Category Archives: TravelOur school takes a week without walls-type trip every year, and so we headed out to Indonesia’s cultural center with 200 6th graders. We got to visit ancient temples, go white-water rafting, view traditional dances, and just do all sorts of fun stuff to wrap up the school year (and our time in Indonesia).
Our final spring break in Indonesia, and we went to one of our favorite places for a week of diving and relaxation.
Our annual MS welcome-back party was held last night, and part of the festivities included people’s pictures from the break. Teachers (and spouses) were invited to submit a picture in a number of different categories, and then everyone votes on the winners in each. I’m not sure my entries were as strong as in the past, but it was fun to match up with the different categories! All these shots are from our recent trip to Thailand…
*Update – I noted the winners in the photo caption: I had 4 photos win 1st or 2nd!!
Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating today! Καλά ΧÏιστοÏγεννα and Срећан Божић from the tropics.
We’re so busy enjoying the Thai sun and surf that we’ve posted very little during our trip. Here are 4 quick shots from our dives – under stunning cliffs, we saw sharks, rockfish, and Susan finally laid eyes on a real-life seahorse! That makes for a pretty special anniversary present, right honey?
We’re getting ready to head to Thailand for the break, and part of my job is to prep all the technology. I was cleaning off the camera card, and saw that I’d never even looked at our “above water” pictures from Bali. One of the last shots of the trip was of this family coming down from a temple ceremony at Rambut Siwi, and I really like it.
Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday!!
We headed to the tropical paradise of Bali for our autumn break, and spent a few of those days on the north shore diving. We’ve been to this area several times before, but not for diving. While we didn’t see the huge schools of fish that we’ve encountered in other places, we did come across plenty of colorful mini-reef life that kept our eyes occupied and our camera busy.
(Maybe) our last time in Bali 🙁
Dive pictures coming soon – for now, how about some beautiful breakfast flowers…
Finally took the whole family to the Tetons and Yellowstone this summer. Here are the traditional signature photos of each park:
A picture on the hour, every hour, as I head across the US for my yearly trek to our Montana cabin.
I got to accompany a group of 8th graders on a week-long trip to explore local communities in Indonesia. We flew up to a series of islands just south of Singapore and spent 5 days learning about the local ways of life, mostly centered around fishing. We hiked, swam, boated, and interacted with kids at a school. All in all, a pretty good way to spend a week in May!
In addition to all the cool diving that we did, we also had the chance to see some pretty extraordinary sights over spring break. This album is all from our “above water” camera, to complement the diving shots posted the other day…
We took a few snippets of video of our dive to Manta Point. Here’s a 2 minute look at what we saw (with bonus narration!). Susan, Alea, and Breck are all in here (if only fleetingly).
We headed to the Indonesian island of Flores for a week in the sun. One of our “must do in Indonesia” items was to see Komodo dragons in the wild, so that was the impetus for this trip. The first pictures, however, will be from our diving adventures. We left from Labuan Bajo and went under the sea on 3 days (only 2 with a working camera!), and saw some wondrous stuff.
We’re back from a superb 3 weeks in Vietnam, and wanted to get a few shots posted. We have a JIS photo contest for vacation shots, and I was looking through pictures for it; these are some of the ones that didn’t make the final cut, but are still pretty cool. There are specific categories for entries, and so there are no “family shots” in this bunch, but these give a flavor of our travels. Enjoy!
Happy New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Horse!
We hope this finds family and friends around the world enjoying peace, health, and joy as we embark on a new year.
.
Our family continues to live, work, and thrive in Jakarta, Indonesia. This is our third year at Jakarta International School. Dave happily remains with MS math, Susan welcomed a move to Kindergarten, and Alea and Breck work hard in 11th and 9th grades respectively. Alea and Breck both play in the band and enjoy the rock-climbing club.
.
Alea squeezes Model United Nations and pilates into her busy IB/AP schedule. She also joined Tri-M music honors society and JIS orchestra, a service group helping local children explore instruments and music. Breck joined the magic club and has also become quite the stage lighting and ‘green screen’ expert. He has been asked to support the theater and tech departments at both the elementary and high school. He will work at upcoming shows of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Wizard of Oz.
.
