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Merry Christmas!!!
Much joy to everyone!  The Steins are eternally grateful for their many blessings this year.  2007 has been filled with challenges. Even so, we managed to fit in a couple of dives in Bali and at Pulau Wei.  So far this year, every month has nearly overwhelmed but also educated us.  And we learnt valuable lessons throughout the year.  Next year's goal is to slow down a bit and smell a few more flowers. We have lot's of places we want to visit and take the kids and we absolutely want to do more diving.  Maybe we'll get a dog.  (Or not.)

The year's end is bringing thoughts of new resolutions.  2008 resolutions for the Steins will be (almost the same with the previous year) : Work Hard, Play Hard!  But we are going to put a little bit more list to do for us.  Dives around Krakatoa and (more at) Pulau Wei, would be nice, visit Borneo and Sabah border, make a cook book of our favorite food.  More fun ways to teach the kids educationally. And of course, more of the never ending classes from Foreign Service Institute for Cheech. 

We took a brief pre-Christmas holiday to Singapore this month and had a blast.  Spending quality time as family on the beach and playing games was just what we needed.  We love this time of year because Christmas spirit (and decorations!) are everywhere.  I wish we all could keep the same fun, giving, selfless spirit all through the year.  Merry Christmas Everyone, wish you were here with us!

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November was a super busy month.  Alec got to perform a couple of times at school  this month: one on culture day and another at the grand opening of an apartment complex.  We also hosted a sit-down thanksgiving with 15 close friends, and it was a brilliant night.  We put a dress code on the invitation so everyone would wear something comfortable and understand that even though it was a semi-formal dinner, the night was still about eating, sharing, relaxing, and enjoying each others' company.  Also, talking shop was absolutely prohibited.  Everything was perfect as beautiful as I hoped.  The menu was excellent:
Appetizers: pita and hummus, crackers and smoked salmon, crackers and tuna dip, beautifully arranged tropical fruits such as the pilgrims could never have imagined.
Main course: home made pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, turkeys with common thanksgiving dishes, giant shrimp with spicy tomato sauce, stir fried garlic asparagus, glazed sweet potatoes.
Deserts: apple pie with vanilla ice cream, pumpkin pie, Oreo pie, brownies, chocolate lava cake (delicioso)
Drinks: we shipped them from Jakarta.  You name it, we got it!  (our security guard was a former bartender, so he was happy to do a little moonlighting. . . How cool is that?

We then had another thanksgiving for officemates where we invited everyone.  The menu?  We had a group of students from one of the chef school here to cook our recipes. 
So, HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!
The next day we decorated our tree and voila!  we were ready for Christmas.  It wasn't all roses when we tried to make a Christmas card, but I think they turned out to be cute and menggemaskan!

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We had the most touch-your-soul-kind-of Iftar (breaking fast at dusk) at Belawan.  It's hard to describe it in short narration, but check  Millennium Challenge's page for more.  During the iftar season, we hosted something like 15 events, mostly for orphans and homeless.  My sister, Ema had a celebration at her house, so we visited her place in Jakarta. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins.  Sammy, having limited capability at the pool, made Alec feel so grown up helping his sister.  Not surprisingly, Sean was very busy this month.  He had to go to Brastagi to accompany Peace Corps representatives from Washington looking into the security implications of assigning volunteers to the area.

