A Weekend Away

with the 10th Graders If the Talent Show was my favorite night of the year, this might have been my favorite weekend. I worked a lot with the 10th graders this past year. As their class sponsor they found a special place in my heart. So when a couple of students came to me and asked if we could do a class trip I succumb to their request, even in the midst of end-of-the-year busyness. We headed to the beach on our last long weekend, just a couple of weeks before the end of the semester. Here is the weekend in review:

There were 23 of us, 18 students and 5 adults. We loaded into 5 cars- here's the craziness inside one of them along the way.

One the road... little did we know that ahead of us lay LOTS of traffic.

I love this view of rice fields that have been flooded in order to get them ready for planting.

Eventually all that water will allow them to grow up vibrant green- which is what we saw out the window on much of our drive.

MinYoung is SO glad that we finally made it after a long 7 hour car ride. The house we stayed at was HUGE. I was afraid that all 23 of us were not going to fit, but we did with plenty of space. It was a beautiful place and was perfect for our weekend away.

We arrived to a special treat! Coconuts for everyone!

Jemma and Caris enjoying some yummy coconuts.

And of course we enjoyed lots of beach time. Here Bora and I sit on the sand chatting.

While some of the boys dig themselves into holes.

And then they decide to bury Terry. Yes, completely bury him.

He comes out fully covered in sand.

So it is time to wash off.

Bora and I just sit back and watch. Silly boys. :)

Some fun beach jumping shots.

I love the international make-up of my school. Throughout the trip we had three languages going constantly- English, Indonesian, and Korean. The students have to speak only English at school, but this trip of course was different. The parents of one of the Korean students came with us as chaperons. The mom and I kind of avoided each other the first half of the trip because of the akwardness of language differences. Then finally we broke through that and ended up having a pretty serious conversation on the beach- mostly in Indonesian, with the little English she knew and some Korean thrown in as well.

An afternoon snack of local Indonesian ice cream. I joined with a small group of students and decided to give it a try. They filled a little cup with ice cream, cake pieces, red beans, black fermented rice, jellies, and some sort of sauce. It was... interesting. But Alvin looks pretty excited about it. :)

Dinner was some local fish. We got a great deal thanks to the Korean dad that was with us.

Barbecue time.

Some of the boys decided to go hunting for crabs while we waited for dinner to cook. They came back with a bucketful and then insisted on cooking them and eating them.

Here is the table that we gathered around for meals. The house was great and had a huge kitchen and eating area. In this picture I think Joel, one of our high school teachers who came as a chaperon, is overseeing the crab eating.

Dan, our high school principle, also came along as a chaperon. Here he is telling the kids a story about his foot. Next to him is Yoon Seong who joined a bunch of the guys in getting a henna tattoo, which are easy to get at the beach and very inexpensive.

The nights consisted of staying up very late, playing games, talking, laughing, and some people could not stay awake for it all.

Here is a cool view from the second floor of the house looking out toward the beach. The night sky was being lit up by lightening.

Sunday morning we gathered for some singing and a devotional before we left- only to face more traffic and a long ride home again. Despite the traffic from the holiday weekend we still had a blast. I really enjoyed hanging out with these students and taking them away from school to have new experiences. One of my students had never been swimming in the ocean before. (He had been but never gotten in.) It was so fun to watch him wade around for hours, even after everyone else had gotten out. And some of the girls had never ridden a becek before (a local form of transportation). I laughed as they got in and sqealed with delight at the new experience.