Beijing

We made it back to Manila from our week long excursion to Beijing. I will post the blow for blow tomorrow, but here are a couple of pictures to give you a little insight.

Temple of Heaven

Holden on the Great Wall.

At the dirt market

Helping Dad at work

What is...

1764 miles from Manila and 40 degrees farenheit right now?

Beijing, China. That is where we are headed bright and early Tuesday morning.

Clumsy

It must run in the family. Not even 20 minutes before Holden did a face plant into the concrete ground of Serendra (an outdoor shopping and restaurant haven) did Nate twist and fall with Holden in his arms! Good times.

November: the month that you best be getting your Christmas decor up

In America, I felt that putting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving might be pushing it a bit but I did it anyway because I adore Christmas. HERE, some folks just go ahead and substitute Christmas decorations for Halloween. There has been Christmas music playing in the market since mid-September.

I have "bought-in" to the concept. Yes, we are American, but there are no harvest items spanning our house, no pumpkins and gourds, no turkeys, no pilgrims and Indians arts and crafts lying around.

No. As of today there is a tree lit and decorated, there is a reindeer welcoming our guests and stockings adorning the staircase and gifts ribboned and wrapped under the tree. The ipod is blaring Christmas carols throughout our house and Holden is asking where the chimney is that Santa will come down.

This is what happens when you...

want to have a nice relaxing lunch with friends and your children. It's like anything, it started so innocently with them running around the fountain, then splashing their hands in, and then before we knew it they were sitting in the fountain. After the guards requested that we remove our little spawns from the water we headed off to find more fountains because they were already so wet it didn't matter anymore. Holden and Sophia got lots of attention walking around dripping wet with no shirts on. I think by the time we got to the last fountain we had gathered quite a large group of fans and about 6 photographers.

Halloween...Filipino style.

Within the last 2 weeks Holden has been trick-or-treating twice already. Once at an American Women's party and another time with a friend in her neighborhood. Both times the pumpkin bucket has been chock-full. With two more trick-or-treating parties to go tomorrow I think we will have enough candy to fill Christmas stockings with this year.

Here are some highlights from the season: I especially like the picture of Nate and Paul wearing the costume accessories the kids refused to wear.

Sophia Holden and Morgan

Paul and Nate: Cute Princess and Superhero

Melissa Helen and Amy...and adorable offspring

Memories

For my girls back home. Even though we don't keep in touch nearly as well as we should, this picture brought back an holiday appropriate memory! And yes, it hangs in our house year-round not just this month!

Miss you girls...and this includes the ones NOT in the photo as well!!!

United Nations Day

Holden's school had United Nation day on Wednesday. Each child was asked to wear an outfit native to their home country. The school has a very international community, so there was a lot of variety and the kids looked adorable! I bet you are shocked to find that Holden wore cowboy boots and a hat. The school has been learning Mandarin Chinese, so a lot of their program revolved around that. They sang songs in Mandarin, did a Chinese dragon skit and of course sang "It's A Small World After All."

The boys in Holdens class

The girls in his class

Little tex himself

Cowboy shirt

A gaggle of children

Holden's class doing their Chinese Dragon skit.

Oh! You are turning into "that mom"

There are a lot of things I like about Holden's school. Most things in fact. You know that saying; "the devil is in the details." Yeah, well that is where my problems seem to stem from...the details.

The first issue I encountered was at a birthday party for one of Holden's classmates held at the school. The parents brought in outside party planners complete with winnie the pooh characters, etc. The problem came with the music they were playing. I really love my child hearing music where every four letter word out there blaring at a 5 year olds birthday party...at his school!Now...I don't like Crystal Gayle and Kenny Rogers, but strangely when certain songs come on the radio I can sing along. Not because I have ever listened to the music, but because when I was young my mom did (am I crazy or is this just me?)

The second, but less pressing issuse came a couple of weeks ago when a letter made its way home in his backpack about costume day. Last time I checked it was Halloween, but I am going to roll with the punches here. Costume day this year is going to be a harvest theme the letter says. Children should wear costumes representing the harvest season. Suggestions included: tomato, pumpkin, etc. NOW, I don't know about you, but who has a 4 year old that is going to roll with this?

"No sweetheart, I know you want to be superman this year, but it has been mandated, you have to be a pumpkin...get back here and put on this pumpkin costume!!!"

So, I casually mention to one of his class teachers a few days later that maybe superhero and fairy princesses might also be allowed at the costume party.
"Well can't you dress him in a brown shirt and maybe pin some leaves to him?"
was her response.

In my mind I am thinking, are you insane! Did you see my previous post about that darn Halloween tree? How could I possibly find leaves here? We live 35 stories above the city. Where would I find a brown shirt? Where would I even find pins? Yeah, I'm totally incompetent. On top of that I would still we have the problem of convincing Holden this will be a great costume, you know EVERY kid wants to be a tree for Halloween!

ANYHOW. I convinced Nate that he agreed with me on these issues (didn't take too much convincing) and we met with the school director to discuss our concerns. A few days later, another letter. No scary costumes allowed, but superheros and princesses are now permitted to come to the party and there are tighter guidelines on birthday parties as well.

Then, another letter came home...about shoes...

As of November shoes are no longer allowed in the school. This means that children will need to bring in a pair of slippers to wear while in school. Parents and yayas are encouraged to follow the policy as well.

Which means that every day we drop him off and pick him up when we have to go in the school and sign him in and sign him out we have to remove our shoes and put on slippers. Lets just say Nate has taken issue with this one. Lets see if he turns into "that dad."

