Christmas '07

Here are a few clips of our first Christmas in Salatiga. We had a great day, even though we missed sharing it with our family and friends from America. Actually we didn't leave the house all day (which was really nice). We watched Christmas movies, ate some delicious roast chicken (good job Raegan!), opened presents, read the Christmas story, and just enjoyed the day. Oh yeah, it rained most of the day. We lost power for an hour or so Christmas night, too. I think if it was about 40 degrees cooler, we would have had about five feet of snow on the ground! We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas. We certainly did.

Christmas '07

Christmas '07

More pictures from Christmas morning.

Christmas '07

Here is Ellie Christmas morning opening her first present.

Veasna, Me, Davis, & JT

Naughty or Nice?

Here is a picture in the Singapore airport on our way back from Cambodia.

MG's 1st birthday

Here are some pictures of some of our friends at MG's birthday party.

MG's 1st birthday

Mmmm. This is pretty good!

MG's 1st birthday

MG's 1st birthday

Here is MG making a total mess of her birthday cake. Most of the folks present had never seen anything like this before. I'm sure they thought we Americans were crazy!

Sooners and Sox

No description needed. As you can see, we are bringing up our girls right.

Idul Fitri

Here is a clip from last Friday night. This "parade" was going on right in front of our house, and several different groups carried this on for more than an hour. Small children and the elderly all took part. You can see the children holding torch-like candles, some giant Qur'ans, and others carrying miniature mosques. This was Idul Fitri, the celebration marking the breaking of the fast. You can hear the chants "Allah Akbar" (God is great), over and over, repetitiously. It was a festive time...for them.
On a lighter note-the second part of this clip is of Ellie continuing with her love of domestic duties. She is cleaning the tea set she got from her cousin, Breanna.

Ellie and MG

She's a climber

We walked into the front room to find MG in this position. She chooses not to walk yet, but she can climb into her stroller. I don't get it.

Something about drawers...

I don't know, MG has something about drawers. She loves to get inside and play. Here are just two pics to prove it.

Ellie's friends

Here are some girls who came over to "play with Ellie" after school on Saturday. Our helper had to come out and tell them that they needed to tell their mommas first, before coming to our house to play! Good advice.

Like sister, like...sister

Does this look familiar? Her sister loved to do this very same thing at our house in Ringwood. She sure finds it fun to make a mess...

Our kids and pembantus

The first part of this video is of Ellie helping our helpers. She loves to do what they do. We often finding her "dusting" the TV with a dripping wet rag or cleaning the walls with the same. She loves to clean the toilet with the toilet scrubber (especially before it is flushed), sweep the floors, and she will even clean up her own messes on occasion. She is seen here with Ibu Indri.

The last segment is of MG and Ibu G. Both of our helpers love to hold and play with MG. As you can see, between her and her sister hearing "no" all the time, she has learned how to say it quite well.

Hide N Seek

This is one of Ellie's favorite places to hide. She doesn't quite yet understand the object of the game is to NOT be found.

Big sis

Is this cute or what? Big sis reading to little sis.

More fun in the pool

Ellie invited some of her new friends to come swimming with her. She is really taking to the other children in our neighborhood. As you can see, there wasn't room for one more kid in the pool. They had a blast!

