pictures from trip with Joel

Travel plans finally worked out. We're headed to Puerta Princesa tomorrow. Its a city on another island in the Philippines.

These are the pictures from our trip with Joel:

Jim, Laura and Joel at the Memorial.

Family photo at the ocean near Joel's house.

Laura at the playing at the memorial.

The tops of the windows that were buried in the mud flows.
top half of the church that was buried.

Sitting here in the San Francisco Cafe listening to Christmas jazz and drinking a rather disappointing vanilla latte. But aside from the coffee, what a life! Jim's watching laura and I said I'd bring dinner back. Not sure yet what I'm going to get.
The weekend has been very nice. We took it easy saturday morning. After nap, we took a cab down to manila bay. We read the map wrong and the taxi dropped us off in the wrong place, so we ended up walking about 3 miles to the same restaurant we tried last weekend. They still weren't serving the dessert we wanted, so we ordered a nice crab and shrimp meal. It was delicious, but slow.
Sunday, we went with one of jims coworkers, Joel, to his hometown. He picked us up and drove us there. He has a great car (honda crv) with a built in DVD! Its a good thing too because its was a 3 hour ride. He borrowed some of his nieces movies so laura and I watch pooh, little mermaid and blues clues a lot. We visited joels parents, who very graciously fed us the best food we have eaten since we got here. They live right on the sea, so everything was the ultimate in fresh: crab shrimp blue marlin and squid. Ok so the squid wasn't my favorite but it was much better than I expected. everything else was soooo good that it beat the restaurant the night before, no contest. Thanks, Joel's mom! It was really nice to be in a filipino home, too. It was very
nice and they have beautifully carved wooden furniture. Then joel took us to a memorial for american and filipino soldiers that died in the area in WWII. It is a huge cross on top of a mountain. There was also a museum there with info about macarthur and the battles that took place there. Very interesting and there was a beautiful view of the lush countryside. I was a little ashamed to have to come here to learn about the american involvement in the philippines in the war.
We headed home after that and stopped at 2 more historical sites on the way. First, as we were passing down a road, Joel suddenly pulled over and took us to the house of the current presidents father. He was also president. This was the house he was born in and was either restored or preserved well. Bamboo stairs and wooden floors walls and furniture. Very nice little piece of history to experience. I thought it was interesting that there didn't seem to be any formal guards or way to view the house. It was just an old house with a sign in front in the middle of all the other houses. Some men sitting outside of the house next door came over to shoo a dog out of the yard and talk to Joel in Tagalog, but I'm not sure if they were caretakers or interested in the really pale people.
After that, we headed to a church that jim has visited with another coworker that Joel hadn't actually visited before. In 1992 there was a volcano eruption and then a flood and the ash and water mixed a caused a mudslide which buried this town in 18 feet of mud. The church was very tall, so they just cut a new door and put new pews on top of the mud. So the windows that used to be really tall, are now only about 4 feet high. Really cool. and a very pretty church besides!
after that we headed home. Thanks so much Joel!
today has been pretty lazy. Went to jims office to call family and then home for nap. We found a subway for lunch since a sandwich sounded delicious and now jim is hanging out with laura to give me a break to do this. We have pics from this weekend. I will post as soon as I can get some time on jims computer. I'm off to search out some dinner.

bombing not a bombing

Turns out the bombing that was here last week wasn't actually a bombing. Just an accident.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/world/asia/24briefs-manila.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Dancing Queen Parade

We woke up this morning at 7:15 to a marching band playing Dancing Queen on the street below our apartment. Here's a clip of the beautiful music we woke up too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbCQ2zw47DE

They were pretty good and had other songs in their repertoire like In the Jungle and Under the Sea. I got dressed and went downstairs to check it out and they were having a parade. It was a little different than what we're used to. They just marched along one side of the road and the cars when around them. It didn't seem like anyone was expecting to see them because there were no crowds besides the regular people hanging around. I'm not sure what the parade was for. There was a flag corp, quads, cymbals, bass drums, and chimes (not sure what they're called) and then behind them, there was a line of girls dressed in different native costumes of different countries. The only ones I could read were India and Columbia.

