Learning Coach

Our school has just announced a new position for next year... A Learning Coach. No one applied for the position because nobody knew what it was. They had to send out another notice trying to describe what the job entailed, and extended the deadline for applications.

Before the new notice, a couple of us were sitting around talking about what such a position might entail. We decided to make a video describing our vision.

By the way, PLC stands for Professional Learning Community, something that our school implemented just this year.

Here it is:

Halloween Party

Halloween is not a holiday typically celebrated in Indonesia (though the stores are catching on that it is one more thing they can market and so it might be slowly, slowly catching on).

However we were invited to celebrate it at the Bintaro housing complex, a complex of 18 houses owned by JIS that are occupied by JIS teachers/families. There are many families with young kids (the oldest kid is grade 9, most are much younger). So Virginia went out to the store Saturday morning to purchase the kids costumes. As soon as she got back, she dressed the kids up and here they are. (Note, if you click on the "YouTube" watermark on the bottom right, it will take you to Youtube.com and then there will be an option on the bottom right that says "HD". This will allow you to watch the video in high definition)

The next video shows the kids at the party just before gong out to Trick or Treat. One of the teachers organized a cookie decorating party and here you can see Cai and Tri as they interact with the other kids. Cleana is the devil, and she did (and always does) a great job of playing with the kids.

The final video shows the kids trick or treating. I like this video the best because I was amazed to watch how quickly the kids picked it up. We weren't planning on having the kids trick or treat but before we knew it, the kids each had a bag. The cookie decorating was just beside the pool, and that was where the first treat was received. Then all the kids took off to the furthest house to begin the trick or treating. Here you will see as Tri takes off following the kids. By the time he reaches them, they are already on their way back. I thought he'd turn around and follow them, but no he continued to find his treat. I was surprised that he knew the place the treats in the bag.

Anyway, we had a great time and so did the kids. We are even contemplating moving back to this complex (we both spent our first year there) despite the greater distance to school (half hour drive versus 10 minute walk).

Happy Halloween

Virginia created the following Halloween Special.

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Swimming in the Pool

Well it's been a long time since I've posted. The kids are growing up fast and time is flying by. This year, I have a new job (Technology Integration Specialist) at JIS, and I am finding that I am very busy and that the days are going by very quickly.

But we do have time to play with our kids every day. We've discovered that the playground at our elementary school is fabulous. They leave bins around with toys. So we cycle (that is until this morning when we discovered our two bicycles were stolen from our front porch) to school with the kids in the bike seats and we play in the playground. They love to play with all the toys designed for sand (sifters and sand wheels, shovels and pails). There are also lots of slides (bigger than the ones we have at home). Our kids are very brave and love to climb up high and slide down.

If we don't go to the playground, we go for a swim. The kids are getting to be very good swimmers. Tri has picked it up a little faster than Cai, but they're both progressing quickly. Below is a 4 minute video of the kids swimming, and jumping in the pool.

We filmed in high definition, but at the moment I'm not having much luck uploading HD to YouTube, so for now, it's just the regular quality.

Happy Mother's Day From Me Too!

Hi Mommy,
I helped make your book. I made the title of the book. I thought of the title and I helped Daddy write it too. I made a little video that you can watch!

Happy First Mother's Day

Happy mother's day, Mommy.  

Daddy, Tri and I are so happy that you are our mommy!  You always make me laugh, and cuddle me whenever Tri hurts me.

Tri and I thought that we could make you a book that you could read to us at night.  We both really like it when you read to us, but some of the books you have bought us are a little boring.  Lots of colours, and animals, but no real good storeis about babies from Vietnam.

So we thought we could make you a book about two little babbies from Vietnam.  Daddy and I looked through some photos and tried to make you a book.  Daddy got a little frustrated sometimes because the store he went to used old software (whatever that is).  He says that later we can all work together and make a much better book by not even going to the store.

Here are some pages that we printed that are in your book.

Tri says he is going to post a video of how he helped (he only printed the title page....I did all the work with the photos).

We hope you love the book mommy.  The book comes from our heart, not our wallet.  Daddy says that is the best (or cheapest) present one can give!

Ok, Last Set of Photos for Tonight

All right, I'm getting a handle on this Picasa upload stuff. Now I know what I'm doing. I'll just quickly give a description for each photo below.

Tri after his haircut

Cai waving as she cycles with Mommy down at Tanjung Lesung (Tri is on the front of the 2nd bike with our friend Eric).

Tri and Daddy on the beach at Tanjung Lesung

Cai, asleep on the bike.

One more shot

I just wanted to upload this photo as well, because I think Cai looks so incredibly pretty!

