Bugs, Kisses, and Spooky Halloween Wishes!
Category: CELEBRATE
World Teacher’s Day
In celebration of World Teacher’s Day, I created this cute cards of appreciation. Green apples, red envelopes, with white calligraphy.
Happy Birthday Monika – Blue Batik and White Calligraphy
I love this batik pattern. I pulled out my calligraphy pen to test out this white calligraphy ink.
Jeep Retirement Party
A colleague of mine was retiring, and he purchased himself a Jeep Rubicon to celebrate. He envisions himself doing a lot of off-roading in his retirement.
It was the perfect opportunity to plan a Jeep retirement party for the office!
I don’t have many Jeep items at home to reuse – I used a little metal Jeep leftover from our Wild Kratt’s party and a Jeep blanket that I’ve had for years…it came with my circa 2008 Jeep.
We had a large room with 3 long rectangle tables, and 8 round ‘high top’ tables – each with white tablecloths. I created a few printables and a digital sign to build some ambience. The printables were used in wooden picture frames and placed on each table. The digital sign was displayed on the computer monitors in the conference room.
A local balloon merchant came in and created two balloon stands, and I packed up my wagon with a few decorative items from home.
I designed stickers, and had a local printer print them up for me. They were stuck to short brown paper bags filled with popcorn and placed on each table.
We had a potluck lunch, so for my food contributions I provided chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, “Jeep” style sugar cookies, popcorn – flavored with Trader Joe’s Elote seasoning, and fresh squeezed lemonade. Other colleagues brought pizza and KFC. We also had a local dish called Tumpeng. It is a mountain-shaped cone of cooked rice accompanied by side dishes. It was so delicious!
We had loads of fun celebrating our colleague and sending him off in style.
Independence Day Celebration – 2024
We celebrated Independence Day on June 11this year with a Hawaiian theme.
My job was to organize party favors and pass them out at the end of the event.
Typically, U.S. companies donate merchandise that we pass out as our guests are leaving. Unfortunately, this year, we did not have many items to give away. I had some food coupons, highlighters, and cookies.
I recommended items such as macadamia nuts (that would not melt in the heat), post cards, silk leis, Kona Coffee pods, and foldable, reusable shopping bags.
Due to budget constraints, we purchased only the bags – hoping for additional donations. I ordered the bags from a local company, and I designed the artwork for the front of the bag. It had to be simplified to meet our budget constraints, but I’m proud of my work! I even incorporated the event slogan – Spirit of Aloha.
I organized a team of twenty summer hire students, and taking shifts, we managed to give out over 1000 ‘thank you for coming’ gifts!
It was so hot, and so humid. I’m glad it is over…and we don’t have to do it again until next year!!
Cub Scouts – End of Year Awards and Blue and Gold Breakfast 2024
The end of the Scout year has arrived.
As Webelos assistant den leader, I planned the activities and kept a record of attendance throughout the year. I ensured that all scouts received credit for the adventures that they had completed. I went back through WhatsApp messages to make sure I credited those scouts who sent photos of the work they completed at home, and I worked with parents to help scouts wrap up adventures that were still outstanding.
Then, as awards coordinator, I followed up with the other den leaders to ensure an accurate accounting of the adventures their scouts had earned. Honestly, that was the biggest challenge.
Once I made sure my tallies were correct, I organized the belt loops, pins, badges, and awards by den. I attached all the “bling” to card stock and paperclipped the cards to an envelope. The envelope listed all the adventures earned, so the Cubmaster could read off the envelope during the awards ceremony, and afterwards, the scouts had a safe place to store all of their “bling”!
Once the cards and envelopes were organized, I created a PowerPoint presentation – complete with a photo of each scout engaged in a scouting activity from this past year. Next to each photo, I listed the adventures that were earned. Having the presentation organized by den allowed the cubmaster and assistant to easily follow the program and hand out the awards in order. The scouts got to see their pictures up on the big screen along with their list of accomplishments, which helped keep them entertained while waiting for their turn to be called up for recognition.
Once all the kids received their recognition, we thanked the parent volunteers with certificates of appreciation and parent pins. We said farewell to our cubmaster of three years. Gifted him with an Indonesian Batik map, a Yeti coffee mug, and a multi-tool pocket knife. Then we welcomed our new Cubmaster.
After the official ceremony, we played live action game of CLUEDO (based on the board game Clue) – where the scouts were given cards with another scout’s name, the name of one of the six essentials, and the name of a location in the party room – in the doorway, sitting in a chair. They had to tag the scout named on their card, with the item listed, in the location listed. Once tagged, they were out. The scouts had a blast playing this game while the parents chatted over coffee, samosas, and donuts.
We are all ready for a good rest over the summer, but also excited about the adventures awaiting us in the fall.
Farewell Dinner for Colleagues – Jakarta 2024
We have a few colleagues departing this summer, and I hosted them for a Bon Voyage dinner.
Jackson went to a friend’s house just as the party was starting, so it was just the adults.