Our first "tikus" experience

We want to share with you a recent experience we had in our house. We had a rather large mouse (or tikus) running around like he owned the place. Whether or not it was a mouse or a rat by Indonesian standards, I don’t know. What I do know is that that little feller was at least six inches long from snout to rump and over a foot long from head to tail. We first caught a glimpse of him a few nights ago when Jon heard some strange noises in the kitchen. The next night we chased him under the refrigerator. The next day we went out and bought an enormous mouse/rat trap. We were bound and determined to rid ourselves of our uninvited guest, or Mickey as we like to call him.
Jon set the trap that night. He was told to put a chicken bone on the trap, so that is what he did. When he checked the trap at about 3:00 that morning, the bone was gone, but there was no mouse in the trap nor had it been triggered. Not to be outsmarted by a rodent, Jon slathered some peanut butter on the trap. Sticky peanut butter surely couldn’t be removed from a mouse trap without setting it off. When we woke up the next morning, the trap had been licked clean of any remnants of peanut butter. No mouse. At this point we came to the conclusion that this was no ordinary rat. Jon took it personally.
The next night Jon secured a piece of beef to the trap with a twisty tie. That would surely do the trick. But as he was in the process of setting the trap, he saw the pesky critter climb the wall and perch himself on top of the kitchen cabinet. Jon went and got Raegan so she could get one last look at Mickey before he met his doom. She climbed up on a stool, took one look at him and he bolted out the window onto our back porch. We quickly closed all the doors and windows so he couldn’t re-enter our home. We opened up the screen door providing him a route to freedom and avoiding inevitable execution. It was quite a sight. Raegan was holding up a piece of cardboard which was serving as a temporary wall, and Jon was attempting to flush the little guy out from under the cabinet and through the door while holding a wooden bat, a broom and a flashlight. He was standing on a stool the whole time (what do you expect, he wasn’t wearing shoes). Finally Mickey was ushered out of the house without any injuries to human or rodent. All parties involved were very satisfied. We were rid of the mouse, and the mouse continues to breathe.

Toy cars on a cycle, thingy?

Ellie got to take a ride on this toy car/duck mobile. She had so much fun, that she had to ride it twice. As you can see, the man in the background is making the four cars "go" without assistance from any kind of mechanical device. He travels around to different neighborhoods and provides entertainment for the kiddos. He told me that his legs are really strong...

More Independence Day Fun

Here are some more pictures from our Independence Day party at the language school. The objective of this game was to transport the eel (yes, I said "EEL") from the bucket to the bottle. It was a relay race with three people: one to get the eel out of the bucket, one to take it to the next person who would then put it in the bottle (shown below) full of the little fellers. Take heart no animals were harmed (or eaten) during the making of these pictures...that I know of.

Double-click on the pictures to get a better look.

Let's Have a Party

Last Friday we had another Independence Day party. This one was hosted by our language school instructors. We played some interesting games and ate some delicious food. Here is Ellie is competing in a race with other kids to eat a shrimp-flavored fried cake on a string...no hands. It's harder than you might think.

Here's Raegan giving it a try. Nice form, huh.

Fun at Home II

Here is Ellie having some fun in our new pool set up in our back yard. She likes to pour tea for her daddy with the tea set she got from her cousin, Breanna. She insisted on wearing her "floaty" suimsuit in 5 inch deep water...

Fun at Home

This is a snapshot of a typical day for us. Here is Ellie and MG enjoying a swing in the hammock with daddy. As you can see they were enjoying themselves.

Happy Tujuh Belas!

Tujuh belas means "the 17th". On August 17th, 1945 Indonesia declared its independence from the Dutch. Rather than a city or nation-wide celebration, each neighborhood holds its own event. We participated in ours and were able to meet many of our neighbors. There was eating, singing, dancing, door prizes, and competitions. Here is Jon "competing" in a pineapple carving contest. Fourteen other men (three of us foreigners) were chosen to compete. Suffice it to say, most of the people present had a good laugh at my expense. Oh, and I didn't win...

New things happening...

Here are some new developments in the Guffy household. Ellie is now wearing "big girl" panties. Mary Grace now enjoys crawling and getting into as much as she can (she's making up for lost time). She also discovered how to clap and is quite proud of herself.

our new home

here's a quick tour of our new home in salatiga. hope it's not too "rough". this is my first try at posting a video.

Mt. Merbaba

This is a picture of Mt. Merbaba taken in our neighborhood. Behind it is Mt. Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia (some say the world). What looks like clouds to the right is actually smoke rising from Mt. Merapi. We drove about an hour away from our city to an observation point and caught a beautiful view of the volcano and the countryside.

Life in Salatiga

Here is a picture in front of our new home. We are settling in well.

Ellie is holding a piece of a banana bloom.

Behind her is our Toyota Kijang--manufactured in Indonesia.

Life at the Farm

hey everybody!
we are having a great time in virginia. we are very busy, but what we are learning is going to be very beneficial to our work. we appreciate your support.