Daniel's and My outing

Okay, I actually uploaded this picture a week ago and then forgot that I hadn't written anything. Probably because things got a little busy for a few days.

So, for last weeks post, this is a picture of Daniel and our friend Dave. Dave is probably one of only a couple musical people I know and he is trying to record a couple songs that he wrote. I haven't heard any of them, but he was pretty excited and asked Daniel if he wanted to come to the studio for a while as he was trying to record. So Daniel and I decided to just make a whole day out of it and spend the day together. At least the afternoon that is. Daniel had his last dentist appointment that morning, so he did that while I went to a nearby mall and hung out. Poor Daniel had a pretty rough time with the dentist for the last couple months. Turns out he needed a root canal, but the first guy we went to said he needed a crown and didn't mention the root canal until halfway through the crown. Then once they started the root canal they said they needed to do oral surgery since there wasn't a big enough piece of tooth left to put a crown on...at this point Daniel had been to this same dentist three or four different times, was getting tired of going and really frustrated that everything he did seemed to go wrong. So, he decided to get a second opinion and that was when we ended up going to a lady whose office was a little farther away, but both of us had great experiences with her. She is a really nice Christian lady who managed to finish up his tooth and get the other cavities fixed for Daniel. It wasn't that we didn't think the other guy was a nice man, but things just seemed to go smoother with this other lady. All that to say it seemed like Daniel spent more time going to the dentist for the last few months than I have during my whole life.

Okay, back to the music. By the time we got to the studio they had already started recording some of it and Daniel and I got to see how it is done. Actually it was pretty cool to watch. Especially since I have NO idea what goes on in the music world. As it turns out this studio was owned by a local musician that is fairly well known, so when we stopped by we got to meet a couple members of a Filipino band called Six Cycle Mind. It was pretty cool, especially since Daniel loves to listen to Filipino music and I knew a couple of their songs. Yes, I will admit that I was slightly star struck. Slightly. We probably should have gotten a picture with the guys from the band, but we didn't. Oh well. This is Daniel and Dave in the studio.


Okay, now we are on to the last Friday in May. There are 3 guys here right now that are volunteering for a month and they are helping at a couple different places that are with our mission and one of those places is the Arthur Center. So, Daniel had spent that whole week helping them build a mini basketball full court at the Arthur Center and on Friday one of them told Daniel he hadn't felt well for a few days and after being here as long as we have one of the realizations we have come to is that when you are here and have a fever and are vomiting, you don't mess around. Things can go from bad to much worse fairly quick, so Daniel took him to a hospital. It's cheap and they should be able to tell him what kind of infection it is. Anyway, he gets there and tells the doctor his symptoms and they decided since he just came over from the US that they needed to check to see if he had the swine flu! So, they put him in quarantine for a few hours. When Daniel first left to take him to the hospital he called and told me he would be a couple hours late. When they decided they needed to quarantine the poor guy, Daniel called and said this could take all day. Turns out it sort of did. They got to the ER at around 1 and didn't get home until about 9 pm with the diagnosis of a bacterial infection and some antibiotics. At least now I feel a little bit better about them trying to contain an outbreak if it ever becomes bad here.

Alright, its getting late, so I am going to stop there. Hopefully, I will get to the post I meant to write tonight tomorrow.

Catching Up

I must admit that I am getting much worse at keeping up with the blog. Once I let it go for a while without posting, I have a hard time convincing myself that I need to start writing on it again. Then with soccer still going, it was difficult to actually find enough time to sit down and catch up since most of JoAnn's nap time was spent on the soccer field and doing it while she is awake just doesn't seem to work out the greatest. Well, now that soccer finished this past weekend, I am trying to get caught up on the things I just didn't want to bother with before and I have finally made it to this. I will say I was shocked that I had let it go for almost a month, though. Oops. Well, I will write what I have pictures/videos for. I am sure I have forgotten a million cute little stories of Jo, but that is what I get for waiting so long.

Lets start with this.

