March 8, 2004

If you ended up here, this is really a page for family and friends for photos and information about how and what we are doing. There's nothing here particularly educational. Just some portraits of what life is like for us over in Sumbawa with the hope that it will entice a few of you to come over here and visit us once we finish the new house in Sekongkang, Sumbawa. The plan at this point is to have the house done by the end of April, but you can never tell here.

This is the sixth update of the family page. No long weekends this time, but we are only three weeks away from a two week vacation, and a business trip to Bangkok to attend an international teaching conference.. We are now well along in the process of building the new house. The foundation work is moving along nicely, and we can see what the house is going to look like. It still seems small to me, but everyone else says that it's quite large. We'll see when the whole thing is finished. My bedroom is six meters by six meters which seems like it should be large enough. The main bathroom is also six by six, as is the room that is called ruang tamu which is where guests from outsided the family are greeted when they come over. Family and close friends enter the inner part of the house. That room is called the ruang keluarga which translates as family room. That room is the largest room in the house except for the kitchen which is six by seventeen. I may skip checking on the house tomorrow after school and do it on Tuesday because it should look farther along after a two day wait. Everyone is excited about moving in and wants the house to be finished as soon as possible. I'm more than ready to move out of Yoyo's and be in our own house, plus the idea of not paying rent is so attractive.

So besides the house, we have continued to spend the great weekends at the beach just up the road from us.Su and the kids have taken to building these structures out of driftwood and other things that wash up on the beach. It keeps us out of the sun somewhat. Nonetheless, I have been sunburned badly twice in the last two weeks.I was able to get a friend to pick up some sunscreen for us in Bali. The sun seems to be even more intense than elsewhere. It may have something to do with the reflection off the sand and water. Anyway, I love this beach, and we are still trying to figure out how to buy the part of it that we want. One guy that Su has gotten to know is offering us his land which amounts to 50 are, or 5,000 square meters. He's also willing to let us pay for it over 18 months since he knows that we are currently paying for the building of the house. The only problem with all this is that I really don't like the land that he is offering us. Actually the land is fine, but it's next to a housing area for people that work at the mine. It's also next to a small, cheap hotel which has its generator running constantly. The area that I want to buy is for sale, but the owner wants a total cash payment. So that's where we are with land issues.

The rainy season seems to be coming to an end which is nice although it hasn't been as bad as it first appeared that it was going to be. We still get rain three or four times a week, but not for long periods. Nothing like sunshine in the tropics.

There was a break in at the bar here the other day, and then another break in at a house down the road from here. That has people a bit on edge, although things have relaxed the last few days. As I was saying above about the structures, they come in all sizes and shapes. Sam has a real interest in building these things.Every week it seems to get a little more complex.

I was planning on uploading this page last weekend, but I never ended up getting the time to do it. Things seem to get busier and busier every week. This is tax time and the accreditation team is coming and the art fair and the piano recital and what all else.

I'm still working on getting the movie from last week edited. Since my digital camera only takes 15 second movies, I have to thread them together which takes a bit of time, especially since the kids have gotten in to using my computer at home now to do math blaster, some other educational programs and a few non-educational ones. I'll probably get the movie done for the next week. The movie is the kids running around in the foundation of the new house.

I put a little guestbook here so you can leave a message here for us if you are having trouble reaching us by email. Thanks for the messages in the guestbook. I like hearing from you all.