Feeling a bit proud that I didn't get sick when everyone else did last month, I, of course, got sick as a puppy this October.  We also had 2 security guards get married this month, so we had fun joining in the traditional wedding celebrations.  (Complete with karaoke!) We got to enjoy everything from the front row. October also brought the fun of Halloween.  Alec got to dress up many different way this Halloween because he attended so many different parties.  First he was a fireman, then a pirate and a finally a lost boy.  Some downward spiral! Dewo, Alec's friend celebrated his birthday with a costume party as well.  Alec didn't have a chance to go home and change into costume since the party was the same date with the weddings - so, at last, Alec got to go as himself!   But we had a great time since Dewo's parents are our good friends in Medan.  So we had fun with them while Alec painted a shirt together with Dewo, friends, and a few kids suffering from hemophilia.
Sean on Women Empowerment: Sean had an interesting experience with the Ibu-ibu (ladies).  It started from a seminar about women's rights and democracy and turned in to a muddy visit to a fruit plantation. The weird thing was what seemed like a strange obsession among the old Ibu-ibu: what type of birth control is most popular in America and what kind did Sean prefer. And why. And if he'd tried other methods. Weird.

We put an ugly, barely-readable sign in front of the house to greet and discourage demonstrators: it said (in an uneducated way) that the consulate had moved. Even so we had one particularly motivated group show up in front our our house.  When we asked them what they were demonstrating for, most couldn't even tell us why.  A visit to Lonsum (our friend Andrew's) office was a highlight.  It was the most beautiful pre-independence building I have seen in Medan. Andrew said is was probably because it was designed by a bunch of Scots instead of the Dutch, but for whatever reason, it is a beautiful landmark.  Because of the continuous maintenance, this building is in great shape.  A ship visit added one more ball for Sean to juggle.  It turned out to be quite exciting, because we had so many groups scheduled to visit the ship, including journalists, cadets from the national maritime institute, military officers, Moslem boarding school students, orphans, and hemophilia patients .    Here are some great pictures of the visit:  U.S. Navy Salvor

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September was a super busy month.  It was also the beginning of holy fasting month for Muslims.  Since most everyone was fasting, luncheons were switched to Iftars (breaking fast at dusk).  Most of Iftars we did were either with orphans, street kids, juvenile prisoners. We gave them all praying cloth and sajadah (rugs to pray).  We did this THREE TIMES A WEEK (at least!).  Millennium Challenge program brought Oki Asokawati to Medan.  Everyone in Medan is very fond of her as she retired as a model (think Brook Shields) and then dedicated her life to charity work (and modeling classes, of course).  She is an Ambassador for our Millennium Challenge program.  Our RMO from Jakarta, Dr. Jan came and gave the kids some shots.  They weren't thrilled, but got over it very quickly.

We made gazillion trips to Jakarta this month for various of reasons.  Family, prep for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Dita's fireside.  Sometimes we took a day trip and came back on the last flight.  The Undersecretary for Economics, Agriculture, and Energy came to Medan for couple of days.  That added to our hectic schedule because they spent so much time at our home and I was happily forced to cater an extensive lunch at the last minute at Sibolangit, the Orangutan quarantine center, since there are no decent restaurants around.  Pre-visit prep was also quite time consuming.  But of course you all already knew that.

Bengkulu's earthquakes brought Sean to the affected areas for 7 days.  He ate something bad and got very sick from it.  We finally made him come home the first flight on the 7th day and checked him right into the hospital.  He could barely walk. He stayed there for two days and received bags and bags of fluids.  On the other hand, Alec had a similar thing he got from his school and was also hospitalized, but he got to come home immediately.  September was truly amazing, everyone (including Astuti) took turns getting sick except (of course) the tough Mama.  But before the wimps got very, very sick, we had a chance to visit Langkat to see the wild Orangutan and visit Andrew's plantation water park to splash around in a natural spring!  

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Sean spent a lot of his time to be interviewed by TV and radio this month regarding education, U.S. foreign policy, the environment, and the meaning of Indonesian independence.

High Scope (Alec's school) asked us to host his class's field trip.  It was fun. Alec got to explain in his own word each room of the house.  They ended up in Alec's "small library", after which they all got to play in his playground.  We celebrated Indonesian Independence Day on the 17th.  We had the usual, the parade, the ceremony, the show, etc.  Alec and I played a lot, especially in the arcade.  We also had a few meetings with the missionaries.

