Festivities!

 The past two days have been full of cooking!!!!!! Yesterday we spent the day with I and L and we went to the mall. We ate some interesting food. Rachel got this stuff called gado gado. It was tons of vegetables   filled with this really sweet peanut sauce that was kinda like peanut butter. She really did not like it, so instead she bought something else.  I had rice and beef that was ssooooooo sweet. I ate it though.  Also, this corn,carrot, and celery. It was interesting. Then, we went to the grocery store and bought all of the things that we needed to cook our fourth of july feast!  By the time we got home it was already 5 pm and we still hadn't started cooking. We spent the rest of the night cooking (everything from scratch) Baked beans, Mashed potatoes, Hamburgers,  potato chips. I made peach and Apple cobbler which were a pretty big hit I might add.  We came home late and then had some fun deep discussion with B and G. Today, We all gathered and spent the day "fellowshipping" and reading out of our favorite book.  I ended up singing for everyone and playing piano. ( I thought it was interesting , but they really enjoyed it. We are know I am not Casey Roberts) After that, we ate and spent the rest of the afternoon playing games and talking about life.  Mafia, Asa, and Fruit Game, are all quickly becoming our favorites..   We met a lady who is a doctor and she said that one day we could come to her clinic and watch and maybe help a little! Won't that be really cool? Tomorrow we are going to teach policemen how to speak basic English. In a couple of months, This city will be hosting the Sea Games which is like the olympics for Asia . Everyone is building new hotels and everyone is trying to get ready for them! SO that is what we will be doing for the next couple of mondays! I hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July!! :) Love you all and have more updates soon :)

The Ending to Week 1

Hello Everyone!
 I would like to start out by saying that this post should be a little more organized since we are more rested!! We hope that you are all doing really well , and Rachel and I miss you very much!! We are just going to make a tag team effort to cover the last three days with you (Wed, Thurs, Fri). So here it goes!
 Wednesday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn to go to a English school. They were having their  final exam projects ,and we were asked to come watch and "judge" their English skills.  It was very interesting. We arrived at 7:15 in the morning and stayed until maybe 1:00pm. Who knew the word intermission does not exist in this place. It was very fun. Some of the students were required to give a demonstration speech where they cooked their favorite meal, and some  performed a drama with a group of other kids.  The kids were so so so sweet to us and their English was so good. They said that they had been practicing for months because they heard Bules were coming ( that is us). It was rather comical because their drama including music selection from the following artists; Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Selena Gomez, and High school musical.  We got a good laugh out of that. After it was finished  we had our photo session.WOWWOWOWOWOW. I don't think that we have ever smiled for that long or that much. Our faces were actually cramping . We think within  maybe 45 minutes the camera clicked maybe 500 times.  It was so hilarious.. and good for our self esteem. When we got back home we have already made their facebook profile picture.  Then the school administration took us out to eat to a really nice place where we had lobster, fish, tofu, and some other things.. Turns out Tofu is really popular here.  Ick!  Even when we were eating the school teachers were sneaking their phones out and sneaking pictures of us.. so cute.  Then we went to the mall and shopped. FUN!  We met another Bule.. he was from England.!  Cool accent.  We also had our first experience with public transportation and crossing the street. We got into this hippie looking van ( SO SKETCH haha), and  practiced our language skills  with a girl that just happened to be sitting in front of us.   Poor girl! She seemed to enjoy it though.  When we stopped to get out, we weren't really sure how to open the door to get out, but no worries because the nice motorcycle people  ( like 10 of them ) who followed us  took care of that . They really just wanted to take  us for a little spin, but we declined. Instead, we decided to play frogger while crossing the street. Enough said.  When we got home it was time for all the other families who just  arrived to come over for a party.  It was so fun! We really enjoyed spending time with I and L and there kids, and this new family with their 3 boys.  We played a lot of games ( video to follow). We stayed up really late and slept in the next morning. Thursday, all the kids came back over to our house and we just played games and hung out all day . That night we went to I and L's house for L birthday ! So fun! Thursday night we spent the night with our native friend. That was.....  full of interesting  moments and giggles (rachel and I ) that couldn't be contained. ( Sooo bad ).It was the first night we spent in a non western household. We woke up really early. ( cough rachels fault cough) We spent the morning cooking a traditional meal.  We took water from a well,washed dishes outside in buckets of water, and introduced mashed potatoes to our friend (Paula Deen style of course) all in one day. By 12pm we were Exhausted after cooking for three-ish hours.  We ate the lunch ( pictures to follow)  and now we are spending a few moments relaxing before we go to spend the evening in the Ruko (library). It is a big night for them there.  We chopped vegetables and ground them up with um.. I can't think of the word, but you use it in Chemistry and it is like a bowl and then a really heavy stone you crush stuff up with like from a long time ago.   Way fun!  We are having a great time, but we miss everyone a lot! We love you so much . We ask that you would be lifting up a family that just moved here .They are trying to find a house to stay in and it is proving to be very difficult!  Talk to you soon! LOVE YOU ALL

