I already mentioned that Daniel's parents came in for a visit, but I didn't really get a chance to talk much about what we did. Like I mentioned before the day after they got in Daniel and his dad played in a ministry game. Here they are with JoAnn after the game. Considering how hot it is here right now and that they played the game with only 7 players (well actually 8, but one left at half time and another didn't get there til half time, so never more than 7 at any time) I think they look good.
I love this next picture. One of the things that is easy to question with games like this is how affective they really are at telling people about Jesus. The Americans playing basketball are just the entertainment attraction and all the follow up is done by a local church, so you usually don't see much of the results. For many reasons I feel like that is a good set up, but since you don't really see anything other than the basketball most of the time you really can question yourself. Anyway, at half time they always pass out pamphlets that give the gospel in Tagalog and during the second half of the game we saw this guys very intently reading the pamphlet he was given. It was a good encouragement.
Alright now for Club Punta Fuego. When Daniel's parents told us they were coming over they also wanted to take us to the beach for a few days. Since Isaiah was so young, Daniel thought it would be better if we went somewhere that we didn't have to fly to get to. So he asked one of the kids he helps train in basketball if he or his mom knew of a good place and they were the ones to tell us about Punta Fuego. I guess this was a place where you needed to be a member to get into and they just happened to be members. So, on Sunday we met up with them and they drove down there with us and showed us around for the day. Here we are at lunch with them.
It was really different than any place I have been in the Philippines. The streets were all paved and taken care of. The houses were all HUGE and looked amazing. I said many times that it was evident that there was some serious money at this place. I really had no idea that places like this existed in the Philippines. Anyway, we spent most of our time at the pool, which JoAnn loved, but one day we went to the lower beach club where there not only was a great pool, but also a playground and miniature golf. Jo had so much fun that day I can't even tell you how pumped up she was.
Isaiah spent the whole day doing this...
He loved being outside and always slept great. One down side though, the day we went to the lower beach club we were under trees and not an umbrella, so without realizing it enough sun made its way through the leaves that he got a sunburn. I felt awful, but thankfully it didn't really seem to bother him at all.
Another fun thing we did was we took JoAnn to the mini theater they had and watched Tinker Bell. She loved it, but I quickly realized I was very thankful we were the only ones in there. She wouldn't sit down for more than 5 minutes at a time. It was still fun and I was very thankful that we were able to find sometime to entertain her for an hour and a half without sweating to death outside. We are definitely in the middle of hot season and IT IS HOT.
Probably the most ironic thing about this trip to the beach was that I only made it to the actual beach for about 10 minutes. The one that was the closest to us wasn't really a swimming beach and it was sort of small, so one trip down was plenty for me, especially since I was huffing and puffing once I got to the top of the stairs on the way back to the room. Here is JoAnn showing off the piece of coral she found.
Last but not least on our way back we went right through Tagaytay. It is the town that overlooks the Taal volcano. Daniel and I took JoAnn there a couple years ago and I love the Starbucks that overlooks the volcano. So we decided that we would stop to eat and get some Starbucks to give us a nice little break. We ended up going to Antonio's, which was a restaurant that I had heard a few people talk about during the week. That was a crazy experience. You have to turn off the main road and go a couple miles back into a residential area in order to get to the place and once you get inside it was so nice. It was probably the nicest restaurant I've been to in the Philippines. It was just so unexpected, it threw me for a loop. Anyway, here we all are behind the Starbucks on our way home. You can sort of see the volcano in the background.
So after we got back, we had church on Sunday and they left early this morning. As always their visit went by way too fast, but we had a great time seeing them. JoAnn especially had a hard time saying goodbye to Papa and Grandma, it broke my heart.
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