apparently im 23..on this side of the world..

23. Apparently today is my 23rd birthday. It's no secret that I love birthday's. I love other peoples birthday's more but I do love planning a day to head up to portland, get dressed up, have a nice dinner, and a night out on the town...things are a little different today. No big party or suite at the Nines.  A simple day. But don't worry, you know I already have a make up bday celebration in the works for when I return. :)

Not going to lie though...when 22 came along I really didn't think much of it but for some reason seeing 23 is a little crazy. The last couple years have flown by. I've always felt a little beyond my years but I've been trying to have fun and go with things the last could years. But I do see a lot of change in my life this next year. In my business, in my work, in my location, and just in my life in general. I want to get organized, i want to get things in order and I want there to by some sort of system of keeping things that way. I feel like right now there is a lot of unnecessary hecticness that I want to try to avoid. I know that life is never as planned but I do want to relieve some of the stress that I felt this last year. It's kind of nice having a birthday at the start of a new year. It's almost like a new year, and new age, a new start. So hopefully that's what will happen. I have so many goals and so many things I want to do. And I really do see this next year as a regrouping year. A year to make things happen and get back into the direction I want to go. A year to make things happen

Not going to lie, although I do love being here and seeing family I haven't seen in years, I do with I was getting ready to go to happy hour and celebrate this day with Happy Hour or dinner somewhere. missing you all..right about now.

Hope you have a simply wonderful day :)

the pig.

Last night we had our big "family reunion"/ celebration for our Grandma. Prep for this celebration started days before. There were over 150 people invited and that meant over 100 mouths to feed. It is pretty traditional to kill a pig for big celebrations or in honor of someone. I don't have pics of the actual killing...maybe thats better for some of you who would not be pleased with this anyways. but I did snap a few pics of the the end of the hair removal and the cutting of the pig. This is quite a process and a lot of work. But the whole event turned out great. More on that tomorrow. but for now...the pig. 

the end of the hair removal. they burn the hair and scrap it off with knives

the skinning begins

the feet

..idk why i failed at getting his whole head in the pic...oops

the head and the bucket full of other parts

Pretty much this whole pig is touched by the whole family.. Its quite a process..the men do the killing and main cutting then it moves to another set of hands for the next step

Here the women are doing more of the clean up and cutting of the meat.

Pretty much every part of the pig is used and eaten. Including the intestines, brain, heart..you name it its eaten. A long process all done by hand. 

Hope you have a simply marvelous day!

Jakarta

Our time in Jakarta was sadly pretty short. We have some close family friends who live there and I am always so excited to see them. As usual Jakarta was full of massive malls and shopping. Jakarta has more then 80 malls!! Can we please have a moment? 80 MALLS?! It is a little out of control. Some are fancy and nice that its hard to believe you are in Indonesia. We went to one pretty nice mall and another mall that is known for its cheaper knock off items. It was so packed and crowded...and I was told that it actually was slower less crowded time because not as many people go out during the holidays. Opposite of the states. Anyways I got some pretty good deals. Some Chanel and Gucci...may or may not be real :) but it was all in good fun. It was funny to see some of our brand name stores here as well. Good ole Starbucks and McDonald's, and KFC seems to be everywhere and even Ace Hardware? Here are some pics of the mall situations.

Ace Hardware..

tons of "fashion" jewelry 

pretty much ever inch of free space is used in this mall 

mamma! clothes everywhere!

Apparently a slower day.. not that i had to squeeze by people at multiple times

little spaces with tones of stuff. whatever you could possible want was in the mall

It was a fun busy couple of days. Shopping is exhausting there..especially when you pretty much just barter the whole time. But i did walk away with some a couple great finds! :)

Hope everyone has a simply wonderful 1st day of January! 

Happy New Years

Hello 2012! I must say that New Years has really grown on me the last..oh i don't know...4 or 5 years. It marks a time of new beginnings and a reason to get together and celebrate. I have been pretty fourtunate that the last 4 years I've actually spent New years eve with the same couple friends. We seem to almost always be in different places but it always worked out that we would spend New Years together. Sadly this year that is not the case. I was not sipping Champagne (my fav) and dancing the night away but I was with family that I never see...and among almost all 19 cousins that I apparently have here. It was fun but totally different. Part of me really missed the glitz and glamor that New Years is in the states but that doesn't take away from the reason we are here. To see and spend time with family. I will have many more glittery sequiny New Years. But lets just say I will be going big next year. But for now lets just take a trip down memory lane and look back at some previous New Years.