Day 3 and 4

I love INdonesia  or maybe I just love the coolest family in Indonesia.. I am not sure.  I am having a lot of fun! In case you didn't catch it on facebook, I woke up with a 4 ~5 inch cock roach in my shirt.. not okay.  It was eventful to say the least.  Let me go ahead and give you a quick recap of yesterday and today (Monday and Tuesday). Yesterday we slept in and just hung out around the house for a while.  A little before lunch we got ready and then headed over to the mall.  We got Indonesian phones.. which are really like our phones ,but we bought them in Indonesia so that makes them cooler.  Then we grabbed some Japanese food in the mall and it was pretty good. Then we went to the grocery store and picked up some food for a new family that will be moving in tomorrow. After that we came  back home and got the kids and then we went over to the new house and got some things ready for them for when they come. We set up a ping pong table and played for a while. so fun.  We came back home and ate dinner and just hung out for the rest of the evening. I went to bed early because I was tired. haha. This morning we woke up at like 715 and ate breakfast and such. Then we headed over to the Library and spent most of the day here. We learned some Bahasa  Language and ate some lunch. It was really fun just hanging out with Minar and talking about the differences between where we live.  Some girls came in and we talked to them for a while. One of them sang the Anastasia song for us.. so cute.  They were so sweet and their English was actually really really good.  After talking to them for a couple hours we took pictures, and exchanged face books and e mails. We came home and talked with G for a while.. she is so sweet and funny.  Then we went out to dinner for some pretty darn good food.  Chicken and rice .We ate for like a 2.00. and less than 10 dollars for all six people.  I can officially say that I know how to pull meat off a chicken and eat it.  I try to stay away from the heart. "It's different"  Actually,really gross haha.   I have a picture and I will try to post it. . We came back home and spent some time watching this Indonesian fear factor .. so funny.  We laugh a lot. The whole family is just hilarious. Eli and I made a bet because he didn't believe me that some cats had 6 toes..  somehow I ended up losing, but not without a fight.   Speaking of cats the family has 3: Bruce, Bodacious, and Boris. They are so  hilarious.. like I could really watch them all day. (Just for your information) Okay this post is really scattered I know, but I keep forgetting things.. So today I ate my food with my hands that is just kinda what you do here, its really a sign that you don't like the people if you don't so today I attempted it. I felt like a kid again! Pictures to follow.  Everywhere we go people call us bules and they scream out WHAT IS YOUR NAME just to show you that they know English is it really cute, then they look away really quick. So today a group of boys were walking home from school and we were walking in to our house and they were like WHAT IS YOUR NAME WHAT IS YOUR NAME and we would tell them and then they would just keep saying the say thing because that is all they know haha. So funny.
For the first couple of days I didn't really believe everyone that  the food was spicy because everything we had was not, but the past couple of days that has changed. IT IS SPICY. Even when you tell them to not put any spice in it, it is still like a 4 1/2 or 5 at taste of thai. It's good but hot.
So apparently they sale tigers  on this pet street that they have.  One time they bought one and thought it was a cat and then they realized that it was a tiger.  Crazy!!!  I am hoping that one day we can go look there and maybe we will buy one. SO AWESOME!
 I am tired because I lost 12 games of Mario Kart in a row to Eli and B. 4 th place 12 times.. not acceptable!
  Sorry that it was so unroganized!
  Selamat  Siagone ( Good day)
 Love
 Cayla

