junglewife's Xanga

Natalie's 4th birthday!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:17:38 GMT

My sweet Natalie girl. How can it be that you are four years old already?! You have been counting down the days for the past month, telling everyone you meet that on "November fourteen" you will be four years old! And now it is finally here!

Natalie's birthday was on Saturday. We had a party outside here on the base and invited all the families with little kids as well as the families that live here on the base, since all the kids (older and younger) play together all the time anyway!

Natalie requested a "white cake with a blue four", so this is what she got! I also made cupcakes so that we would be sure to have enough cake for everyone. I had some leftover chocolate frosting from another dessert, so I used that too. It looks pretty boy-ish, but I don't think she cared!

Me and my girl with her birthday cake. This is the "party dress" she picked out to wear for her birthday

Singing the birthday song and then blowing out the candles. She got quite shy when everyone was singing to her!

After singing we all had cake and ice cream. I made three batches of ice cream - mint Oreo, chocolate, and vanilla.

Natalie enjoying some "white" ice cream. She didn't even want any of her cake!

Some of the party guests...

Isai...

John... and Victoria who is holding his face...

Here is the "pondok" on the base where we had the party.

Claire had fun too! Love the polka dot dress Granny DeSalvo bought it for Natalie when she was this age and now Claire wears it too.

Opening presents. This is one of Natalie's favorites that she had to put on right away - a butterfly wing/antenna/wand set. Too cute!

After the kids were all sugared up Dan took them out into the field to burn off some of that energy playing with water balloons. You can see here what Claire thought of the water balloons!

The kids all got in a circle and were passing/throwing the balloons around the circle, taking steps backward to make it harder and harder.

Eventually Dan started bypassing the little kids and tossing the balloons all the way across the circle to the bigger kids

A lot of balloons got broken but they did a good job throwing and catching!

Then when the water balloons were gone, I don't remember what all happened but there was something about the whole bucket being overturned, and a hose being brought out, and water being sprayed... anyway, everyone got pretty wet... including Claire

A good time was had by all.

Happy Birthday, Natalie!!!

Daily Photos: November 1-8

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:23:55 GMT

Sunday - We've started doing nursery again for church, and today it was at our house. I tried to get a picture of Claire and the other kids playing but this was the only one I got that wasn't blurry - just Claire, all by herself. Oh well!

Monday - Yum, yum! Popsicles! Or as Natalie says, "Pocksiples!"

Tuesday - John, Claire, and Natalie all watching Dora together at our house. John's been over at our house a lot lately. Usually I don't mind - keeps the girls entertained!

Wednesday - Me and my Natalie girl! I need to start taking more pictures with me in them. Kind of hard to do, though!

Thursday - Claire's got a new trick - she hangs on the back of her high chair and swings from it. So far she hasn't fallen off! It keeps her entertained for quite a while!

Friday - We got a package today! Actually 2 packages. One was Christmas presents (already wrapped!) from Granny Karen - those will go into the gift closet until Christmas. The second one was from Dan's mom. A lot of it was quilting fabric I ordered, but she threw a few treats for the girls in there too. Claire LOVES this little ducky - it quacks when you squeeze it! It's so much fun to get packages, and it means so much here when we're so far away from friends & family (and all the yummy States-side treats!) Usually it takes many months for a box to get here, but recently we've been having our packages sent to MAF's main office in jakarta. They go through customs there rather than here in Papua (which is where things usually get hung up for weeks to months), and then our co-workers there forward the packages on to us via local mail. So far it's working just fine - these packages only took about a month to get to us. In the past we've had packages take anywhere from 2 to 5 or 6 months!

Saturday - Today we were feeling the need to get off the base. So we took a little drive to a nearby area we call "White sands". You can see why from the picture. The whole rocky area is covered in fine, white sand. I have no idea where it came from! We took a picnic lunch and hiked up in the rocks a bit before the girls got tired. We even saw a baby goat with its mommy!

Sunday - In the package we got from Dan's mom, she included some fun fabric with cows all over it. So I decided to make the girls matching skirts this morning. (I will also have lots left over to make "helmet underwear" for Dan and the other pilots!) I used this online tutorial - I love the way it uses ribbon at the edge, eliminating the need to hem it. Unfortunately I only had enough ribbon to do Natalie's skirt, so Claire's I just hemmed and put rick-rack at the bottom. Out in the boonies, you just have to make do with what you've got! Oh, and the girls love their skirts! Claire's been walking around saying "Cow! Cow! Moo! Moo!"

