Malacanang Palace

 is said to be the White House of the Philippines.  Below is the museum and the guide who showed us around was great and did a terrific job teaching us a lot about the 15 Presidents of the Philippines.

 Greg laughed at us for wanting our pictures made behind the podium.  We did see the actual palace but weren't allowed to even take a picture of it.  That is where the equivalent to the Oval Office is located.  The palace grounds have many buildings and different Presidents have chosen to live in different buildings on the grounds.  The current President lives in a house across the Pasig River from the museum and rides a boat over to his office each morning.

 

 The wood and marble work throughout the museum was gorgeous!

 There were campaign materials on display

 along with Presidential decrees

 a room dedicated to the First Ladies, which of course was Ashley's favorite!

 This main gallery held a display for each President and some of their books, momentos.  We were told that as much as Immelda Marcos liked shoes, her husband Ferdinand liked books and many of his are still in the museum today.

 beautiful crystal chandeliers too!  We were told that during WW2 they took each piece apart and buried them and it took months to re-assemble-there were several in the museum alone

 There were pictures of many exciting visitors to the Philippines-Corazon Aquino with Mother Teresa in 1989

 We had our picture made with the statue of Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines current President and son of Corazon Aquino

 

Two pictures above is a picture of the current President made entirely from coffee beans and a picture of his mother in her favorite color, yellow.  Apparently she was very popular-there was a room in the museum dedicated to her.  Nearly everything in it was yellow, even the curtains

 a few outside pictures before we left

 

 Ashley took a nap on the way home and we laughed when we realized that we could actually SEE her drooling!

 We took Greg back to his office, went to the mall to get the boys haircuts and HAD to pose with these signs.

 I had a really tough job that I demanded they help with when we got home-we had to eat the rest (except 1 I saved for Greg) of Greg's ice cream birthday cake before we left for Donsol the next morning-they were happy to help!

Easter Party

 My friend Zen had a huge Easter egg hunt at her house on Monday and invited those of us who hadn't left town yet!

 She was so sweet to hide some easier ones inside for the younger crowd

 Zen-giving instructions about where to look

 Ashley looking in pillows

 Big kids looking outside

 Easter loot!  She hid hundreds of plastic Easter eggs with candies and treats inside!

 All the kids out by the pool

 We had Indian food snacks

 The kids had pizza and doughnuts and watched tv after their hunt

 our littlest egg hunter!

The New Yellow Belts

 3rd post of the day

The boys are very proud of their newly earned yellow belts in Taekwondo!

Silly Things

2nd post of the day

 Above is Ashley wearing a Big Mac t-shirt that was mine when I was little with all the contents of the Big Mac spelled out-I showed the kids the commercial on you tube and they thought it was a funny song of what was on Ashley's shirt

 Balloon playing-Ashley thought it was great to release the balloons I was blowing up for Ryan's party

Below Greg is playing basketball will a balloon in our den rafters

 It's really fun to watch what happens to the balloon when you let it go!

Greg had a birthday in March too!

 He was thrilled with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and as little fuss made as possible-you definitely will not catch him asking people in a restaurant to sing Happy Birthday to Greg!

So glad that my sweet husband had a birthday!