A lot has happened in the last week or so!
As a background for some of the highlights, we have been getting busier at work preparing for the Asia Leaders Meetings coming up in a week or so. Preparing things for the meetings and trying to get projects finished off before we leave... such as a huge mailing (300-400) of cards with inserts.
In bright color over top of this busyness, came the discovery that I'm pregnant! Long awaited and much prayed for, this is rejoicing news!
Then, Friday morning I had to spend the morning waiting for doctors and ultrasounds after a scary night... I had begun bleeding, and since I've been cramping on and off all along, we were more than a little concerned! The news was all good though: the baby is alive, no visible anomalies in utero, etc. I came home with strict instructions to rest: "pretend you're in hospital" the ob-gyn said. Easier said than done, for sure!
Having just finished settling travel plans and arrangements for Thailand (Michael was supposed to leave Tuesday, and the girls and I on Saturday) this news completely undid it all.
But more was to come. Saturday evening the bleeding and cramping returned more than before and when it didn't settle down, we decided to go to the hospital. (Don't these things always happen at night?!) Thankfully, we had people to call on for babysitting and a ride there so I didn't have to go alone.
We came home on Sunday at lunch time minus a pregnancy - in fact, the baby was already gone by the time I got an ultrasound Saturday night. A tough way to begin the week. We've all had big and little cries as we work through the loss. Needless to say, Michael didn't go to Thailand on Tuesday! We are still planning to go all together on Saturday though.

A Good Things List:

Many of our colleagues, who are more often than not out of country were here to help - which they have done wonderfully and unasked for with
late night babysitting,
showing up at the hospital to wait with Michael,
groceries,
meals,
telling people so we don't have to over and over explain,
love...

Grace and Jasmin were not at all bothered to wake up to no Mom and Dad rather a lady they see once in a long while!

the resilience of kids to mourn hard all up front then go on playing happily (though their play often includes pregnancies and dying babies)

Happened here and not while we were in Bangkok

Happened over a weekend so people freer to help

Having told of our pregnancy early, we easily shared this hurt

Discovering the healing qualities of loving community during hard times: so often our hurts we have not been able to share - but this time we could

Discovering that we belong to a community here after all!

space to mourn - no work asked of us despite the need

good hospital care

hope for another - nothing wrong with Mommy

an awareness of the connectedness of events: God's planning

our friends, Shinji's family, also got help during their parallel tough time of sickness and moving preparations (they also were put on the list to receive meals for a few days when they were asked to make a meal for us!)

and many other things too, I'm sure

Grace's drawing that she did on the back of the shopping list resting on the handle of the shopping cart! It is us shopping for fruit...

We went to Davao this last Weekend. Daddy had to go for meetings on Friday, so we all went along for the weekend. It was a great weekend! Not exactly relaxing, as we left home about 3:30am Friday morning and had a weekend of 3 very full, long days, but it definitely was great!

We stayed at the center (guesthouse and offices) which is back to back with Faith Academy Mindanao, so the girls had a great time with lots of new friends and a play ground while Daddy worked. Davao is a lot hotter than Manila at this time of year, so when the girls weren't playing with friends, they played in the enormous dip-shower bucket in our apartment:


On Saturday, Daddy took us to Paradise Island for a day on the beach. What a day! A short boat ride, chasing hermit crabs up their home tree,
watching the birds in the aviary and trying to answer such questions as why the eagle cries like a baby...
why the keeper throws fruit for these big birds to catch and eat...
why this pigeon is so huge and has funny hair...
why some birds have such beautiful colors...
what on earth this love bird was doing...
why God gave the peacock such a huge tail...
AND, we got to go swimming/snorkeling with fish! This is the main beach edge by the breakwater where the boats load/unload. Coral has taken over a large portion of the breakwater and all kinds of fish hang out there. Since this area is pretty shallow, it was perfect for snorkeling with the girls. They lay on our backs and looked over our shoulders. Grace tried a mask and snorkel a little, but Jasmin wouldn't try. I wish we could have taken pictures of some of the fish - amazing! Daddy spent so much time out there that he came home with a bit of a burn on his back. We concluded that snorkeling is something we'd all like to do again. There was plenty of other things we could have done, but we ran out of time. Perhaps a place to go again...

On the other hand, when we flew to Davao, Daddy had a little bit of a cough, while we were there struggled with asthma a bit, and we all came back with a chest cough. So, the cleaner, greener city made us sick!?!

Friday we went on an adventure with Shinji and his mom and their guest from Japan who wanted to explore Manila a bit. We rode on a jeepney, the light rail train, and did a lot of walking (more than necessary because we didn't know exactly where to get off!)

Jasmin was captivated by the idea that a map could tell us where to go. She insisted on carrying one to study carefully herself.
I'm not sure this was where we set out to go, but this is where we ended up!

Looks pretty interesting? Well, at one point it was a fantastic place to come. We came at a time of badly needed renovation, so there were only a few bird cages and this turtle pond to visit.
Since we had already done more than our fair share of walking, we contented ourselves with a picnic on the bench and a rest on the concrete dock jutting out into a murky green lagoon. We had to field a large number of "why"s as across on the other shore was a military group drilling!
The prize of the afternoon was finding this water hyacinth:
and seeing a rather large fish jump for a fly.

After this, we had to already begin our journey home in order to avoid rush hour. We splurged ($3 - about triple what the rest of the day cost!) and took a taxi home instead of attempting to reverse our public transport adventure. And to end well, we stopped for an ice cream just before we got home.