Problem solved...for now anyway!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:40:33 GMT

Well, the keyboard is not fixed. But Dan talked to one of our MAF employees who seems to have connections with everyone, and she bought us a keyboard that plugs into the USB port. (there were LOTS of old but workable keyboards laying around at MAF but they were all for desktop computers and not able to plug into our laptop.)

So I am typing on a new keyboard. It's pretty cheap quality and cost us $20 but it does the job! Whew!

Dan looked up some stuff online about spilling water on laptops, and I think the problem wasn't the water spill itself, but that I pressed on some keys when i was trying to sop up the water. I guess I should have just let it dry by itself rather than trying to dry it off, because evidently if you press on the keyboard when it is still wet, you can do permanent damage... oh well! I'm still hopeful that it may start working again in a few days but if it doesn't, at least we have this cheap-o external thing to use!

Thanks for your sweet and funny comments

computerprovblemns

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:47:55 GMT

claire
spilled
water
omn
our
comnputer
yesterday.
mnow
somne
of
th6e
keys
onm
th6e
keyvboard
aremn'-t
workimng5
rig5h6t
(you
are
readimng5
th6is
exactly
as
I
amn
typinmg5
it.)
(space
bvar
is
actinmg5
like
th6e
emnter
key...)
th6ere
aremn'-t
really
amny
places
to
g5et
a
comnputer
fixed
h6ere
so
PLEASE
pray
th6at
th6e
keyvboard
will
start
workimng5
ag5aimn.
Th6amnk
you!!!

ps
th6is
is
mnot
a
joke!!!

Daily Photos: October 23-31

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:43:37 GMT

Friday - We have quite a few banana trees in our yard. Yes, we're in the highlands (5000 ft elevation) but we still have banana trees up here. We've gotten several bunches of bananas from our trees already since we've lived here, and from what I saw today, it looks like we're going to be getting more!

Saturday - Natalie and John sure enjoy playing together! They couldn't decide who would get a turn swinging, so they decided to share! I'm glad when it works out that way!

Sunday - Haircut time! Natalie's hair isn't too long, but it was getting a little weird. The top layer of her hair is not as curly as underneath, and it was all the same length, so I decided to trim it a little and layer it a bit. It's very cute now!

Monday - Me and my friend Jennifer. I sure enjoy spending time with her - just hanging out, drinking iced coffee, etc... She's off to the States tomorrow for some dental work. She'll be gone for a month, and I'm going to miss her! Oh, and Natalie took this picture

Tuesday - Our friends Matt & Emily just got back to Wamena after being gone for about 7 months - furlough, having a baby... We had them over for dinner tonight and after dinner played some Guitar Hero (Natalie calls it "ti-GAR hero" ) Isai wanted to play, too, so Matt helped him. So fun!

Wednesday - Claire peeking at me through our cement block porch wall. What a cutie!

Thursday - Lots going on this week and weekend, so I tried to get a jump on things by making the frosting for Dan's pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies that he wants for the Halloween party on Saturday. Claire was helping me lick the beater, and found the mother-load of frosting! Who could resist a tub of green frosting?!

Friday - Today some of the moms and teachers in the Wamena expat community put on a "Harvest Fun Fair" for the kids. We had lunch, and then games and crafts. Natalie has been looking forward to it all week. Unfortunatly she woke up this morning sick to her stomach and has been resting most of the day. Well, I guess she was feeling well enough this afternoon to come out and have some fun in the water! I manned a water balloon toss game, and eventually that turned into just overall water games, which ended up with a waterslide! So here Natalie is enjoying the tail end of the Harvest Festival and getting completely soaked!

Saturday - It's Saturday night and time for our Halloween's Day party! Natalie took a nap this afternoon so she was allowed to stay up a bit later than usual, which was fun for her! She wore one of her princess dress-up dresses, and thought it was funny that I put make-up on Dan for dress-up! Dan said he wanted to have scary make up like Adam Lambert (of American Idol fame) but I don't know where the scars come in... Maybe he's more of a frankenstein/vampire/adam lambert?!

My day at Candle in the Corner!

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:43:16 GMT

It's Indonesia day at the Candle in the Corner event!