After the parade, I decided to be brave and try the food at the street fair. I got a fruit smoothie (OK, not so brave there) and Takoyaki, which are little Japanese hush puppy sort of things. It was fun to see them make them and when I brought them back up to Jim and Laura, Jim and I enjoyed eating them. So far, no scary side affects. We're still figuring out if we need to be wary of the food or not.

anyways, its been a good day so far. Jim's a little tired from his 3 day seminar he had at work, but we'll take it easy today. Still no plans for travel, unfortunately. Seems that all the flights to anywhere are full. oh well.

Halloween Party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS0upb0U_ZM


The Halloween party was fun for a little while. Laura's little friends Sky came over before the party and we all went down together (Laura, me, Sky, Ramia (Sky's ya-ya or nanny), and Collette, Sky's mom). It was sooo nice of them to think of us and come over. I really appreciated that. Once we got there though, I realized that Sky is related to almost EVERYONE in the building. They are Korean and most of the kids at the party were cousins. Everyone was very nice, but Laura was much younger than most of the kids. They had a magic show and music and some games. Most of the games were for older kids and it was very hot in the room and I had stupidly picked a very hot costume for Laura. So we spent most of the time outside. We had some ice cream and talked to a few people. Laura had a little run in with some older boys who didn't want a little girl playing with them, so we left with Laura crying and went upstairs to recouperate. We didn't actually make it to the treats at the party or trick or treating. They were still trick or treating when we came back from dinner 3 hours later! Here's some pictures from the party:

Sky and Laura

One of the games at the Halloween party.

Patience

I'm starting to learn patience. It is such a challenge to get things done when you don't understand how things work! I tried for a week to get a trip planned to China, but couldn't get it done in time to get the visa. And now its too late to get a flight anywere in the Philippines for this weekend. grrrr
But I'm sure its good for me. Building character and all that. I did find a book that talks about things to do with kids in Manila, so I''m excited to go some of the places it recommends. Apparently, there's a pretty cool children's museum here and lots of historical sites. I might have even found a library!
This afternoon is the building's Halloween party, so we'll be busy doing that. And now I'm off to talk to the travel agent - AGAIN about going to Hong Kong next weekend. You don't need a visa to go there. Hopefully that trip will work out.
Until next time...

Playdate with Sky

Laura has mastered the fake smile for the camera. We had a heck of a time getting a good picture for the visa that didn't look like she was in pain. Have you seen that Friends episode where Chandler has a scary smile in every picture? Same deal with Laura.

As you can see from the picture, we stopped at Krispy Kreme donuts the other day. Yummy! And they spoil you rotten when you walk in. We both got free, warm donuts, and Laura got a hat and balloon. When I sat down to eat the donuts, they brought us some water. What a treat!

The China thing isn't working out. We were too slow in planning it and missed our chance for a visa. We'll stilll plan to go later, but it won't be this weekend. Maybe we'll go somewhere in the Philippines this weekend since Jim has some days off. But I'm a little late to plan that too, so we'll see.

We had a playdate this week! We were taking baby for a "walk" in the stroller around our elevator landing and the nanny for a little girl, Sky, we met at the playground walked out of her door. I didn't realize they lived on our floor! So we played in their house for a little while and they came over to our house for a little while. The girls had fun. They are only 2 months apart, so they played pretty well together. Hopefully, we'll get to see them again soon.

Laura's learning her colors. She used to say blue and yellow a couple months ago, but stopped after a few weeks. Now she knows pink really well and points it out whenever she sees it. Do you think its a coincidence that she's a girl and learned pink first? I wonder if its inate or if I unconciously taught it to her first? She can also pick out other colors like brown, white and yellow, but doesn't say them.

I have been cooking lately. I made spinach goo (actually very tasty, despite the name) and banana pancakes.

That's about all we've been up to. Jim's been busy at work, so we haven't seen him too much. Laura's been going to bed so early and waking up so late that he's usually at work when she's awake. We'll all be glad for this weekend when we can get sometime as a 3 person family again.

