All About Elijah

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This is a snail I found.  I found it in the middle of the road. I picked it up, so the cars did not run over it.

This is my Lego bike.  Auntie Hannah and Uncle Joel and my cousins gave it to me.

This is my dad and me playing chess.  We were just starting the game.

This is an awesome grasshopper that my friend found for me.

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This is me playing tennis with my dad and my sisters.

I made these with my auntie Joy.  These are my robots.

These are awesome glasses. They are just plastic.  I like to wear them around but I actually don’t need them to see. I really really like them.

Batik Friday

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Batik is the traditional fabric here in Indonesia.  Although real batik is hand-made and nicer, it’s much more expensive than the printed batik, so most people buy the printed kind.  Batik is most often made into clothes, and everybody in my family has some except for mom!

“Batik Friday” is a tradition here – on Friday you wear batik.  Even though not everybody does this, you definitely see more people wearing batik on Friday than on another day of the week.  A lot of schools and companies make the uniform on Friday batik.  At my school here, on Friday everybody has to wear some batik – including the teachers!  It’s a lot more fun than the regular uniform!  At work dad also wears batik, even though he doesn’t have to.  Some of his shirts are pretty crazy – like the one above!

High and Low

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Hi, this is Naomi writing!  First of all, I want to tell you where these swings are.  They are at the school that I went to this past year.  I like the length of these swings for two reasons.  The first reason is that they can go VERY high!  The second reason is that you can twist them VERY high too and then you spin way down again!

I played on these swings at recess almost every day.  My family would sometimes go to play on them on the weekends.  I loved when my dad pushed us because he would give underdogs!  There was a favorite swing pusher at our school also, his name is Pak Iwan.

Neighborhood Water Fight – by Aeden

Eli recently got water guns and over this Christmas break he’s not been the only one to enjoy them!  One day we were playing in the rain with friends in the neighborhood and we decided to bring out the water guns.  We had tons of fun and created a game – Boys vs. Girls.  I don’t remember who won – we had too much fun!  Below are a few pictures just to show how much fun we had.  (You can enlarge a picture by clicking on it.)

This is Aab.

Eli was having the time of his life!

He wasn’t SUPPOSED to use the umbrella! No fair!

No teams yet – everybody getting everybody

Girls Team! (Naomi had been riding her bike and decided to keep her helmet on for protection!)

This really shows Girls vs. Boys!

This is all of us posing for a picture! Do you like Oki’s traditional hat?

Girafferoni – Eli’s Robot

  

“This my robot.  His name is Girafferoni and… and… and I teached him to stand and… and… walk and talk.  I like to play with him, but we popped him!”

“This is me and my robot.”

“This is my favorite book in the world and I like it and it’s sooooo silly!”

 (This is the book that gave us the idea to make a robot.  While most of the stories are about Harry’s dinosaurs, one is about robots.  I recommend all the stories for any 3 year old boy!)

Yogyakarta

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Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogjakarta) is a city in the center of Java.  It is a tourist city mainly for having one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – Borobudur Temple.  It is also famous for selling Batik clothing (traditional Indonesian print on clothes).  Our family went to Yogyakarta for vacation last month.  Daddy  drove 10 hours each way!  We had lots of fun and saw the temples that are in this slideshow.  We also went to a street market called Malioboro and bought some Batik clothing.  Eli got cute pajamas and Naomi and I (Aeden) got dresses.

The Other Side of the World

Here we are – Aeden, Naomi, and Elijah!  All the way on the other side of the world, in INDONESIA!  This blog is for you – friends, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and whoever else wants to read it!  We miss you and wish we could be on both sides of the world at the same time.  Since we can’t, for now we’ll have to depend on this blog and Skype to keep in touch!  We hope you’ll be able to see a bit of our life here while your life is going on there!