Last holiday pictures and random this week pictures and happenings:

One night and morning on holiday we had a good rain storm. The girls enjoyed the quietish morning inside at the kids' bookshelves.

Once the rain cleared, we had great fun with the windfall of flowers off the two frangipani trees. Such plain elegance in sight and smell a handful or two of these flowers are! So we decided that if we were to be flower fairies, this is the tree we would belong to. And tried to make some crowns for the fairy princesses.
We've been lent a new stroller to use as the two we brought with us have not survived the rough sidewalks and increasingly heavy passengers. Soon they will have to graduate to walking all the way, but right now Mommy is still happy to have a way to make sure where one kid is all the time when she's out and about with the two of them.
It is much sturdier than our own two, so hopefully it will last better. Jasmin likes the extra canopy so she can make her own little hideaway.

This last Sunday was missions Sunday at our church. They had a parade of flags held by members from different countries, making a very strong side point that the nations are right here in the Philippines. Each "delegate" spoke God's name over their country in a rousing declaration of God's glory to the nations.
Jasmin was in church with us, and kept asking me the rest of the service when the flags would wave again - it was the only thing she was interested in - but she still says church is better than Sunday School.

We're home and a few days back into work again. The journey home went fairly smoothly, except the last bit: we got off the bus in Ortigas, thinking it would be faster, but then we took over an hour waiting in line for a taxi, so maybe not. That wait was tough after a long afternoon of traveling for the girls. We were very glad to get home! Even though it was about 8 o' clock by then, they set too playing with EVERYTHING to say hello.

Yesterday was the girls' first day back at preschool. They were dressed and ready to go, hanging on the door handle a good 20 min before Mommy was ready to take them! And when we got in the gate, they left me with a delighted cry and took off for the door.

It is good to see that here is home enough for the girls, and indeed, Mommy and Daddy were quite happy to be "home." Thank you God. For a great holiday and a home to come back to.

Yesterday we went out of Calapan to explore a few more beaches. It was interesting to watch the scenery go by and observe the differences and similarities to Cambodia/Thailand. It is much more hilly/mountainous, there are many more trees, and the houses are more often cement block than wood. This is because it is illegal to cut lumber. Too bad Cambodia isn't as good at protecting its dwindling forests...

We first stopped at a "grey" sand beach. It was a beautiful long curve of beach. Mommy enjoyed beachcombing. But it was Jasmin who "accidentally" found this beauty of a shell.The waves were a little strong for the girls to enjoy the water, but there was plenty of sand and shells for building with.

And waves afforded a great opportunity for wave jumping and victory dances.

And the sun on the sand made Mommy's new sandals glow and brought a smile to her face as all things yellow always do.

We had planned to stay there all day, but come lunch time we discovered that the one and only restaurant there was closed, so we packed up and drove on another hour to a white sand beach where all the resorts are. We went past the main beaches and on to the end of the road. The last bit of the road was like a rough cart track along the side of a mountain, inspiring comments such as "Who ever thought to build a restaurant out here!?" But, one has to remember that until recently, all guests would have been arriving by boat...On our way in, a cloud of butterflies surrounded the truck. We stopped till they passed.
After a late lunch, this beach was also explored. Jasmin decided this was the best beach of all because it had pockets of wave-smoothed rocks. An inordinately big number of them were flat and almost perfectly round. Jasmin filled her pockets so full of them I wasn't sure she'd be able to stand up, or if the pockets would hold!

There were also caves to explore - but it took a fair bit of encouragement from Mommy to get them to dare enter!
The gentler waves here Grace enjoyed, but Jasmin couldn't be persuaded to leave her rock collection for more than one quick swim.
Needless to say, we all slept well last night!

Holiday thoughts:

Thursday:
We made it! The estimated 3.5 hour journey turned into 7, but there were no adventures that made it that long. Just traffic that delayed our bus so we missed the 3pm ferry and had to wait until 5. The crossing was a little rough - leftovers from the typhoon earlier in the week. Grace surprised me with being slightly seasick.
Friday:
We are the only guests so there is the perfect balance of people interaction and doing our own thing. We tried out one of the local beaches. A lonely place of thatched-roofed beach "picnic tables" inhabited by a goat and her two kids, a water buffalo, and two white dogs. The girls and Daddy immediately got busy with building in the sand. Daddy even let the girls bury him - and Mommy helped. Just about then, Mommy discovered our camera has no battery - despite being fully charged the night before we left Manila. Thankfully, Daddy's phone also has a camera.There were OMF team meetings here today and 2 kids were here most of the day. Grace, Jasmin, Ben and Lucie had a blast together. When they had to leave, Jasmin was crying because she wouldn't see them again. Mommy and Daddy comment wryly to one another that we are doing a great job of not getting any photos as usual!

Saturday:A fruitless search in the town center for a camera battery turned up some other needed things instead.
Later, following an invite from Ben and Lucie's dad, we went to their house on the beach for some more beach time. Jasmin cut open her big toe on a barnacled rock, but after some doctoring and a borrowed pair of water shoes, played on until dusk.
After supper we explore the basement pool/ping pong table, soon settling on pool as the ping pong table has a few too many unpredictable bounce-killing spots for any semblance of a real game.
Sunday:
Having been told the best place to go to church for an English service was the Chinese church, we made the effort to get up for their 8am service. They had a guest speaker - who spoke in Tagalog, and the Chinese used was something other than Cantonese or Mandarin. Thankfully, they provided an interpreter for us. It was a small church on a covered porch at the pastor's house. Grace and Jasmin were the only kids there - afterward we were told their sunday school was at 10:30 at the school... The saving grace of this church in the girls' eyes were the caged dogs out the front and the fish in the pond at the back.

This afternoon, we were taken to yet another beach. This one is obviously where everyone comes to hang out and swim. We immediately become the main attraction (after the small boat for playing with). Far from being intimidated, Grace and Jasmin thrived on all the attention! It wasn't long before Grace was bossing them all around, sometimes it looked very much like she was a small queen with her courtiers. I'm not sure how much real communication was going on though! Mommy was so pleased for them to have this very first time of real playing with Philippino children.


The boy with the white shirt and yellow bucket became the girls' protector. Despite the fact that he himself cannot speak, he managed to keep their beach toys from disappearing into the crowd, and tried to fulfill all their desires.Both Grace and Jasmin took time out of thier play to wade out to Mommy who was swimming to exclaim breathlessly, "I have friends! 10 friends! Lots of friends!"


We started a new trend: a sandcastle factory was born.
And this evening, we saw the sun for the first time this holiday - in a spectacular rosy red sunset.It has been overcast, with some light rain, but very pleasant - almost better than full sun. Though I would really like one clear view over the ocean with blue sky and sea!