Buchers' Visit

(I just went back and looked at this, so let me warn you now that it is a long post. Sorry)

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.

Club Punta Fuego

Daniel's parents came for a visit and got here late Friday night. It is so good to see them and have them see Isaiah for the first time as well as spend some more time with JoAnn. On Saturday Daniel talked his dad into playing in a basketball game so we took JoAnn to watch Daddy and Papa play "baskball." Then on Sunday we came here to Punta Fuego for a few days to have a little vacation. The views here are amazing. Its right on the ocean on the southern part of Luzon and truthfully I have never seen a place like this in the Philippines. It feels like a completely different country. You have to be a member to come and one of our Filipino friends was kind enough to get us in on her membership. So far we haven't made it much past the golf course (well not me) and the pool. Here is a picture of Daniel and JoAnn enjoying the pool during the hot hot hot season.

2 Months

Tuesday marked 2 months since Isaiah was born. I seriously can't believe he is already 9 weeks old tomorrow. Anyway, I wanted to take a few pictures of him to celebrate the 2 month mark. Here are a few of my favorites on this camera. I have another camera that I took most of the pictures with, but it is an old school film Minolta camera so I won't be posting those since I really detest the scanner and that would be the only way.

Of course JoAnn had to get in on the action.
I'm not sure what JoAnn was doing in this one, but I think Isaiah's face is priceless.

Birthdays and Smiling

Lets take care of the birthday first. On Tuesday it was my grandma's birthday. I actually got to talk to her on the phone last Saturday when my mom went to go see her so that was fun. I miss her so much and can't wait to go back home and just go hang out with her for a day. I really want JoAnn and Isaiah to go see her. Anyway, here is a picture of JoAnn and I with her this past summer when we were celebrating JoAnn's 2nd birthday. She is such a sweet lady and I love her dearly. Happy birthday Grandma.


Now for the smiling. I finally was able to get a decent picture of Isaiah smiling and to make it even better it was while I was trying to get some pictures of him for his passport. I am hoping they will let us have this be his passport picture.

I also took him in for his two month check up yesterday and he now weighs 11 lbs 10 oz. and is 24 inches tall. He is growing so fast. What is really crazy for me to think about though is that about a year and a half ago one of my friends gave birth to her son that was pretty much the same size as Isaiah is now. I can't imagine!

We All Scream For Ice Cream

The other day I was watching TV and saw on a cooking show some people talking about cooking for vegans. We are not vegans, but I do sometimes look for vegan recipes since they are milk free and both of the kids are allergic to milk. Anyway, they got on the subject of dessert and one of them mentioned coconut ice cream. As in using coconut milk instead of cow's milk. I've seen rice milk ice cream but crazy enough it has soy in it and JoAnn is also allergic to soy. So, until I heard of using coconut milk I had ruled out the idea of ice cream for her and stuck to sorbet. It wasn't long before I started searching the web for recipes since one of our friends has an ice cream maker I could borrow and found one for chocolate coconut ice cream. I thought that sounded great and since it was only 4 ingredients I figured it couldn't be hard to make. So, the other day I made the first batch of ice cream that JoAnn could eat and after dinner last night she got to try it for the first time. She was so cute. I only gave her about the equivalent of 5 bites, but she sat at the table until she ate every last drop. She LOVED it. At one point she even tried licking the bowl. It actually was pretty good. I can't wait to try other recipes and I'm so excited to actually be able to serve ice cream with her birthday cake this year.

Oh, Ew, Yuck!

As JoAnn would say "Oh, Ew, Yuck!" I can't say that enough right now because I keep thinking about the nest of cockroaches we found today. Where? In an out of the way closet that never gets used, in the hallway right outside of the door to our condo, or maybe even somewhere in the bathroom we never use. No, of course not. Instead they were alive and well right inside of the drawers at the bottom of JoAnn's bookshelf, just feet from where she sleeps.

We had decided that we wanted to go through all of our stuff especially stuff we hardly if ever use and get rid of anything we aren't going to move with us. Well, Daniel was the one who had taken on the challenge of JoAnn's room and when he opened one of the drawers he saw a bunch of little dark things scatter. There were so many roaches I wasn't even sure where to begin killing them all. Thankfully most of them stayed in the drawer so Daniel put the drawer in the bathroom and took out everything while Ate Ida started swatting away with a shoe. Daniel also returned to the bookshelf to find the mother and a few more of her offspring and he was able to kill them. Then he had the task of going through the stuff from the drawers and deciding what was able to be cleared of all cockroach poop and what needed to be thrown away while Ate Ida cleaned it up. Unfortunately, one of the things I had kept in the drawers was all of our pictures. The fortunate part was that they were in the drawer that wasn't as bad and most of them were fine. It was not what I was expecting to find during our spring cleaning, but I am very thankful I had help today and didn't actually have to do anything other than keep JoAnn out of the room while they were killing the bugs.

After the whole cockroach problem was solved it was time for JoAnn's nap, which I had a hard time wanting to put her down even though I kept telling myself that there were less bugs now than there were 30 minutes before and I would have been totally fine putting her down before. I guess it just proves ignorance is bliss.

He's smiling

I have been trying to get a picture of Isaiah smiling for a few days now, but every time I have the camera he usually is either sleeping or crying. Well, tonight at dinner I was holding him and he started smiling, so I quickly grabbed the camera and snapped away. Unfortunately, the only picture I got of him with a smile the camera was a little too close for the flash and it sort of washed him out. I am going to keep trying, but I just love his smile so I had to put this up. You can't see it in the picture, but he has the cutest little dimple. He is really starting to smile a lot, so hopefully I will get a better picture soon.