Birthday week

This was the week for birthdays. Emma had hers on Sunday with parties for her on Saturday and Sunday. She was invited to a party on Tuesday and Sophie was invited to a party today. Indonesian birthdays are very different from ours. They are very loud-big speakers, lots of music, and almost always someone in charge with a microphone. They call, or pull, you up front to sing songs into the mic, there are a lot of games and they always give out backpacks and goodie bags. After the party Emma’s whole class went to on Tuesday four of the kids threw up. Maybe there was something wrong with the food. Also Indonesian parties have certain rules about when and what the kids can eat. The food is often made just for the adults and the kids are to take their food home and eat it there. They also make an enormous cake and the birthday person cuts and serves her family and her family serves her and then it sits. No one else gets any. Such is their custom-not wrong, just different.
Right now on the hill here we are having our big basketball tournament. The gyms are full of excitement and sweat. As you can imagine. It has been fun for my kids as there are so many more people to play with than usual. Yesterday Sophie brought over a friend and they wanted to do chores so they could buy one of the snacks for sale in the gym. They watched Cale for me and organized the bookshelf and each got rp. 6,000. With much enthusiasm they ran over to the gym to see what they could buy. In the end though Sophie decided it would be better to save it and buy something in Bali. She is just like my sister. Yesterday I was going to throw out an old glue stick and she stopped me and said that she wanted to see if she could use it for something, and she did. She also worked outside with a friend making their own clay. Last night, we were reading about how a wet rag that is left alone can make mildew. She asked if we could try it so she could see. And when Emma had a broken toy, Sophie asked if she could take it apart to see how it works. Her little mind is always working. Emma has been diligently working on a project for school. She is doing hers on Labrador dogs and needed a visual to bring to class of her subject. So we worked yesterday on making a dog out of stuffed paper. It is really cute. She is also learning how to make her own sticky tack. Wyatt has had another growth spurt and is again outgrowing all of his clothes. One nice thing about being in Indonesia is that he is always wearing shorts so it is not like he has a drawer full of too short pants. That boy will be as tall as me soon.
I need to go start on dinner. But first, an update on my stomach. I have had troubles since the end of January and have tried many things. However, on Monday I had another test done and found that I have a strange amoeba that requires a different form of treatment than I have previously been taking. So I am on a new drug and we will see how it goes. Thanks for your prayers.
Love you all-
Rachel