The big crash

Elijah loves to play cars. I think he'd be happy playing cars all day long. Sometimes I take him out where he doesn't really have much to do for an hour or more. As long as he has a car or two to roll, he'll be content for a very long time. He requests that I play cars with him several times a day. And recently he's even been asking our helper to play too (in Indonesian)!

Earlier this week, though, he wanted to show me the big crash. He had piled up his cars in the floor, along with a few other items...what a mess. I guess maybe the enormous hamburger was the cause?!

Adventures in Bali

We were able to get away to Bali last week and meet up with some friends there.


We had an interesting trip to the airport. It was the first time I drove there, and the roads are not well marked. I asked a police man which way to go and he gave us bad directions. My gut was correct...maybe that's why men don't ask for directions. Anyway, we ended up on a very bad dirt road for a short distance (the picture doesn't do it justice). I was just thankful that we ended up back on the right road without losing much time.



Elijah was VERY excited at the airport. He was watching the airplanes, fuel tankers, refueling trucks, service trucks, emergency vehicles, buses, golf carts, tractors, luggage vehicles, etc. Where else would a three year old boy want to be? Everywhere we went on our vacation, Elijah always wanted to know where our car was. He thought he saw it in Bali a number of times!

I included this picture because it shows there were some similarities to the good ole beach back in NC as well as some new experiences. We found a hermit crab (old experience) but upon being caught, the crab thought it would be better off evacuating from its shell (new experience). We also chased around something very similar to ghost crabs on the beach (old experience) and were chased out of the water by a sea krait one day (new experience. Click the link if you don't know what this is).

One of our outings was for the three older kids to go to Bali Fun World one afternoon. (Elijah was napping). This was an indoor playground of all kinds of inflatable attractions (unfortunately without air conditioning!). Here, we tried to get as far as we could before the bungy cord yanked us backward.

We all took a turn on the bull. (A short video clip of David getting thrown off the bull is available upon request - for a nominal fee.)

The big slide was a highlight for all the kids.

Bouncing on a trampoline is more fun when you're practically weightless.

We didn't take a lot of pictures of the surroundings. I imagine that the scenery would have been better in dry season. The nearby mountains would have been pretty, but we only saw their outline one day. The vegetation was really nice. There were countless statues (idols) everywhere. Here is just one example.

Here's the rest of the wild life we encountered on our trip to Bali.

Micaiah is terrified of spiders. This was an unusually large one:

Elijah's birthday

Most Americans don't get to play in the pool on their birthday if they're born in December!


Elijah's not so big on cake, but he loves ice cream. We were able to buy this special home made cookies and cream ice cream for the celebration. Get this: THIS ICE CREAM HAD MILK IN IT! (It was amazing compared to what we usually get here.)

Thanks to everyone who sent notes, gifts, cards, e-cards and called. Elijah loved every minute of it, and you all made the day special.

Elijah was really excited in the days leading up to his birthday. He knew he was about to be 3. But when he got up on his birthday, he wanted to be 2 again. Despite this little setback, he had a great day!

Heather here

Just a quick update that Heather (Beth's sister) made it safely. David hired a driver who drove to and fro the airport last night. We got home about 2:45.

The kids were so cute and excited yesterday. Elijah woke up from his nap thinking Heather would be here. We told him after he slept she'd be here. But we meant at night. He was disappointed.

Moriah asked to go to the airport. I told her "no!" She get's grumpy when she's tired.

Finally, Micaiah was so excited she was almost sick last night. She essentially put herself to bed early...I think hoping that would speed Heather's arrival. But, she couldn't get to sleep and was up every fifteen minutes saying she couldn't get to sleep, was hot, disturbed...etc.

Fun with Elijah

Here is Elijah dancing. He loves to dance to peppy music. In this clip, he's 'feeling it' during the Veggie Tales version of Funkytown.

Here are some other things Elijah is up to:

He loves to race. He always asks other members of the family to "Race with me." He is Lightening McQueen. The other contestant is Mater (or multiple Maters). Then, we race, usually in circles around the table. He is the only one who knows how many laps, so he always reaches the back of the sofa first!