Sean turned 39 this year (though his is still 25 at heart and acts like a 13-year-old around Cheech's family). Talking about family, Cheech's niece, Lisa, came to visit.  We had a fun visit to Maimum Palace and other interesting places. 

We went to Sibolangit, the Orangutan quarantine center for Undersecretary's visit next month.  I made a Solo trip to attend Dita's funeral, because Sean had 13 journalists back in Aceh regarding the forest fire.
 

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Happy 4th of July!

Since we had to attend the Independence day celebration in Jakarta on the 4th, we celebrated ours on the 1st.  So the prep was cRaZY!  We sent out hundreds of invitations and around 400 people came.  To see more of the party click here. 

Lots of big things happened this month.  One of them was a couple of VIP visits from the States including a group of three former Ambassadors and similar number for former Consuls General.  We hosted a relatively big dinner for them and Usindo.  We then moved into our new office, so we also got to face all the routine chaos of moving.  Sean spent 50% of his time traveling for work this month. 

Alec is going back to school, but instead of going to his Singaporean prison camp Montessori school, he's going to High Scope.  He LOVES it.  No more battles in the morning.  I guess he prefers not to come home with 8 pages homework (front and back!) each evening. As for Sam, she is continuing to be cute and master a lot of cute things (and did I mention that she is really, really cute?).  Beside waving byes, pretending to count on her fingers, clapping, saying 'yeah', saying Mama and Daaaa, kakek (grandpa), nana (grandma); her new skills this month are sticking her tongue out when you ask her where he tongue is and giving air kisses, saying 'o-oh' and more cuteness I don't remember at this particular moment.

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We started June with a trip to California.  (Special apology to family and friends in California for not calling while we were there.)  We had a very tight schedules with Sean's family and we only had couple of days there.  We went to Legoland, Disneyland, San Diego and crossed the border to Mexico. We also visited great grandma Jones in Ogden and flew to Phoenix to see Harold and Linda.

DISNEYLAND

count kept rising.  Eventually the doctor prescribed multiple antibiotics and Sean began to feel better. Not exactly what we were hoping for on our vacation.  The doctor said it is possible that Sean had mono, too.  Not good.

PHOENIX

All together, our consumables, clothes and gifts for friends, and toys for Alec and Sammy totaled 17 boxes and Sean was in no condition to lift anything heavy (he couldn't,  even if he wanted to--- so, we put him on bed rest and gain his strength again).  And I ended up packing absolutely everything -- including the boxes, our ten suitcases, and all the carry-ons. I also got to mail all the packages myself.  Yes, I'm sweet like that :-) Though I was trashed, it felt good knowing that everything had been

packed and sent home before we left.  Also, due to our delayed departure, we arrived in Medan on June 29 -- leaving us only two days to prepare for our Independence Day party on July 1.  July this year will be crazily busy!

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 CAPSTONE VISIT

Busy Much?  Ummm, Yeah!  Not a single day goes by without playing with water.  From Alec's fire truck hose, to watering the grass and plants, water slide, "sprinkler beach ball" or squirt gun!  That goes for Sammy, too.   We are very blessed with nice weather year round, so we use the opportunity to play outside at least every weekends.  From remote control airplane, to remote control cars, visiting places we have never been before in Medan, well, you get the idea.

HEALTHY KIDS PROGRAM

DARE TO DREAM PROJECT

Sean always packed with projects, cases or even ideas that keep our lives so colorful.  We involved with Healthy Kid program by USAID Medan.  To teach the students how to stay clean, to wash our hands often and how to wash them properly.  These required us to visit schools in Medan which was quite fun.  Alec was tagged along, too, in one of the school.  Dare to dream project is one of fun project I liked so much.  CAPSTONE visit and Ship visit both are also keep us busy.

