Ryan's Class Christmas Project

 Another first grade mom sewed 90 fabric bags and the parent were all asked to send in items or money to purchase items so that the kids could each pack a bag for some elementary students in a less fortunate school.  I was proud of Ryan for being so excited about this project-he went shopping with me and we got pens, pencils, crayons, markers, a pencil sharpener, erasers, some snacks, and a toy.

 I went shopping with the mom who sewed all the bags and we used the money other parents sent in and then divided the goodies between the 3 first grade classes.  We put the items in chairs and let Ryan and his classmates go around to all the chairs and pack their bags.  Each bag has a tag with a child's name on it and when they finished packing all the 1st graders wrote "from" and their name and could draw a picture on their tag.

 Ashley was not to be left out and of course, wanted to pack a "pink" bag!  Which toy should I choose?

I think all the children felt good about having done something for someone else that day!

Top Ten Lists

Top 10 Things I miss about the USA:

10.  One stop shopping like Wal-Mart and Target and the selections of things that are available there

9.  The independence of driving myself places

8.  Playdates at the park with my kids’ friends from home

7.  Our church family at home-though we have found a church we enjoy attending here-Victory Alabang that meets at Festival Mall

6.  Public restrooms stocked with toilet seats, toilet paper, paper towels, and soap-see #4

5.  Being able to order things from Amazon and not pay ridiculous shipping prices

4.  The thickness, quality and availability of all paper products-napkins (I ordered 5 burgers, 5 drinks, and other stuff at a Wendy’s here and they gave me 3 napkins!)  paper towels, scrapbook, construction, and wrapping paper, not to even comment on toilet paper!

3.  The Changing 4 seasons we had in South Carolina-I didn’t appreciate/enjoy this as much as I should have

2.  Chick-Fil-A-a southern Christian chicken fast food restaurant that has AWESOME food!

1.  Family and Friends-though our ooma telephone device makes this better because for a flat rate each month I can call as often and talk as long as I like with no guilt

Top 10 Things I love about Manila-

10.  Never running out of malls to explore and celebrating Christmas for 4 solid months

9.  Support, encouragement, message boards, and friends from ALIG and American Women’s Club

8.  Fun day trips like Ark Avilon Zoo, Manila Ocean Park, and Enchanted Kingdom

7.  The many really nice people I have met so far-Filipinos and other expats

6.  Never having to look for a parking space or walk from one in the rain-thanks to my driver!

5.  A very spacious house

4.  It is really cool to live in a foreign country on the opposite side of the world-opportunities to see and do things that you would have never otherwise gotten to do

3.  Not having to wash dishes, clean, or do laundry-thanks to my house helper!

2.  My kids schools

1.  Year ‘round swimming, a pool in our own backyard, and someone else who takes care of it

Memories

I have been doing Christmas baking for a dessert party we are having with people from Greg's ofice and I have been baking and making lists of what I still need to bake.  This reminds me of my mom because we used to have grand Christmas baking days to make things for family, friends, neighbors, and teachers at school. 

I have also been missing my Aunt Lynda in Norcross because I made a pound cake today and the recipe is from her and she is the one who taught me how to make it.  We had "pound cake school" at her house one day after Christmas the year I got a Kitchenaid stand mixer as a gift from Mom and Dad-I was in high school.  I also miss my mixer!  The handmixer that I bought myself here is so wimpy and sad!  It has gotten tired and quit on me 3 times in the course of mixing up a pound cake.

Aunt Lynda is also the one who introduced us to making "buckeyes" at Christmas.  I only remember mom and I making them one Christmas because a recipe seems to make thousands and it seems to take forever to roll them out and dip them.  For anyone who (very sadly) does not know what a buckeye is-it is a peanut butter and powdered sugar, butter and lots of other good stuff ball and then you dip the balls in melted chocolate.  They are wonderfully delicious but I don't know how well they would survive the heat and humidity of Manila.  Real buckeyes are nuts that grow on trees sort of like chestnuts.

Aunt Lynda is actually my dad's cousin-they were very close growing up and I grew up across the street from them.  My mom was also a dear friend of Aunt Lynda's sister-my Aunt Ann who lives in Colorado.  Another funny Aunt Lynda story (that I tell on myself-not her) is that my very first Sunday in "big church" as a child, Aunt Lynda was in the choir.  At the beginning of the service, the choir walked down the aisles from the back of the church and up into the choir loft.  I gave them just enough time to get settled and all to be nice and quiet before standing up on the pew and yelling "Hey Aunt Lynda!"  I'm sure my mom wanted to crawl under the pew.  The pastor turned around to my aunt and asked her if she was going to say hello!  She waved to me.  Can you tell yet that I grew up in a small town???

Well, we will have to see how the pound cake turns out-between the sad mixer and my slightly off temperature oven-maybe it will be okay.  I'll let you know later!

We really do all "speak English"

I asked at the mall this weekend where there was a store that sold movies.  The lady at the mall information desk gave me good directions and told me the name of the store was ODC.  So I was following her directions and had the kids helping me look for a store with this 3 letter name.

I laughed to myself when I got to the store and saw that its name was "Odyssey" you know "ODC."  As Greg says to me often (a popular phrase among the Americans at his office) "we are not in Kansas anymore!"

Enchanted Kingdom

This sign was one of the first things that Scott saw when we went in the park and he immediately asked if he could do it.  We have seen kids do this other places since being in Manila and he had watched but never wanted to before.

Scott had a blast!

Then Ryan surprised us by wanting to do it too and he loved it also!