For a long tim, we have let each of the three older kids pray before one of our meals each day. Now, Elijah has 'hijacked' these prayers and always mixes his voice with the others. At every meal, he prays for our breakfast, our lunch and our dinner. We figure we're covered for a while into the future!

He also likes to play Uno. But, his goal isn't to get rid of all his cards. He wants to collect as many blue cards as possible. He'll even take your blue cards, if you let him.

He's now potty trained, but when it's time to go, he always lets us know, "It's dark in nere" (there). That's his way of asking us to turn on the bathroom light, even when it's not that dark in there. He also has a stool so he can wash his hands himself (enjoying letting the water run), but he can't get the liquid soap. We get a lot of requests to help him get soap, too.

Whenever anyone goes anywhere he's always ready to go. He loves to wait for a taxi or for someone else's car to arrive to pick us up. He likes to watch people drive away from our gate. And he always goes with us to walk the kids to school and pick them up. He likes to be Lightenin' McQueen then, too, and "Go faster."

Hope this gives those of you so far away a little glimpse of what Elijah is like these days!

To the Beach!!!

We walked down the street to meet the tour bus at 5:45am to head to the beach, 2 hours south.




The first stop was at our language school, where most everyone else planned to meet the bus. (We got special treatment because we live right down the street from the school from which we rented the bus) The bus was full of our friends and tutors from language school. Also, several cars full of more folks from our group drove down. On the way there, many of our lively tutors serenaded us with Indonesian songs and silly quips. It was great, noisy fun!


The only way to the beach is over the mountains. It literally felt like we were climbing in altitude to get to the beach, and then, we were suddenly there at the southern coast of the island of Java.

We got a glimpse of Javanese desa (village) life along the way.

Once arriving, we changed into our water clothes (swim suits, etc) and prepared to go to "the beach" on another island. The only way to "the beach" is by boat. Above are some of the boats that line the shores of Java. Beyond the boats, you can see the inland side of the island to which we went for the day. Elijah enjoyed looking at all the boats (below).

Upon arriving at the beach site, our tutors immediately built a fire (while it was raining) and began cooking the fish they purchased on the coast before we boated to our beach spot. It was delicious. All six of us enjoyed the catch of the day!

We ate our fish Indonesian style - with rice, of course (brought in slow cookers - I don't want to think how early someone must have risen to cook that!) and with our hands. We brought spoons but found it much easier just to eat with your fingers.

Sandy shores and gentle waves. Nestled between the islands, our beach spot afforded a distant view of a Java waterfall and great sand for packing and making into sand balls. We even built a few sand men (like snow men, but with sand). We hear if you hike through the woods during dry season for about 2 hours, you can reach a lagoon on the other side of the island, complete with cliffs and a beautiful view of the Indian ocean. We will save such adventures for another day and time.

(Although not pictured) Many other Indonesian guests took great delight in having their picture made with our children. They would wrap an arm around one of our kids and pose as their friends snapped a picture. It happened several times and all our children were cooperative and smiled warmly for these strangers. We are still not sure whether they realized the Indonesians asking for these photo ops were not part of our group.

One of the boats that took half our group back and forth from island to island. The engine was loud and at one point, stopped working, leaving us to drift with the tide waters. Elijah found that watching the boats from the shore was a lot more pleasant than riding on them. He wasn't too keen on the loud noises. As we reached the shore of Java once more, he said, "Mommy, I non't yike dat boat."

All in a day's adventures at the beach in Indonesia!

Nathanael felled his first tree

Sunday, Nathanael decided to explore our back garden again. I guess the sewing projects inside were not interesting enough. After building some small army men forts in the dirt, he decided to climb a tree to see what he could see. He noticed the tree was leaning a bit more than the last time he'd climbed it. Undeterred, he nimbly climbed and began to shake the tree, pretending to be a wind storm. After a few minutes, he began to hear cracking noises and braced himself, landing softly in a sitting position on top of the tree.

