nyepi holiday

last weekend we had a 4 day long weekend. that was because of a Buddhist holiday called nyepi. it was Thursday to Friday and I had a blast. on Thursday I watched American Idol and played a game of ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of teachers:P I was with my friend Eric and we plan to do this weekly! I mean playing Frisbee not watching American Idol... even though I watch American Idol weekly too.... never mind. it was a lot of fun and my team won because of my awesome cherry picking... I think that is allowed in ultimate Frisbee though. on Friday it was a really lazy day and i stayed home and read all day. it was kind of boring but it isn't like i didn't try to do something else but of the 2 people I asked to do something one couldn't find his parents and one was in puncak. weird. that night i went over to the Comries house and Sophie Abby Ben and i went swimming and ordered pizza before watching Michael Sarvers get voted off American Idol (should have been Scott). the next morning I probably was on the computer playing games before anyone else was awake but afterwards I was... still on the computer playing games because that is what I did all day. at about 4 o'clock I went to church with the Comries and then we went to chili's for dinner and I shared a massive plate of chips in cheese sauce before going home and seeping. on Sunday i slept in and went swimming with Eric and then Eric my family and his family went to play soccer with about 11 kids who are in Jakarta to get a proper education from papua new guinea
that pretty much sums up what I did this weekend and every weekend for thaat matter...
ttyl
matt

filling in the gaps part 2

well i guess i should start where I left off...

this Christmas i went to puncak with my family and a family from the school, the weedas. It was really fun and I got to pet an elephant and i went to my first really big outlet store. it is about an hours drive from Jakarta and it is up in the mountains(that is what puncak means ... mountain). it was my first cold experience in Indonesia except for air conditioning. the pool at the place where we stayed was probably the coldest water i have aver been in! that is really weird since i used to live in Canada... oh well. on our second day we packed up and went to a zoo called Taman Safari. you drive through a park and get to feed animals like giraffes and zebras. they also have a big cat thing that you weren't allowed to feed the animals but you had to look at them with your windows closed... it was still fun though. there was a place that you could go up to elephants and pet them and stuff. you could also feed them and they could trumpet in your ear ... i didn't try that. there was a bird exhibit and I tried to touch a pelican and it bit me:P. i guess i learned my lesson... i haven't touched a pelican since. one of my favorite animals was the red panda . it looks just like a raccoon but it is red:0

bye bye

filling in the gaps

hey i am going to start blogging again and we will see how long this goes for:)
well since I have blogged last i have turned 13, been to lombok, anyer, and puncak, and am going to Bali again this summer... firstly when i went to lombok I went with my grandparents and we had a blast. It was a 2 1/2 hour plane ride to lombok and we stayed a the jayakarta. it was not an extremely nice hotel but the pool was good and now we know from experience not to go to the jayakarta agoain. for one thing my mom and dad and both of my grandparents got really sick and my dad had to miss Christmas morning because he was throwing up:( secondly the service was horrible and when we came we had ordered 2 rooms with 2 beds and when we came we got one room with a queen sized bed and one with 2 twins we weren't too sure how we were going to fit 6 people into one queen and 2 twins so we eventually got another room. one day while we were in lombok we drove down to the south end of the island and went to a fancy hotel and had lunch. we asked to use their beach and one person said yes and one person said no and we were all confused and decided just to find another beach. we drove down the road a while and found a little beach with a few fisherman and a really pretty view so we stopped there and snorkeled and got tanned (or burnt, whichever you decide to call it).

in school we go on retreats and in grade 7 you go to a place in northern java called anyer. we went to a hotel and i cant actually remember what it is called but it was really fun. we played games in our house teams and had a lot of fun doing skits and stuff in the chapels. my favorite thing was the night game when we played capture the flag. on the last day of our retreat a bunch of people were sick and a few of them puked during devotions. when it was time to leave nobody could find them and eventually they were in one of the villas where they had crashed.

my sister wants to use the computer now so i will do some more filling of gaps later on

my essay!

wow this is weird blogging again after about 5 months but here it goes.

i am writing an essay for school an presenting it in front of my class and i was wanting to put it on my blog so here you are

Speech #1 “all about me”

Indonesia. America. Mexico. Some of these seem close to home, some seem exotic, but none of us ever have the same experiences when we visit different cities. I would like to tell you all about my trips I have taken during my life. From when I went to Atlanta, Georgia, to when I went to California and, finally, the land of eternal summer, Indonesia.

