Pacitan!

This weekend we went with several other org families to the southern coast of our island. We stayed at the Happy Bay Beach Bungalows. We had fun swimming, playing in the sand and Dylan was able to rent a surfboard and met an Australian guy who introduced him to some of the local surfers. It was a really nice time of relaxing and enjoying the beautiful beach that was right across the street from our bungalow!

This was our bungalow consisting of a bedroom and bathroom - $8.50 a night

This was our view from our bungalow. To the left is the (really cheap) restaurant we ate at while we were there.

Raquel's buddy Braden

Bandungan

This morning, for our last excursion, we drove up the mountain to the Gedong Sanga temple complex, discovered by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1804, it was built during the 9th-century Syailendra Dynasty. The 9 temples are situated at about 1,200 meters above sea level and are scattered within a pine forest. I copied that last sentence from a site on the internet. Ha! The view was gorgeous and we had a good time walking around. The whole walk/hike was maybe two miles long.

This little old lady followed us the entire time carrying all that stuff hoping that we would buy something from her. We did buy some drinks, but it sure was a lot of work for a dollar.

A hot springs - good thing this picture isn't a scratch and sniff (the sulfur was pretty stinky:)

Ok, so this picture is of our group minus Phil. The plan was to have him put the camera on a ledge, then run around a fence in the ten seconds the camera timer would give him to join in the picture. However, the stones were a bit slippery causing him to take a tumble as he rounded the corner. You might notice that everyone (except me) in the picture is looking quite concerned at the plight of poor Phil. For some reason I felt that smiling happily for the camera was more important and chose to ignore the suffering going on around me. Sorry Phil!:)

Dog Days...

Freedom!

Dylan is allowed to drive! See how happy Raquel is? I'm that happy too:) It will still be another month until I'm allowed to operate a motor vehicle but that it is quite all right- I need a lot of practice. They let Dylan drive early since he has experience driving motorcyles and on the left hand side of the road. It's already been really helpful in getting to church, shopping etc.
We were able to buy two motorcycles from a family that was moving to another island. Dylan's is a bigger motorcyle type thing and mine is more like a scooter.


getting gas at a roadside stand (from a milk bottle:)

I just realized that I just posted a lot about Raquel's bathroom habits, I apologize if anyone is offended. Also, Happy Anniversary to my Dad and Mom on 29 years of wedded bliss:)

Coffee Plantation

This week we spent the morning at a coffee plantation. This was one of the few times we brought Raquel with us on an excursion and she was fantastically well behaved. It was so nice to actually enjoy an outing with her:) She even did really well with telling me that she had to go to the bathroom. During the tour we had to resort to going behind the bushes. She didn't seem to mind about doing her business outside, but wanted to make very sure that no one could see her. After being very cautious about potential peeping Toms she marched back to the group and announced "I peed!" So much for being discreet:)

This is the swamp next to Salatiga

Coffee trees

Coffee berries (the red one are ripe and ready to be harvested and dried)

There was lots of room for Raquel to run around and these cool dirt stairs to climb

Funny faces