With big smiles, he came inside and said, "Don't tell Daddy. I want to tell him." You will notice the large glass doors to the left of the tree. From the front door, you can see our back garden through those doors. I guess he thought maybe David wouldn't notice the tree lying across our back patio. Nothing odd about that, right?

Elijah update - videos

This one we call "I'm Elijah." Whenever we ask him "Are you _____?" (a boy, a girl, two, etc.) He responds, "No, I'm Elijah." He usually says his name really fast!

How old is Elijah?

Unfortunately, Elijah now knows he's two. He used to always repeat other people's ages.

"Watching" (or 'borching') movies

In this one he talks about watching cars.

"I see a boy about to fly!"

He loves to be thrown on the bed. I (Daddy) always show him his reflection and ask him what he sees.

More fun with Daddy

I don't understand why, but he thinks this trick is really fun!

Hope you enjoyed.

Elijah quotes

Here is Elijah wearing his "motorcycle helmet".

One of the things that we love about Elijah is hearing him talk and observing him learn language. When he's excited or really adamant, his voice gets really high. Also, he's just learned to whisper (I think because we tried to keep him quiet during our recent stomach bug.) Some of the expressions we share below he's stopped using in the last few weeks, but they are favorites.

"May by cuzed peeze?" (the word "peeze" is accompanied by rubbing his tummy for the sign language). This means "may I be excused please?" He's recently started answering his own question: Yes I may! (All our other kids always said "yes YOU may.")

Elijah loves to put together puzzles. First, he asks for someone to join him:

"Mommy...play...puzzles...me!" He's gotten past this slow speech, but it was so funny because it came out so deliberately - one word at a time.

He doesn't really need help any more. He's gotten amazingly good at 24-piece puzzles, and he does them several times a day. If a piece goes in the first place he tries, he says "Easy pot!" (part). Then, occasionally he looks up and says, "Mommy...I...doing...gate!" (great!) I suppose that means we've encouraged him with our words.

Sometimes, he tries to contradict what we're telling him. For example, we might be talking about Lightning McQueen (which is red, of course):

Parent: "What color is this?"

Elijah: "Just green." (He likes to stick the word "just" in where it doesn't really belong.)

Parent: "This car isn't green?!"

Elijah: "Yep, shuris."

This means "yep, it sure is."

"No, Daddy." (accompanied by big grin or giggles). He knows that the penalty for saying "No" to Daddy is being tickled! This is a request that he especially gives at meal time when he sits next to Daddy.

If we're out walking the streets of our neighborhood, he's very vigilant about the traffic (I'm sure because we're always keeping watch.) So, when he sees a car, he warns us: "Watch...out...Daddy...car...coming." The problem is that he works so hard at each word, the car usually passes before he finishes! He also used this to ask us to get out of the way when he wanted to roll his toy cars where we were standing.

This led to us using this phrase more frequently: "Watch out Elijah! Daddy's coming!" (Or we insert a lot of words in the place of "Daddy.")

"...mine ____." He uses "mine" wherever "my" would be correct. I might say, "This is my car." He'll say, "No, Daddy. Mine car."

"Bulgersh." This is his word for "Goldfish" that he started using at Christmas when some family shipped him some snacks. It took us a while to figure out what he was saying; then it became a favorite because it sounded a lot like "boogers." He's learning to pronounce it better, but he's not there yet.

He also plays interesting pretend games with Mater, Doc, Lightning McQueen, Sally and crew. He's watched his sisters play with their dolls, and the cars talk on the movie. So his cars have conversations, go to church, go to sleep at night, and even have birthdays!

When he requests anything to eat or he is asking to wear certain clothes, he "needs" it. It also used to be deliberate - one word at a time. "Mommy...need...fizzy...juice." We're working on him to ask: Mommy may I have some fizzy juice, please? Often he defaults to the phrase with "may I" that he already knows - "may by cuzed peeze" - when he means to ask for something else!