I realize I'm a little early - this is supposed to be up at midnight EST, and right now it's not even 8 pm EST. But... our internet has been very unstable lately, and I wanted to make sure I am able to get this posted! So, better early than never, right?

We are the DeSalvo family
(Dan, Sarah, Natalie, Claire)

Mission Aviation Fellowship missionaries

in Wamena, Papua, Indonesia

Where is that?!

Well, let’s start with Indonesia. It’s North of Australia, Southeast of Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, South of the Philippines, and West of… well, the Pacific Ocean!

It’s made up of thousands of islands, and has a population of about 180 million, 2/3 of which live on the island of Java. We live in the province of Papua (on the very right in the picture above), which has a population of only about 2.5 million. Papua is part of the island of New Guinea – the other half of the island is the country of Papua New Guinea (much like the countries of Haiti and Dominican Republic share an island.)

Above is the island of Papua. MAF has families in 6 cities in Papua. We live in the highlands of Papua, in a town called Wamena. Wamena boasts the distinction of being the largest city in the world supported entirely by air. That means everything we buy and use here (aside from local produce) is flown in on airplanes. EVERYTHING – paint, cement, cars, flour, sugar, apples, etc etc. As you can imagine, it gets pretty expensive to live here!!!

Where we live - the little town of Wamena.

The MAF base where we live.

Papua is quite different from other islands in Indonesia. For one thing, the native Papuan people are different from the rest of Indonesians. Their looks are different, and unfortunately they’re treated differently by Indonesians – as almost sub-human. In fact, they don’t even consider themselves Indonesian most of the time – they say “We’re Papuan, and they’re Indonesian.” It is a challenge for many missionaries here to teach Papuan people of their value in Christ, even while those around them are trying to tell them that they have little to no value.

Another difference with Papua is that while the rest of Indonesia is heavily M*slim, Papua is considered to be a “Christian” province. What does that mean? Probably about as much as America being considered a “Christian” nation. There are lots of churches here (although there are more and more m*sques popping up all over the place) and just about everyone goes to church, but I’m not really sure how much their nominal faith affects their daily life. Please pray for the people of Papua – that they would understand that their faith in Christ affects their WHOLE life!

Dan with some of the Papuans in an airstrip he serves.

What do we do here in Papua? Well, my husband Dan is a missionary pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship. He flies Cessna aircraft (the C-206, for those of you who know airplane-type things!) from Wamena into small jungle airstrips, many of which are barely longer than an aircraft carrier! He flies foreign missionaries, national pastors, church leaders, and also does quite a few emergency flights. Recently he was able to make the very first flight into a brand-new airstrip. The people in this particular village had been working on building the airstrip for NINE years! How exciting to be able to open this village up to the gospel!

Dan landing in a remote airstrip.

One of the Cessna aircraft my husband flies.

A typical scene at the villages Dan flies into - it's pretty exciting for them when the airplane comes in, so just about everyone turns out for the event!

And what about me? Well, right now my life is pretty wrapped up in my two small kids – Natalie who will be 4 in 2 weeks, and Claire who is 1 ½. My family is my primary ministry right now. I also help with hospitality, guesthouse, and other ministries here in MAF. My blog mostly chronicles what our life is like here in remote Indonesia, and stories & pictures of our family.

The market where I get my fruits and vegetables.

(this picture is about 2 years old - I'm pregnant with Claire, and Natalie's only a little older than Claire is right now!)

A common sight around Wamena - the rickshaw-like "becak" is the local transportation, and the guy walking next to him is wearing typical native dress (or lack thereof!)

Another "naked gourd guy" as I like to call them!

Oh! What is my contribution to the giveaway? I’m glad you asked!

I’m giving away 2 items from Indonesia.

The first comes from Java, where we attended language school.

This is a wall hanging or table runner made with Indonesian batik fabrics. It was made by a Christian quilting/sewing ministry called Agape Craft. It is beautifully hand-quilted.

Second is a hand-woven basket from the island of Papua, where we live.
It comes from a co-op called Let-let Crafts. "Let-let" means "lifting
one another up" in the local language. This co-op provides jobs and
income for people in remote villages. It is made of indigenous
materials that have been used for centuries here in Papua to make
handcrafted items.

Here are the two items together.

Oh, and I may be throwing in a small surprise item (not pictured here!)

Thank you for stopping by my little blog during the Candle in the Corner event! I would love it if you would pray for our ministry here in Papua. We wouldn’t be here if it weren't for the prayers of people all over the world!

