Ærowyn: I want to go back to the Philippines.
Brandon: Why?
Ærowyn: I want to eat Bob's waffles.

Bob's is a western-style restaurant in Bacolod that we frequented. They had the best waffles in town. They were also the only waffles in town - but they were still pretty darn good.

Kristy: Is there anything else you'd like to do in the Philippines again?
Ærowyn: I'd like to go back to the other Bob's.

The other Bob's is Bob's Cafe - it's about 2 blocks from the first Bobs and specializes in sandwiches, yummy chocolate and fruit drinks and brick-oven baked pizza.

So in terms of the whole cultural immersion I guess we failed - but at least she has fond memories of eating western-style foods in beautiful, air-conditioned buildings in the middle of the city. Which city happened to be in the Philippines. :-P

We're a bunch of Geeks

Here is a recent IRC conversation we had at work. The names have been changed to protect privacy and all that - except mine - 'cause I approve.

[joe] so frank, any news on your brothers baby? has his wife delivered?

[frank] I have not heard any today

[padme] support had their baby... come on engineers, step up

[benji] i'm still in the design phase for my baby

[padme] i'm still requirements gathering ;o)

[padme] doing my competitive analysis

[brandon]we're in agile development right now

[bob] maintenance phase

[joe] sometimes you have to rush out a prototype

[frank] I've completed my final version. We sorta killed all the little engineers so we won't be producing any other versions, sorry :(

[benji] brandon, lol

[james] i scrapped the project

[don] my funds got cut

[don] heh j/k

[gil] don't you just hate it when your funds get cut!

[brandon]don - better than your tools getting cut

[don] or put on a freeze

[benji] i actually added the baby project to redmine (my local proj mgmt system)

* benji checks the gantt chart

[padme] not practicing release early, release often here

[frank] I'm having enough problems maintaining my current releases

[padme] hard to maintain different versions at the same time

[frank] I hope to make them self sustaining as soon as possible

[don] I hope obama will help reduce support costs

[padme] hopefully he doesn't come through on that end of life policy

[don] heh

[don] some versions you just have to keep supporting regardless the costscosts

Home Theater Makeover

Here is our entry into Wired's Media Room Makeover contest.

We shot and edited it this weekend as a family. It was a ton of fun and we'll definitely do something like this again. Click the image and enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Well, I guess I'm a couple days late for the actual celebration, but we've been busy.

Our New Year celebration was quite deflated after our power went out at 10pm! We let the kids drink some root beer and explode some party poppers and then we all snuggled in our bed to keep from freezing to death during then night (not knowing when the power would come back on). What a way to bring in 2010 :-P

Although it started out a bit rough, the New Year has had some promising moments so far. One of them was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever laid eyes on. It's hard to capture on film, but I'm pretty happy with how our photos turned out.



I spent the day today updating our family website with all the holiday pics from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Plus I started a new family link for 2010 (on our Family Time page) to start adding all our great moments for this year! I am so excited! I finally updated Ærowyn's page with a new Kindergarten link and she was pretty stoked about that - just scroll down to the bottom.

All in all, 2009 was AMAZING, but we are looking forward to this year and all the new adventures our family will have!

A focused Christmas

So for family home evening we watched The Christmas Spirit. We talked about how Christ is the first part of the word Christmas as how we need to remember that. Here is the tail end of the conversation:

Brandon: What do we celebrate at Christmas time?
Ærowyn: Jesus' birth.
Brandon: Who should we think about during Christmas?
Ærowyn: Jesus.
Brandon: So who should we focus on during the Christmas season?
Ærowyn: Me. (long pause) Oh, wait, I mean Jesus.

Classic 5 year old response.

Firsts all around

Some great first have taken place in our family and we want to share them with you.

Ærowyn's first day of Kindergarten. It's a complete 180 from what her school was like in the Philippines. She came home the first day and was so excited because they get to do crafts in class. So far so good, she loves it!!
The pics are of us waiting to meet her teacher and her amazing bright and happy classroom.













The next first was the first snow of 2009! The kids had their snow clothes on faster than I could get the camera ready! Of course we didn't get much and it melted quickly, but they had fun making trails and of course eating as much as they could.


Our last first, is the greatest of them all. While we were traveling home from the Philippines, Ærowyn fell and hit her mouth on the floor which in return made one of her teeth a little wiggly. When we went in to the dentist a couple weeks ago, he said not to worry about it, that it would come out when it needed to. Well, a last Saturday it was really starting to get lose. She was running around screaming that she was scared and didn't know what to do. Sunday, it was starting to turn colors and we knew it needed to come out, but we wanted to let her do it on her own. Sure enough, that night while brushing her teeth, it fell out. She was so excited and even more excited about getting to meet the tooth ferry. She was sure that if she wrote him a letter and told him to wake her up, they would be able to chat and she could ask him all her questions about teeth. Well, that didn't happen, but the she did have a nice surprise under her pillow. The funny thing was, I had to remind her to look - she had forgotten all about it :) What a crazy kid!!

