Did You Say Free??? I'm In!!

Bacolod City is the capital of the province we live in. It's defiantly the most civilized town on the Island (we have an iStore and a Starbucks!) but it's still has that small town mentality. We really love it here, the people are super friendly and warm, we can find pretty much anything that we need and nothing is too far that it ruins your day to have to step out to run an errand. I think one of the only downers to Bacolod is that because it is more a smaller town we run out of idea's for new things to do. Well, after 3 1/2 years here in Bacolod City we did a 'first' together as a family this week! We rode on the free shuttle from the north wing of the SM mall to the south wing.

I know, we really live on the wild side, don't we!?

Daddy's #1

So in our family daddy is the pronounced favourite. This has never really bothered me since it's common knowledge that Ryan is WAY funner then me although at time I do wonder about it. We have some good times throughout the day... what is it exactly about daddy that makes him so perfect?
Well, a couple weeks ago I think I got my first hint. I had been out at a meeting in the evening and so Ryan was in charge of getting the kids their dinner and sending them off to bed. I come home to peaceful house, no problems whatsoever. That morning I'm getting Brayden some breakfast and he wants to eat it in the living room. I remind him that we only eat our food on the kitchen table (the ants are seriously on top of their game here so we try to keep them generalized in one area). He then proceeds to tell me that "last night daddy let us eat there in front of the TV and we watched 2 movies. He even let us eat all the cookies there on the coffee table." I then explain to Brayden that Daddy is just way cooler and funner then I am and he seems quite satisfied with that answer and moves himself to the kitchen table.
A little later in the morning Brayden is in time out in his bedroom and Ryan is getting breakfast/dinner made before he heads up to bed and I say to him "this morning Brayden was telling me that last night they got to eat dinner at the coffee table while watching 2 movies!?" Ryan defends himself by saying that no, it was only 1 movie that they watched but then this voice from the bedroom says "No daddy! It was 2 movies!" Ryan was so busted in his little lie by his own son!

I had decided that maybe that might be one reason why daddy is the favourite and then I saw the pictures of the last time Ryan was in charge of dinner while I was a meeting!

Who wouldn't love their daddy if he filled your mouth with whipping cream and let you rip all the sheets off the bed and jump on it like a big trampoline and then takes pictures to capture the joy on their faces! Obviously Mom is a total hag for telling you "no more jumping on the bed" and "no you can't have that whipping cream, I'm saving it for a special occasion."
Who can blame them for declaring daddy the best!?

Yucky YUMMY

I think that this picture defiantly explains the difference in taste preference when you are on the other side of the world. I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying that this flavour of ice cream has never been our first choice....

Seems Like Yesterday

May 3rd marked our seventh wedding anniversary! I wish I could say I can't believe it but I do. Maybe it's the degree Ryan finished, the three kids I 'popped' out, and the move across the world that helps remind me it wasn't just yesterday. BUT it has been a great seven years.... filled with great times and challenges but here we are, stronger then ever and still learning.

So, on our wedding anniversary this year we woke up to a pretty empty fridge. No milk, no eggs and a few pieces of moldy bread. We decided to celebrate by going to McDonalds for breakfast after a nice walk around the Lagoon. We took our moldy bread with us and fed it to the fish. We spent the morning together as a family enjoying our time together. It was just a perfect start to a day!
Ryan and I then ditched the kids and went to the Iron Man 2 matinee and went out for dinner. Although the date was nice I have to admit that spending the morning having fun together with the kids was defiantly the highlight of my day!

Earthquake

A few nights ago I was up playing on the computer while the kids and Ryan were sleeping. There was this noise that sounded like a big semi truck was turning onto our street and driving past our house. I thought that was a little strange since all the time I've been here I don't recall ever seeing a semi truck and we live in a private subdivision so the biggest truck around these parts in the garbage truck. So I sat there listening to the noise when all of a sudden everything started shaking. At the time it was scary, I didn't know what to expect since it was my first earthquake experience so I just kept waiting for it to get worse but it never really did. It didn't last for too long either, maybe 15 seconds, and everyone in the house just kept on sleeping like nothing happened. Got my heart rate up just enough for it to take me a little longer to fall asleep that night but small enough that nothing was damaged and the internet didn't even flicker off for a second.

Sally

Well we picked up this stray cat. It followed some friends of ours to our house and the kids played with it all that afternoon. It was so tiny and skinny, poor thing. It wouldn't lap up any milk so I was feeding it with a medicine dropper and we didn't think it would last very long so I didn't really wan to blog about it knowing I'd have to blog about it's death.... Well I guess she's a fighter because she's still around 1 week later lapping up her milk and getting some meat on those bones.
Ryan and I haven't really named it or anything but Brayden and Sydney did that on their own calling her Sally. She's not really a part of the family, if she followed someone else home no one would miss her but the kids sure have been enjoying her. She's mostly an outdoor cat except for the times the kids bring her in and I don't notice. I think her biggest fan is Madison. It's so crazy how excited she gets when the kitten is around! Thankfully for Sally Madison will just follow her around, she's a little to nervous to actually touch the cat.

