Just like me

Yesterday I took JoAnn in for her one year check up. I would have liked to do it earlier, but her doctor was on vacation for a couple weeks and I guess God knows better than I do, because during those few days JoAnn had a horrible time with her allergies. I have mentioned to the doctor before how I think Jo might have asthma because after her allergies get bad I notice I can hear her chest "rattle" when she breaths for a couple days. In the past, by the time I get to the doctor it has gone away so she didn't seem to worry much about it and keeps telling me that I am a little more sensitive to those things because I have allergies and asthma. Then we talk about how to prevent her allergies from going crazy and she puts Jo on some medicine for them. This time, though, I went in right in the middle of her breathing problems and the doctor was able to hear what I was talking about. So she agreed with me that JoAnn probably has asthma and said there are two options for young children who have asthma here. First I could put her on a nebulizer, which is sort of expensive, but works great. The second option, which she recommended I try first, is to put her on an inhaler when she gets bad and in order to take it she would need what is called a spacer. I was some what familiar with them because when I was in high school I had tried using one. It is basically just a tube that you spray your inhaler into and then you put it over your mouth so every time you take a breath you breath in your medicine. It is supposed to be easier than using an inhaler correctly, therefore it makes the medicine more effective. So, when she said spacer I was picturing this 4-5 inch plastic tube like the one I had before. So of course on my way home, I stopped to pick up one of these "Babyhalers" as they are called. When the man at the pharmacy pulled it out, my face had to be hysterical. This thing is almost as tall as she is. It is HUGE. It works well, but it is really funny to see it up next to JoAnn's face so this morning I had to take a picture of her using it.

I also had to chuckle when the doctor was writing the prescriptions for JoAnn. If I hadn't been there, I would have thought the doctor was writing them for me. Everything she put JoAnn on I am on myself. It seems like the only difference between the two of us is that her eczema is not even close to being as bad as mine.

Daniel's Birthday

To celebrate Daniel's birthday we got a babysitter for a while and went to lunch with just the two of us, but saved the cake for later when Jo would be with us. Although it is customary here for the one having the birthday to provide the cake, I knew that was not a custom Daniel has picked up during the last three years. It would be up to me to provide a cake. No problem. Usually I just make a cake at home and do my best for it to look pretty, but for his birthday I decided with the two new Dairy Queens that have opened up near us it would be fun to get an ice cream cake. For some reason Daniel and I were out the other day and stopped at one of the new Dairy Queens and I mentioned to him my idea and he thought it was great. But with his birthday still a couple days away I decided not to get one while we were there, but I would go on his actual birthday while he was helping with a short term missions team for a few hours. It didn't hit me until it was time to head out to pick it up that there was a major flaw in my plan. We only have one car and Daniel was using it. Still no problem. I called a friend and was able to borrow a car. So I went to the closest Dairy Queen, which is where I realized the fatal flaw in my plan. This Dairy Queen (the only one out of the 4 I have been to here) doesn't carry ice cream cakes. Oops. All this to say instead of a birthday cake, Daniel got birthday Dilly Bars. Lucky for me I have a great husband and he didn't mind at all. Happy birthday Daniel!

Sorry about the picture. I can't figure out why but every time I upload this picture it gets turned on its side.

One down, one to go

With JoAnn's birthday over, it is now time to start thinking of Daniel's birthday, which is on Tuesday. (And its time to give a shout out to Eli too, who has a birthday coming up on the 28th. Happy birthday Eli!!! Wish we were there to celebrate it with you.) Usually I am horrible at coming up with birthday gift idea's for Daniel. There really isn't much he wants and when he does find something he wants he usually just goes and gets it himself. So, I usually end up getting a gift certificate to some sort of a book store. However, this year I had a great idea. In fact it was so great, I had to give it to him early before I told him exactly what it was. Well, he actually figured out what it was, but had no idea what it was going to look like....
With the help of one of his friends I got a blanket of all of Daniel's favorite sports teams made. I still have to do a little work on it, but so far I think it turned out pretty good.