Wish you could hear them all in person, but hope you enjoyed this update on Elijah.

A day in the life of Elijah

Elijah is changing so fast. We're starting a series of posts that will tell about what he does, how he talks and post some video. In today's post, he tells about his typical day.


5:30AM (sometimes I sleep in til 6)- It's time for me to get up. The sun is already bright out my window. I might play with my cars a minute, but I mostly just want my mommy. First, I need some yogurt drink. After that, grape juice. Then, I'll try to convince mommy it's time to fix breakfast. I like eggs because we have them every day.

7AM - Everyone is always so busy in the morning. It's hard to find someone to help me get dressed. I ask for a clean diaper. Mommy and Daddy say I should put that stuff in the potty, but I think they might be teasing. I don't know how to do that anyway. If my Noah pants (hand-me downs from a friend here named Noah) are clean, I'll wear those. After I'm dressed, we eat our breakfast.

8AM - Daddy starts studying language and Mommy homeschools my brother and sisters. I usually play with cars, do puzzles and read books. Mommy used to help me with my Lightning McQueen car puzzle, but now I can do it all by myself. I like to play close to where Mommy is. Sometimes I get to walk with Mommy to take Nathanael or Moriah or Micaiah to school. Mommy makes me wear my wolfpack hat because it's so sunny.

10AM - Mommy studies and Daddy spends time with us kids. First, he has to get me a snack. I like bananas, peanut butter and crackers. Sometimes I ask to watch my 'beeby oovie' ("Your Baby Can Read" video). Whenever I ask to watch one of my favorite movies in the morning, my parent says, "When do you get to watch that?" I say, "A-ter nap-time!" Daddy homeschools my siblings, but he usually has time to read me a book or play cars with me a little bit, too.

12PM - It's lunch time. We have lunch right on time every day because Ibu Titin fixes it. It has to be ready after Mommy studies and before I have to go take my nap. I like rice. I like toast. I like juice. I try to get to play after lunch, but usually I just get to read a book with Mommy or Daddy. My favorites are "Goodnight Moon", "Colors" , my "Beggie" Tales books, and "NC State 101."

1PM - It's nap time. I sleep with the drapes shut, the fan on, my turtle light on - it makes stars on the ceiling - and with Spot (a stuffed dog) on the floor. Daddy always tries to put him next to my pillow, but I always laugh, say "No Daddy!" and throw him on the floor.

3PM - I get up and ask to "borch" a movie. Cars is my favorite, but I also like several of the Veggie Tales movies, especially The Adventures of Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry. I like to call it Bob's Hat and Bee's Hat!

5PM - We start getting ready for supper. A lot of times, Daddy plays with me some. He likes to tickle me, because it makes me laugh so much. He also likes to throw me on the bed. The wooden slats on the bed are loose, so it makes a lot of noise.

6PM - We are eating supper. A lot of times we have sandwiches or pasta for supper. We have a big meal in the middle of the day. We like to read books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I don't understand most of them. But sometimes they talk about wagons or doggies or the wolfpack. Then, we clean up after dinner and get ready for bed. I like to change into my "jammies." But 'jammies' are just the pants. The word 'jammies' doesn't mean the shirt. Some of the jammie-shirt sets I have are great: Mickey Mouse, Veggies Tales, and Light'ning McQueen. Mommy brushes my teeth.

7PM - We have Bible time before bed. Mommy or Daddy read a story. Then we sing a song. My favorite is "Jesus Loves Me." Then, we all take turns praying. I like to go first. FIRST is one of my favorite words. (Parent's note - he doesn't really understand what this word means.) I pray for "Mom" (one of Mommy's friends who lives down the road), my house, my feet, some sister's friends in Dallas, and the food.