I love a good cat-house

So w/ our rental house, we've been extra-paranoid about Fæd scratching on the walls, corners, doors, carpet etc. The scratching post we made for him got left in Utah at my brother's house, so we thought - let's just buy one!

So we went shopping, and every time we found one we liked it was between $30 and $200. So we thought - let's just make another one!

So on Saturday I drove around Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene hitting all the thrift shops for some kind of box to act as a base. I could've built it myself, but I'm the kinda guy who likes to re-use if possible - saves me a ton of measuring, cutting, crying, re-measuring, driving back to Lowe's for new wood, cutting again - crap, forgot to measure - I SWEAR I MARKED IT AT 9 and 3/16th not 8 and 3/16!!! AAAAAH!

After I found the purrfect box, I returned home to explain to Kristy how, by the time this thing gets built - although it'll look pretty cool, it'll have cost about the same as a pre-built one.

I got the carpet for free from a local carpet place, bought a 10" cylindrical cement form from Lowes, 100' of sisal rope, 1 bottle of Gorilla glue, 1 roll of Gorilla Tape, 1 bottle of Gorilla wood glue, 1 can of black spray paint and 8 L brackets from Wal-Mart.

A few minutes ago we finished it up and got Fæd (after much coaxing) to go in, hang out, climb to the top and sit.

The only left to do really is carpet the top... as we found that once he gets to the top it's difficult for him to grab onto something to pull himself out of the hole.

Anyway - here are the pix. Maybe some to follow w/ Fæd too.

Lincoln Logs and Opti-Mash Prime

Brandon's mom was going though her stuff and found Brandon's old Lincoln Logs so the kids and I decided to have some fun with them...





Here are 3 pics of our new surroundings. The house is just a normal house, but we have a nice fenced back yard and nice views out the front and the back of the mountains. When we get the inside set up a little bit more we will post more pics.

To Infinity and Beyond with the Good Witch, the Black Cat, and the Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder

Well, Halloween has struck again. It's sad to say because we are still moving in and trying to get organized we didn't get to do all of our traditional Halloween activities, but we did have a wonderful holiday. We were able to carve our pumpkins at the last minute and get some super great costumes together (all 4 of us for under $10!!!!) When we asked Wrævn what kind of face he wanted on his pumpkin he said, "Scarrrrryyyy" while holding his hands and shaking. Ærowyn drew her designs out on paper and then chose her favorite. (you'll have to click the pic below to get a closer look at all of them)
Dad did Mr. Yuck, and mom did a gingerbread man.


First thing in the morning Brandon went to help his mom unload her u-haul. After that, we all got dressed up and headed out for our day. We went to the mall in Spokane Valley because they were having a sale on mattresses and Brandon and I are tired of sleeping on an air mattress, so Happy Anniversary to us - our bed will be here soon! Then we let the kids play on the playground to get some energy out and since we were there when it began, we took them trick-or-treating at the mall. Pretty soon we were off the the church to go trunk-or-treating. It was fun and the kid's of course enjoyed themselves. Ærowyn even went through the haunted house and survived. Finally, to end our wonderful day we headed over to Grandma Gwen's house where we had super yummy hot chocolate, played with the kitten, and chatted with her as the kid's played in her unpacked boxes.

Both of the kid's decided on their own what they wanted to be. We were lucky enough to find 2 costumes just the right sizes at thrift shops. We couldn't find any cheap Buzz wings so I made some. It's amazing what you can do with cardboard, paint, and glue!

Costume Introduction:
Ærowyn: The Beautiful Good Witch
Wrævn: Buzz Lightyear
Brandon: A Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder
Kristy: Ærowyn's Black Cat






All in all it was a great day! The costumes will go in the play clothes so they can enjoy them all the time. I doubt Wrævn will want to put anything else on for a while... I guess that saves on laundry :0

Here's a link to the rest of the Halloween Pics. Enjoy :)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

Well, we made it back to the states and now that our computer is once again alive and running I can catch up on what we've been up to the last couple of weeks - and believe me when I say it's been crazy! You really need to visit our family website to view all the pics, videos, and descriptions.

Our last few weeks in the Philippines were spent frantically trying to sell our stuff, getting packed, visiting friends, and taking in as much of the culture as we could.