JoAnn Turns One

Last night we celebrated JoAnn's first birthday at home with the three of us. Then today we had her party. Actually it was more just lunch with some friends. Here are some pictures from last night and today.

She didn't quite know what to do with the cake. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her with the candle lit, but I was too busy making sure she didn't try to touch the flame.


Her dress I was determined for her to wear for her first birthday party even if it was a little too big.
Ate Mylene and Ate Yannah got JoAnn some really cute shoes that do not squeak. Yeah!

For some reason JoAnn will never sit normal in her high chair more than about 30 seconds. She always has to have her leg off to the side. For some reason today she wanted to sit backwards. I guess we just weren't as interesting as the Filipina workers playing with her.


I think she is trying to figure out why we would light the cake on fire.

Tagaytay

With JoAnn's first birthday coming and me needing a break from the Manila scenery, I talked Daniel into taking us somewhere outside of the city for a couple days. At first we were going to try to go to a city north of Manila in the mountains, but we decided with a 1 year old we didn't really want to drive the 6 hours it would probably take to get there. Instead we opted for about a 2 hour drive and went to Tagaytay. It is the city right next to Taal Lake and volcano. Of course we had to pick the couple days when there is a tropical storm hitting northern Luzon and we are getting a lot of rain. In a way I am actually loving it though. Since we are at a pretty high altitude we have a ton of fog and you can't see any of the amazing views that are supposed to be around. However, the part that I love is that the temperature is great. I haven't felt much if any need to turn on the AC and have actually gotten a little cold outside. Its been great!

Earlier today we went to a place called People's Park in the Sky. It is an old Marcos' palace that is built on the top of one of the tallest mountains around. Back in the day it was supposed to be amazing. It has a view of the lake/volcano on one side and a spectacular view inland on the other side. I was reading about it online and it said that it was actually so over the top when they would throw parties there that it was one of the final straws that brought down the Marcos rule. Today you would never know. The views are still amazing, but it looks more like one of the WWII ruins than an old palace. Here are a few pictures from our trip (or should I say hike). In order to get there you have to park about 1/4 mile away and walk, but it is a very steep incline and Daniel and I both were sweating by the time we made it there.


You would never notice from the picture because of the fog but the view from here was great. This is actually overlooking the lake/volcano and what looks to be like a really nice golfcourse.

This is what the palace looks like now...
This is what it looked like back in the day...

Future Basketball Star

Today Daniel and I went to the mall for lunch and ended up doing some shopping for JoAnn's birthday. I had put a little thought into how we will celebrate it, but have not thought at all about a gift. So when we passed a toy store, I couldn't resist. I feel as though I am talking a lot about things that I am buying her, but really I don't think any of them cost more than $5 (or the equivlant). So, as I have been expecting sooner or later, when Daniel splurged and bought a three dollar basketball hoop today, I was not at all surprised to find it broken before we even got it out of the box. The backboard does not attach to the pole, but we taped it on and tried to teach JoAnn how to put the ball in the rim. I think she got the general idea, but struggled getting the ball to go in the direction of the hoop. Anyway, it wasn't long before the tape came loose and it was broken again. Since then JoAnn has enjoyed just carrying the hoop and backboard around.


On another semi-related note, JoAnn has gotten really good at throwing things in the toilet. Now if we can just make it a ball instead of a roll of toilet paper and the hoop instead of the toilet, I think we have the next female Micheal Jordan on our hands.

JoAnn's first shoes

I had to put this picture up because I just thought it was so cute.
I got Jo her first pair of shoes the other day and when I got home Daniel made a comment about how the next pair should be one that squeaks every time she takes a step. It seems like just about every Filipino kid has a pair and they drive me crazy, so I was determined to not get them for JoAnn. So, when I got the new pair out and put them on I was shocked to learn I had bought a pair of squeaky shoes without realizing it. Now JoAnn LOVES them so much I don't have the heart to take them away from her. She is always going over to the pile of shoes we have by the door and bringing them to us so we can put them on her. This picture is from her last night. Daniel went to a basketball game (more about that in a second) and while he was gone I let JoAnn run around in just her diaper since it was so hot and of course she had to wear her new shoes.