7:15 - I go to bed. I sleep on the bottom bunk. Nathanael sleeps on the top bunk. I have the same set-up as at nap time: fan, turtle light, Spot on the floor. Daddy tries to turn the turtle light on yellow or green, but I like blue the best. I usually go right to sleep, but the last couple of nights, I thought maybe it would be a great idea to ask Nathanael for water and to ask him to open the big, heavy door so I could see what was going on in the living room. It worked once 'cause Nathanael was too tired to argue, so I thouhgt I'd keep trying. When Mommy said I had to stop and just go to sleep, I said, "Sanael get me water in my bed, though," but she seemed to think that wasn't a good idea. Oh, well. Good night!

Crazy's new song

I will tell you another day who Crazy is, but for now, I can only share that one of my children composed the following song and asked me to post it for all of you. I haven't even heard the tune yet.

Crazy's Song

My name's Crazy
My name's Crazy
I love to look around
I love to look around
And see
And see
All the beautiful creatures that God made for me,
All the beautiful creatures that God made for me.

I think this is just the beginning. Will let you know when the next part is ready...

Sunday's Adventures

Hi guys. This is Nathanael again.

I am going to tell you about my long exciting Sunday on the 7 of March. After Moriah and Micaiah woke up yesterday we played Mario Kart on easy and did 16 races. Mommy and Daddy got up and we got on Skype with Granddaddy K and ate breakfast with him. Elijah turned on Cars and Daddy watched the first half of the UNC-Duke game. Grandmother Sh. was on Skype until we left to go to our first Indonesian party.


It was for our helper's daughter whose birthday is on the same day as Moriah's. We go on the angkot, a blue bus kind of thing that takes you all around the city. It has a set route so you can't tell it where to go like a taxi unless you rent it for the day. We got off the Angkot at the second stop. We walked past a small mall and down a street to a shady spot where we texted our helper who was supposed to help us get to her house. Mommy and Daddy decided to walk down towards where they thought we were supposed to go. We got to a street Mommy recognized and thought we were supposed to go down it. A man, I think out helper asked him to keep an eye out for us, gave us directions to the area her house was in. We walked down the street Mommy recognized and turned at the second street that was connected to that street. A boy, whose mother was a sister to our helper I think, rode a bike with us to the house. Mommy received a text message saying that our helper was at the second angkot stop waiting for us.


The boy's mother let us in to our helper's house and sat us on the sofa because we were the guests of honor. OUr helper's daughter's friends say on the floor. They handed out some water and sang to the birthday girl in Indonesian. We sang happy birthday in English to her later. A religious leader prayed over her and then she blew out the candles on her cake. Her mother cut the cake and she handed it out to everyone. We ate the cake and the leader prayed again. The Indonesian people don't open gifts in front of each toher and they fix some food for the guiests to take hom. The hosts handed out the food and the birthday girl's friends left. We stayed and my parents talked to the hosts. Moriah played with our helper's baby who was sick for a week before.


We took our food, and our helper and her daughter walked with us back to the angkot stop. When we got home, Mommy reheated the food we got at the party. I was some chicken, some fried potato, some noodles, beans and carrots, and some yellow rice which has some seasoning in it.

After lunch, Mommy put Elijah to bed and we watched the clips on Cars. We cleaned up the kitchen and we all rested afterward. I used Daddy's iPod to listen to Adventures in Odyssey and Jonathan Parks. Mommy came out and got some stuff for a snack for everyone. I had a bowl of oatmeal.

About twenty minutes before we had to leave to go to churchm, it started pouring. It wasn't raining, it was POURING!!! The bad part was it was really windy too and there was a lot of lightning. There was water blowing in under our front door!! We got a ride from our friends down the street. In front of the school, there were a few banboo trees blown down. Church started about twenty minutes late and the power was out so there wasn't any powerpoint on the screen. We sang some congs and after the offering they let the kids be dismissed.

When they let the kids out, we usually go to the gym and play tag or something else. There was a basketball but I decided to play freeze tag instead. One of the "it" people started chasing me. It was kind of dark in the gym because there wasn't any power on. There are some leaks in the gym roof and puddles on the floor. I ran and slipped, hitting my chin on the floor. I split my chin and hammed my jaw. I have a bruise on my chin now. I went to one of our friend's houses to make sure I didn't need stitches. She said the cut wasn't very bad. Now all I have to worry about is running into stuff and hurting my jammed jaw.