I know its a little blurry, but this is from the weigh in for the Manny Pacquiao fight that was on May 2 (US time, it was Sunday morning on May 3 for us). This was the first time I have heard Daniel actually consider skipping church in a long time, but we ended up going and Daniel didn't even miss the fight. Daniel was so excited during this whole week leading up to the fight. It is pretty funny to me how much Daniel has come to be a fan of Pacquiao, but that is the way he tends to do sports...all or nothing. This jacket is from one of our friends that is on furlough. He helped get them to the Las Vegas for one of the guys here who made the jackets for Pacquiao in exchange to keep a few of them and Daniel ended up with one. At first Daniel was quite skeptical of whether it was actually legit, but while he was watching the weigh in he saw that Manny actually was wearing the jacket. So of course, Daniel wouldn't take it off all day even though it was like 90 degrees.

I know you really can't see much in this picture, but it was the best I could do. I really wanted to remember it because it was so cute. This is from a Sunday morning at church when JoAnn was sort of acting up, so I took her outside where there were two little boys that had decided they didn't want to sit with their parents during the service. JoAnn usually is pretty shy around other people she doesn't know, but within just a few minutes the three of them were having a great time together. They would chase each other around and take turns climbing on things and share whatever "toy" they found. (I use the term "toy" loosely, it was more like a stick or bug that they found.) It was so cute. I can't believe that she is getting old enough to truly play with other kids and not just stand there watching them.

This video is probably my favorite thing on this post though. I woke up on Mother's Day to have Daniel bring JoAnn in and do this. It was so cute, I made Daniel help me get it on video later that day so we could send it to our moms. I know it is probably one of those things that is super cute to me and cute but nothing amazing to others. It is just there is nothing like having your daughter come up to you and say this for the first time.




This picture is probably my second favorite thing on this post. First, she just looks so stinking cute with her bookbag on. Second, I don't have to be the one carrying all of her toys in my purse anymore. I was going to meet with one of the women here and JoAnn wanted to bring some of her toys, but I wasn't going to bring my purse since we were just going a few doors down the hallway when I saw her bookbag in the middle of a stack of toys. Perfect solution. We now take this everywhere.


I love JoAnn's face in this picture. It was actually meant to be a picture of her hair, but turned more into a long photo shoot of trying to get her to look at the camera in a way so we could see her hair. It didn't work. Daniel and some of the men had a men's night so one of the other wives and I went out to eat with her daughter and JoAnn. Her daughter is in 5th grade and loves to play with Jo, so when I got to their place a little early she had a beauty salon moment and put JoAnn's hair in a ponytail. I called her Pebbles the rest of the night since it stood straight up, but it was cute.


Now for the last picture. Yeah, I am almost caught up! Anyway, I have decided with us going back to the US for a wedding in about a month, it is time to get a tan. So, JoAnn and I have been spending a lot of time out at the pool lately in the mornings and this is one of the new toys I have pulled out for her to play with. It is actually one that I have had for a while now, but forgot it was in the closet. She loves it so much. I have never been able to put her in any sort of floatation device and not have her cry. So, I really wasn't expecting much different with this, but for some reason she will sit and float around forever in this thing. It is great. As if that isn't enough, it has also become one of her favorite toys inside the house too. She loves to just sit in it. She doesn't do anything, just sits in it. Pretty funny and cute.


Okay, one last story and then I am done...On Monday nights lately Daniel has been running a basketball tournament at the Arthur Center and is gone the whole night. This past Monday, JoAnn was playing with her crayons and coloring book when she all the sudden decided that she wanted to know what a green crayon tastes like. So she took a big bite out of the one she was holding. It didn't take long for me to jump up and run over to her, dig whatever was in her mouth out and then take her to the bathroom to try to get the rest of it off her teeth by brushing them. While we were in the bathroom she managed to get her hands on the shampoo and while I was washing my hands and putting the toothbrush away, she tried to eat the shampoo. I managed to keep her from getting any in her mouth but in the process spilt it all over the floor. (Which reminds me of another story, I will tell that in a minute.) As soon as I got the shampoo away from her, she took off running, which gave me a few minutes to clean up the mess. As I was finishing she came walking back to where I was with her bowl from dinner in her hands and was eating what she didn't eat for dinner. It took her three trys, but she finally got it right.