We visited The Lagoon in downtown Bacolod one last time to say goodbye to the crazy Talapia fish that live there.


After our relaxing trip to Punta Bulata (previous post), our neighbor Ms. Mackaling Ascalon not only took us up for a day at her ancestral home and sugar cane farm, but also had us over for a farewell dinner at her house where we ate some super delicious food which included chicken ham (seriously, it's chicken that tastes like ham!!), friend shrimp, fruit salad Filipino style (yum), and many other amazing and wonderful things to stuff our bellies with. The pic below is of the kids on an albino carabao at the farm.


We decided to go to Manila a few days earlier than our flight so we could experience what that city had to offer. Luckily, a sister of a friend of ours from the states lives there. Robert and Emma took a day off work and spent it with us! They are amazing and if we ever go back we will surely look them up again. Brandon and I were able to go through the Manila Temple. It was of course beautiful. It was just a couple days after the first typhoon hit so attendance was down, but the faith and spirit of those who were there was so strong. One man walked home after working in the temple 9 km, the last km up to his neck in water, only to find his home was gone. The next morning he was at the temple, clothes cleaned and ready to serve!


Emma had breakfast all ready for us the next morning, and then we were off to the temple again - this time to say hello to a man from my home stake who is in the temple presidency. It was a great experience to see him and hear about the strength of the people after the typhoon. After a brief visit with him, we visited MOA, The Mall of Asia. It's HUGE! It's just a bunch of shopping so we didn't stay too long, but we did get to see the ice rink and eat some yummy ice cream.


While we were at MOA, Brandon's 3rd mission companion Oliver, his wife Ces Leon, and his little girl Chelsea met up with us. It was a great reunion for them. After MOA, it was off to the Manila Ocean Park where we saw lots of cool fish and ocean creatures.


We also got to visit a super cool jelly fish exhibit there as well. The jelly fish were all clear (except for the black ones) but they had changing lights in their tanks. It was beautiful to watch them.





For our last dinner in the Philippines, we decided to have waffles! Sounds, crazy, but it was fun. Actually, Brandon and Ærowyn were the only 2 who had waffles, but everything else was super yummy too.


We said farewell to a beautiful country and a loving people, and flew over the giant ocean once again. We landed in L.A. where we spent a week playing and working. Brandon attended Adobe MAX for work and the kids and I tried to keep busy. We did get to spend a couple of days with Cousin Dallas which was great. We all walked down Hollywood Blvd and took in some tourist attractions which was fun for a day. The kids played in a fountain and had fun getting wet.



We went to a 3D showing of Toy Story 1 and 2 where we got to see Woody, Buzz, and Jessie in person!

One of the days we spent with Cousin Dallas at the Griffith Observatory. It was awesome!!! We viewed a movie in the planetarium about water in the galaxy. The kids loved it and Ærowyn knew the answers to questions about planets and stars that the M.C. had - what a smarty :) We learned all about the planets and the solar system. I hope we can go back one day at night and view the stars!!

















Well, we made it back to Marysville to get our stuff loaded and even had a chance to visit Aunt Carol one last time before she moves to CA. We will miss her, but are glad we got to see her again :) The first pic is of Ærowyn playing her organ.













So, until we get pics of our new house up, that is it for now. Hopefully it wasn't too painful for everyone :)

Sun and Sand

What an amazing week we've just had. It will be a good way to say farewell to this beautiful country we've called home for the past 6 months!!

We have so many pics, so you'll have to go to our website to check them all out, but get the stories here first.

We've only eaten at Ting Ting's twice, but it was amazing both times. They don't have AC seeing as they are an open air eatery so we had to go there on nice cool days and those are few. They have the best buko (young coconut meat) shakes in town! We had to go to FedEx but had some time to kill around lunch time because offices close down here for lunch... crazy huh... so we decided to partake of their wonderful atmosphere and food one last time.




We decided we'd better take one last mini vacation before heading off to the land of the lost, so we headed down to Punta Bulata Resort and Spa near Sipalay. It was around a 3 hour drive, and the last 4km were bumpy, rocky, dirt roads so that was fun :-P It is a lot more mountainous down south and as always AMAZINGLY beautiful!!!

The beach was fun. It was covered in coral, hermit crabs, and shells - many of which we collected (the shells, not the crabs) - but when you stepped in to the crystal clear water the sand was as soft as a baby's bum. It was the perfect day, overcast but not raining so we stayed out as long as we could. When it got dark, we went for a swim in the pool. We were the only guests that night so we had the entire beach, pool, and grounds to ourselves! It was so calming and peaceful. It did sprinkle on us the 2nd day, but that didn't stop us from playing on the beach and swimming in the pool again :) The kids got to play with more starfish and we got to see a sea urchin which was fun. All in all, it was a great way to start our weekend away.



























