Golden Birthday...

So, I just realized the other day that today is my golden birthday. I am turning 26 on the 26th of February. I am not so sure when to think it's my birthday this year. We are 14 hours ahead of central time, the time zone I was born in... and well, I was talking to my family, but it is only Feb 25th there. So, I guess I just get two days to celebrate my birthday, today while it's Feb 26th in the Philippines and tomorrow, when it's Feb 26th in New Orleans. Ok, I know... I am over thinking this.

For my birthday this year, Rob took me to Pearl Farm, and VERY NICE resort here in the Philippines. It is on a different Island than the one we live on, so we had to take a 45 min boat ride to get there. It was very secluded and very nice. We spent two nights there Friday and Saturday and enjoyed a nice relaxing time. We have been really busy lately, so it was nice to just spend some quality time together. We got to sleep in late, eat great food, relax on the beach, go snorkeling, go kayaking, and swim in a beautiful pool with a great veiw of the ocean. Oh, it was so nice. Here are some pics:

On our way to Pearl Farm!!! We were really excited!

When we got to the resort, there was a man waiting with two pineapple juices for us as our welcome drink.

On Friday night, we went to Pirate's Night at the restaurant. They had dancers and gift giveaways. At the end, they had all of us limbo.

kayaking!

Doesn't my husband look good in that snorkeling gear!!!

Teaching English...

For the past 7 weeks, Rob and I have been teaching English to a group of Korean students on Monday and Wednesday nights. Rob was teaching 12 high schoolers, and I had 11 elementary/ middle schoolers. They came here for their "summer break" from Korean school just to learn English. We taught at a Korean pastor's house. Rob's class was in the dinning room, and my class was in one of the bedrooms.

For most of the Korean students, we are the first Americans they have ever known. The first few classes we had were quite interesting. All the students wanted to stare into our eyes, Rob having blue eyes and me having green eyes, they were quite mesmorized. Some students wanted to touch our nose. For some reason they think that our noses were so pretty. Anyway, we have enjoyed getting to know the students and we hope they we have helped them learn some English! They were learning a lot of vocabulary from Philippinos tutors during the day, so Rob and I's main job was to work on pronunciation. It was quite interesting some of the sounds they really had a hard time making. L and R were the hardest. Well, last night was our last class. Most of the students are flying back to Korea today. Here are some pictures we took last night:

Here is Rob, with his class.

Here I am with my class. As you can see in both our class pictures, the kids are eating cookies. We brought chocolate chip cookies for everyone for our last class.

Here I am with two girls who liked to talk to me after class. Their English was probably the best of all the students we had.

For our last class, we played pictionary, boys against girls. We had a lot of fun! This is the classroom I taught in each week.

This is two of the students with the Korean pastor, who brought all of them from Korea to the Philippines to learn English.

OE Slideshow

Ok I figured out how to post this video. This is the slideshow Rob and I made for the Jr. High OE chapel. Enjoy!

This weekend...

Rob and I are involved at both the high school and the Elementary/middle school. Because of this we are involved in/ go to almost every event that happens at each school. This weekend was a pretty typical weekend for us. Friday morning, the middle school was in charge of chapel, presenting to the rest of the school what they did on OE. Our squad reinacted the traveling days. They did a good job, although they were a little stage fright compared to their exaggerated acting when we practiced! Rob and I also put together a slide show of a bunch of the pictures from OE. It was fun to make. I tried to see if I could post it on my blog, but for some reason it just won't work. I will try again. Maybe the video is too big??? Anyway. Chapel went great!

On Friday night, the middle school had a game night where Rob and I were in charge of pictionary and capture the flag. After getting to know some of the middle schoolers over OE, it was fun to play games with them. They are a really silly group of kids.

Saturday was filled with getting ready and doing the annual Community Banquet. This is a banquet that the student council is incharge of, where anyone from the community can come (parents, teachers, etc.) and the students cook and serve food! So, the day was filled with decorating, cooking, and serving. We did 2 seatings so Rob and I were able to sit and be served at one of the seatings, while another couple coordinated the kitchen! This is a rare opportunity for us as I am the Student council advisor!At any other student council event, I am often running around, making sure everything is going smoothly. It was sooo nice to sit and relax for a little bit! And then the other couple sat and enjoyed the food, while we were back in the kitchen. We had a few little adventures that evening. Some of the tables were outside where you could enjoy the veiw. As soon as we were about to serve the salad, it started pouring raining!!! So, all the kids ran out and rescued the tables and chairs, and brought them under an overhang. They moved quickly and did a great job. It was quite the storm. As we were just about finished serving the last few main courses, the electricity went out! Yeah, so here we are in a dark kitchen, trying to finish doing the desert and washing dishes by candle light! It was quite the adventure, but the students came together and cleaned up! All-in-all, it was a great success! On Sunday, we were able to relax, which was really nice. Here are the pics of the weekend:

Here is our squad reinacting the travel days (can you tell they are on a plane??)