The other story and I really promise this is the last one. I forget what day it was, but I had just gone grocery shopping and bought a new bottle of oil since we had run out. Later that night (right before bed time) JoAnn was playing in the kitchen and a couple minutes later I heard a thump and then her screaming. Of course I took off running to find out what happened and thank goodness I stopped running before I actually got to her, because she had managed to get the bottle of oil, which stupid me had bought one with a lid that flips open instead of one that had a screw on lid. She had dumped almost 2 cups of oil all over the kitchen floor and since our entire place is ceramic tile flooring it created one of the most slippery floors I had ever walked on. I immediately picked her up and handed her to Daniel to throw in the shower so I wouldn't get oil all over the rest of the house and then just stared at the oil for a few minutes. My thoughts went something like this...

What do I do now, I can't just leave it until Ate comes to help me clean it up. I am not going to ruin a perfectly good towel to clean this up, paper towels? I know, flour!

I had seen a clip from Martha Stewart just a day or so before where she mentioned using corn starch to get oil stains out of clothes. I knew I didn't have enough corn starch for that much oil, but when I looked in the pantry the flour was right next to the corn starch, so I decided that was the next best thing. I dumped all the flour I had left on the oil and within minutes all the oil was off the tile and I had quite a large ball of dough. Now getting all the flour off the floor was a little more tricky, but that I was okay with leaving it until our Ate came the next day and she helped me clean it up off the floor, which took a little more scrubbing.

Alright I think this post is long enough.

Clowning around in Malaybalay

A little over a week ago one of our friends, Jeff, called Daniel and asked him if we would want to travel with him, another friend, Ted and a short term team to another island and see the children's home they have started there. We had gone with him and Ted a couple years ago when he was first thinking about starting a home in Mindanao, but haven't been back to see what has come of his efforts. So, when he offered I think both of us were pretty excited to get the chance to see it and to get out of the big city for a couple days. We quickly made arrangements for JoAnn to stay with some friends in Manila and packed our bags so we could leave early Wednesday morning. At 2 AM our alarms went off and we headed to the airport to fly to Cagayan de Oro and then drive to Malaybalay. Normally I dread driving right after I fly, but once you get outside of Manila, the Philippines is such a beautiful country that I was actually looking forward to the drive. There were mountains in the background and rivers that we drove over and green vegetation everywhere. Also one of the big things that I notice anytime I am outside of Manila is that even though the poor are still very poor, it is a different kind of poor. They usually don't live right on top of each other and are able to keep their places much cleaner. It really provides a little break from the sometimes overwhelming city of Manila. Here is a picture of Daniel and I on a bridge on the way to Malaybalay.


Once we got to Malaybalay, the group we were with did their first performance, which by the way was a group of clowns from Georgia. Here are a couple pictures to prove they were actually clowns.

Their second performance was at the children's home/christian camp. The children's home is on a piece of land that was donated to them and on the property closest to them they are helping build a christian camp for Filipinos in the area to use. It really is a neat place. This is a picture of the construction of the camp. In the future they are hoping to have a covered cafeteria, a building to house the campers, a covered basketball court and a soccer field. They have already started on the building to house the campers and the cafeteria area. The reason there is no grass is because they have leveled the ground to prepare for the soccer field and basketball court.

That picture is right off the pourch of the Children's home which is what this building is.


In the future this will have the ability to house 48 kids and they have plans to build a second building that would be able to house another 48 kids. There is really a lot going on and I must admit that I was really impressed with it. Daniel has worked with Jeff ever since we got to the Philippines, helping with the finances of the children's home that he started in Manila. So it was really neat to see what he has started in another area of the country.

That was all on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, we were able to spend some time meeting the local Filipinos that Jeff has helping him since he still lives in Manila. They are really a great group and I have a huge respect for them. We were also able to spend some time with the Moody's. They are a missionary family that we met in Manila. They lived here for six months before going back to the US for a few months and then when they came back they went straight down to Malaybalay to help coordinate all that Jeff has going on down there. All in all it was a great trip and it was great to get back to JoAnn after a couple days away.

On a side note this is Daniel and Jeff eating a local beef dish. It was supposed to be pretty good, but the bone was massive and they kept joking around that it reminded them of the Flintstones. I just thought it was a funny picture.