Oh, and be sure to stop back by Heidi's blog at Moms, Ministry & More and check out the rest of the participants!

Candle in the Corner event!!!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:43:35 GMT

I'm a little late posting about this, but I wanted to let you know that the Candle in the Corner event has begun! I first told you about it here, and you can find all the details about it here.

Basically, here's the info:
First, go over to my bloggy-friend-and-fellow-missionary's site here: momsministryandmore.blogspot.com to see how all this is going to work.

The event is spotlighting 11 missionaries from around the world who are putting up items from their host country. I am donating a wall hanging/table runner made from lovely Indonesian batik, as well as a handmade basket. Donations earn you entries, and entries earn you a chance to win one of these items from all over the world! The contest runs for the next two weeks and my "spotlight" day is this Friday, October 30.

Each day a different missionary woman will be "spotlighted." I'd love it if you'd visit each of their sites on "their" day to see what they're all about!
Today (It's not the 28th anymore here in Indonesia but it still is in the States!) - Dani Joy in Spain
October 29 - Nina in Portugal
October 30 - Sarah in Indonesia (that's me!)
November 2 - Jen in South Africa
November 3 - Ashley in Russia
November 4 - Julie in Paraguay
November 5 - Kelly in Uganda
November 6 - Ana in Brazil
November 7 - Kim in Argentina
November 9 - Sarah in Botswana
November 10 - Jessie in campus ministry

So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to Heidi's Blog and find the “Chip-in” button on the top right of her blog. You are automatically entered for all the drawings. She will track your entries via the email address provided at the time of your donation.

Here's the info from Heidi's website:

~~Every $5 donation earns one entry. Every $20 earns 5 entries!

~~All winners will be randomly drawn on November 11 and announced on her blog.

~~Winners must contact Heidi within 7 days and provide a mailing address. This will get passed on to the missionary whose item was won. You can email Heidi at stonefox@pobox.com

~~All monies raised will be evenly split among the participating missionaries to support their work doing church planting, AIDS and orphan care, humanitarian work, Christian education, missionary aviation, and more.

~~Each day a missionary family will be spotlighted and their giveaway item shown along with links to their blog so you can meet them! (I've listed these above)

~~If you blog, FaceBook, Twitter, email etc about this event, leave Heidi a comment at any time during the event and she will give you an extra entry.

~~Please leave a comment or email Heidi (or myself) if you have any questions or problems donating.

~~Heidi is not responsible for (the remote possibility of) lost shipments, damaged goods, etc. Also, Heidi is not the recipient of any monies raised. She is doing all of this out of the goodness of her heart to raise awareness about missions, and to help out each of us missionary ladies all over the world!

I'll have more information on "my" day. Thanks for stopping by!
PS I had to edit this because all my links were messed up for some reason. Sorry!

Daily Photos: October 18-22

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:17:45 GMT

Sunday: Glad to be back in Wamena! Claire has so much fun playing outside. Here she is crawling through the play barrel: 3 empty fuel drums with the tops and bottoms cut off, that are welded together. Yep, we are a pilot community here!

Monday: I needed some fresh produce, so I took the girls for a little walk down to the pasar (market) that is not too far from where we live. I was a little disappointed with the selection today - usually there is a lot more available - but we bought enough for the week! You can see Natalie waiting for me in the stroller at the side of the road. Claire is strapped to my back in a baby carrier

Tuesday: Dan has it in his head that he wants to have a Halloween party, complete with pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (with orange frosting, of course) and an evening spent watching the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons TV show. One problem - we don't have a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, and neither do any of our friends. So I drew up a simple pumpkin drawing, and today at work Dan made a cookie cutter out of scrap sheet metal and rivets! What you can't see in the picture is that the cookie cutter is about 3 inches tall, as well! Natalie saw it and said "Is that for Halloweens day?" I have no idea how she even knows about Halloween - it's not something that is celebrated here!

Wednesday: Tonight the power went off while we were eating dinner (it doesn't usually go off very often here but has been more and more often recently.) It was only dusk, so not too dark outside, although it's always darker inside than outside. I told Natalie, "Keep eating your dinner." She responded, "But Mommy, I can't SEE my dinner!" Dan turned on one of our emergency lamps so that is what you see in the picture. I don't know why Natalie is covering her ears... Please excuse my finger in the picture, too!