Our family loves living life overseas as global nomads. We travel every chance we get and appreciate the diversity SE Asia offers. We launched 2013 in Cambodia and Laos, dove the walls off Bunaken, Sulawesi in April, and returned to Amed, Bali for more diving in October. We left on Dec 21 for three weeks of travel through Vietnam. We agree that kayaking in Ha Long Bay, clamoring through mud caves in Phong Nha, rock-climbing on an island in Long Ha Bay, biking through rice paddies near Hoi An, and eating our way through Ha Noi street food were absolute highlights!
.
Breck and Alea, given a taste in their social studies classes, were especially intrigued with the (recent) history of this amazing country. We toured Vinh Moc tunnels near the 17th parallel and saw bomb craters (currently used as fish farms) all over Quang Nam province. We believe one of the benefits of living overseas is the multiple perspectives we gain and develop about any historical event or situation.
.
Of course, summers in the USA always reminds us how blessed we are to have family. We always enjoy our time in MT, but this summer was especially rewarding because we welcomed Alvin Fletcher to the Strachan-Stutz clan. While we are biased, we do believe he bears a remarkably handsome resemblance to Breck. As always, we thank and celebrate the Helena Stutzes who take incredible care of us when we show up. A highlight of this summer was time spent with Blanche and the nieces and nephews at Hauser and Clancy Recreational areas. Hard to believe, but the kids have never been to Yellowstone; we think this summer is the year…
.
Minnesota is always good to us, but we must admit that Door County, Wisconsin is pretty amazing. We spent a fabulous week there with the south-side Wagners fishing, cherry picking, and shopping. Best of all – we got all the smoked salmon we brought back through customs in Indonesia. Yum!!! Valleyfair with the Regan’s topped the kids’ ‘thriller’ hit-list and deck-time racing crawdads with the cousins at Grandpa and Grandma’s cabin on Lake Vermilion filled the ‘You’ll never guess what WE did’ quotient. Things as simple as shopping downtown, going to a garage sale, or attending a lake-side concert after berry picking take on a whole new meaning when enjoyed with family!
 .
We plan at least one more year in Indonesia. Alea will graduate next year from JIS; it is exciting to think about the future. We have spent time in the USA these past few summers looking at colleges and universities for the kids and retirement homes for the parents. Time will tell!
 .
We wish everyone all the joy and love of this season. We are fortunate and we know it. We hope you feel the same!
We headed off to a week in the sun on Bali’s east coast. Diving (scuba), driving (scooters), and dining (seafood) were the only things on our agenda. Our hotel was fabulous, and we went under the sea a few times as well. Here are a few shots from around our resort, as well as some of the undersea life we saw on our first day of diving. More to come!!
Took a lot of family-type pictures in Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin this summer, but these aren’t them. I needed a few new desktop wallpapers, and these are some of the shots that I thought fit the bill. They had to be in a “landscape” format, so that naturally eliminated a few that I like, but these are the first batch that have been adorning my computer for the past few weeks…
We spent a few days on the island of Sulawesi (where the yummy market food is) before diving at Bunaken. During that time we hired a car and driver for a few days’ worth of exploration and jungle adventure!
For spring break, the family headed to Sulawesi (formerly known as Celebes), one of Indonesia’s largest islands. In addition to eating traditional foods (see the other photo album), we spent a couple of days diving off the smaller island of Bunaken. Armed with a point-and-shoot camera and trusty underwater housing, we took a few pictures that show a little of the glorious beauty we found.
What could give us a more perfect welcome to Sulawesi than trying some food and drink that are tried and true yummies in the area? We headed off for a day’s trip, and ran into some true gourmet delights!
Well happy new year to you too! We are back from our adventure through a tiny slice of Southeast Asia, and wow – did we do a lot! We flew into and spent a few days in Phnom Penh (Cambodia), traveled to Siem Reap to visit the Ankgor Wat area, drove around the Tonlé Sap lake to the city of Battambang, returned to PP, then crossed into Laos for a slice of heaven in the 4,000 islands area of the Mekong River, and finished with a strenuous adventure camp in the mountainside treetops of the Bolaven Plateau near Pakse.
Wow! I’m exhausted after just writing that paragraph. We’ve posted some pictures on Facebook (OK, over 180 of them!), and we’ll be doing some more, but here are a few that may or may not have been put there, just to give a quick taste of our fun!