Day 2

 hello! I hope you are all doing really great!!!!! I am going to  go ahead and apologize for any misspelled words or incoherent sentences for previous, current, or future posts. SEVERE JET LAG! Here is a quick overview of our day! Rachel and I woke up around 330am and had a nice little party in our room until like 6 am and then we woke up at seven and got ready for the day!!! A friend invited us to go to her "house" today.  It was very fun! Dancing and flags and really loud music ,ear plugs were needed. After that we met a couple other people and they took us out for a traditional Palembang meal. Peppees (sp?)  Fish with dough balls is the best way I know how to describe it. It was also served with a soup that was really really good very flavor full and I think it had some fish stuff in it too!   They poured me this sauce to  eat and I asked if it was spicy and they giggled so I proceeded with caution. It was familiar.. Taste of Thai ,you know that sauce that they serve with Eggrolls, like that  .. but 9 billion times more spicy. It was good. After we ate there we headed out to the mall. We looked around for a while and  sat in the floor at the Cinemas for a good hour and half just talking about culture differences and attempting to speak Indonesian and helping them with English. After that, Minar (our friend who was in charge)  decided she was going to leave us with her friends at the mall while she went back to her  "house". She said while she was gone we would have the dead skin eaten off our feet by fish and then go get our hair done with a massage.. Its called a cremebath.  Well, let's just say that the mall was completely overwhelming!! EVERYONE STARED... seriously everyone. After Minar left we couldn't find the fish place so we just got our hair done.  They washed your hair and then took you to the chair and you picked out of a couple different cremes . They massaged your hair and head with the creme. Then they wrapped it up in a hot cloth and washed it back out. I was wondering the whole time if  My hair was actually going to be fixed back the way it is was before it got washed,  but it turns out that there thoughts of styling are just a few seconds under a blow dryer. That guy had no earthly idea how to fix my hair.. He kept combing my bangs back like towards the back of my head.. and I kinda wanted to scream.  But the back massage was really good, and I guess there are worse things than having  my hair not fixed .... right? We ended up staying there until 730pm. We then went out to eat some fried rice. This was actually the first time we have had fried rice. It had chicken in it ,but some parts of the chicken looked like mushrooms so I chose to eat around it.. I am thinking it was livers? (Your thoughts please). Then we came back home.  I don't think that B & G thought we were ever coming home. They felt so bad that we were out all day, but we told that we had a lot of fun. The Indonesians  keep telling us we are beautiful and they want to look like us.. ( I have no idea why.. so confusing) They laugh at all our jokes and especially all of my crazy faces (Jess and Casey). They are so sweet  and love our Father so much!   Okay two quick stories.  1) We were driving to lunch with the 4 Indos and I started my random clapping  a couple times, so I was trying to explain that I just do that sometimes, but they didn't understand.   Which that could probably be explained by the fact that a few minutes later we realized that they thought we were talking about clubbing.. They told us they didn't go do that kind of thing.. and I was so confused..You dont clap? Really? I saw you doing it this morning. Then we realized that they thought we were saying clubbing haha.
 2) At lunch when they asked us what we wanted to drink we just said water, but they were insistent that we try juices.   I got Jambu juice. They didn't know really what is was in English so I just decided to try it.  It was a rose petal drink. I am positive it was made out of flowers.  It was so nasty!! SOOOOO NASTY . There juices are kinda like milkshakes.  I kept drinking it slowly, but it was really huge so I wasn't getting to far. They said you don't like it do you and I said.. um It's different and then they started laughing..  They are so understanding and just glad we will try things..  never again will  I be ordering Jambu juice but I do know that Sitsku was good it's peach! :)
3) Last but not least. I was trying to attempt to explain to them about Flemish giants.  By the end of the conversation I asked if he understood and he said " They get big just by eating celery and  carrots"   I Laughed and laughed and laughed He thought we had like Mega Celery and carrots. Too funny.
Today was overwhelming with culture and I am glad we in our safe room with very little stimulation because my brain has been going at the speed of sound all day.. oh by the way try to explain that something tastes like something else's smells to someone who doesn't really speak a lot of English. Great time! Blast
Saka( I in Indonesian) Miss USA and Home ,but its just like 7 weeks haha :) love you all so much thanks for the Encouragement!