Thursday: Bubble-blowing fun outside with the kids. It was a nice, sunny day with not too much wind, so the kids had a lot of fun chasing the bubbles all over the place. They tended to pop pretty quickly so I think I need to make up a new batch of bubble solution...

Bali Photos & Stories

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:47:03 GMT

Warning... this post is extremely photo-heavy!!!

So, here's the pictures from our trip to Bali. Just a little background here... Bali is one of the Indonesian islands. It's located just to the east of the island of Java (where Jakarta is, and where we did language school.) When people here on Papua are looking to get off the island for a vacation, most of the time they go to Bali. It's relatively cheap to get there (tickets to get anywhere from Papua cost hundreds of dollars, there's not really any cheap place to go!) and it's the closest place to be able to get some good ol' American comfort food and a cup of Starbucks! Sometimes that's just what you need to be refreshed and get back to work!

I'll have my "daily photos" in here too. You can tell which ones they are by the day on them

Friday we flew from Wamena to the southern Papua coastal town of Timika. One of our MAF pilots flew us there. We chose that city because there's flights from Timika to Bali, and also there's a nice hotel there.

Claire and I in the airplane.

Natalie in the airplane wearing an extra headset. She was SO excited to be starting our trip to Bali!!!

In Timika we checked into our hotel, swam for a bit in the pool, and then took a taxi over to the local KFC for dinner. Gotta keep the kids happy! Natalie was especially happy because the kids' meals had Tom & Jerry toys in them!!! Also there was a little play place for her to play on.

The next morning we took a walk around the hotel grounds before our flight left. There were so many beautiful tropical flowers!

This looks like some type of orchid to me but I have no idea!

Birds of paradise maybe?

The pool is gorgeous. Huge, lagoon-style pool that's just the right temperature for swimming.

Natalie was looking in the pool because we saw some frogs in there!

Then it was time for our flight to Bali. It's about 3 1/2 hours from Timika to Bali. Here Natalie shows off a drawing she did. I think it's a cat...those are the whiskers

Arrival in Bali! Of course the first thing we had to do was stop at Starbucks in the airport to get a Frappuccino!!!

The outside of our hotel room in Bali. Our room opened up directly onto a courtyard, but we really didn't use that door very much. As you can see there are daybeds right on the other side of the door, so you have to climb over them in order to go out the door (they didn't move at all.) Also we wanted to keep the door closed because it was HOT outside!

While we were there I tried to eat as many of my favorite fruits as I could. These are things I can't get in Wamena, things like mangoes and what you see above is a mangosteen. Delicious!

This is the inside of the mangosteen - you just eat the little sectioned white pieces. It doesn't have a very strong flavor, just is creamy and sweet. The bigger pieces will have a seed inside so you just eat the fruit off the outside and spit the seed out. Yum yum!

I bought Natalie a new swimsuit our first day there, since her old ones were getting way too small. You can't see it in the picture but on the back it says "Surfer girl". Oh, and her flip-flops match, too. Too cute! Here she's looking at the fishes before we head off to go swimming.

The pool at our hotel. This is the same hotel we stayed at back in January. The pool is really wonderful - it's just massive, winding all over the place. Lots of fountains and waterfalls, and a sand "island" in the middle. The sand goes down into the pool, so it's like playing at the beach, but in a pool!

The pool at dusk. Gorgeous!

Another view of the pool. We spent most of our time in this area, because where the sand goes down into the water it's quite shallow for the kids to play in. Someone had dragged a lounge chair into the water too!

Dan and Claire in the water.

Natalie playing in the sand.

Claire loved crawling around and digging in the sand and splashing in the water. of course we still had to keep a close eye on her but it was nice that the water around the "beach" area was just the right depth for her!

Me and my girls with beautiful flowers in our hair!

Enjoying some dinner at the poolside restaurant right after swimming. You can see the Hard Rock Cafe right across the pool there. That's the backside of the restaurant. (the hotel we stayed at was the Hard Rock Hotel.)

There was a kids area that the girls loved playing on. We would usually take them to play there after breakfast, before the pool opened. Yes, they woke up early!!!

The girls running around in the courtyard by our hotel room.

More pool pictures! My happy little Claire girl in the pool!

More swimming. Yes, we spent a lot of time in the pool!

At one of the malls nearby I bought a fun bubble blower for the girls. It is fan-powered and actually makes big bubbles with little bubbles inside them! I took it out to the pool one afternoon and the girls had a lot of fun chasing the bubbles!

