Trip Around the World - Week 3

We arrived back from Bantayan island just in time to celebrate the Guest House manger's, Mary, 50th birthday! It was so much fun! I hope some day to be honored at 50 like she was. They had amazing food, singing, people perform, etc. What a fun evening! I think if we lived closer, Mary and I would be good friends. I adore her.

Enjoying the party

Aunt Mary

The next day we met up for lunch with some of Lee's classmates from HS. We saw them last time we went and none of us had kids and one was not even married yet, so it was fun to talk about how our families had changed.

Then the last few days we were there, we enjoyed my brother and his family. My brother, Jon, works at an international school just outside Manila. The last time we saw him and his family was two years ago, at a family reunion in Yosemite National Park. It was so great to see him and his family! They made a special trip to Cebu (where we were) so we wouldn't have to travel anymore to see them in Manila. We had a blast with them. Isabel especially enjoyed her cousins (all 5 of them)! She called them "the boys." Because except for the newest one (baby Rachel) they are all boys - Joshua, Christopher, Benjamin, and Philip. Philip is Isabel's age, but she actually preferred playing with the older boys.

The first morning we met my brother and his wife, Marge, at Starbucks (kid free, except for Rachel) to just catch up on life. It was fun hanging out with them. Yes, they even have Starbucks in the Philippines, see all you coffee lover friends could survive there.:)One day we went to the Hilton hotel and went swimming at their beach for the afternoon. It was beautiful. The kids had a blast and as you can see the babies were wiped out:) Isabel thought her baby cousin Rachel was so sweet.

Isabel hanging out with her older cousinsCousin Philip

Another day we went to a water park at a hotel. It's a little different than the water parks here, but it was so much fun! They had 3 big slides you could go down and then a great play area for kids Isabel's size with a pirate ship. She was fearless.
The water in the pool behind Ana was so warm! She was such a happy girl. Included with the water park entrance fee was a huge lunch buffet. It seriously put the buffet's in Vegas to shame, if you've ever eaten at one of those. It was SOOO good!

One last thing to write about. Most of our stay at the Guest House, we had it to ourselves, but the last few days we were there, a group of Koreans arrived that were doing outreach work. They ADORED the girls! They wanted to talk to them, hold them, take their picture. One of them asked Isabel to sing for the group, and believe it or not she did. They applauded and chanted "encore, encore." She sang again. It was so funny. Here is a picture of them surrounding her while she sings. After that we received all kinds of gifts from them. One was a case (yea, not a box) of these chocolate cream pies. We ended up giving most of them away, but they were good. It was too funny!

Our last few hours in the Philippines, we just hung out at the Guest House. Enjoying our family. Ane Neneng and Ana admiring Ate Landa's (a cook at the guest house) new grandson. He was too cute.

Waiting in the terminal in Cebu to go home. Our flight was delayed so we got to enjoy waiting even longer for our plane to leave. And yet again, when we arrived in Hong Kong we had to RUN, go on a train, in an elevator, through security (twice), and run some more, but they held the plane for us and we made our flight to LAX.It's fun being on an airplane for 11 hours!:) I thank God so much that we were able to get her a bassinet seat!

Fighting jet lag was easier because our great friends the Pie's had us over to keep us awake and celebrate Memorial Day! Yea, we did crash as soon as we left their house though. Thank you Pie's though, we would have crashed much sooner if it were not for you guys!So that was our trip (in a nut shell). I'm sure there is so much more I could share, but that's a taste at least. Would I do it again? Would I travel to the other side of the world with two little ones? Absolutely! We LOVED seeing all of our family! It was a special trip! One we will never forget!