LAKE TOBA

Cheech's brother came and visit us in Medan and Alec thought he had a brother he never had.  He never leave his uncle alone.  Together with Uncle Adi, Cheech haul the kids for a road trip to Lake Toba and Samosir Island while Sean couldn't get away for business trip in Padang and continue his adventure to Aceh and  bike down from KM. Zero.  June is school break, so the school celebrated Mother's Day and Father's Day together. 

DAY-OUT WITH THOMAS

We left Medan for the States on the 22nd and spent the rest of the week in Layton. Playing with cousins and spent a Day-Out with Thomas in Herber City.

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Happy Easter, everyone!  April was a very busy month.  We had a VIP visit a Mayor of Pennsylvania.  I was busy with Alec's school for Easter celebration; so one of the staff went to Danau Toba, Samosir Island and tourist spots to accompany the Mayor. They also survey the economic g

 Beside the Mayor, we had another visit, Dallin from Australia and

Noni (Tom's wife) from New York.  Beside traveling, Sean also busy with lots of interesting and funny cases involving the Indonesian policemen which I am not allowed to tell.  Too bad.  It was quite hilarious. 

Alec and I had fun decorating eggs, bring them to school and together with his classmates hunting for eggs.  We also had a pet day at Alec's school, which was fun because they make the scene like a carnival, each kids received several coupons to use to get balloon and cotton candies.  Computer game and pool playing continues every weekends in our family and kind of relaxing for everyone.  We had a big luncheon with (again) American Alumni

Association and talk about visa issue.   By the end of the month Sean and I decided to use Earth Day as an outing and to use the event to give awards to his staffs instead of formal ceremony.  We went to Tangkahan clean the forest on Earth Day.  Bathed, played and rode Sumatran Elephants the next day.  It was awesome.

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We celebrated Mini Olympic at Alec's school.  The school had many kinds of games involving parents and kids from other classes.  Alec get to competes with other kids in his class, or together with his friends compete against another class.  Together with American Alumni Association we celebrated St. Patrick Day at our house.  The staff did all the decoration and American Alumni Association provide the food.  So basically we

did very little to make this party works.  Since most of our stuff are in our storage in DC, I assisted Alec to make his own Easter basket this year.  We painted it black as per Alec's request.  Sean still busy traveling around Sumatra for short period of time.  We still love and use the pool a lot.  It was a quick fun way to have quality time with family.

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Bali

Alec celebrated Chinese New Year on Valentine's day.  Alec had a Chinese New Year Holiday for 5 days and we spent it in Bali.  We enjoyed our time as family on the beach, the cool pool and visiting waterbom  and we enjoyed the Italian Restaurant there. Cheech and Sean had unplanned candlelight dinner because Alec was out asleep from exhaustion.  This month we

get the pool a good use.  Sean went to Aceh couple of times and I stayed home with the kids and hang out by the pool.

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Happy New Year!

Start the new year with a good deed.  Cheech took Brad and Renae for a day trip to Tamiang, Eastern part of Aceh.  We visited victims of mud slide there and donated some food, clothes, blankets, toys, etc.  It was an eye opening to see the lack of facilities of main necessities.  To see more of this trip click picture on the right.  Brad and Renae went home on the 16th and we feel the house suddenly empty.  They went home for only a month or so to come back to stay with us.  We love having them around because they are such fun travelers. 

Tamiang, Eastern Aceh

Alec news: due to amount of traveling his parent did last month, made a hard and exhausting first eight days of this month.  But he finally managed to get back to his happy self.  Alec also enrolled to a Montessori school at the beginning at this month.  He is now able to write his own name 'Alexander' (his middle name) instead of 'Aidan' (his first name).  Alec also turned to a very independent kid.  From bathing, brushing his teeth, get dress, doing his home work, he does them all by him self.  Sam news: Sam is started to

Gardening at Alec's school

teething, and drools like a faucet.  She is continue to be a cute

Bali

happy baby despite her swollen gum.  Cheech volunteered to teach Alec's class about gardening and for Sean, he spent 50% of his time in Aceh and the rest in Medan.