Christmas Decorations around town

This is just a taste of what we see around town!

Entrance to Festival Mall-the one with the roller coaster inside and our church

 The courtyard at Town Center-closer to our neighborhood entrance

 One of my grocery stores-Makati Supermart-they also have blue and white snow themed decorations outside the store.  This store is attached to Town Center

 These are decorations for sale inside National bookstore

 This is inside the mall atrium at Town Center

 These are pictures in Shopwise-a store a Festival Mall-decorations for sale, Scott thought these polar bears were really cute and then of course Ashley wanted a picture too.  They were much cuter in real life-the pictures don't do the polar bears justice.  But I still laugh at all the snowflakes, polar bears, snow and other cold weather decorations that are sold/used here.

Fluor Expat Wives Brunch

I did not realize how transient the people in our lives here would be-in a community with lots of expats there is a TON of coming and going.  So two other wives and I got together to host a brunch for all the Fluor ladies to help us get to know each other better.  Below are the invitations that I made.

 Here is my ultimate death by chocolate brownie cake that I made for the first time for this party-It was good!  Here is a link to the recipe

http://blog.babygizmo.com/2012/03/ultimate-death-by-chocolate-brownie-cake/

 Tina's dining room where we set up all the food

 Lots of ladies and lots of talking!

 Delicious food-baked spaghetti, frittata, chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, pumpkin muffins, cream cheese wontons with Thai sweet chili sauce for dipping, banana bread and salad.

 Eating, visiting, and relaxing out on the porch

 Joanna getting dessert ready!

 Love the pretty flowers that were floating in Tina's pool!  It was a really fun get together!  Tina and her husband Dan also host the Thanksgiving dinner that we went to last year and this one.

Asia CEO awards night

Greg went to a work function recently and the group of Fluor people that went had a great time together at this Asia CEO awards night.  The General Manager of the office here WON!  so everyone was very excited for him!  Fluor also got some other awards but I can't remember all the categories now.  So here are some pictures of Greg and people from his office all dressed up in their fancy best!

 Someone made Greg pose under this picture-I thought it was great!!!!

 All the ladies together in their lovely dresses!

 Seated in the theater waiting for the program to begin

 Above-Dan with his CEO award and the whole Fluor group!

Ryan's Class Chapel

 Ashley, Hannah, and Pete-ready to watch Daniel and Ryan's class presentation

 They are all ready!

 These are some girls and the Music teacher leading the kids in singing

 Below is Ryan's friend Daniel-the school's chapel theme for this year is being a peacemaker and their class talked about the Golden Rule.  Several children talked about examples of how you can do unto others as you would have them do to you-Ryan talked about being a good listener to your friends.

 They also sang 2 songs

 At the end of the program one of the boys led the kids in a dance!  and they all whipped out their sunglasses!  It was "the cool surprise at the end" that Ryan wouldn't tell me about ahead of time

 They all get certificates of participation at the end

 Afterwards one of the teachers gets up and announces birthdays for the week.  This week it was the principal's birthday.  Dr. Southerland is on the left end and standing next to him is, I think, the smallest child in the whole school!

 Here is a sign for his birthday!

 Brent pride awards for the week

 Ryan and Daniel after the program

 The class did a terrific job!  Mr. Marozzi is a wonderful teacher!  When they studied about germs, they looked at them under a microscope and then drew what they looked like magnified.  They had a story about Henry and Mudge going camping and he brought a tent to the classroom and had the kids help him set it up and they got to read inside it!  They do an estimation jar every week and whoever has the closest estimate gets all the candy in the jar to share with classmates.  They earned a party recently for getting compliments from special area teachers about their behavior so they ate ice cream and watched a movie-pictures to follow soon.  Ryan is learning a lot and really enjoying school this year!