Who we are, what we've done, what we're doing: Trip Around the World

The second week Lee's brother, Will, arrived. Isabel was THRILLED! She adores Uncle Will. That's almost an understatement...obsessed might be more appropriate. To keep him awake and to fight jetlag we all went bowling. My dear hubby was the champion bowler. Although all claim there has to be a jetlag free rematch at some point in time.

Then Lee's parents hosted sort of a Welcome dinner for all of us, so some of their friends could see Lee, Will, and Mart all grown-up, plus meet the their adorable granddaughters. It was at a restaurant called "Patio Isabel." Appropriate huh? They invited all of their friends and I got to meet some of Lee's friends from when he was a little boy. It was fun and everyone was so kind.

The next day we departed for a resort on Bantayan Island, an island off the tip of Cebu. We took a 2 hr car ride and 1 hr boat ride to get there. Lee's parents knew the owners of the resort and ended up upgrading them to this beautiful room, which also gave us access to a more private pool area. We spent hours in that pool. Isabel experienced her first time in the ocean. I didn't know what she would think of the salt water, but it didn't seem to bother her or anything. The ocean was like bath water. It was so warm. We would go out and just sit on the sand bar. One day there were hermit crabs all over the sand bar and Isabel would catch them and put them in a sand pail. We caught several dozen.

The boat ride

The girls first time in the ocean

This slide got used so much by us

Another time Lee and I were walking in the ocean and there was this small strip of sand that went out deep, the rest was surrounded by seaweed. We saw someone way out there so we thought we'd try to go out there too. We started out and I spotted a jelly fish. We kept going. All of a sudden we saw dozens of jelly fish. We decided to turn around. I don't know how that guy got out there. Maybe he got stung? We also saw ladies on the sand bar collecting dozens of small shells to make jewelry.

At the resort there was a restarant and all the ladies that worked there adored the girls. They would often steal Ana away.

Celebrating Ate Neneng's birthday. Two of Mart's friends also joined us for the week, Isaac and Kristina. They had just finished teaching English in Thailand. We had a fun time with them too.

Isabel's one request was that she wanted to see a star fish while we were there. Lolo searched for her and finally found one. Then later on we ended up finding two other kinds also (total - blue, chocolate chip, and a spotted kind).

Thank you Lolo!

Another one of her requests was to bury daddy in the sand

One of my favorite things we did was rent motorcycles for a morning. Isabel's always wanted to ride one and we have always told her, when she's bigger she can. So that morning we were able to tell her she was bigger and could ride on one. She loved it! It was funny cause we would ride along and she would hear a chicken or something and she would be like, "Mommy, do you hear that? That's a chicken." We let Isabel ride with us for a bit and then we dropped her off for some swimming with Lola and Ate and then we rode with the others to the other end of the island. It was so much fun. I think just the time with Lee was great too. We had so many waves from little kids walking by and I think it made their day when we waved back. Of course we had to stop for donuts too:) I tried taking some scenic pictures along the way, but trying to hold on while taking pictures, while moving didn't work so well. Oh well.

This is how some families do get around there, but we didn't take Ana for a ride, just a picture.