Happy 2008!

 Rang the New Years in with a speed walking competition :)

Silly pics to ring in 2009 with. And my two New Years Eve buddies. It was a fun 4 years :) 

Happy 2010! 

2011 New Years was spend out and about :)

With lots of fun on the Max :) except when we had to wait for it in the freezing cold forever! 

2012. With 16 of my 19 cousins.

Hope everyone is enjoying this amazing night!

Have a simply wonderful New Years! 

we made it!

after another day of flying we have finally made it to our final destination. and let me tell you it is nice to just finally be here. Our first flight yesterday left at 6am..meaning we needed to be at the airport at 4am..meaning i was up at 2am to get to the airport. it was a long hot day and i seriously hadn't had any good sleep since we left on Sunday..and it was already Thursday...umm 5 days of hardly any sleep is way to much for me..everyone knows I neeeed my sleep. Once we got here and visited with people for awhile I laid down to rest for a while and pretty much was out until...well about 12 hours later. I am feeling so much better now! This morning we went to the Pasar..basically an open market. I wanted to get some food I could eat..because the dog that was on the table wasn't going to cut it. and let me tell you this isn't your normal grocery store :)

The entrance to the market

Fresh Produce

I am super lucky because a friend we met here in Oregon lives in the town we were in before our last flight and she came with us to spend some time with us for a few days. and the best part she knows ENGLISH! i have someone to talk to :) That guy next to her is one of my moms brothers.

Chicken anyone? nothing is packaged here...they just sit on the tile tables...
you see it..you feel it..you get it..

Same with the fish...yep those are eye ball..and shrimp behind them

 

or would you rather but a live chicken?? those are also available

So that was my morning.

Just another day in the village :)

hopefully will have a post on the crazy shopping that happened in Jakarta tomorrow!

Hope you have a simply wonderful friday? saturday? whatever day it is where ever you are

Wedding Wednesday: more video fun

I almost feel like i should start calling this Wedding Video Wednesday. Because thats all I seem to be posting lately. But i just LOVE wedding cinema. And today's video is no exception. This a great example of how a couple personalized every aspect of their wedding to be nothing but "them". And it turned out great. This is one amazing western, cowboy, cowgirl wedding. Moetic Films did a great job with this one! 

Kim + Matt // Wedding Film | St. Paul, Oregon from Moetic Films on Vimeo.

Hope you have a simply wonderful Wednesday! 

3 days later..

well it's official! we have touched down in Jakarta Indonesia this afternoon. After three long flights we are finally here! a few bumps along the way but nothing we couldn't handle/ are still handling. Lets start at the beginning..

December 25th. Not going to lie this Christmas definitely didn't seem like our typical Christmas. Christmas wasn't packed of Christmas trees and relaxing family time. Instead it was a rush to the finish line, or in our case the airport. We still were trying to jam everything into our 3 huge pieces of luggage that morning and hoping we wouldn't be charged to horrendous of an amount for the extra weight of our bags. Because of an anxious mother we were waaayyyy ahead of schedule and ended up being able to stop in Portland for a little pre-flight dinner and cocktail. Once at the airport we had our first little hiccup with our luggage. We had to much weight in each bag...no surprise to us however it was a surprise for them inform us that for even 2 pounds over the 50 pounds it would be an extra 100 bucks...meaning an extra 300 because all of ours were over weight. However, there was a solution. We each were apparently allowed not just one 50 pound bag but two because of the international flight. So the solution was to buy an extra piece of luggage and check another bag...and let me tell you it was way cheaper to buy another piece of luggage then pay $300 in extra charges. 

a little pre-flight glass of wine :) 

From there it was a flight from PDX to Vancouver for a few hour lay over then a horrible, annoying, 14 hour flight to Hong Kong on the worlds most uncomfortable plane. Now, I have taken these long flights before but I seriously have never been so uncomfortable in my life. I never could sleep for more then an hour and considering our flight didn't even leave until 2am..it pretty much meant i was exhausted. so 4 movies later and endless shifting and attempting to be comfortable we finally landed. Then it was just a short layover until we finally took off for Jakarta. Thankfully it wasn't a packed flight and I actually got a good couple hours of sleep.

Here we are taking off from Portland! 

