Our new home

We had a few options for housing in Jakarta- stand alone home, in a compound with other Americans, or in a high-rise apartment building. We were able to submit our preference list, but there were no guarantees about what we would get... so we were delighted to find out that we'd been assigned a home in the highly coveted American Club. It's a compound with 20 homes, close-ish to the schools, and many amenities such as a restaurant, gym, pool, tennis, squash, basketball courts, playground, small commissary and several more.

But, the family who was living in the home got delayed and when we arrived, they had not yet moved out, so we moved into a temporary home close by. And by government standards, this temporary house of ours (Senjaya Buntu) was like a mini-mansion. 

Here is Macy outside our gate-

It opens by remote, but also has a small pedestrian walk through passage so we don't have to open the massive gate for when the kids catch the bus let's say. There is a guard unduly 24/7 who had a guard shack to the left of the gate. Getting used to the guards walking around the yard would certainly take some getting used to... By the way- the kids bus (one for Tate and one for Macy, even though they go to the same campus) picked them both up in front of the gate

The inside of the gate- no joke with the spikes on the top and all, right?

Our house-

Gone are the days of garages, but there is a carport- and outdoor laundry room!

Front yard-

Our entry way-

Notice the flowers above? Our sponsor, who would turn into my closest friend in Jakarta, Kataneh, made sure to stock the fridge with food, home cooked meals, and left us flowers and wine for our anniversary too.

She also brought a giant red bucket full of lego for Tate-

Turns out I don't have a lot of pictures inside... above is the bonus living room on the second story. It was barely used. Overall the house had 5 bedrooms (two guest rooms would have been dreamy if we'd had any guests) and 5 bathrooms- the kids each had a bathroom IN their bedrooms. In fact Tate had the biggest bathroom of all of us! We even had a dedicated office- which only got used for hide and seek!

We had limited "toys" but the kids packed a small bouncy ball- you know the kind that comes from a vending machine and bounces SUPER high? So they had fun on the giant staircase with that- 

Dining room- and some homeschool math before they started school locally. Their reward was halloween candy! We's soon learn how highly coveted American candy would be.

This is a jackfruit tree in our backyard-

This was the corner of our yard- I loved all the different colors, textures, layers and a very thriving tree!

The backyard-

Perfect for some football- 

Sadly, that only lasted about 15 minutes and the kids realized how HUMID their new life would be!

We'd heard that blue skies were rare, so I was thankful to capture this picture of our neighbors palms trees against a blue sky-

Another corner of the yard- somehow a tree was growing on the wall!

Off Brian goes to work his first day, with an Embassy driver in a highly armored vehicle-

We were going to get used to this, right?