Ondoy

Last Friday Daniel and I went out for a few hours and when we got home I saw just a few minutes of one of the local news channels, which I never watch mainly because half of it is usually in Tagalog and I don't understand Tagalog. Anyway, they mentioned a tropical storm that was headed for Luzon and said it would make landfall late that night. So, I planned taking time Saturday to catch up on the blog and write some about the trip that Daniel's brother had just made to Manila, since that meant rain most of the day. It wasn't long after I woke up on Saturday that I realized this wasn't our average tropical storm that we get in the area. Usually at least once a month between June and November we get a storm in the area and the only way you can tell is that it rains a lot for a few days. This storm didn't just rain though, it literally was monsoon type rain for at least 24 hours straight, without any breaks. It didn't even lighten up a little during that time. It was crazy. Well, about mid morning our power went out and it stayed out until Monday night. (Sort of, we had a brief few hours of power Monday morning before it went out again.) Anyway, we live in a building with a back up generator, so I wasn't too worried. I know from the last time we got hit by a huge storm that the generator wouldn't be able to run for 24 hours straight and that it would need to be turned off every few hours, but I remember from 3 years ago, that it was enough to recharge computer batteries and phones and keep the refrigerator cold. So, I really wasn't too worried until Sunday afternoon when we learned that the generator finally broke and they weren't able to fix it. They actually managed to get it fixed mid morning on Monday for a few hours of electricity before power was restored that night. All of this to say we were very blessed and that was our biggest problem during resulting from the storm.

On Sunday morning when the generator had stopped to rest for a few hours Daniel and I decided that we would try to find a Starbucks or some coffee shop that was open and get out of the house a little. We did not realize at that point how bad things had gotten on Saturday. Immediately as we were leaving the condo building this is what we saw in the road...


There were trees down all along the road out of our subdivision, but once again we didn't really realize the full extent of the damage. Once we got out of our subdivision one thing we began to understand more that this was not just another bad tropical storm or typhoon. We soon saw a major road near us that was completely flooded. It is not unusual for this area to flood, but it is usually still passable, Sunday it was not. We also learned that the only other major road leading into metro Manila was also not passable. Where we live was completely cut off from the rest of the city until Monday when waters finally started to recede. This is when the full weight of what had happened started to dawn on me. Until we moved here I have never lived anywhere near a coastal area, so I don't have many years of experience with tropical storms or hurricanes or typhoons, but I will say I have never seen flooding like I have seen in the few days after the storm. Nor have I heard of so many people we know loosing literally everything they have due to the floods. I am very thankful that we live where we live. Our condo is built up a little on a hill and the area we live in is uphill when you are coming from the city, so our immediate area received some damage, but compared to what I've heard and seen in pictures, it is nothing compared to the damage that people only a few miles from where we lived suffered. Right now, we are still trying to figure out the best way to help others who were more severely affected than us. In fact right now Daniel is meeting with a man who helps him with some of the basketball ministry to see how we can help. All I know is that he texted Daniel and said he and his family lost everything. I cannot imagine what they are going through right now. Please pray with us that God will give us direction on how best to help those affected and that even through all this that He will be glorified.

Anyway, I am sure I will write more in a few days about how things seem to go, especially since there are two more storms in the Pacific that seem to be headed our way later this week and early next week. But in the mean time here is a short video of the golf course that we live across the street from and the damage that was done to the fence along the road. I know you can't see it in the video, but somewhere in the river a car had gotten swept away and is stranded.




This is JoAnn on Sunday morning after driving around with Daniel and I for a couple hours once we finally found a Starbucks that was actually open. I think she was just grateful to be out of the car.

Just call me lazy

Alright, so I don't really have a good excuse for going a month before writing anything new on here other than I have been too lazy to do it. It actually started when Daniel and one of our neighbors got me into reading a series of books that I ended up spending pretty much all of my spare time reading for a couple weeks. Then I just got really lazy and the pregnancy hit me full force with a few weeks of pure exhaustion and I spent all my spare time sleeping. I keep getting the question from women whether I feel different this time and usually my answer is that I don't remember being this tired with JoAnn. It started pretty early on even before I knew I was pregnant and has hit me from time to time ever since. Really there have been a few other things that have been different, but not much. Anyway, rather than continuing to ramble about nothing in particular here are a few things that stand out from the last month...

This past weekend we went to one of the local college basketball games and took JoAnn with us. Daniel is pretty close with one of the kids that plays for one of the big colleges and we usually try to go to a few games each year. Since sports have been such a big part of both Daniel and my lives, its fun to be able to finally have her old enough to go with us. This was a pretty big game since it was the last regular season game and was between the #1 and #2 teams and it ended up coming down to the last few seconds. I know I've mentioned this before when writing about these games but they get insanely loud with the bands and crowd cheering, which I think got a overwhelming for JoAnn at ttimes, but as long as we had food and/or drinks for her she seemed to have a great time and actually would clap and yell "Go!" along with the rest of the crowd. The only embarrassing moment for me came with the man that was sitting next to us got a big bucket of popcorn and I had an awful time trying to balance watching the game and scolding JoAnn for begging the man for his food.

Speaking of embarrassing moments , I have decided that now is the time for us to get JoAnn out of diapers. So, I went to the store to buy a toddler potty for her. I had started potty training JoAnn a few months back and ended up taking a break from it when I realized it wasn't going to happen in time for our trip to the US over the summer and I didn't want to worry about it while traveling. Anyway, this past week has been the first time since we got back that I have felt like I had enough energy to try it again and I wanted to do it a little differently this time so I needed another potty. Well, I went to SM (somewhat similar to a Walmart style store), grabbed a cart and headed to the baby section. For a few weeks now JoAnn refuses to sit in the actual seat part of the shopping cart and will only sit in the big part of it, so she was in there when I finally decided which one I wanted and placed it in the cart. Next thing I know I was headed to the check out line when JoAnn had taken the seat and was sitting on it in the middle of the cart and threw a big fit when I tried to take it out in order to pay for it. I really wish I could have gotten the picture of her riding around in the cart sitting on the potty in the middle of a crowded store. It was pretty funny, but at the same time slightly embarrassing for me since Filipinos seem to have no problem staring and laughing.

Another thing that I really am kicking myself for not getting a picture of is when JoAnn managed to get herself stuck in one of her dresser drawers. She is only supposed to have her pacifier when she is sleeping, so we have caught her numerous times getting her pacifier down from the top of her dresser while she thinks we aren't looking. So, one day I had put it all the way on the back of the dresser and she pulled up one of her chairs to the toddler sized table and chairs we got her for her birthday and climbed up on the chair to get it. I guess it was so far back that she still couldn't reach it because after a few minutes of silence all I heard coming from her room was a very soft and calm "Help Mommy, help." When I got to her room I found her standing in one of the drawers with the chair knocked over below her and pacifier in hand.

I am sure there are a few more stories that I'm not thinking of from this past month, but its getting late, so here are a couple pictures from the past month (sorry they don't really go with the stories, but I hate to put up a post without pictures).

This has become one of JoAnn's favorite things to do...wash her hands. I don't know why, but at least I don't have to argue with her about it.


This is from a birthday party that JoAnn went to for one of the girls that we spend a lot of time with. She played with this noise maker for probably ten minutes and never once got it to work. I kept laughing when she would blow so hard and nothing happened.


Alright one last thing, mainly because I want to have it documented for future reference when it happened. I started to feel the baby move a couple weeks ago. I think feeling the baby move is one of my favorite parts about being pregnant, so I was really excited when I felt it.