Our weekend downtown

We ventured out in a taxi yesterday. That was definitely an adventure! No real way to describe the scary driving in the scary traffic. Cars inches away from your window, no seatbelts, lots of beeping, etc. But we survived and since we never got going that fast anyway, we were probably never in any real danger. There are just so many people here and not a great infrastructure so they do what they have to do to get where they want to go.





We spent the morning at Jim's office calling family and then went home for a nap. Then we caught a cab in front of the apartment and went to Rizal Park in downtown Manila. Kind of like Balboa Park in San Diego. There were museums and gardens and fountains and statues. Lots of people sitting or laying around. That seems to be a Filipino past time - sitting. Its actually a pretty nice thing because its very relaxed and social. As opposed to my natural tendency to want to go go go! We found a really really cool playground that you pay to go in. It must have been so neat when it was first built, but it has been well loved by kids and litterers. Here's some pics from our trip.





The family in front of a statue of Rizal, a Filipino revolutionary. This is where he was executed.




Some pictures from the park.



Ha Ha



After the park, we stopped at a restaurant to get some dessert that Jim had had with a colleague before Laura and I joined him, but they weren't serving it that day. So we took a cab back home.

This morning we went to a different Mass at the same church - and it was in English!! yay! This afternoon, we have spent searching for a travel agent in the mall and on the computer looking for Beijing tours. A pretty good weekend!

Laura on slide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvmrehv7xyU

Playground and Halloween costume

These are some shots of Laura playing at the litte playground at the apartment. Its on the 6th floor, but outside with a canopy over it, so we could go if it were raining. She gets filthy playing here, but has a good time. Its just the perfect size for her age.

I asked if she wanted to be a pumpkin for Halloween and she spent the rest of the day saying "punkin". I don't think she understands the concept, but she was excited about this costume I found anyway.

If you've heard about the bombing in Manila, you know about as much as we do about it. It was in another part of town, but at a very high-end mall that is big with foreign business people. Jim has been there before. We're still not sure what to make of it or what it means. We'll be careful, but please don't worry about us.

A week from now, Jim will have Monday, Thursday and Friday off for holidays, so he might take Tuesday and Wednesday and we're thinking about going to China for a week. We'd probalby start int he Beijing area and might find some sort of tour guide to show us around. We're still working on planning all that and since its so last minute, we'll have to see how it works out.

