Empat Casa and other news

I got to move into another new house. This is my fourth house that I will have lived in while being in Indonesia. Here are some pictures. This is the main floor. Upstairs there is a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. It is a pretty nice set up. It is on the same street as all of the other teachers so that is nice to just bop over to each others houses for dinner or to hang out.

As far as school goes. We just finished our first week of school. This year I will be teaching Grade 1 and Grade 6 English. In Grade 1 I have 15 students. A funny story from the week. We were in chapel this week jumping up and down singing "One Way" (it is a hillsong kids song). One of my students in grade 1 was jumping up and down and he must have been jumping too hard because he lost his pants and they were at his ankles. They were a little bit too big for him and he lost them. I ran to the office to try to find safety pins to pin them tighter but it did not work well. Hopefully he will buy new pants.

Skydiving

What could be better on an early Saturday morning in July then jumping out of a plane from 10,000 feet in the air and free falling at 120 mph while doing backflips? That is exactly what I thought so I decided to do it. It was one of the most thrilling things that I have ever done. I went with my Auntie Kooch, my cousin Grant, and his friend Jesse. When they opened the door and I knew that I was going to have to jump out I got a little scared but then I stuck my foot out on the step and went for it.

Nebraska Road Trip

I headed to Nebraska to go to my friend's wedding. This is what I saw on the way.

On the way there we stopped to see other friends, Cody and Zeke in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We happened to have matching orangutan shirts. A photo-op was necessary.

Then we headed to Brenna's house and her parents took us to a Stormchasers baseball game.

We ended up at the Wedding at Mahoney State Park on June 30th. My friend Lis looked beautiful and it was a great day of celebrating. We went to the wedding, brunch reception, hung out by the pool, and then a dinner reception in the evening.

There was a lot of monkeying around all weekend.

Beijing or Bust

On the way home to the States my friend Lindsey and I stopped in Beijing China to see The Great Wall. Crystal, my friend from church and her husband Mike were our official tour guides. Crystal picked us up from the airport and we drove about an 1 1/2 out of the city to get to a good spot on The Great Wall. It was everything that I believed that it would be. Then we headed into the city again, and met up with Mike and ate some authentic Chinese food. We had bullfrog. It was good, but not a lot of meat, and lots of other bits that we not edible. Then we headed to the Forbidden City. The place is huge, way bigger then what I was expecting. Then we headed to Tiananmen Square where the huge riots happened. After that we headed on the subway to get into a different part of the city where we ran some errands with Mike and Crystal. We were only in China for 27 hours but we saw a ton. Now I think that I have seen all of the greats. The Great Wall, The Great Barrier Reef, and The Great Ocean Road.

Last Day

Today was the last day of school. Even the earth shook because it was so excited. Actually it was an earthquake. The first earthquake that I have ever felt while being in Indonesia. To celebrate the last day of school we sang and danced to some of our favorite song from the year. We played some outside games like sharks and minnows. We watched How to Train your Dragon. We had a potluck lunch. There was lots of fried noodles and chocolate. Not together, but separate. Then we played with water balloons and had a cool pool party. We finished the day with a compliment circle and Grade 1 Hug Fest 2012. It was a great day. I am very tired. All I have left are some meetings and then I will be on my way home Friday night.