Playing pictionary at JR. High game night

This game was hilarious. It is a game where all the middle school boys get together and cling to each other. Then all the girls have to try and pull them out of the group any way they can! Amazingly enough, no one got hurt and everyone loved the game. It was so much fun to watch!

The boys clinging to each other!

The girls could do anything to get them from the group!!!

The Community banquet was at this location on a hill where you could see all of Davao

city. It was beautiful! This was the table Rob and I sat at!
It was so nice to have the students serve us!

Killing Chickens

One of the most memorable things about OE was when we killed the chickens. In case any of you are interested in this, I am posting a video of one of the students killing the chicken. I will warn you, it is not the most pleasant sight, so you probably should not watch this if you pass out at the sight of blood. Actually, there really isn't that much blood. I found it pretty interesting how they taught us to kill the chickens. You want to make the chicken dizzy first, so that it does not know what's coming. Then, well... you will see in the video. I thought we would have to chop the head off with an ax, but we didn't. Anyway, here it is if you are interested:

Jr. High OE

Well, we survived a whole week with Jr. highers! We really did have a good time. The kids on our squad were really great students. We had 3 6th graders,2 7th graders,and 4 8th graders. Here's how the trip went:
Sunday, Feb. 3- Fly to Manila, go to a cemetary with a WWII memorial, a mall, and to Faith Academy Manila to sleep.
Monday, Feb 4- Load into buses and head to the National Philippine High School of the Arts to hear a concert, and then on to Taal. All 150 students and teachers stayed at a camp together on Monday night. One of our girls got pink eye, yeah, I thought we were all going to have pink eye by the end of the trip, but we took care of it, and it got a lot better. No one else got it!!! Monday night we had a session with a speaker and them performed squad cheers!
Tuesday, Feb 5- Get up early and head to the volcano. We had to travel by boat to an island that had quite a few volcanos on it. We went hiking out to this huge sulfur lake. It was amazing, the trail we took is one that is only really used every 3 years when Faith Academy hires Philippinos to clear the path for OE. Talk about a hidden treasure. On the way to the volcano, there was a part of the trail where everyone had to swim in the sulfur lake for about 50-60 yards! (Putting our shoes in big garbage bags to keep them dry). On the other side of our swim was amazing. There were all these hot spots where steam was coming up from the ground. There were spots where water was boiling and even a huge hole where there was mud boiling. It was so amazing! After our hike, we went back to the camp, hung out and slept in these tents, well more like lean toos. Our whole squad was in one tent together. It was quite the bonding experience.
Wednesday Feb 6- We packed up and left the camp by the volcano and took a boat and jeepney back to base camp. Once we got there, we had to make our own chicken lunch, from beginning to end. And I mean from the VERY BEGINING. Yeah, from having a live chicken to roasting it on a fire. Our squad had 2 chickens so 2 of the boys killed the chickens, we plucked the feathers and took out the insides, cleaned them and roasted them! We made potatoes, bisquits, and even cupcakes on the fire as well as roasted the chicken! Then we ate our yummy lunch! It really was very good. the kids did a great job. In the afternoon, we played a game with the kids and then we went to do our ministry. We walked to a local village, and played basketball, gave out wordless braclets, shared the gospel, and sang songs in Tagalog. It really was a great time. After our ministry came dinner, an evening session and squad time. Then off to bed.
Thursday Feb 7- We packed-up and headed off to the reef! This was the most relaxing day of the whole trip. We went to marine biology class, where the kids learned about sea creatures and dissected a squid, we went snorkeling, and we even got to do scuba diving!!!! Rob and I have wanted to try to do scuba diving since we got here and we finally got the chance. Although it was only for a ver short time (there were a lot of students that needed their turn), we dove down about 5-10 feet and got to feed fish! So cool! After all our reef adventures, we ate dinner and went to the evening session. Although I really liked the day we went hiking to the volcano, I think this was one of my favorite days. There was a lot of down time, so we really got to spend some quality time with the kids, playing cards, talking, and just having fun! On Thursday night, the boys got to sleep out on the beach on coral under the stars (good thing it didn't rain) and the girls got to sleep in an open building.
Friday- Feb 8- Traveling home. We all met up back at base camp and loaded buses. We headed to the mall of Asia (the biggest mall in southeast Asia), which the kids loved (they all bought about 3 boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts) and then headed to the airport for our flight home.
We really had an amazing trip. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to get to know some of the jr. high kids. I mostly work over at the high school, so I really didnot know the jr. highers very well. It was also really neat to see how great my husband is with jr. highers. They really love him. I love to see how my husband flurishes in this environment!