playroom at mega mall

i have a lot to say today so its a good thing I found a better wi fi spot! Its just down the street but doesn't have a minimum buy or time limit on wi fi. Plus their vanilla latte is delicious.
First-laura's vocabulary has been exploding lately! She mimics everything and knows what it means! Here are a few of her new words: pumpkin monkey carry water yogurt 'some more' 'sit down' orange. Its really fun to have conversations with her. She's also started wanting to help me around the house. It definitely slows me down but since we don't have anything pressing to do anyway, it works out great. She'll stand on a chair and rinse the dishes after I wash them, pull clothes out of the laundry basket to hang up, help me carry the trash to the shoot, etc. Its very cute and keeps us both entertained.
She's also become very sensitive to any books that talk about being sad or hurt. That started a little before we left withthe book "I'll love you forever" when she sort of cried and wanted to be rocked each time the mom rocks her son in the book. We have a curious George book about feelings and we always get stuck on the pages when he's sad or sick. She always says "crying" when she hears a baby and looks very worried. Sounds like she'll be a very sympathetic and sensitive person.
Sleep at night has been going pretty well, but not much during the day, which is pretty typical for laura. But the main difference now is that she always seems tired. An hour after she wakes up, she's rubbing eyes and grumpy. The last 2 days she has been falling apart be 9:30am so I put her down for an early nap and she'll sleep for an hour or so and then refuse to take an afternoon nap. So I put her down early to bed which means she's asleep before jim gets home at 7(they work 8:30 to 6:30 here). But she sleeps through until almost seven in the morning. Who knows. Daytime sleep has always been an isssue with her, so I guess that's to be expected. Just frustrating when she's tired and grumpy most of the time.
We found the coolest playroom at the megamall today. You have to pay to use it, but it was so fun. Its about the size of an small store in a mall. It has a little kid size rooms like a fast food restaurant, grocery store, police station, hotel, beauty salon, and hospital. Each was complete with pretend foods and supplies like cash registers, luggage, hair dryers at all the apprpriate places. Its so much cooler than I'm describing it. There's also a great slide, little cars they push with their feet and a big ball pit. And it was so clean and well cared for! Laura's favorite was a green car but she also liked the ball pit and slide. She also kept bringing me fake produce from the grocery store like apples cucumbers and eggplants. I went in with her since she's so young and hadn't been there before, but you don't have to go in with them. But you might as well since you have to stay on the premises anyway. Very fun and I'm sure we'll be back although I'll have to limit myself since its not free.
So incase youre disappointed in me for spending all my time in a mall, let me tell you that that ispretty much all that's around. We are in the middle of lots of highrise buildings and malls. No parks or open air markets. Id be the first to jump at living a real "filipino" life, but we mstly live near koreans and pretty much everything about our life is just like if we lived downtown in an american city There aren't very many kids who live around here. It seems to mostly be young business people. The only grass we can see either has a barbed wire fence around it or signs saying keep off. And I'm not brave enough yet to take a cab or other public transport.
I had a success today! I found a can of lentils. There aren't many beans or nuts here which used to be our main source of protein since we really slowed down our meat consumption in the last year. I feel a little like i am trying to recreate our American life here instead of immersing ourselves into this culture, but it seems to be working out to eat like the filipinos when we eat out and eat like weused to at home
Also iwanted to say that there aren't any avocados here. A few people asked that before we left and I've looked at both supermarkets and havent seen any yet.
A security guard rang our bell tonight and dropped off an invitation to the buildings Halloween party! I'm so glad. The kids will meet for alittle party in costumes then go from door to door. If you want to pass out candy, you decorate your door so the parents know which ones to go to. I'm so excited! Its at 3 in the afternoon so jim won't be there and laura won't have aclue what's going on so this is totally just for me but it will be great anyway. Now I have to think of a good costume for her. I'll post pictures for sure.
Jim has a 4 day weekend coming up, so we are trying to come up with a good place to go. Maybe somewhere in china. I'll let you know.

found wi fi

I found wi fi across the street at a coffee shop, so i can come over some evenings with the o
ipod. Entertaining laura at jims work while i check email turned out to be harder than anticipated, so i think ill only go there on weekends when there arent as many pepole working.

It was laura and i's first day alone today. Turned out to be pretty long, but not bad. We met jim and his colleague edwin for a filipino lunch, went to toys r us to get a few toys for laura, went to the pool, the playground, coffee shop and minimart. All in all, i think we used up all our backup activities on the first day. Not sure what we'll do te next 3 months.
gotta go soon since i spent most of my free hour on email. Actually, you have to spend 400 pisos to get the " free" hour so i just had to get a mango frost and chocolate muffin. Delicious seperately, but not great together. Maybe a vanilla latte next time.

Laura playing with Laudry hamper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FAG45WPENg

Here's a video of Laura playing with our laundry hamper. Nothing that couldn't happen in the states, as Jim comments, but its cute all the same.

We just bought an air cleaner at a hardware store. That was interesting! There were about 6 clerks called over to help and they take it out of the box to show you that all the parts are there and it works before you buy it. Sounds like a good idea in this case, but when they did it for Laura's high chair, they couldn't get it back in the box. Big fiasco. When we bought some towels at a department store, there was one clerk to take the money, one clerk to bag the items, one clerk to count our change, one clerk to give the change to us, and one clerk to sign the receipt after it printed. There are generally more people working at any given store or restaurant than customers. You'd think that service would be great, but it seems to slow everything down.

Forgot to write about the bananas earlier. Local bananas! What a concept! We have already eaten one bunch and just bought another. They are delicious. They are the little ones that come in big bunches. Here, they are called lacatans.

Went to mass this morning. We accidentally went to a mass in Tagalog, which is the language most Filipinos speak. We didn't know what they were saying, but followed along pretty well since all Catholic masses follow the same format. Laura was soooooo good! She mostly just let me rock her since she was so tired. She's adjusting pretty well to the time change, but seems tired all the time. We'll get there. Last night, I made it all the way until 8 and Jim was up until 8:30! Progress!