We are going to gain quite the reputation aren't we? See what happens when you don't stay involved in politics! You get involved at another level. I hope they know I always win. :)

Crafting....from bounty to starvation

I'm not an extremely crafty person, but I have been know to "get my craft on" one time or another. There is NO PLACE more difficult to find "crafting supplies" than in Manila. That being said, there was probably no place easier to find crafting supplies than the state of Utah where all things craft and scrapbooking are king!

Due to the difficulty, I am VERY proud of our Halloween tree, which took one trip to the American womens bazaar for Halloween knick knacks, one trip to the nursery to buy rocks, and one trip to greenhills market to find sticks with glitter. Yeah...this project, with drive time, probably took the equivalent of 30 hours. Oh for the days of Michaels Arts and Crafts and 40% off coupons! For those of you who wonder...this is what I do all day and why it takes me so long.

Another great find this week...pumpkins. They may be too little to carve and they may have cost an exorbant amount for their size, but they are pumpkins and we are festive.

It's a PARTY

"What do you want to write on Dona's birthday card?"

"Holden."

"Ok, what else?"

"Dona."

"Ok, anything else?"

"Ummm, (long pause) I love you."

Proposal

The other day he was rummaging through my jewelery box and came out with a ring box. "Mommy, close your eyes for 5 minutes!" Of course I do this. "One, two, three, four five" he counts. "Okay, open them!" With a sheepish glance to his daddy he says; "Mommy, will you marry me?" and opens the ring box.

Like I can say no to that face! It's a common game around our house now. "Mom, I want to play 'will you marry me again!'"

My dad can fix ANYTHING

One of those things that kids say. Apparently Holden says this and much more about his daddy at school. We had parent-teached conferences this past weekend at Holden's school. You know...to make sure he was coloring in the lines and playing well with others.

The teachers say that whenever they ask a more difficult question that the kids don't have an answer for, Holden pipes up to let them know he will ask his daddy, because "my daddy knows EVERYTHING!"

When we came out of the school the sun was shinning bright, but was nothing compared to the beaming smile on Nate's face knowing that he is "that dad" that knows everything. What more affirmation could a daddy ask for.

Tales and Tails

We have an addiction. We can't get enough of it and I happy to say I have a friend who has the same problem. I HATE being addicted to something alone. Everyone needs a crack buddy, don't they? Our crack comes in the form of a beach called Boracay.

I am sure there are better beaches....somewhere in the world, but I doubt it. This past trip there was by far the best. Maybe it was because we took Lani (yaya tinkerbell) along. Maybe it was because it was "off season" and there weren't near as many tourists. Maybe it was because it wasn't nearly as hot as it usually is. Or maybe, it is because it is like Disneyland: the happiest place on earth.

We went on an island hopping tour this time. We took a tricycle (our first), which can miraculously fit two American adults, one child, one yaya, the driver, the boatman and the candlestick maker, to the other side of the island to hop on a boat.

We stopped along the way to do a little snorkeling, Holden was even a trooper and fed the fish and snorkeled a bit. Nate was a show-off and headed to the bottom to bring up one of the blue starfish that dot the bottom of the ocean.

Then we went off to visit two caves; the first of which you climb down and through a very narrow spiral staircase to the ocean. Everything was peachy as we moved to the next cave. Again down the steep stairs and across a bridge that is about knee deep in water and through a VERY narrow cave. SO narrow and short that Nate was clawing through on his hands and knees. It was truly "Filipino size." Into the water we went but after a while...everything started to itch...painful itching and stinging. Everyone is out of the water. Jellyfish is what they told us. Pouring fresh drinking water all over ourselves we head back through the claustrophobic cave to the water bridge when the guide yells for us to stop, be careful, snake! WHAT!?! I yell back at Nate that there is a snake to which he responds "whatever" thinking I am telling him that so he will pick up his crawling pace. I grab Holden unsure whether or not to turn around and high tail it back to the jellyfish or encounter the snake. This snake, is it IN the tunnel with us? Is it headed our way? I don't know. Because all the guide said was....snake! Luckily Lani was with us and the guide came over to help us around the snake which was half in, half out of the water. Safely across the bridge I asked the guide if the snake was deadly. The response: "yes ma'am, one hour," and then he makes a slice across his throat with his index finger with the sound affect of "keeek." GREAT!

Ever since we have moved to the Philippines, we have talked about getting certified to dive. Ah, but time. Precious precious time has prevented us. We stopped by a dive shop to see how many days it would take and decided to do a trial dive where they teach you the basics, take you down 10-12 meters one on one for as long as you have air. It was a fantastic experience now we're on a mission to get certified, then maybe we will get addicted a new beach...but I

doubt it!

The date that time forgot

When "we" were pregnant with Holden, Nate had hopes that he would be born on his birthday...September 11th. In addition to that not being the greatest day in America, I kept telling Nate that in the long run he really wouldn't want to share his birthday. Holden was born exactly a week later and Nate's birthday still gets a little forgotten. Take for instance this post...a few weeks late...and AFTER the details about Holden's. OOOPS.

We happened to be in Boracay (AGAIN) and we surprised Nate at breakfast with a couple of little cakes from the Lemon Cafe. In addition there was a cake waiting for him when we got home as well as two more at his office. I guess that takes care of the next 3 years!

Notice the age and the date.

and of course...too many gifts

The things that little boys birthday parties are made of

Ice cream cart, cotton candy machine, inflatable jumping castle and chaos. All pictured below.

The details

Holden's 4th Birthday--the invitation