Jr. High OE

Well, for those of you who don't know what OE is, it stands for Outdoor Education. And it is basically a annual missions/ educational trip. Rob and I are squad leaders. We have 9 Jr. Highers on our squad. Our squad name is Buy Ontake one. Ontake is the name of a volcano in Japan. Well, we leave for OE on Sunday. It is a week long trip. If you think about it, we would appreciate your prayers. I mean, just look at this picture of them... It's going to be a fun week! In case you want to pray more specifically, here are their names (from Left to right in the pic): Heong Young, Colin, Jeriah, Luke, Elizabeth, Josie, Deborah, Jeen, and Grace!

Field Trip

This past week was the high school ISAC tournament. The boys were playing soccer and the girls were playing basketball. The tournament was on Luzon, so all the high schoolers on the teams had to fly up to Manila on Wednesday and stay there until Sunday. Most of the students here at MICA are on the sports teams, so we were left with about 1/4 of the student body. Instead of just going on with classes, we decided to take the kids to a ropes course, where they did low elements and high elements. They stayed overnight on Wednesday and came back on Thursday. On Friday we all went on a boat trip. Rob and I have not been on a boat trip here in Davao, so it was really fun to be able to go! Although Friday was cloudy and windy, everyone had a fun time snorkeling. The principal here at MICA teaches marine biology and knows A LOT about underwater life. He would have the students go looking for certain creatures and bring them back to the boat and he would talk about them. It was really fun. My favorite part about all that we did was getting to know the students better. I only teach one class here at MICA, so this was a good opportunity for me to get to know some of the students I do not have in my class. My other favorite part: Taking pictures!! Of course I have to share some of them with you!! The trust fall

I'm not so sure if Rob trusts these students to catch him.
You have to get your whole team from one side of the spider web to the other, without touching the web. You have to get your team from one side of the wall to the other.


Gotta love the zip line!
Two of the students enjoying the boat ride
Rob very interested in this sea creature A cool star fish

Coach Rob

Well, Rob has been the Junior High boys assistant basketball coach this year. He has had fun getting to know the kids. Saturday they had their last game of the season. Although they did not win their last game, they have improved. Here are some pics of the b-ball season:
Coach Rob!
The two coaches


This is a sight often seen at MICA and FAD sports games. Rob is often in charge of the score board!

Thailand Pics

Back to school...

Well, the second semester started yesterday. Rob is still teaching 9th grade OT and 3-4th grade & 7-8th grade PE, as well as supervising all the maintenience at Faith Academy. My role has changed quite a bit this semester, and will continue to do so. I am still teaching yearbook at MICA. I have 3 more students this semester, for a total of 6 sudents in the class, which is good. I am still the Student Council Advisor. For the next 3 weeks I will be teaching 1-2nd grade and 5-6th grade PE over at Faith. It has been fun getting to know the elementary students. They are a lot more energetic than the high schoolers, especially for PE. Today I had the 5-6th grade, so I have not met the 1-2nd graders yet. Rob and I are also squad leaders for the juinor high Outdoor Ed (OE). OE is a trip they take every year that last for about a week. It is a time where they do outreach together, learn about the Lord and bond. The Juinor High always does their OE with Faith Manila, so there are tons of students, but we are just incharge of our 9 students. The Squads meet twice a week, during school hours to discuss OE, come up with a team name, cheer, etc. We met with them yesterday. They really are a great group of kids.
Rob and I were also asked to teach some Korean students english. We are not sure what level they will be at. This is not with either school. It is actually being run by a Korean missionary. We will be teaching 2 night classes a week for the next 7 weeks. Tonight is our first class, so we will see how that goes. All we know is that there are 19 students from elementary to high school, so Rob will take the jr high and high school and I will take the elementary students. So, our roles have changed again, but we are happy to help out where needed.