Yesterday was about as exciting of a day that Daniel could have. One of the missionary kids that Daniel is pretty close to, Kirk, plays basketball for a Filipino school named Ateneo and they had their season opener last night against their arch rival, De La Salle. The announcers on TV said there were 22,000 paying attendees at the game. Daniel and I went to a game between these two schools last year and I am not kidding when I tell you it was so loud I literally was screaming at the top of my lungs to Daniel and couldn't tell if I was actually making any sound. It was the most exciting game of any sort I have ever gone to. They are huge rivals and it always comes down to the last couple minutes of the game. Anyway, back to yesterday. As if it weren't enough for Kirk to give Daniel tickets two rows behind one of the baskets, two of Daniel's favorite sports people were there...Gilbert Arenas, and Manny Pacquiao. Now to let you know how exciting this was for Daniel, before he left he said to me that he was excited to see Arenas in person, but when Manny comes out he might just start screaming like a teenage girl. For those of you that don't know who he is, don't worry I didn't either until we moved here and he is in about one out of every 3 adds we see. Ok, not really, but it has to be close to that. He is a Filipino boxer and it is said that he might be the best pound for pound fighter ever. Being born and raised in the Philippines has made him a huge source of national pride and Daniel loves him. Then to top off a good night Ateneo won the game and he was able to get Taco Bell after the game since the arena was right next to the only mall in the Philippines that has a Taco Bell. What a day!

Celebrating the 4th

I think I have managed to get out of the house more in the last three days than I did the entire month of June. Wednesday was at the Land Transportation Office getting my Filipino driver's license renewed. I was a little nervous to do it because when we went to get our license the first time it took all day and it provided a heavy dose of culture shock on the 4th day after arriving in the Philippines. What I remember the most was having to take a drug test and they ask you to pee in a cup which is quite possibly the smallest cup known to man. Then to make it worse the toilet didn't have a seat nor did it flush, the door only went from my knees to my shoulders and it is right in the middle of the waiting area. Thinking back I can't believe I actually had to do that. So it is safe to say I was less than thrilled to have to go through the whole process again. I decided to try out a new LTO location this time. It was strictly for license renewals, so I was hoping it wouldn't take as long. It ended up being much longer than the 20 minutes that the sign on their door "guaranteed," but was considerably less than the last time. I was done in about 2 hours and to make it even better when I got the drug test the door went all the way to the ceiling and all the way to the floor and they even had a toilet that flushed. However, there was no sink to be found anywhere. I guess you can't have everything.

On Thursday I decided that three years without a 4th of July celebration was just too long, so I made Daniel take me to a grocery store where we could get some real American Johnsonville brats. There is a great store that is similar to Sam's Club about an hour away and they are the only place I know of that carries brats in the entire country. We loaded up and marveled at how many things they carried that were straight from the US. My other very exciting purchase (well maybe not for Daniel) was frozen blueberries.

Since we had the brats and I had made some potato salad we grilled out last night with our friends Josh, Dave, Michele and their kids. Or at least we tried. It was a beautiful day all day, but of course about 15 minutes before we planned on starting a storm came through and it rained pretty hard. So we moved the party inside. Then to end the evening we had a surprise fireworks show. There is a short term team here from the US helping one of the other missionary families and they put on a ten minute show of fireworks. It ended up feeling more like the 4th than I thought it would.

Tooth #3

JoAnn officially has three teeth now!!! I thought she was never going to get past the second tooth, which came in back in March. At this rate she will get all of her teeth sometime around her 3rd birthday.

She is continuing to work on her two new skills of walking and going from a sitting position to a standing one without holding on to anything. We put a video up of JoAnn walking on Youtube but I will add it here as well.