Cayla

Day 1

Hey I just wanted to give you a keep update of today! We arrived around 9 am and B was there to pick us up. We drove around the city and then came back to the house. We unpacked and got settled in and then we went to the English LIbrary and met to Indonesians. It was so fun. I felt like we weren't very much fun because we were so out of it, but they seemed like they had a good time. We stayed there for a couple hours and then came back to our house.  Later, We drove back to the airport to pick up the rest of the family from a meeting.! Everyone was so fun and helpful.  They took us to a traditional place to eat. Guess what we had.. The one thing that I didn't want... Fish!  haha They served us a whole fish. Eyes, fins, everything.   I have to say it was the best thing I have ever eaten. The fins tasted like potatoe chips with a fish flavor.  So crazy! It was good.  I can't think of anything else to type right now because I am like brain washed!! Good Night


 Cayla

not sleeping!

I can’t sleep! It’s three thirty in the morning and I am wide awake! Counting sheep did not work for me this time! Everything has been so good so far! We haven’t had any trouble connecting flights or staying in flight! Both of those are very good! We came really close to missing our flight in Toyko to Singapore but we made it on the final boarding call!  I ended up sitting in Rachel’s seat for some reason and lucky for her because that man liked to talk.. I think we both knew just about everything about each other by the time we landed.  He was very kind and helped me get my bag in the overhead luggage compartment due to my short stature haha.  It seemed like that six hours took forever!  The singapore airport has a swimming pool just in case someone plans on coming over here soon just remember to bring your bathing suit..

    It was kind of funny. The whole time after I got on the plane in Knoxville I kept thinking to myself, “ what on earth have I done” it was quite comical. I kept looking at Rachel and we would be like wow.. sometimes we think we are crazy. We just got on a plane and flew literally half way around the world.  There is a purpose and we can’t wait to figure out what it is!  We are both really excited about meeting B and G tomorrow and there family! We hope they like us!

 I don’t really know what else I should talk about.. I have like 2 and half more hours before I have to get ready!  Oh I know! There were several things I needed to tell people..

Libby- I was sitting on the plane to Tokyo eating Dunkaroos. Then I was Teling this Thai woman about them and she was very interested. Then I kept thinking about when I was driving to the beach and you were feeding them to me, and my parents kept getting mad because they thought I was driving recklessly. Too funny!

Jess- I watched tangled and listened to the soundtrack like 4 times.. Also while I attempted to eat the airplane food I watched DCC. Thanks to you I had something else to watch besides the movie that was playing.  Glee, NCIS, and many more followed.  I watched 27 dresses and I came to the conclusion that the Guy malcom reminded me of Casey... what do you think? Also you would not have liked that the flight attendants came through at like 7 15 pm and told us if was time to go to bed. I was like um no its not. Then they made us pull our shades down and pretend that is night.. I felt like you could have had a Ziva moment  left your shade up anyway.. however, I was complient and pulled my down. MISS YOU!

Casey- Just for the record airplane food has not improved and as a matter of fact I think it might have gotten worse.  I took a daring step and got beef instead of chicken which was probably the worse choice I could have made.. SO nasty! Always stick with Chicken.. always. Love you!


Kelly-June 23 rocked! So appropriate!

love you all! Pictures will come soon! Thanks for thinking of us.. Just one short flight left!!!!

Cayla-

 I officially have 5 followers now, I am so excited! You don't even know!  I have been so blessed by all of your kind words as I am preparing to leave .  My Father has something in store for me and the people I am visiting and I can't believe I get to be a part of it.  So humbling.  I spent some time in my favorite book last night with a few friends, and it was so refreshing. The words were alive and flowing in to me.  Sometimes, it is good to just get a good perspective when you have so much going in your life. ...