Thailand

Well, we did not really have internet the entire time we were in Thailand, so I was not able to blog as we went. So, you will just have to settle for one big blog about our trip. I am so glad we went. Although it was one of the strangest Christmas seasons I have ever had, being away from family in another country, it was fun to do something different. Plus visiting a new place kept our minds off of being away from family.
December 23 11:30 pm- We arrived in Bangkok, got a taxi and headed down to our hotel. The street we stayed on was very busy. There were tons of people out and shops open even at midnight when we arrived there. We were driving down our street and all of a sudden, we see this baby elephant walking down the sidewalk. It was then that we truly realized we were in Thailand.
Dec. 24th- we went exploring around the city. We headed to a huge park and walked around, went to an enormous mall, and headed down to Jim Thompson's house ( an American man who who really established the Thai silk industry.
Then we headed back to the mall for a movie. You should have seen this movie theatre. They had all these different theatres where you could pay more and get a foot rest, or even get a couch to sit on while watching a movie. It was crazy. We were too cheap to pay for anything but a normal seat, but it was still nice. On our walk back to the hotel, we passed by a local market that was right on the street we were staying on. So, we had dinner and walked through the market. We finished our day with a foot and shoulder massage for about $6 USD!
December 25th- celebrated Christmas together, giving gifts and reading the Christmas story. For Christmas gifts to each other, we decided to go to a book store and get something for each other at the same time, without the other person seeing. It was a really fun idea. If you are limited to one store, you have to get a little creative and plus trying to hide it from the other person is fun too. After our Christmas morning, we went to a park and rented a paddle boat. We had fun paddling around the park, and feeding the fish. Then we went back to the hotel and got our free 15 minute massage. Soo nice! and just relaxed. Then we decided to head to the Night bazzar, which is this HUGE night market selling just about anything you could imagine. It was fun. We ate dinner there at a Thai place and headed back to the hotel.
Dec. 26th- we switched hotels, to stay at a cheaper place in a different part of the city. This one was on the river, which was really nice.
In the afternoon, we went to the Grand Palace, which has a temple with an emerald buddha, and the Palace which is where the King lives. It was a huge place, but very fun to walk through. After that we headed back to the hotel to rest.
Dec. 27th- we headed out early with a tour company to the floating market, which is about an hour and a half drive from Bangkok. At the floating market, there were ladies in boats selling food and people along the canal, selling all kinds of souvenirs
Yeah, it was a pretty touristy place, but it was fun to go to. After that, we headed to a place where you could ride elephants. You can't go to Thailand without riding an elephant. So, we took a ride, which was pretty fun. Then we headed to a place for lunch. the next stop on the tour was a place where they did a Thailand cultural performance. With dancing and music. It was neat. The final stop was a place where they make jewelry. We got to go into the work place where they actually cut the rubies and make the settings. .After our long day, we headed back to the hotel to relax for the rest of the evening.
Dec. 28th- The day we visited temples. The hotel we were at was right on the river and most of the locals get around the city by a river taxi boat, so we decided to try it out. And it was a really fun way to get around. We took the boat to the Temple that had this HUGE reclining buddha and then we went on the boat to Chinatown, which was really crazy. We went there to try to eat some Chinese food, but soon found out that we did not know what anything was, so we ended up at KFC. Then we headed on the boat to the Temple of the Dawn, which is this really tall temple that you can go up and see all over Bangkok. After that we went by boat to this road which is where all the backpackers stay. It was crazy. There were people and shops everywhere. We walked around for awhile and ate dinner there. Not to mention, got another foot massage. We could not help ourselves, massage places were everytwhere here in Thailand and they were so cheap!
Dec. 29th- We went on another tour to Ayutthaya, which is about a 2 hour drive east of Bangkok on our way there we stopped at a huge palace and walked around. Then we headed to Ayutthaya, which is ruins from the 1300's. It was really neat and our tour guide was great. On our way back to Bangkok, we took a lunch cruise boat back on the river. It was a really neat way to see thailand. We headed back to the hotel to swim and then went to eat dinner at a restaurant right on the river!
Dec 30th- Our final day here. We went to the King's Barge Museum, where you can sese the boats the king rides on for very special occasions. We decided to take the adventurous way of getting there, by boat and then walking. it was the most interesting walk I have ever taken. We had to walk through all these alleys with poor Thai people living on either side. We sure had the local Thai experience. Wow, words cannot describe... Anyway, after the museum, we went to the Weekend Market. Thailand has a ton of markets, but this one was probably the biggest most popular one. And boy was it big! We stayed there for most of the day! Then we took the Skytrain back to downtown and went and saw a movie ate dinner and then it was time to head to the airport!
WOw, that was really long. If you are still reading this, thanks for sticking with it. We had a great time and are so happy we went. If you ever get the chance to go to Thailand, don't hesitate.