The Well Rounded Mama

A Weekend Away

Part of Jason's job as Athletic Director is to travel with the teams for their annual tournaments. This past weekend the basketball teams traveled 12 hours in a bus to Salatiga, home of Mountainview International Christian School. There, a number of smaller English speaking schools from around Indonesia gathered for a weekend of sport and fellowship.  For the first time, I traveled with Jason and the teams.  I have always wanted to go in the past, but between me nursing all last year and also not having anyone to watch the kids, I never went.  But this time, Jason really wanted me to go and I really had no reason not to -- so I went.  I was anxious about leaving the kids for three days, but I knew they would be fine and the time away with my hubby would be good.  And...I love seeing new places.

Although I don't think most people enjoyed the 12 hour bus ride, I was in pure bliss.  Twelve straight hours of being awake + having no demands placed on me meant 12 hours of reading, listening to music, napping when the urge struck, and talking with other adults.  Bliss for sure.

The rest of the weekend was great (minus the food poisoning experienced by about ten of our players/coaches/fans).  The town of Salatiga is beautiful and I LOVED the small town feel.  A town of 175,000 may not sound small, but when you live on Java -- one of the most densely populated places on the planet -- and you live in a city of 4 million people, a small town of 175,000 is heavenly!  I just loved walking around, seeing the people and the homes and the shops.  I love small towns!

Being away from the kids was hard and I spent considerable amount of time sitting at the playground watching lots of little kids play, but I have to admit that the time away was really good for me.  I spent lots of time reading and thinking and praying and being refreshed and renewed in my goals, both as a mother and as a child of God.  There have been some deep things (good things) going on in my heart the last few months and this was the first opportunity I have had to really try to process them. The highlight was definitely on Saturday night when Jason went to a banquet and I stayed back at the hotel.  I was able to fully prostrate myself before God and enter into an amazing time of prayer -- with little speaking and LOTS of listening.  God is so, so good.

And if being away for a little while was good, coming home was even better!  Jason was given the day off (due to our 3 am arrival home!) and we spent the whole day together as a family.  Lunch with friends, a beautiful drive, lots of wrestling and hugs and kisses...all topped off with a yummy dinner of cinnamon bun pancakes with white maple syrup. Perfection.

A Day Trip with the Hubby

 

With less than a week of school vacation left, Jason and I decided we needed to take the chance to have some time alone while we still can.  It isn't often that we get to spend an entire day together sans kids. It was a last minute decision to go (as in like an hour before we left) but it wasn't hard to know what I wanted to do -- DRIVE.  I love being in the car and I love seeing new places but doing it with kids in the car raises any and all suicidal tendencies I have inside of me.  Our kids are pretty amazing 99% of the time...and then there is the 1% of the time, when we are all in a car together, and let's just say their angelic qualities don't quite shine. So...we rarely go for long car rides.  Unfortunately that means we haven't gotten to see a lot of the sites/towns near us.  There was a town about two hours from us that I have wanted to see, so off we went!

It was a gorgeous drive!  It would have been nicer if it hadn't been so foggy, but still, I love the views!

We had our Indonesia guide book with us and we saw that not far from where we were heading was one of the only Hindu temples in West Java. After three years of living in India, we were naturally curious.  Hindu temples are amazing to look at!    

We found the place and got to take these cool bamboo rafts across a small lake to the island where the temple was

On our way over, we had a lot of laughing and hollering and "Hey Mister!"'s coming from this group of girls ("Hey Mister" is what most Indonesians say to foreigners -- it is often the only English they know and say it to women as well as men.)

View from the dock

When we got to the island we were very surprised that the beautiful temple we were expecting was just this

With a tiny little god inside

So, it wasn't much to see but the experience was worth it.  At least there were some cool trees.

And, if all things work out, all of us will be going to India this summer for three weeks and we'll get to see plenty of cool temples there.  After our three minute look at the temple we walked around the tiny island a bit.  The rice paddies were truly stunning!

Afterward we drove onto the town we wanted to see and visited THE MOST AMAZING hotel EVER...I didn't take pictures but we are trying to make it work to stay there for a night...so stay tuned!

So all in all in was an amazing day out and it is good to remember what we are like as a married couple -- not just co-parents.  AND it was great to see all the amazing sites right near us -- we were only gone for about seven hours and saw so much!  Can't wait to do more of it!

 

For the First Time in More than 3 Years

Jason and I had a night (and morning) out alone -- NO KIDS.  No kids for 19 hours. No diaper changing, no sippy cups, no trips to the potty, no "MOM!", no books with pictures.  Nineteen hours of just us.  Hard to believe it had been over three years since we had done that.  It was wonderful...time to talk, time to sleep, time to just be us and remember why we love each other. 

However, as much as we were overdue for a night out, and as much as we LOVED it (especially eating at the breakfast buffet where my husband said, "this is so weird...I am not getting three or four other plates, then running to get mine and shoving it down fast enough that I get a few bites before they are done and want more")...as much as it is good to be together, there were also no pitter patter of little feet (and with all tiles floors in our home we have a lot of this), no "Mommy, I love you," no sweet three year old giggles, no pile of kids on my lap for story time, no little hands in mine, no crazy dances on the floor, no prayers and kisses from my babies goodnight.

It was good to get away, but boy was it good to see them again!