Mixing and matching my champagne glasses with my mom’s I started with welcome glasses of bubbly. We also had crackers, cheese, fruit, olives, and nuts to nibble on. I’m glad we had these set out, as all but one guest arrived 30 minutes early. The last guest arrived 40 minutes late! We know she got stuck at the office and then stuck in traffic, so we waited for her before we started dinner. We had a nice time chatting and gathering information on the best carpenter, tailor, etc. while sipping and nibbling.
For dinner, I had set the table using my mom’s china. We found the pattern while poking around at her Home Goods store one day. There was only one plate on the shelf, but she loved it. I tracked down the pattern – Tonquin Blue by Royal Staffordshire – and started her collection. It was bittersweet to use her china. It is a beautiful pattern and it makes me think of her. But I would much rather that she be here to use it herself. I practiced my calligraphy by creating place cards for everyone – using blue ink on white cards.
On the menu we had Beef Tenderloin with horseradish sauce, miniature roasted potatoes, garlicky green beans, and an apple, walnut, feta, craisins salad with homemade raspberry dressing. We had miniature raspberry trifles for dessert, with homemade pound cake. We also had homemade gingersnaps and shortbread to nibble on with our tea and coffee.
We talked and laughed and had a great time. And then Jackson came home from his adventures. It was time to get him to bed, so the dinner party concluded, and we agreed to get together again soon.
This is a terrible picture of us, but I’m including it for posterity. These are really great colleagues! (and the hydrangeas on the table were gorgeous!!)
Administrative Professionals Day 2024 – It’s a Jungle in Here!
Our Administrative Professionals Day celebration was such a success last year that we had to do it again this year!
Our theme was “It’s a Jungle in Here”. I used up leftover party decorations from Jackson’s Wild Kratt’s birthday party and created a Pittsburgh style cookie table.
I designed the invitation, the table signs, and poster. I even made a PowerPoint presentation-creating the slides in Adobe Illustrator.
I planted wheat grass seeds in glass jelly jars a week in advance and used them as centerpieces, with jungle ribbon and an animal native to Indonesia (like this Komodo dragon and this orangutan) in each one. They were so cute!
For the cookies, we had:
- Pizzelles
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Miniature cheesecakes
- Oatmeal craisin with white chocolate chips
- Philly K Cookies
- Nut horns
- M&M cookies
- Macadamia white chocolate chip
- Italian Knots
- Brownies
- Peanut Butter Kiss cookies
The event was another huge success. We are already tossing around ideas for next year!
iFly Jakarta
Jackson was invited to a birthday party at the iFly in Trans Studio Mall, Jakarta.
I think this was the longest birthday party that I have ever been a part of!!
The mall was an hour away from home – we left around 11am. Our taxi made a few wrong turns, so it ended up taking us 1.5 hours to get there.
We had a surprise when we showed up and found that the birthday boy was not there! He was sick (contagious) and the venue would not agree to reschedule the party. Instead of cancelling, the family decided to host the children without the birthday boy. He joined for a few minutes by video chat. We sang Happy Birthday to him, and then we went off to celebrate his birthday without him.
We started at lunchtime. There was fancy catering set up, but of course Jackson was so excited that he only ate two bites. The iFly was divided into two sessions. While one group of kids did the iFly, the other group ran around and enjoyed the other rides in the mall. There were go carts, roller coasters, and a snow zone. It really was an amazing day, and so unfortunate that the birthday boy could not be there.
Jackson loved the iFly. He loved playing in the snow. He loved driving the go-carts. By the time I dragged him away, it was dinner time. He was getting hangry (remember, he had virtually no lunch) and wanted sushi. I was irritable and wanted to go home. A few other families were still around as well, and we agreed to grab dinner together once we coralled the kids. In the meantime, I tried to grab a snack for Jackson, but there was no food available as it was during Ramadan. There were few prepacked snack options, but they were on hold/reserved for those breaking fast. We went to the food court and found that everyone had put their names on waiting lists – to eat once fasting time was over. We were 10th in line at Genki Sushi, so we continued to try and find a place to eat in the mall, but there were no openings. It was now around 7pm. We did stop at a frozen yogurt shop called Sour Sally. They were out of ‘regular’ froyo but had ‘black’ froyo. We gave it a go, and everyone loved it!! We will definitely be back.
We wound our way back to the sushi restaurant, and there were only a few names ahead of us. The kids were starving, the parents were starving. We finally got seated and ordered. This was a lot of fun – it was almost worth the wait! We used an app while seated at the table to order what we wanted and they brought our orders out to us. We could keep adding to our order – and they would keep bringing the food out, and when we were done, we closed out the order and paid. Everyone left full and happy. The parents got a good laugh looking at our American kids gobbling up sushi and dumplings!
You would think that we could head home now, but one of the mom’s reminded us that the kids needed black t-shirts for the musical rehearsal in the morning (for their head shot photos), so off we went to a shop called uniqlo for black t-shirts for the kids.
We got lost going home. We made it home at around 10pm…11 hours after we left the house.