Playing with Paper

Ok, so this is the photo I meant to upload. Cai and Tri can not get enough of paper! Old airline tickets, unpaid bills, or better yet, money...they love it all.
Here is a shot taken early one morning after they got tired of jumping on our bed. They're always up for playing on the floor and going through my bag to play with any and all papers.

A few shots of our kids

Ok, I don't know what I just did, but I won't botther fixing it.
I was just going to upload a shot of the kids. But I decided to do it right through my photo album (Picasa). Anyway, it didn't upload what I thought, but hey these photos will do.
I may pop the original photos I meant to include in a minute.

Tri Gets His First Haircut

Well, "First", is perhaps not entirely accurate.  We have attempted on a couple of occaisions to cut his hair. I suggested we pull out my electric razer and shave his head a couple of months back.  I assured Virginia that we could place it on setting 4 and it wouldn't cut to close.  Well, Tri did not appreciate the razer and we ended up shaving a couple of different spots bald, so this time it was off to the barber.

We thought this would be far easier.  There is a chain of children's barbers that have toy cars that the kids sit in, and TV screens showing cartoons that the kids can watch as they get their hair cut.

You be the judge as to how successful this was at distracting Tri.

Some recent changes in my life

I've found that being a father has given me a new sense of rhythm. I've taken to dancing most weekends with colleagues from work. Below is a quick little number we performed last weekend (I'm on the bottom right).

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Morning Routine

A quick video of Cai just before she turned 1 year old. I realize in the video, I say, 1 years old, but I'm posting it anyway.



This next video is a quick shot of our kids as they play in bed with us one morning. The kids love to open the curtain behind our bed and look at how bright it is outside. Typically the sun is just rising, so I guess it's not that early, but boy it sure feels early on some mornings.

Cai Likes to Snuggle

Every evening we spend 15-25 minutes watching Sesame Street. Here you see Cai and Tri as they snuggle with Mommy. What Cai finds so amusing we're not sure, but we're always happy to see her having fun.

Cai Turns One Today

Happy Birthay, Cai.
Cai has been teething the last week so she's been sleeping with us. So we awoke to find a one year old girl in our bed, for the first time ever. When Tri awoke, we brought him in and recorded her first few awake moments as a one year old.
We're off to the beach house (www.tlrentals.com) after school today to spend a week with our friends Eric and Kathy and their two kids.
The video below is from this morning.

Bumper Cars and Chinese New Year

I'm in Kuala Lumpur for the week becoming certified as a "Smart Board Trainer". So it's nice that I've got my laptop full of photos and videos of the kids. The first just shows the kids as they scoot around the house in their walkers. You'll notice that Cai is waving as she is going in and out of the curtain because mommy is goodbye...she seems to know to wave goodbye.


The 2nd video is just a quick glimpse into "Chinese New Year" festivities. It's shot from our balcony looking across the street at our neighbours. They had a dragon dance in honour of the end of Chinese New Year. One tradition is envelopes full of money are handed out to children (and dragons it would appear). Cai and Tri each received Rp 10,000 in their envelopes from Kathy Nesteroff. In the video, you'll see a woman swinging a bamboo pole with an envelope attached at the end. The dragon tries to grab as many of these envelopes as it can.

Tri's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Tri!  A farily large gathering was held in Tri's honour on Sat Jan 31, 2009, to celebrate Tri's first birthday.  A crowd of 30 arrived, and Tri was the center of attention.  It was nice, but I think I preferred it more once everyone left and I finally got to spend some time with my kids again.

We didn't do a very good job of getting footage of the party.  A dead battery and also handing our camera to someone else proved to be a mistake.  The following video was the best I could manage to give a sense of the auspicious occasion.  I am going to try to embed the video twice at different qualities to see if I can see a difference between the two. The first one is regular quality, and if I succeed there will be a 2nd video of a highher quality.

Ok, I've now tested it, and the link below is indeed a higher quality. This means it takes more bandwidth and will take longer to play. But if these are not big issues, you can choose the one below. We're not talking hugely better quality, but the footage is definitely more crisp.

Happy Birthday Tri

Well Tri turned one year old yesterday.  To celebrate, we're posting two videos.  One shows how adept Cai is at crawling.  The thumbnail on the front features Tri (since it's his birthday, but it's really about Cai).

The second video shows Tri kissing his stuffed animals.  Soon it will be the ladies, but for now, it's just the animals....and my feet.  Yesterday for some reason he kept wanting to kiss the socks on my feet (maybe because it's softer than the scruff of my face).  What is cool in this video is it happens to catch the very first step that mommy and daddy have seen Tri take.  It's not a big one, but the longest journey begins with a single step.  Here it is.