My Eight Legged Friend

I must admit that since we moved here almost four years ago, I have become more accustomed to bugs and insects than I ever thought I would. Now when I see ants, I usually get frustrated, but not grossed out. When I see a cockroach, I usually jump, but more because it startles me than because I am afraid of them. I actually enjoy watching the occasional gecko running on our walls and I barely notice the flies or moths or other flying insects that I don't really know what they are. However, I in all seriousness consider myself blessed by God since we haven't had rodents, snakes and until yesterday spiders. I have heard many stories of all of those things invading many people's houses here, but I had never found any in our places. I hesitate to say they haven't been in our places, just that we haven't seen any. Well, I take that back I have seen many daddy long legs in our apartments. Anyway, I guess God has figured that I am slowly being able to handle more of the vile creatures because yesterday I went to take a shower and looked at the curtain about 6 inches from me and saw this thing staring back at me...

I freaked out. Daniel was not home and JoAnn was asleep, so it was a little more subdued of a reaction, but nevertheless I FLIPPED OUT. You can't really tell much by the picture but this thing was HUGE and scary. It was large enough that I could actually see the fangs. I have seen these spiders outside and in the hallways, but have never looked closely nor taken time to study them. I of course was not going to try anything to get rid of it (that is part of the man's role in the home, as far as I am concerned), so I patiently waited for Daniel to get home and had him get rid of it. We soon found out that they are very fast spiders and it seems as if they can jump as well. It took Daniel a while and a lot of screaming from both of us, but he finally killed it (and we managed to wake up JoAnn during the whole commotion). I am now afraid to take a shower without inspecting every inch of it for bugs. I would look up what kind of a spider it is, but to tell you the truth I am afraid to find out what kind it is and if it is poisionous. I am choosing ignorance in this case.

Later in the day we took JoAnn out to a local mall (there are malls on just about every street corner here). It is a mall that has been here since before we moved to Manila, but is fairly new and has opened an even newer section in the last couple months. It was fun to walk around and check out the new stores and restaurants and JoAnn loved getting out and about. We found a really good Greek restaurant that had very good pita bread and hummus, which I was really excited about since I have never found hummus here before and it is something that all three of us love. Daniel had a gyro and I had the kabobs and both of us liked them very much. It isn't often that I find a restaurant I will crave, but I think I found one last night. Here is a picture of Daniel and JoAnn outside by the fountain between some of the buildings. JoAnn was so impressed by the "jumping" water that goes over your head on the bridge that I could not get her to look at the camera.

Happy Easter

At times, I feel like a terrible mom. Daniel and I have never been really into doing a lot on any holiday. We are not against it, its just that neither of us find the fun we have doing things off sets the clean up or the planning that goes into it. I am sure as JoAnn gets older that will change, but she is still young and has no idea that Easter is different from any other day. However, I do feel a little guilty every time I read about or see pictures of what others are doing on Easter. I think next year I will put a little more effort into celebrating it. Nevertheless, this year we didn't have Easter baskets, colored eggs, or an egg hunt. I barely even thought about getting JoAnn into an Easter dress. In fact, I didn't think about it until Sunday morning, but I still managed to find a dress she hasn't worn yet that looked sort of spring-ish (even though it is considered summer here right now).

She looks real happy about being in a dress doesn't she. She actually really liked it (especially the shoes she picked out to go with it), she is just upset that she had to stand still for me to get a picture. Anyway, when we got to church I was pretty happy that I didn't go all out on her dress since I think out of everyone at church she was one of two people who had on a skirt/dress. It always amazes me here how Easter seems to not be anywhere close to as big of a deal as Holy Week. I have always found it ironic that nothing is open on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Black Saturday but everything is open on Easter. I am not exagurating either. Daniel and I tried to go out for a little bit on Thursday and it took us 9 malls to finally get to one that had something other than a restaurant here or there that was open. The good thing was that since nothing was open and no one was working there was no traffic. It took us about 20 minutes to go where it usually takes more like an hour to get to. That part is great. Anyway, here are a few more pictures from Easter. Instead of doing anything big we just went out to eat at Outback for lunch after church. It was a fun treat for Daniel and I that we don't do more than a couple times a year.