Here you can see the "bubbles inside bubbles".

Natalie almost caught one!

When we weren't swimming or shopping or eating, the girls relaxed by watching movies on our portable DVD player. Gives mom and dad a chance to relax, too! Or... to pack up our things to move to a new hotel!

Here we are waiting outside our hotel for a taxi to come and take us to our 2nd hotel. Our first hotel was right in the middle of the very touristy area of Bali. But, that is where all the shopping and restaurants are, too! We wanted to take advantage of all that area had to offer, but didn't want to be there the whole time. So we spent 3 nights there and then moved to another hotel in a more laid-back, not so busy area.

The 2nd hotel was very nice and upscale (we got a pretty good deal on the room, or there's no way we could have stayed there!)

They even had a little breakfast corner for the kids, with buffet items at kid-height so they could get their own cereal, donuts, fruit, etc. Natalie loved it!

Claire enjoyed the toys that were on the other side of the breakfast nook and made friends with some Australian kids!

this hotel also had a kids' play area.

Claire loved the "big-girl" swing!

Some more flowers. These plumeria trees were all over the property of both hotels we stayed at. They're so beautiful!

The kids pool. It was a bit deeper than the sandy area at the other hotel, but the girls still had lots of fun playing!

Claire's not sitting down here - she's standing up. So we really had to keep a close eye on her, because if she lost her balance at all, under she went!

There was a frog fountain in the middle of the kids pool. Claire loved playing in the splashing water!

My beautiful Natalie girl with a flower in her hair! Ready to go to the beach!

the first hotel we stayed at was right by the beach, but not right ON the beach (it was across the street.) That beach was full of surfers and lots of vendors harassing us to buy stuff, etc. So we didn't really go there. This hotel had its own private beach. Gorgeous! This is the walkway heading out to the beach.

this walkway follows the coastline, and if you follow it, you will see all the different hotels that are in that area of Bali.

Beautiful water!

My family, heading out to swim at the beach. They had fun for a while, but there's a bit of seaweed once you get a bit farther out, and Natalie came back in complaining about the "sea lettuce"

The Asian tourists love to take pictures (yes, even more than me!) They also like to approach perfect strangers and take pictures with them. Especially cute little white babies! You can tell here that Claire wasn't too sure about it all!

My hubby and girls swimming in the ocean!

The girls' Crocs sure saw a lot of sand and water! I'm very thankful for their easy-on, easy-off shoes!

The view of the beach. The little covered lounge areas went with our hotel. We didn't have to pay to use them, but it was first come, first served!

Another view of the beach. Someone's trying to wind-surf there, off to the right. They didn't have much success. I don't think it was windy enough!

Claire drying off with the towel after a couple hours in the pool. She put the towel over her head and was playing peek-a-boo. Where's Claire?

There she is! I love this picture of my happy girl!

Another day, another trip to the beach/pool. Natalie's trying to hold Claire's hand. Too cute!

Dan and Claire chilling in the covered chair.

This was a waterfall that splashed into a saltwater pool, and there was a pathway uner the waterfall. The girls got a kick out of that!

Our last swim in the kids pool before leaving. We had lots of fun!

Then it was time to head home. The problem with living in Papua is that there's not that many flights to/from. So you don't really get your pick of when to fly. The most reliable (safe) airline flies out of Papua during the day, and to Papua at night. So when it was the night we had to leave, we put the girls to bed, and tried to get some sleep, and then woke up, gathered our luggage, and headed to the airport for a 3 am departure! Not too fun! After the 3 1/2 hour flight to Timika, the airplane stopped in Timika where we had to get off, and then got back on the plane for about an hour flight to Sentani. We flew all the way to Sentani because that was how the flights were going to work out to get us back to Wamena. After a couple hours in Sentani, one of our fellow MAF-ers flew us home to Wamena, and we finally got home early afternoon! Remember that picture of Natalie so excited on our way to Bali? Well, here's how she looked on the flight on the way home!!! (Claire was zonked out on my lap too!)

We're back!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:56:31 GMT

We're back from Bali. We had a good time, or as good a time as we could have while traveling with our two small children! We're back home, and the girls are glad to be back in their own beds again. I have a couple hundred pictures to sort through, but I will try to post some soon, along with stories of our trip

Just wanted to let you know that we are still alive!