Road Trip

While most of the expat community was on the school soccer field playing Ultimate Frisbee some of the macaques decided to take a little test drive in one of the vehicles parked in front of our house.  Apparently you should not leave potato chips in your car with the windows down.  Kathi noticed the monkeys when she heard some continuous honking of a car horn.  After seeing what was going on she went in to call pest control and then came out to take some pictures.  Evidently there was at least 6 in there at one point.  Check out the one on the dash.  Before pest control was able to get there the owner came out, opened a door and yelled for them to get out.  They must be bilingual because they obeyed.  Only in the jungle.

Final Snake Identification

"Spike" as my kindergartners call him has been identified as a Monacle Cobra. Thanks to Mr. Anderson.

Singapore Anyone?

Today Kathi almost got the ride of her life thanks to a spitting cobra. As Kathi was entering her classroom from her outside entrance she literally almost stepped on a three to four foot spitting cobra that was passing in front of her at the base of the door. She had her foot suspended above it when she realized that it was there. If she would not have caught it out of the corner of her eye and actually stepped on it, she and I would've been on our way to Singapore aboard the medical flight. We are ready for a break from camp but I think we will wait until Spring Break!

The picture here is one from the internet. Kathi just knew it was a snake but once the science teacher came down to wrangle it he became agitated and began striking and spitting in his general direction. Our science teacher thought that discretion is the better part of valor so we called camp pest control. Unfortunately by the time they showed up the snake was gone and we were unable to get any pictures. Maybe next time. Indonesia is so exciting!

Yoyo and the Dragon

Pictures from Meranti

This momma monkey is recovering from having her baby. I mean just having her baby. National Geographic has nothing on Meranti (our neighborhood).

6 ft Monitor Lizard - Check

Valentines Day Sock Hop

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Chinese New Year!

As you can probably tell Brooklyn likes to be in front of the camera. We have never told her how to pose other than to say "smile." She is very proud of her Chinese heritage and walks around saying, "I am Chinese and you aren't." I am sure Brooklyn's teenage years will be a breeze.

Rockin and a Rollin

Kade's Second Grade class and my Third and Fourth Graders perform original songs each of our classes wrote.

Sydney and her friends dress in traditional Malaysian dresses to say goodbye to Auni (front left) as she and her family head back to Malaysia after 3 years at ISR.

The Middle School performs their original song "You're the Sprinkles to My Cupcake"

The goings on this week included saying goodbye to two of our students as they move on, as well as getting a visit from Jim Valley, a former member of Paul Revere and the Raiders, who worked with our students on turning poems into songs.

First we had a "Gonging Out" ceremony for our friends Auni and Haikal. They and their family are leaving us here at ISR to head back to Malaysia. They have been here for three years or so. Auni was in the Middle School and Haikal was in Kade's second grade class. That is one of the pitfalls of teaching overseas. You often have to say goodbye to your friends as families are always moving in and out due to their jobs. We wish Auni and Haikal luck in their new schools.

We were then visited by singer/songwriter Jim Valley who spent two days at our school helping the students turn poems they had written into songs. All of the songs were very cute and he even turned a poem Brooklyn wrote into a song. Look for "Yo-Yo Ballerina" to climb up the charts soon.

Kathi and I are very excited as this week we have nothing scheduled. We don't get completely free weekends here very often. When we do we try to just hang around the house and enjoy some family time. We hope you all have a restful weekend too!