Laura watching Nemo on the airplane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gb8BFS1sRY

here's our washer. I've already had lots of adventures with this thing.

Here's how it works: You turn on the faucet to fill it up with a little water, put the soap in, let it run for a few seconds until the soap dissolves. Then you put the clothes in, fill it up the rest of the way with water, and let it run several minutes. Then you drain it, and move the clothes to the spinning side. you spin for a few minutes, and move it back to the other side. Fill it with clean water to rinse and run it for several minutes. Then back to the spinner and spin for a few minutes. Then you hang the clothes out to dry. Very labor intensive, but probably better than just hand washing.

Here's the possible pitfalls:

make sure the drain has somewhere to go - I tried the toilet and the floor drain before going to find maintenance. the drain hose wasn't long enough to make it to the sink, wouldn't drain all the way if it had to go up to the toilet, and wouldn't drain fast enough out of the floor drain. They came very quickly and pulled up the cover on the floor drain to drain the washer. This works great now.

make sure the hose doesn't slip off the faucet as your filling the washer - this means you have to hold the little plastic tube very tightly around the faucet as your filling it up so it won't slip off.

spin in shifts - more clothes fit on the washing side than the spinning side, so don't try to spin it all at once, or you will get your clothes caught in the spinner and possibly rip them. But don't put too few clothes in, or it won't be balance and will make a horrendous sound like its going to bang its way down through the floor to the next level.

All I can say is, thank goodness the bathroom it is in has a 3 inch step up into the hallway so that all the water I spill on the floor stays on the tile.

Sights and Sounds of Manila

I borrowed Karen's idea of posting to You Tube and giving the link here since I was having trouble posting videos on this site. Here's a video the view outside our balcony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnuIQ4aKcw

Its pretty much this loud all the time, including at night. The traffic is crazy. Pedestrians definitely don't have the right of way, but the cars are only going 15-20 mph anyway, so its not too scary. You just have to be very brave.

We all went to bed about 7pm last night. Soooo tired! The time change is pretty tough. Laura woke up at 4am, which is super early, but if you think about it, that was 9 hours of sleep. So we were all up for a while, then I went back to sleep and Jim and Laura played.

Yesterday, we went to the Mega Mall. It was so busy and loud and crowded. Think Mall of America on steroids. Its the biggest mall around. It has an ice skating rink, lots of food and stores, and a huge arcade on the basement. And they are already decorated for Christmas!

Everyone is so interested in Laura. I have had literally 6-7 people tell me "She looks just like a doll!". They all like to touch her and say hi and smile and have their kids say hi and touch her. Its very sweet and kind of overwhelms her, but its a nice way to have interaction with people here. I went out to get dinner to bring home by myself last night and it was so different than when she is with me. No one smiling and saying hi, but the still stare because you are so different. Its probably going to be very good for me to be a minority for once in my life.

Try again

Last night, we came into Jim's office to check emails, etc., and Laura was having some issues because she was so tired, so we just left. Came back this morning. Laura must have been tired because she fell asleep as I was carrying her on the walk back home. That hasn't happened since she was, like, 2 months old. But she slept pretty well last night. I was up with her from about 12:30 to 1:30, then she slept again until 6:00. Jim woke up at 3 and couldn't sleep, so we're all working on adjusting to the time change. The apartment is pretty nice, but needs a good cleaning. Please pardon the mess in the pictures. I took a video of the apartment and the view off our balcony, but it seems to be having trouble downloading. Will try again later.

Today's a national holiday (another one!), so Jim's off work. not sure what we're going to do, probably do a little exploring. Can't think of what else I wanted to say. I got a Vanilla Latte at Coffee Bean this morning, so its a little bit like home! All in all, we're doing pretty well. It will be better after we've adjusted to the time change, but even that is going better than expected.

We made it

We're here! The lane ride was pretty miserable at times, but we survived.

Here are 2 pics of the apartment. Its a 2 bedroom, 2 bath with a washer and dryer.

will type more later, Laura is exhausted.

tomorrow's the day!

