Last day of school

Last day of school at Pattimura was thursday.  Mommy and the girls caught a taxi up to school to have one last snack time with Joseph and to help celebrate Ms. Shanty's birthday.  All the parents were invited but apparently Mommy and the girls were the only ones to show up.  Our driver is off on thursdays and fridays which is why we had to get the cab.

Getting a cab was actually rather difficult since it was around 8am...during rush hour.  It took us a good 10 or 15 minutes to hail a cab.  After we got one to stop, it was the same story...Mommy asked the driver in Indonesian if he knew where Pattimura Elementary school was located.  He looked confused.  Mommy told him that it was a school.  He said he knew where it was...he didn't.  Indonesians don't like to say that they don't know something so they tell you that they know.  We got to the school eventually. Mommy really needs to learn the word for u-turn or other way :) 

We got a couple of pictures of Joseph with his teacher and the teacher's aide.  His teacher Mrs. Gamage is leaving Jakarta.  This was her last year of teaching here.  She is going back to her home country of Sri Lanka.  She is a really good teacher and loves the kids.  We will all miss her.  Joseph said it was so sad that Mrs. Gamage was going away and never coming back :(

Snack time



Joseph and Mrs. Gamage (wish he would smile for pictures)

Joseph and Ms. Shanty (a little better on the smile)

Katelyn on the playground equipment...she loves going up to the school

So getting home from the school is a little tricky.  It's difficult to hail a cab around the school because the way some of the roads are here in Jakarta.  Some of the roads will have medians although both lanes of traffic are going the same direction.  Around the school, a lot of the taxis seem to travel in the middle lane so you can't hail one because they can't cross over the median.  You also can't catch a taxi in the middle lane. We ended up crossing over to the other side of the road and walking a ways before being able to get a taxi.  Luckily, the driver knew how to get us home.

Can Mommy just say that we really love having a driver and car.  It really makes life alot simpler.  Mommy will have to blog about this incident in another post, but one night we could not hail a cab because it was friday night and it was raining so we ended up walking back to the apartment from one of the malls. 

Anyway, back to the original topic.  So, school is finally over and summer vacation is officially here!  We are so excited about going some fun places with the kids.  Mommy will probably take the kids to the zoo again since Joseph didn't get to go last time.  We are also planning on going to Taman Safari (wildlife park) and a few other places.  In July we are headed back to the U.S. for a 3-week visit.  It should be a fun summer!