Wow - just realized I haven't update the blog in a whole month! April and most of May have been a blur of trips to the ER, end of school activities for both kids, start of summer activities for both kids, friends moving away, and lots leaving for summer break so many despaditas. Here's a quick synapsis on the last few weeks for us:
After the earth quake and tsunami hit Japan, I worked on a Japan fund raiser though my women's group. We ended up hosting a fashion show with a local designer,
Pia Gladys Perey, we did great and raised a lots of funds for our neighbors in Japan.
I realized how unprepared we were when I went to check our disaster kit and couldn't get to it as it was buried under all the crap in our storage room. We have a nice supply now in a safe, accessible place and hope we don't have to use it.
St. Patrick's Day Sophia broke her right hand running to the bus. She got home and I did the quick "
can you bend your fingers? yes? well, it's not broken. I'm super busy, so let's tape it up and that'll be fine." I was hosting a cooking class at our house in morning and then a children's play group in afternoon - no time for boo boos! Of course the next day it was pretty swollen and so we went back to the ER and saw our friend Dr. Reyes who found a fracture. Sophia got her first cast and we spent lots of trips going to see our new orthopedic surgeon dr and get x rays to make sure there wasn't any additional damage to her growth plate (there wasn't - she's healed up fine.)
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Sophia in ER with Dr. Reyes getting her cast
Aiden graduated from his preschool on March 25th - involved lots of running amok, flopping around,kid's slapping each other and hair pulling - typical preschool event. We just found out he has been accepted to Brent International School next year for pre-kindergarten so he and Sophi will be in the same school together, too cute!
March 30th, I got to travel to the International Rice Research Institute with members of my women's group, ALIG. We had a tour of the museum and learning center, got to go out into the rice fields to check out long term experiment crops and then to the International Rice Gene Bank - amazing learning experience. In depth view into how much of our world depends on rice for food, mostly impoverished countries. An eye opening experience about agriculture, world population and science.
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Easter was pretty low key at the house. The Easter bunny did arrive with lots of chocolate treats from the States (thanks Easter Bunny) and we attended a couple of fun Easter parties for the kids. We missed our annual Butter and Eggs parade at home in Petaluma, but I've been active in some local politics and have made many new friends doing peaceful protests each Saturday morning, so I am enjoying large group gatherings!
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| Aiden on his Easter egg hunt |
April 21st we had a family trip to the Manila Ocean Park followed by lunch on the wharf. It was really fun and very cool. We all loved the hall of jelly fish the best, second to the sharks.
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| Adam & kids next to whale shark painting |
April 26th the
Philippine Red Cross hosted a
Solidarity Amid Crisis meeting with local politicians / Senators, members of the Red Cross, and H.E. Makoto Katsura, the Ambassador of Japan to the Philippines as well as may members of his attache. I attended with my friend as representatives of our women's group, who's donations added to the rest raised from PHI totaled about 90M pesos! The meeting was held in the
Lights and Sounds Museum in the Intramuros area of Manila. Great meeting and then personal tour of the museum by the Chairman of PRC.
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| Tour of Museum |
May 5th I modeled again for designers Pia Gladys Perey and Vission, this time for the mother's group I belong to. The show was called MAMA - MADS Annual Moda Affair. I actually walked a runway this time and didn't fall down in my heels, unbelievable. It was really fun and I got to make some new friends from other branches of the group. Beautiful clothes, beautiful moms!
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| Heather & Ernest at show |
Cinco de Seis we had a house warming / anniversary party at our house and it was great. Welcomed many of our friends over for fun evening catered by PI Catering - wonderful food and Adam mixed up a huge batch of Pop's Rum Punch.
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| Celebrating on our lani |
Cinco de Siete we went to a HUGE party hosted by the women's group I belong to. WOW - what a party - food, drinks, fiesta. It poured rain and we moved the party slightly indoors. Had a great DJ and boogied the night away with friends on the dance floor with fog machine, lasers and lights!
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| Adam on the dance floor |
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| Fiesta Lounge Lizards |
We spent the next day checking out the
Myth of the Human Body exhibit on display here. Very interesting and disturbing at the same time. Glad we left the kids at home...
Mother's Day was celebrated with brunch and viewing of Paquio vs Mosley boxing match, followed by spa day....aaaahhhh....(Paquio won - I lost $ on Mosley)
May 14th - I went to see the production of
Kaos with the Manila Symphony Orchestra as a chaperone with 11 'tweens and some mom friends. Excellent production and fun girl's day out.
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| Mommies at lunch |
The next day I walked out of our house and looked down in the driveway and saw what looked like a huge, ugly cockroach OR a giant potato bug. It was neither, it was a brand new baby bird, no feathers, eyes still closed. I scooped it up, not sure what to do. It was warm and breathing so we created a shoe box nest for our new friend "
Balut" As we finished setting him/her up, another one fell out of the (not well crafted) nest created in the roof tiles of our entryway. This one didn't make the fall as well and looked a little tweaked. We called it Bali nag Leeg (Sore Neck) and added him to the new nest.
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| Balut & Bali nag Leeg |
Unfortunately, the 3rd to fall, their sibling, was the littlest and didn't survive the fall. We had small memorial service for No Name. At this point we start hand feeding the babies every 1/2 hour, all day, everyone taking turns. This was/is very time consuming, in conjunction with everything else going on. We notice some birds on our fence observing the nestlings and decide they must be the parents - how nice of them to check on the chicks! Balut was making great progress, growing feathers and stretching it's wings. We let him/her out for a test flight in the yard and it was instantly swooped up by what we thought was the parent bird. Turned out to be looking for lunch.
That leaves us with Sore Neck, who now resides in a nice bird pagoda in our carport. She/he is doing better, still looks a little "off" and it's test flights are erratic and end up landing in a shrub or perched on outside of pagoda.
May 17th Sophi did Kinder Swim Day at school and she won two of her heats (swimming with noodle, kicking in inner tube)
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| Swimming Beauty |
Sophia successfully finished her first "year" in kindergarten in her new school on May 21st, in new home, in new country and a whole new world. We are so very proud of her. Of all of us, Sophia has been the 1st and best acclimated to our new home. There was a wonderful end of year school production and graduation ceremony.
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| Sophi's class in end of year production |
May 25th Aiden and his summer school went on a field trip to a wild animal farm with tigers, alligators, ostriches, monkeys, snakes, all kinds of birds. It was really fun and we saw so many different creatures. We liked feeding the ostriches the best, and he got to pet a baby alligator.
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| Aiden and baby alligator |
That afternoon Sophi and Aiden were playing a game of
Who can Swing the Kitchen Door Into the Other Person as Hard as Possible? Sophi won by hitting Aiden and ripping the top of his big toe pretty good - guess where we headed? That's right! Back to our friends at Asian Hospital. It's funny, we have the same triage bed in the ER every time we go now. The toe wasn't broken but keeping the bandages on for at least 48-hours was quite a challenge.
This last weekend had a typhoon forecast but that didn't stop Mommy from wanting to take the whole family to a first ever Balloon Sculpture Parade in downtown. Lightening stalled the parade so we had a nice lunch (best Mex we've found) at Agave while we waited. The Balloon Parade was kind of a bust, so to speak, but we all had fun getting wacky balloon hats made.
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| "This is fun mom - not!" |
We're wrapping up first batch of kid activities and planning next round. This Saturday Sophi is in a badminton tournament and then that afternoon she will perform with her hip hop class. Sure to be a good show.
We miss Zoe very much and are trying to coordinate a trip to California in July to see her and our friends.
Hope this finds everyone doing well and taking care.
Bahala Na!
H-A-S-A
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