look at them just enough to count his teeth. She said the first visit is really just to get the kids familiar with the dentist and the procedures and so all they really need to do is just look in their mouth and count their teeth. That was done! So there was a major success there!

Happy Labor Day Weekend

I'm not in the mood to blog, maybe it's getting back to the ol' grind after a long weekend, I dunno but here are some pictures with a few comments.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning...

Cousin Ryan, Cheryl, Aidan and Leo

Amy, Ryan and Cheryl sitting around talking. Jason is taking the photo and can you guess where Leo and Aidan were? Yep! Riding their bikes!

Aidan and Leo in the trunk of cousin Ryan's Porsche.

We also visited Connie and her kitties, Nat and Ana, on Saturday morning and ate lunch at a great place called Kiwi in Arlington.

On Sunday Jason finished putting the shelves up in the storage room and Sunday night, we went to the Doris' Parent's (Mommy and Daddy's) house for dinner and had great burgers and hot dogs and puerto rican beans and rice (yum!). On Monday we went to the Aquarium in Baltimore.

Jellyfish Invasion Exhibit

At the Dolphin Exhibit (super cool!)

Sting Rays

Happy Birthday Opa!

Happy Birthday Opa! We hope you have a wonderful day. We are thinking about you and wish we were with you to celebrate your special day.

Love you lots!

First Day of 1st Grade!

Today was Aidan's first day in 1st grade. We've been talking about starting school for the past few weeks. Let's just say that he was uninspired. Every time we asked him if he was ready to start school he would say, "no". Every time someone asked him if he was excited about going back to school he would say, "no". Plain and simple...he did not want to go back to school. Needless to say we were feeling a bit nervous about him starting school all the while trying to talk school up and say how great it was going to be (was it?), how nice his teacher would be (would s/he?) and how much fun he would have (would he?).


There were a few clues that gave us hope. He got this "snake eyes" shirt a few weeks ago and he said he wanted to save it for the first day of school. When we talked about his old friends from kindergarten he seemed happy and talkative. When we went shopping for his Marvel comics backpack and school supplies he was excited and into it. So we held on to these little pieces of hope and continued think things might go well on the first day.

This morning was fine (not great but fine). His mood was kind of up and down and bit sporadic but I think it was the nervousness and part excitement (yes, deep down in there I think there was some excitement!). He took a shower, put on his new snake eyes shirts and shorts and we remembered that we had a new pair of sneakers for him and he thought that was fun.


We got in the car and he did great. We got out of the car and I could tell he was nervous but still fine. He got a little clingy when we went up to the door and Jason said we couldn’t go in. I saw that there were parents going in so I said, "let's go in" and we all headed in. Leo was asking if we had to go in (yes, “had” to go in). Then when we went in Leo said, “can we go home now” – he had bike riding on his mind. Aidan was doing okay when we were waiting outside the door. On of his friends from kindergarten was also waiting outside of his classroom and she said "Hi Aidan" and he mumbled "Hi" back. The rest of his class came up from the gym and it was finally time to go in. Sadly, he hid his face in my shoulder and arm and cried. I felt so bad. I told him how brave he was, how big he was and how much fun he would have but he wasn’t buying what I was selling. I was trying to hold out until his friend William arrived because they were great friends (& Kentaro who he misses so much) and we found out on Friday that William sits in his quad of four desks (plus!). It was starting to get late and William had not arrived so I finally scootched him to the door and his teacher saw him crying and took him by the hand to hang up his backpack and sit in the circle with the other kids. His teacher and I gave each other the nod…mine indicating “he’s upset and nervous” and hers indicating “I understand. I got it from here. Go ahead and go”. After that I went out of the classroom and I told Jason “let’s go”. After we left, I cried too. I just feel so bad that he feels so nervous and unsure. I wish there was something I could do or say to make him feel less nervous, unsure and secure but I couldn't think of anything and anything I could think of didn't work. Jason gave Aidan a special coin to hold in his pocket and touch whenever he felt nervous but he still felt nervous.

After school we all picked him up and he was smiling and happy. He said he had a good day and only cried once in the morning. He said he liked his teacher and said his favorite part of the day was recess. He said he was tired at recess and had no energy because they don't eat lunch until 1:00pm and have recess first. This we thought was crazy...I'm hungry (seriously) by 11:30am. They have snack time earlier but the grapes we sent "were too sour" so he didn't eat too many of them. He said they did computer lab and he was quite talkative (always a good sign). After school we went to DairyQueen for blizzards (Aidan had M&M, Jason had, you guessed it Butterfinger and Leo and I shared Thin Mint). We came home and boys rode their bikes and played with the neighbor kids. Aidan is playing Wii for a bit, Leo is watching Polar Express and playing with a lego car and we will eat dinner soon.

All in all, it was a great day (no throwing up!) that got better and better. I'm sure tomorrow will be better!