Ace Ho!

Brynne being spoiled by Ibu Tati...
Just in case you thought your oven was small....
First day of school!!
Today we went to Ace. This is a ginormous store somewhere downtown Bandung. It's modeled after the American Home Improvement store also called Ace. However, this store goes above and beyond Ace in America. Wow. There is stuff in that store that is so over the top and expensive, we're not sure who would actually buy it. There is a stunning aray of imported products from Brabantia kitchen ware to camping gear (like the stuff you can buy at Canadian Tire) to Rubbermaid to Swiss Army knives and I could go on and on. You can also buy a sauna, if you so desire or an enormous jetted tub with pillowed head rests.... Anyways, we were on the lookout for a few things for our house. Got a shower curtain so now the rest of the bathroom doesn't have to get soaked when we do. Got a bedside lamp so I don't have to read by the light of our pitiful wind-up flash light.
Anyways, yesterday there was a bunch of guys in our bathroom again. They took out the oooolldd horrible dipper bucket toilet. I'm not sure what they did, but it involved some loud sounding power tools and a lot of smoke. In the end the toilet was out and there was a gaping crevice in the floor. The new toilet was installed and new cement laid around it, no such thing as toilet seals here so you can easily remove a toilet if necessary, here they cement those puppies in. In addition Pac Nadi, who has been doing some work for us, installed a sink upstairs. The laundry was fixed so that my Ibu didn't have to use a bucket to fill the wash tub anymore, but in the process they broke the float switch on our holding tank so this evening after 4 kids were bathed, we ran out of water... It never ends, it's really quite typical of here. So we're now nearly done with our renovations. We are now waiting for the new doors for our cabinets to be made and wonder of all wonders we are supposed to be getting a new fridge as the one we have doesn't work properly. That is very exciting and what's even more exciting is that it is going to be bigger! Hugo is also installing new outlets as there is only one outlet per room. That doesn't really cut it in the kitchen. The only thing we could have plugged in was the fridge. Our Ibu makes rice (with our rice cooker) in Mikah's bedroom and boils water in the dining room... We haven't even been here for a whole week yet, but we've sure gotten a lot done considering where we are living!
The kids are now in school and by all accounts having a good time. The security is pretty tight there. All parents need passes to get in. There are a bunch of official looking guys wearing dark blue uniforms with white trim and large machetes and sticks that hang around the guard booth and the gate.
That's about the scoop from here I think... Til next time!