Lessons Learned in 6 months

These two have done the most growing and changing in the past 6 months!

We've reached the 6 month mark.  Really, I'm not counting up the months we've been here, or counting down the months till we go visit the US this summer, but it's easy to remember how long we've been here when people ask us frequently.  Impressions/accomplishments/feelings at the 6 month mark:

Heather:

• I can now drive to an area of town called, "Gading Serpong." This brings me a lot of freedom as it means I can now visit the pasar (traditional market), health food store (yes they have one of those here!) and the Serpong mall on my own! This feels like a big accomplishment as it takes about 30 minutes through some pretty heavy traffic at times.  
• My bahasa Indonesia is SLOWLY improving.  I was trying to ask my house help if she wanted me to buy anything for her but all I could manage was, "Do you want me to buy...." and then I trailed off and she looked at me in confusion.  Now I can add the word, "something" at the end of that sentence! ("sesuatu" in bahasa).
• I have now made 3 trips to the hospital, and finally on this third trip I realized that I needed to take a number and wait my turn to pay my bill, rather than barging up to the front and cutting of all the people waiting in their seats to pay.  
• We got a really nice Yamaha keyboard, and my parents brought my guitar from the states! 
  

Jeff:

• There are a lot of ants here.  A lot of ants.  And Jeff is on the ant rampage.  There are tiny sugar ants that magically materialize when there is even a tiny bit of food on the kitchen counter.  Or get into the sugar jar.  Or sadly swarm into the granola.  There are large red ants that march like soldiers along our fence. There are large black ants that come out of the ground and have pinchers.  There are small black ants that look like "normal" ants in the states but still manage to bite, it turns out.  This morning I found out there are flying ants, as I watched them pour through invisible cracks around our windows and doors and swarm around our lights.  And I'm sure there are other ants.  We knew there were ants before, but they start to get to you at the 6 month mark...
• He is learning to teach 2 new education classes.  And a small plug here: if anyone with their masters in education is interested in teaching some pretty awesome international students in Indonesia how to teach, let us know!
• The PhD dissertation & defense are DONE, praise God! (More on that later).

Lydia:

• We have a sweet tooth on our hand
• She likes people to come visit her at her house.  "Uncle Philip is coming to my house." Has been repeated often in the last week.

Lydia waiting for Uncle Philip to come

• She recognizes when we are going by Jeff's workplace. "There's Daddy's work!"
• She requests to shop at Hypermart instead of WalMart or Target.
• She loves cooking spaghetti and meatballs with her play kitchen set (thanks, Daniel Tiger).  

Busily cooking some food for Elias who is a happy recipient.

• She still loves tiny treasures.  You might find a chapstick, tiny plastic connector, small toy kitten, shell, or half of a mirror in her "wallet."
• We are learning that we can't pet all the kitties and doggies that we see.
• She knows that when she gets cards in the mail from Grammy and Papa, there will be stickers inside! 

Lydie and Lamby eating granola together for breakfast.

• She has become quite the mommy to her precious lamby.  Lamby gets it's diaper changed, temperature taken, gets fed baby food, and is put to sleep with the song, "Jesus Loves Me."

Elias at work

Elias:

• He can sit up
• He's got the army crawl down 

Elias off-roading, so much for the blanket!

• He's starting to vocalize more
• He's not a big fan of solid food yet, but this past week he has happily chewed on some cooked broccoli and watermelon. 

Ready to eat!

• People will comment on his big blue eyes wherever we go.
• He is much more willing to be passed around (which also frequently happens wherever we go) than before.  

Team work: We'll figure out this bike pump, yet!