Well, we're off tomorrow! I think everything's pretty much packed. Jim's been hard at work, but he came home long enough to have dinner with our friends (who very graciously brought us dinner. Thank you!) and then he helped me wash the floor. Now he's back at work, poor guy.

I had some excitement when I was using the garbage disposal just after he left and it just dropped straight down off the sink! Imagine staring down at the disposal one second, and then the cabinet floor the next. And the dishwasher was running at the time, so there was just water pouring out under the sink. After my initial shock, I got myself together, turned off the dishwasher, found the home improvement book and remounted it. We had been fiddling with the disposal so much lately to keep it working, that we eventually twisted it right off its mount. Not how I expected to spend my last night here, but at least pretty much everything is packed and I think the house is pretty clean now.

We'll be in contact as soon as we can after we get there. Not sure how the phone and computer thing will work since its at Jim's work, but we'll find a way to let you know we made it.
Love you all!

Don't need to have an account

FYI - I just fixed it so you don't have to have a Google account to leave a comment.

Laura and Dexter playing outside

Pictures from Bob's wedding trip

Here's Laura drawing in front of her "tent" where she slept every night in the hotel. She did great every night!


This is Laura and the other flower girl, Sydney. They had a great time together!

Laura with her daisy chain crown. She made it about halfway down the aisle before it fell off. She picked it up and turned around and said "Mommy?" looking for help to put it back on. It was all over after that.

Wish you could see the shoes, too!

Laura and Dexter. They had a good time together playing with Dexter's farm animal set.

A shot of Jim and Laura putting up bows outside the church. I think Linda took a shot of Jim and I together. I'll post it later if its any good. Oh! and the bride was absolutely gorgeous, and the groom very handsome. The wedding seemed to go very well and everyone seemed to have fun at the reception. The food was fantastic (especially the desserts)!

After the reception, they had rented canoes. Laura really seemed to enjoy it! Here's a shot with her in the canoe with Grandpa and Grandma and one that I took from the front of the boat looking back at Jim and Laura.

As you can see, we had a great weekend. Laura was a real trooper with the changes in schedule and living in the hotel for 3 days. I am so impressed and relieved and it gives me hope for the crazy schedules we're about to put her through to get to Manila. We leave on Tuesday!

Laura with baby in Mei Tai carrier

We made it through challenge #1!

we survived and actually enjoyed ourselves! Jim's brothers wedding went great. Laura was beautiful as a flower girl and made it halfway up the aisle before pulling off her daisy chain crown and shouting "mommy!". But she did pretty well and I think the photographers pic turned out pretty well. Jim was a great best man and I made it through the reading fine. Afterwards, we had a good time at the recepion. There was a playground and the had some canoes rented so we all had plenty to do and had fun. Laura did great in the canoe until she got smacked in the forehead with a branch. After she calmed down, she enjoyed plasying with my pwddle while jim steered us around. She also got to go out with grandma and grandpa and had a great time with them too. She didn't sleep too well last night, but still much better then expected.

she's sleeping!

We arrived in Iowa for jim's brothers wedding. Set up camp in the hotel room and laura went right to sleep. What a relief! I can't wait to post a pic of laura's "room" that we set up in the corner by draping a blanket over a picture and the curtain rod. I hope the good sleeping lasts all night. I wish the ipod had a camera, but I guess you can't have it all. But it sure is fun to sit here and play with it. In case you didn't know, we got an iPod touch to take so we can watch videos and I will have a way to get on the internet in manila. Anyways, laura tried on her flower girl dress and it is so cute. Will get pics up soon

Leaving for the wedding

We leave for the wedding this afternoon. Laura's going to be a flower girl, Jim's best man and I am going to lector, so we all get to be in it! I'm pretty excited to see Laura in her flower girl dress. Kate's mom made it and I'm sure its beautiful. We bought some really cute little shoes that she likes to wear and tap on the hard floors. I'll be sure to get a picture posted of Laura in her dress. Maybe one of Jim and I too since we don't get dressed up very often! I've been super stressed about all the packing and crazy schedules coming up, so I'm really looking forward to just getting started on the whole deal. When we get back Sunday, we'll start to pack for Manila and finish cleaning the house. Then we leave Tuesday!