One time, when I was 8 months old I went to Atlanta, Georgia, because my parents were leaders in a YWAM sort of camp. People were there from all over the world : Africa, Hawaii, Korea, and North America. I interviewed my parents about it and they told me “we camped on a dusty campground with a bunch of spoiled Korean kids”. There was on day when all of the different cultures did a special dance and sold traditional clothing and instruments. I don’t remember any of this but I have a lot of cool pictures.

Another time when I was 1 year old I travelled down the Oregon coast to go camping with my aunt and uncle, my cousin, and my parents. My cousin Angeline and I were apparently great except for an incident on the way back. We were at a restaurant and my cousin and I were stabbing each other with forks. My mom and my uncle had gone to the bathroom while my dad and my aunt were sitting at the table wishing they were somewhere else. Eventually it got so bad that my aunt said in a loud voice so that everyone could hear “this is the last time we are taking auntie jenny’s kids out ever the funny thing about that is that is that my auntie jenny wasn’t even married yet let alone having kids. I don’t remember any of these trips but they have good stories and I like them.

Did you ever go on any big trips when you were in junior school? I sure did! For example, my first big trip was when I went to California Disney land. Did you know that 25% of our class’ favorite ride is the Hollywood tower of terror? I didn’t! One very special thing about this trip was that this was the first time in about nine years that I had been on a plane. I was in Disney land with my cousins and my grandma and grandpa, which made this trip a lot more fun. One time we all went to a restaurant called the rainforest café. The next day almost all of us were sick. On the way back from the restaurant threw up (blech) on a lady’s shoe yikes! Thank goodness she was a nice lady! I think that was one of the funnest trips that I have ever been on.

Secondly, when I was in 5^th grade I went to Mexico. It was on a mission’s trip that my parents were organizing. We drove down to Mexico via Washington, Oregon, and California. That was defiantly the longest car ride I have ever taken. We drove in two 15 seater vans and, in California we picked up our friend Arturo. We stayed overnight at his house and got to see his pomegranate tree. The next morning we drove to Tijuana where we met up with the missionary’s with whom we were doing the project. We drove down to a little town called Punta Colonet which is on the west coast f the Baja. That is where we stayed. One day we went to a drug rehab centre and played baseball with the ex druggies. Afterwards we went to a beach and I saw a flock of pelicans passing by. On the way back, on the Canadian American border Arturo didn’t have the proper paper work to get back into the country so he had to stay and get his visa. We were all really worried but in the end he got in fine. Those were some of my favorite trips that I have been on.

Have you ever taken a life changing trip that you will never forget? Well I am going to tell you about mine and then some. When my family moved from Canada to Indonesia we had an eight hour layover in San Francisco. While we were there, we were really tired and had to sleep on the floor of the airport. I think it was one of the most boring times of my life. Later, on the plane, I slept for a third of th ride but when I woke up I ended up just watching movies. In the last half hour of the flight my mom started talking to the family in front of us. It turned out they were also going to teach at SPH. It was the Weeda’s. During our 36 hour layover in Singapore, Eric and I started talking and learned a bunch about each other. Also we were acting as tourists and did almost everything we could do in that period of time

My favorite vacation in Indonesia was probably when I went to Puncak during the Christmas holidays with my parent, my grandparents, Eric’s family, his grandparents and Mr. Poindexter. We stayed at the Riady’s house. Afterwards we went to and outlet mall and then tried out the pool at the Riady’s. It was so cold! Even for me it was cold. And I come from Canada! After that we watched napoleon dynamite and it seemed a lot funnier. The reason for this was that the subtitles on were saying something about soybean cakes. Finally on the second day we packed up and went to Taman safari where an elephant almost steped on my hand!

I hope you have enjoyed my adventures. From Atlanta to Indonesia they were all really exciting. I have told you about my trips as a baby, while I was in junior school and to when I moved to Indonesia. Have you ever had any cool trips? Thanks for listening.

well there it is hpe you enjoyed it...
(if i am presenting this isnt this a speech?)