That was my exciting day on Sunday the 7 of March.

"Not" so Dangerous Safari

written by Nathanael We were on our way to Taman Safari driving up the steep and winding road. When we got there, we got on the bus that would take us through the safari. We were in the bus for 5 minutes before we finally and happily saw llamas in the woods. With the llamas were a few buffalo, a couple elk, and a bunch of turkeys. We saw a maned wolf in its own little open area. The next things we saw were lions, tigers and tiny brown bears. Oh my!

Next, we entered the Asia area. There were hundreds of deer and cattle in this part of the safari. I saw some siamangs, a kind of gibbon, napping and an orangutan which had a really big neck pouch. I saw some black bears and honey bears. I saw a really cool bird that was black, tall like an ostrich, and had a blue and red pouch under its neck like a rooster. We saw a kangaroo, some wallabies, three leopards, one black panther, some spotted deer and three crocodiles. For the first time ever, I saw a Komodo dragon.

We came to the African area. Since I had never seen a zebra up close before, I noticed that some white stripes looked more brown than others, while others looked more brown than black. One of the rhinos I saw looked like he was chewing cud. We saw a few huge antelope, elephants, camels, a couple giraffes, and an ostrich that had his feathers falling out. We saw some mountain goats, then suddenly we drove into water. As we drove by, one hippo attacked another, leaping out of the water at another hippo! I liked all the animals I saw and had fun on the safari.

The bus dropped us off near the baby zoo where we were going to eat lunch. On our way up to the picnic spot, there were some elephants you could pet. We stopped, touched the rough, grey trunks, and fed them some carrots. Elijah didn't think that the trunks were too great. When he tried to feed them a carrot, the trunks lunged for it; so he got scared and dropped the carrot. I thought they were great, because it was cool to be able to feed them. Their trunks were rough and had quite a bit of hair on them. It was cool to see the finger like muscle on the end of their trunks.

After lunch, we went to the baby zoo. (It was a baby animal zoo, not a human baby zoo.) The first think we saw was a small tiger which you could get your picture taken with. We wandered up the path to where Moriah rode a camel and Micaiah rode a pony. We walked to the bird forest. I saw a peacock, a horn billed bird and a few others.

Down the path, there was a baby tiger that wanted a break from being man handled. He was very frantic and was trying to get away from the person holding him. He was growling very loudly. We saw a python and an adult lion that we could take our picture with, also. It was a bit scary. Instead, we got our picture taken with a smaller lion. After we had out picture taken with the lion, I saw an orangutan roll down a hill. Another was taking his afternoon nap. Some tigers were playing in some water and walked around their habitat. The baby zoo was fun because I got to pet a lion and an elephant.

The next thing we did was stroll up to the tiger show. There was a sizable, beautiful white tiger and two other regular tigers. First, the white tiger climbed a pole which had rope on it, because he wanted the meat hanging on the rope. The other tigers jumped on a rock table, drank milk out of a box, and ate meat out of their trainer's hand. They ran slowly and lazily across the rocks and jumped from rock to rock. They jumped down from the rocks and had to lick the trainer's hand a certian number of times to get the meat our of his hand. One ran across a wood structure built up very high and the other climbed the pole. The white tiger and one other tiger jumped into a pool where the trainers threw meat. One time, the trainer had a tiger catch the meat in the air and land in the water. The trainer threw some meat in for the white tiger, and the white tiger didn't know where it went. They were splashing around a lot. It was fun to watch.

My favorite parts of our safari were the hippos, the komodo dragons, the elephants, taking my picture with a lion, and the tiger show. The hippos and the komodo dragons were cool because I like those animals. I like the elephants because it was very cool to touch and feed them. It was also cool to be able to touch a lion. At the tiger show, it was cool to be able to see them perform. I had an awesome time at this fun and "dangerous" safari.