what a way to celebrate (14 years)

this weekend was our 14th wedding anniversary. it was definitely an anniversary that will forever go down in the annals of n-b anniversaries--definitely not as the best or the most romantic or the most fun. it's difficult for an anniversary to be any of those things when you're stuck living mostly in a hotel room in jakarta with your two kids. but i think it will be our weirdest anniversary. 

on saturday, we went to pacific place mall, which is one of the fanciest malls in all of jakarta. it has diane von furstenburg, louis vuittan, roberto cavalli, tiffany & co, etc. of course, we did not take the kids into any of those stores. we opted to ride the glass window elevators up and down the six floors several times, we went into a toy store, the kids ate lunch at wendy's, and we ate at a place b and i went to two years ago (right next to kem chicks). 

 at the toy store, we saw a display for the exact little critters house s got for christmas a few years ago. who knew they were so popular in asia too?

 w (and s) really enjoyed playing with this display. you could get these metal top-like things spinning quickly. then they'd bump up against each other and one of them would slow down and stop sooner than the other (thus there would be a winner). 

 there was a cool hot air balloon display in the tall center part of the mall. 

 on the 6th floor.

 my ketoprak at warung kita. 

we also ordered the sagu rangi (shown below) since i wanted to try a new kue too. i didn't especially like it, but b thought it was ok. to me, it didn't really have a flavor. 

 on saturday night, we went to blok m plaza, the cool mall when b first arrived to jakarta in 1990. he used to go there a lot with his friends to hang out, but once pondok indah opened up, blok m plaza fell by the wayside. here, w is playing the same piano b remembers his friend playing unchained melody on in the early 90s. 

 s eating her eskrim. 

 blok m plaza was a much more down-to-earth type of mall. there weren't any hoidy-toidy stores there. 

on sunday, the actual day of our anniversary, we woke up early to get to the meeting house on the other side of jakarta. church started at 8am. thinking it would be like solo, we got there a bit early. we were the first to arrive, other than the bishop. it was a holiday weekend here--so there wasn't a big congregation (although the jakarta 3rd ward--the english ward--isn't all that big on a regular sunday). i took a few pictures. the layout of the building was just like the chapel in solo. 

 it was interesting to attend church again in english. it was weird and familiar at the same time to be able to understand everything. 

 the group was so small that all of the members 12 and up went to the same sunday school class. w was the only young man since the rest of the young men were on a camp out near bogor (although there are only 4 young men in the ward). it was a really nice sunday school--the lesson was well done. it gave me a chance to think about revelation in some new ways. also, you'll see from b and w's clothes that we didn't pack church clothes for us (i happened to have a dress, since i packed one for myself, and s had a skirt since she asked to bring her school uniform). but b was stuck wearing jeans, and w just some shorts and a t-shirt. we clearly were not planning on being in jakarta so long. 

the kind bishop and his wife (brent and tricia) invited us over for dinner at their home. we rode with them over to their house after church. their four kids are grown, but they had a big house (with lots of space for the kids to run around in) and toys. w and s enjoyed new toys and things to play with. 

 here s is riding a wooden camel. 

 a picture of their home. 

 w riding the same wooden camel. 

 they had a beautiful large tropical fish tank. 

 they also had a wonderful gong that w and s enjoyed hitting. (b and i would enjoy getting a gong--not this large--but we'll see what we have room for.)

it was so, so nice to have a place to go after church. sunday would have been a very long day if we would have just gone back to our hotel room. brent and tricia were lovely. we enjoyed talking with them, a nice dinner, and a super delicious chocolate cake. 

the only thing that marred our afternoon/evening with them was that i forgot the recharger supplies for w's vacuum pump at the chapel! so b, w, brent, and i took a taksi back to the church hoping it would still be there. b and i were sick with worry that it wouldn't be there. i literally felt sick--nauseous and anxious. but after many (many) prayers said in our heads on the way to the church, i found the bag with the recharger supplies in the chapel exactly where i had left it. it was a true anniversary miracle! and to make it even more miraculous, traffic wasn't horrible. we made it to/from the church in about an hour.  

 here's a picture b took on the taksi ride home. there are a lot of signs around jakarta about the asian africa conference that happened in april. since it's the 60th anniversary of the original asia africa conference (it originally happened in bandung), they hosted a commemorative summit that started in jakarta and then went to bandung. it's cool to see signs around the city that talk about the very thing that brian is writing about now. 

b and i forgot (or, more accurately, didn't bring) our anniversary gifts for each other--since we didn't think we'd be in jakarta so long. so b, being the great person he is, went back to jalan surabaya quickly and bought the chinese slit bell we had so admired (which became b's present), and he got me the cool beaded necklace i liked (i'm wearing it below). i also made b a card that he opened sunday night. when we get back to solo, we'll exchange our other gifts, and my mom also agreed to watch w and s for a weekend once we get back to america.

really, the best anniversary gift is for us to be together. life is super crazy right now (being stuck in a hotel in jakarta isn't the ideal situation), but we are both so grateful to be together. the two of us being together is how life should be.