Happy Valentine's Day

This year for Valentines Day we kept it pretty simple. Ryan had bought these beautiful calla lillies and had them wrapped in blue because they were our wedding flower and blue was our colour. We went to church, ate some great BLT's for lunch and then went on a motorbike drive into the Island while the kids stayed home and played with some good friends of ours, the Regodos Family.
It was a hot day and since I know in the city it is now illegal to wear shorts and slippers (what they call flip flops) while on a motorbike I thought I'd ask Ryan if he thought it would be okay for me to wear whatever I'd like in the country. So off we go in our shorts and T-Shirts in the heat of the day to enjoy our scenic drive. Usually it's beautiful and green all over the place here but right now we are dealing with el nino (a HUGE drought) so all the rice fields were dried up and brown and the sugar cane also was looking a bit dry and not so green. Ryan mentioned that the Island directly north of us has small towns on it that are almost in a state of emergency because the wells are drying up and it's not even summer yet. The rains won't come now until the end of June/July. SO, maybe it's time to start buying up your sacs of rice now because if it's like this all over the Philippines or in other rice exporting countries there is going to be a big shortage this year and the prices are going to jump up. Apparently they are rising here already and I've been hearing people talking about how expensive it is.

Once we got to the top of the mountain things started to become vibrant again and we enjoyed the view and all the waves we received. I think one thing I love is watching the faces of the people as we drive by, the absolute shock, open mouth and big eyes and then when realization hits them that yes, there are in fact 2 young white people on that motorbike, a HUGE open grin appears on their face and a hand shoots up to wave and greet us. It's contagious and you can't help but return that huge grin with one of your own, especially when it's from a little child. We stopped at one point for some water and the view and then got back on for the trip home. There was one point when we were at the top of the mountain and the sun went behind the clouds that I really was wishing I had brought some pants. It was so cold I'm sure my nose was pink. OH! One thing we can't forget about was the crazy monkeys we saw just chained up on the side of the road at the side of the mountain. Two of them just hanging out.