Two weeks and counting

We've been in Manila for two weeks already!  Wow, time flies in the big city!  It has been fun and we have certainly enjoyed some great activities as well as family time with the Weissers.

One of the kids favorite activities has been swimming up at Faith Academy.  They have a wonderful pool up at Faith and the kids swim and play for hours and hours in the sun!  The water is so much fun, but it wears them out and they sleep long nights afterward!

Shopping in the malls, definitely a big city activity!  And there is nothing quite like the malls of Manila...the noise, the people, and so many things to buy.  One should be able to find whatever one wants to buy at whatever price range you can afford.  Yesterday I went shopping with Aunt Marla for our new dishes, some other kitchen items, curtains, and pillow covers...it was fun to begin to make our new island house a home. In one of the malls Steve found an inverter and a water filter system for our home...just about anything can be found!

Another fun activity in the mall are cinemas, and each mall has many cinemas!  In Alaska we rarely went to the theater, just so hard to pay the high price of movie tickets for so many of us.  But here it is so much more affordable, only P130 or roughly $3 per person!  We were all treated to a movie...so fun!

The traffic in Manila is always an adventure just by itself!  Most of the time we ride along with the Weissers in their van to get to the store, mall, church, or Faith Academy, but Steve is learning his way around the city using public transportation.  Jeepney, train, tricycle, taxi, bus, or FX...which one will get you to where you need to go?  We have had the experience of using each one of these public transportation's in the few weeks we have been here.  We much prefer our own vehicle, but when you need to get somewhere it is nice to have options...just make sure you know how to get where you need to go and how to get back home again!!

Ethan and Tyler were given the opportunity to go bird watching with Uncle Randy last Saturday.  They got up bright and early to beat the heat and to be able to observe as many birds as possible.  Twenty-five different species is alot of variety for only going out once.  Randy is hoping the boys will learn how to identify the different birds on Balabac! 

One Saturday we spent at the RBI office working as painters!  They had just gotten new carpet, but the paint didn't match so a new coat was needed on the lower half of the wall.  We volunteered our expert painting services and picked up paint brushes and rollers to get the job done.  Not quite sure we are experts, but we had fun and made the job take a lot less time!

Today Stacey and the kids spent the day at Mega Mall with Jeanie, while Steve and Dennis went to find bricks for our clay oven and get some paperwork done.  Jeanie and I found more household items that I needed to set up our house while Steve and Dennis found the necessary bricks for the base of our clay oven.  They are some nice looking bricks and will be worth their weight in gold by the time we get them to our home!

We are certainly enjoying our time in this big city, but we will be very ready for the "quiet" of our island home!  Not sure living next to a rain forest is considered quiet! I've heard it is very noisy, only the noise is so much different than that of the city!!  No cars honking, busy traffic, or crowded stores...but more like noisy birds, loud geckos, crunching carabao, and the symphony of insects...certainly makes for a rowdy neighborhood!