Firefighting - 1 of the Few Jobs Left That Still Makes House Calls

We were out for a walk to the resort in our sub division last Sunday and Sydney and I left before Ryan to check on sleeping Madison when the guard approached to tell me that there was a fire in front of our house and not to worry because the fire department was there now.
I looked at him a little frantic, "in front of our house!? What? On our property??" overloading the poor guy with too much english. He was able to explain the best that he good that the house was fine and not to worry. I walked the 2 blocks to my house wishing that Sydney's little legs were just a bit longer so she could move faster but when we arrived at the corner I could see what the guard meant by everything was totally fine. Across the street from us in bunch of empty lots in a row and THAT was were the fire was. Far enough away that there was no way it was going to touch us and thankfully it was just a bunch of empty lots so no one had any damages to their yards or homes.

The fire truck was there and everything was under control although the fire had looked like it was quite huge, probably spanning through 6 or 7 lots, there wasn't really anything much left burning. The fire department then left and the day went on as normal until I was doing dishes and looked outside and saw flames again across the street. Since it was just a smaller patch inbetween the already scorched grass and the road I decided that it wasn't going to do much damage and the fire had no were to go and would slowly burn out and grabbed my camera to take a picture or two. I'm out there snapping shots when some guy comes running out of no where with a huge bucket full of water and tries putting out the fire. I felt guilty and I'm sure he was wondering why the crazy white lady is just standing there and not helping so I grabbed our garden hose and let him use it to spray the fire and used the outside tap to fill my wash basin which I dumped over smouldering ashes and the last green parts to stop the fire. Soon the manager of the resort/sub division was there with some of the employee's making sure the fire was really out this time.

I haven't had that kind of excitement in my life for a while. Now all we need is a good rain so the black ash isn't blowing all over the yard and the new green grass can grow back. One bonus is that with all the black our path from the Beattie home to the Jarman home was salvaged and the kids don't have to walk through all the ash getting totally dirty.

My Favourite 4 Year Old

Well, it's true... we have a 4 year old in the house again! Sydney Jean Beattie is one proud girl, so very excited to finally be able to hold up 4 fingers when asked how old she is! It wasn't the biggest of celebrations but we had great cake, a few friends and she was quite pleased with her spoils.

Bocal Bocal

Up in the mountains a little way from Bacolod is a natural spring which they've turned into a day resort. There are a couple of pools filled with the natural spring water (brrr), picnic shelters and a sink/BBQ area for families to cook their foods. Bocal Bocal is where we spent our 'Black Thursday' this Easter with our Ward Family from church. We had a great attendance, the kids swam almost the entire time we were there and the rain that was coming down when we departed left quickly leaving the day hot and sunny. The grounds were filled with different shades of vibrant green, little water falls where the spring water ran into the pools to fill them up and a dirt path to walk around the gounds. Thankfully the amount of trees offered some shade and kept the place cool enough from the summer sun that I didn't feel like I was being roasted alive. Now hopefully I will remember the way up there so I can take Ryan with us on a day off!

Let The Games Begin

Bacolod City just had a basketball league start for different businesses in the city. There are two different tiers to the league to start, one side being the different call centers and the other side made up of different media companies. It started last week with a motorcade which I proud to say our vehicle was a part of and still bears the evidences of streamers hanging down from the undercarriage. After the motorcade were some sort of opening ceremonies where Ryan was on the local news (I know, big time!) followed by the first game of the league which Focus was a part of. Unfortunately the other team was a no show so they had to reschedule for last Saturday.

Of course Focus won the game, I shouldn't even have to clarify that fact, and Ryan got to get his weekly dose of exercise. The team looked great in their matching uniforms and they quite a few of the Focus staff show up to cheer the team on. I'm thinking that if the team gets uniforms then the cheering section should get matching pom poms!?

The 'Moving Up' Ceremony

Summer holidays have officially arrived here in the Beattie household. The kids had their final day of school last Wednesday. It was an Earth Day celebration with songs and dances presented by the different classes focusing around the beauty of the Earth. Both Brayden and Sydney sang and danced with their classmates which is bravery they haven't really shown before during past concerts so it was a lot of fun to watch.

Well apparently not everyone thought it was fun to watch...

Panaad Sa Negros

This week there is a festival going on in Bacolod, Panaad Sa Negros (Promise of Negros). The festival is an anual event that usually is held in April but since this May 10th there is the Presidential Election, they moved the festival to March. It started in 1993 in front of the Province Capital building in Bacolod City and since been moved to Panaad Park where the 13 cities and 19 towns participating have permanent booths designed to show off what their home is famous for, example being famous for their crab fishing they would have a crab booth, or for Bacolod City they have a mini Provincial Building booth since Bacolod is the capital city of Negros Occidental.