Once off the plane it was immediately a hit of humidity and heat...we definitely were not in Oregon anymore. We had the star treatment going through customs..thanks to a little connection with some people who work at the airport but sadly our luck ended when we only had 3 out of the 4 pieces of luggage arrive. Sigh...always something right? We are still trying to figure out where it got lost but they have assured us we should have it back tomorrow. Lets hope we do. There are some important things in that suitcase. Other then that the travel wasn't to horrible...we have one more full day here in Jakarta then its off to our final destination. 

Here is a shot as we were coming into Hong Kong. Beautiful sun rise 

Anyways we had a nice afternoon in Jakarta. We stopped at one of the 80 malls this place has and had a late lunch and walked around. More details on that coming tomorrow. But for now I am actually going to get to lay flat for the first time in forever and get some sleep.

Have a simply wonderful day everyone! 

Fill in the Blank Friday

It sadly has been awhile since i've done some blanks. So today we will blank! Make sure you link up over at The Litte Things We Do. I love Lauren's blog! Literally the first blog I read everyday. :) 

1.   The best way to spread Christmas cheer is     elf said it the best "singing loud for all to hear" :)   .

2.   The thing I love most about Christmas is   time with family, and time to relax and cuddle up next to the fire     .

3.  The holiday season is a time for   to realize just how much you are blessed. Life may throw you some major curve balls but with faith you will always get through it. Things could be so much worse, its a time to be thankful   .

4. My favorite thing to eat at the holidays is    umm everything? ..haha..our office has been full of treats since thanksgiving..im ready to not eat for awhile! but I love my grandmas recipe for thumbprints with jelly. soooo good    .

5.  I will be spending Christmas    on a plane. I can't believe we leave in 2 days! We had a mini Christmas last sunday and will be going to Christmas eve service tomorrow night and having dinner  .

6.  Tis better to (give or receive?)   hands down give. If i could i would give random presents year round...and sometimes i do when i see something that I just can't resist. But i mean it is always fun to receive to :)   .

7.  I'm dreaming of a    stress free/ travel drama free     Christmas. ;) 

I hope everyone has a simply wonderful Christmas Holiday! 

Bali

Although this trip is most definitely about visiting family and seeing friends we haven't seen in 7 years I would love to make a minor pit stop on our way back. I would love just two nights in heavenly Bali. We have been there before. Our last trip to Indonesia we spent a good 4 or 5 days there and celebrated my 16th birthday on the beaches of bali. Not a bad sweet 16th birthday if you ask me. However, time is limited this trip. We will only be there for 3 weeks instead of the usual 4 we normally take. I know that seems like a lot of time. But it does take us 6 flights to get us to our final destination. Meaning a lot of time is spent merely traveling. But I do think we may be able to have one of our returning flights go through Bali...sigh....i hope we can make it happen. Its absolutely stunning. And i would love just 2 days of complete relaxation and bliss before returning. Okay..let me just show you the beauty of this place...

beautiful rice fields 

perfect beaches 

 gorgeous resorts.. we actually stayed here last time we went..perfection

great villas 

stunning temples 

hotel rooms that open up to a pool...sigh...

Well now that i've convinced myself for the 100th time that this needs to happen...I do hope we can actually make it happen. Wish us luck that things fall into place when we get there and book our returning flights! For now I will just be dreaming of this paradise.

Have a simply dreamy Thursday! 

Wedding Wednesday: Destination Weddings

Destination Weddings are something that I have never personally been a huge fan of. Don't get me wrong..if money was not an issue at all it would probably be a consideration. I do love that you get to go away to a far away land, or tropical paradise and say those I do's. However, destination weddings are usually small intimate affairs. You have your closest friends and family attend. But sometimes not everyone you would want to attend can. Unless you are coughing up all of the travel money for people. Which lets face it...we aren't all Oprah...we can't fly everyone to Australia just because. And although destination weddings probably won't be an option for me there are some absolutely stunning  weddings. I mean who wouldn't want t get married in a castle in europe or the white beaches the bahamas? 

Destination weddings come with some AMAZING venues...who wouldn't want to tie the knot on the beautiful French Country Side??

Inside of an amazing french country side church?

It is almost to good to be true

Or a tropical paradise. With custom cocktails

Would be super fun to put together favor bags like these. Sun glasses, sunscreen etc.

Another bonus of a destination wedding. Stunning shots.

And stunning videos like this one from my go to wedding cinematographers Joe Simon Films.

April + Adam's Xcaret Wedding Highlights Film from Joe Simon Films on Vimeo.

Hope everyone has a simply wonderful Wedding Wednesday!