When I asked Daniel if we could get a family picture since it was Easter this was his first attempt...not quite what I was thinking.

Keeping Busy

I would say we have been busy for the last few days, but truthfully I don't really know with what. That actually seems to happen a lot to me since I have had JoAnn. Well, here are some of the highlights that I do remember...

From last Friday until Wednesday, Daniel is coaching basketball at the Nike Elite Basketball Camp for the 4th year in a row. It is supposed to be for the best players in the country, so it is pretty neat for Daniel to develop relationships with some of the future college/pro stars in the Philippines. It isn't a Christian camp, but the people who organize it are Christians and encourage all of their coaches to share their faith with the players, so I always enjoy hearing how Daniel was able to share with the boys.

As far as JoAnn, she has picked up a new talent lately. She has figured out how to turn on the DVD player and put in her favorite cartoons. The other day we had a babysitter and Daniel said when we got home JoAnn was watching the Backyardigains. The babysitter told Daniel she had no idea how to put in a DVD and JoAnn was the one who turned it on. I actually completely believe her and am not surprised at all since JoAnn has done it many times while I have been busy cooking or something where I wouldn't be able to pay full attention to her. Its actually quite impressive how she picked it up without us ever trying to show her what to do. I guess she just got tired of waiting for us sometimes. This is her trying to turn it on before I saw her since I had told no.

Other than that this week is actually a fairly interesting week in the Philippines. With Easter in one week, this week will be full of the Catholic traditions that so many participate in. Most of the people I have talked to about the traditions don't really know why they are doing them other than it is something they have done since they were kids. This kind of stuff always fascinates me, so I am looking forward to this week. It is a great chance to explain some of the differences we have with the Catholic church.

I love spending time with my family

This past week hasn't been too eventful, which I am actually really thankful for. Last week was spring break for Faith Academy, which means two things. One, I haven't had soccer for 13 days and two, with so many people in our condo building connected to Faith it has been fairly quiet around the condos. That has left Daniel and I plenty of time to hang out with JoAnn and to watch basketball. (Okay, Daniel really is the one watching most of the basketball, but I have been paying attention to the scores since I filled out a couple brackets this year.) It also has left me plenty of time to go to Starbucks. I am not really a big coffee drinker, but I love to go, sit and talk. Plus when my favorite drink only costs about $3 for the largest size, it makes for a pretty cheap time out. I think I ended up going 4 times in 5 days. Anyway, this is my couch potatoe Daniel watching some basketball. Apparently waking up early to watch the NCAA tournament every morning wasn't enough basketball for him this weekend, so he caught quite a few NBA and PBA games on TV too.

This picture is from lunch today. She was eating and all of the sudden looked at me and put her arms in the air like this. I couldn't figure out what she was doing or why until all of the sudden it hit me that I had music playing and the song "Your Love is Strong" came on. I think Daniel must flex when he dances to this song with her. I'm not really sure, but she kept doing it whenever the song said "strong". It was pretty cute.


Okay, this story is a little longer. I just think this is a funny picture to have taken in the Philippines, as if it ever gets cold enough here to wrap up in a blanket. Really, I decided to take my almost two weeks off from soccer and try to potty train Jo. I know it seems really early, but she goes crazy every time I try to change her diaper and I got tired of her screaming no matter what I did. (And tired of paying for the diapers that I was forcing her to wear). So, I let her run around the house without a diaper and encouraged her to use the potty instead. Really, I didn't expect her to catch on too quick since she is still pretty young, but she actually does pretty well now. I definitely would not say that she is potty trained by any means, but she knows what to do. It's more of a question of wether she is willing to do it. Anyway, back to the picture. Since she figured out that she can run around without a diaper if she goes to the potty, she loves to not just go around without a diaper, but without any clothes. I really wouldn't care except our entire back wall in our appartment is made completely of windows and at night anyone can look in and that just sort of seems creepy to me to have anyone be able to see my daughter running around naked. So the other night she absolutely refused to put any clothes on, but would watch her cartoon with the blanket wrapped around her. Go figure.