We attended the opening ceremonies on the first day which included dances from different cities participating. They were clothed in native dress and their dance told a story of the Philippine people and the culture. It was really amazing, a lot of colours and a lot of people all dancing in unison. The opening ceremonies were then closed by a fireworks display and for us some namit gid (very yummy) chicken inasal.

One thing that I always find entertainment in is the amount of security doing absolutely nothing but looking pretty holding their old guns. They were just all standing around chatting with one another. I'm not too sure what their real purpose is because I really find it hard to believe that they actually do anything productive security wise!?
We went back later in the week to walk around the different displays and to get out of the house to enjoy something free to do outside. They had some beautiful native dresses on display as well as many different hand made crafts from each of the city booths available to purchase. One of the favourite things the kids had their eyes on were these extremely visually appealing balloons. We decided to let Brayden and Sydney each pick one and as soon as these guys selling them figured out we were buyers we were literally swarmed by them! It was pretty intense.

Ryan's Newest Toy

Ryan has gone out a couple times to play airsoft with some of the guys from work and he really really enjoys it. I'm not too sure if it's spending that man time together or the fact that the airsoft guns here in the Philippines are so similar to a real gun (inch/inch and pound/pound) that it adds all this extra adrenaline to the game. Whatever it is, he has decided to own his own airsoft gun. He bought one from Arnel, a friend at work, and then bought a couple of accessories to jazz it up a bit. He HAD to have a silencer since there is a gun ban on right now with the trigger happy people out there and the Presidential Election coming up this year. Thankfully the silencer does the job and he can still go out and shoot cats pests that destroy our garbage. Another something extra that he just had to have was a green laser pointer so he can see not only the destination of the bullet but the line of travel it will take to reach it's target. VERY exciting. The kids really love it too and have all taken turns shooting pop cans lined up along the fence and as much as I hate to admit it, Brayden has quite the shot!

When The Taste of Salt is a Great Thing

One of the best ways I can think of to beat the heat is to take a dip into the clean clear ocean, even if it means swallowing a ton of salt water. With summer coming on and El Nino bringing on the above average temperatures for this time of year nothing sounds better then a beach weekend with the water always close by to refresh yourself.
We decided that Boracay was the Island of choice for our most recent road trip and so early Thursday morning we packed up and loaded the cars onto the boats for the 1 1/2 hour ride to Panay Island. From Dumangas it takes around 5 hours driving through Panay Island until you reach Caticlan, the jetty port for Boracay Island. It's a long winding ride battling pot holes and random road construction but the view is beautiful and even with the drought a lot of the rice fields were brilliant green and flowing in the breeze looking like velvet.
We arrived on the beach Thursday afternoon, got into our swim gear and headed to the water to refresh ourselves after the 7 hours it took to get there. It was hot, the sand castles were started and the kids were happy to burn all that energy. It was a nice relaxing afternoon, the perfect way to start the weekend. In the evening Bobbi and I strolled the beach while the guys took a nap before starting their night at work. We checked out all the fresh seafoods ready to be grilled and the fire dancers going from place to place tossing their fire all around, so fun.

Friday morning we spent on the beach in and out of the sun. Ryan did some snorkelling with the guys while us girls baked and the kids swam. In the afternoon we rented a trike (a motorbike with a side car) since we now have a family of 5 a normal motorbike is a little too squishy for a couple hours of cruising. The rest of the group got some motorbikes and Lance helped push Ryan up some of the steep dirt roads when assistance was needed while the kids, Bobbi and I would walk. It was quite the adventure well rewarded by a quiet beach located in a small cove with a couple of caves to play around in. By the time we got back to the hotel it was time to get the kids some fuel and settle them to bed and give us adults some time to feed on our Greek foods on the beach.

Saturday was so hot. Ryan and I were pretty careful not to get burned our first day on the beach and although we both were quite successful at staying comfortably coloured we stayed under the beach umbrella's the best we could. We did some wandering around the shops, swimming and relaxing for a bit in the afternoon in our air conditioned cottage. We got to see some great coloured fish, lobsters, fresh vegetables, squids and other smelly treats fresh from the ocean. We watched some artists painting and listened to the crowds from the ultimate frisbee tournament playing on the beach. Days like that seem to end too soon!

Sunday we rented a boat and just cruised around the ocean, did a little snorkelling and a little sitting in the sun. We got ourselves all packed up and ready for our early departure the next morning! It was such a great weekend. Maddy seemed to really enjoy playing in the shallow water splashing away and grabbling at the silky sands. Brayden and Sydney were continually playing in and out of the water and letting Ryan and I get in a little bit of relaxing while Maddy was down for her naps. Nothing like a successful weekend away from the city!