 We all laughed about how his hair would fly up when he was coming down and we think he even went a little higher than Scott because he is a little lighter.  Ashley was going to do it but said the trampoline was too hot when she got up there on the black in her sock feet-maybe next time.  I think we are going to go back while Bev is here for her Christmas visit.

 This roller coaster was something all 5 of us enjoyed and we rode it A LOT of times!

 Ryan in the hot air balloon basket-above.  Below is Greg, Scott and Ashley on the same ride

 Scott and Ryan in the bumper car together

 The log ride-sadly, Ashley was not tall enough to ride this, but Greg and I both rode it once with the boys.  He went first

 They had a great place to watch and take pictures-so Greg and Ashley got pictures of me and the boys at the bottom of the drop-nice and wet

 The next 2 pictures are our views from the ferris wheel!

 Scott and Ryan in the bumper boats

 Ashley and I rode a swan pedal boat instead

 My little girl who makes me laugh!

 We watched a performance by the Spanish dancers

 We found the section of rides for younger kids and Scott was checked on these to make sure he wasn't too tall to ride them!  Ryan drives a dinosaur

 All 3 in a dinosaur egg ferris wheel

 The expression on her face is hilarious and it made me think of my dad seeing how much she enjoyed "flying this airplane"

We were there from when the park opened at noon-as soon as we figured out how/where to buy our tickets and get in until they closed at 7:00pm and we all had a great time!  This was definitely one of our favorite day outings in Manila.

Ashley at Ballet

 This was Ashley's first Tuesday at Ballet class-she completely surprised by becoming a leech attached to my leg when we first got there.  For the first half of the hour long class I kept trying to push Ashley away from me and up with the class standing in two rows.  She would sometimes try to copy what the teacher was doing.  Halfway through, the class takes and break and the above picture is Ashley sitting with the other girls when they came back into the studio after getting a drink from their moms or yayas.  Everyone else's moms and yayas were sitting out in the lobby-I was the only one in the studio.  We met the teacher during the break-she was a substitute and named Teacher Checka. 

 Ashley got much more into the action after the break and has enjoyed class since this one and now I sit in the lobby with the other yayas and moms watching through the windows. 

 Teacher Checka is telling Ashley how to do a bourre across the room-little steps up on tippy toes with her arms above her head.

 This one where Ashley is holding out her skirt is doing their ballet walk across the room.

 They finish each class by doing some activities in a circle.

Of course, the best part to a 3 year old is that she got a sticker at the end of class-pink and with strawberry shortcake no less! 

Some other funny things about ballet-when I signed her up and asked about what she needed to wear.  I knew that Ashley would love it when I was told "all pink."  However trying to wiggle a sleepy warm 3 year old into a pair of tights is NOT fun!  She says they feel funny-because she doesn't remember all the way back to last winter when she wore them to church and they felt good because they kept her legs warm.  They also have seams on the toe which she says feel funny in her shoes that she wears until we get to the studio and put on ballet slippers.

Her regular teacher is named Teacher Mann-when I told Ashley this, she screwed up her face looking very confused and asked "is she a girl?"  I explained that yes I thought so.  We have met her and she is a girl and was out Ashley's first couple of classes because she was in Malaysia with some other ballet students who were dancing in a competition and they won first place.  Ashley goes to ballet on Tuesdays and Thursdays and seems to enjoy Teacher Mann and Teacher Checka and being with her new little pink ballet friends.  There is going to be a December recital that Ashley will not be part of but she will be in the next one in March-I'm sure that will be interesting and fun to watch!

Our fun day off-in the middle of the week

It's always nice when you get an extra day off to spend with your family! 

November 30th is Bonifacio day.  It honors the birth of Andres Bonifacio, a Filipino nationalist and revolutionary who led a movement that sought the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Philippine Revolution in the late 1890s.  He is one of the most recognized of the national heroes here.  Now you can say that you have learned something today-probably!

We had such a fun, nice day.  I made bacon and eggs for breakfast (thank you, Parker for showing me to bake it in the oven so it's not so messy and doesn't burn or stay limp because I didn't cook it long enough). 

We listened to Christmas music-starting with David Carnes (pianist at Mt. Vernon Baptist in Atlanta) and then moving on to Alvin and the Chipmunks-a genetic love of mine from my dad.  Greg can't stand them and threatens to break the cds but the kids and I love them!  They were dancing around the den with my jingle bell decorations and singing.

We decorated our fake Christmas trees-the large one we bought here and the small one we brought from home.  Sadly the live one we ordered is in sad shape.  It smells pretty good-though not as good as the frasier firs we usually buy.  It is dropping needles so badly that it would be a stick if we tried to decorate it so we are just enjoying it's smell and won't order one next year.  I have a whole other post that I plan to do about our tree and ornaments.  As always it was fun to watch the kids get excited about their ornaments and seeing how the tree turns out when largely decorated by children.

We found a place to go bowling and had a great time.  The bowling alley was at (you guessed it) a mall!  Though not one that we've been to before and not super nice but they have a nice bowling alley-clean, family oriented and nice people who ran the place.  We have played our wii bowling game and took the boys bowling once "for real"  This was the first time Ashley had actually participated.  It was super funny to watch her say "I do it myself" and pick up her 6 pound ball and carry up to drop at the end of the lane.  Then she would stand (for quite a while because it was rolling so slowly) jump and dance around while watching to see how many pins she knocked down.  Greg was the winner of both games with Ryan, Scott, and the team of Ashley and Mommy all scoring close totals.

We finished the day with cuddles on the sofa while watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas-the animated one.  What a fun day off and the weekend is just around the corner!