The second half of our weekend was spent in Pontevedra, Brandon's first area of his mission. We tracked down Walter Pobledor who was the Branch President when Brandon served. He helped us drive around and we were able to meet up with some old friends and just hang out in their little neighborhood. The kids are amazing out in the province and just had smiles and giggles to share the whole time we were there. Ærowyn found a chick to carry around and was extremely sad when we wouldn't let her bring it home with us. We stayed that night at a little beach resort in Hinigaran. We got there late at night so we didn't get to do much that night other than swim in the pool, but that morning when we went down to the beach we got to see some fishing boats and the men fixing their huge fish nets. We chatted with them for a while and then it was off to church. The branch there is small, but the members are strong and so loving. Ærowyn (as always) found some little creatures to love - this time is was a little frog and a tiki.








To end our wonderful weekend away, we visited an old friend of ours here in Bacolod. Medley Caspe was a sweet lady who picked us up in her car one day because she was afraid we were lost and didn't like seeing Wrævn and Ærowyn in the heat. Anyway, we went to say hello and ended up staying for lunch and chatting most of the afternoon while Ærowyn played with her cats and puppies (the only animals she's been able to play with here). We're glad we got to see her again and say farewell for now. It was a great weekend away. Hopefully we will be able to come back and visit all of our friends again some day.

A Weekend of Friends, Food, and Fun

Wowzers, what a crazy busy weekend!

Friday: our friend Pinky came over and taught me how to make buko salad and beef lumpia.
Saturday: our friend Cheryl came over and taught me how to make buko pie - Pinky and the kids came over for dinner
Sunday: we invited our neighbors, the Bacolod Mission president and his wife, and the local missionaries over for a feast!







The following pics are of the primary kids at church, the nursery kids, some wonderful sisters in our ward, our good friend Ellen with Wrævn, and Brother Padol from church.






The first pic of the kids they were posing, so we tried to get them to just act normal for the next one, but when we told Wrævn we weren't taking any more pics he showed us how he felt about that in the 2nd pic. The birds of paradise grown in our backyard - they are so beautiful!!

The Job Hunt

So, here is my job hunt last week in chronological order (mostly stolen from my Facebook statuses).

First, read these blog posts:

Fasting This Weekend

Last Weekend

Sept. 7, 2009:
Note to self: don't sing 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' to the family just before you leave on a jet plane.

Sept. 8th, 2009:
All checked into my hotel. Connected to the internet. Bored. Gotta find some food here in BFE.

Sept. 9th, 2009, 7:30 AM:
I'm about to freaking BLOW THE DOORS off of this company! They won't know what hit them. By the time my 8 hour battery of interviews, tests and presentations is over they're gonna be all like - OMFG WTF? (that's 'frak' and 'gosh') Who was that shiny, smiling, bald-headed young man? Can we add another zero to that offer we were going to make him?

Sept. 9th, 2009, 7:00 PM
I'm sitting in a conference room after 11 hours of interviews, tests, puzzles, code review, code on the fly, math, thought probes, process discussions etc. It's been 20 min. I should know yay or nay soon. I did pretty darn well I think - we'll see soon enough!

Sept. 9th, 2009, 8:30 PM
I'm about to crash. Jet lag and staying 'peppy and fun' for 11 hours of interviews is taking its toll. Gotta rest. I'm 99% there! Almost got it locked down. I have 1 last design to present to them before the PM will sign off on me like QA, Tools, Architecture, Engineering, Management and the CTO all have already :-)

Sept. 10th, 2009, 9:30 AM
At the **** airport, started on my new design homework.

Sept. 10th, 2009, 11 AM
Fly from **** to Portland, OR, Portland to Oakland, CA, Shuttle from Oakland to San Francisco

Sept. 10th, 2009, 9:30 PM
Finished up my first design iteration, sent it to the powers-that-be to review. Fingers crossed!

Sept. 10th, 2009, 11 PM
Fly from SF to Manila

Sept. 11th, 2009
Sitting in the Manila airport. Finagled my way into the business-class lounge so I can actually have some internet access. I read their comments on my design and adjust, redo my design accordingly, then re-submit it. Fingers crossed again.

Sept. 12th, 2009, 11 AM
Arrived home safe, sound and tired. Go shopping w/ the family for our big dinner tomorrow w/ 15 est. guests, including the mission president.

Sept. 14th, 2009,
Received some additional feedback. Finish up all my redesigns, adjustments etc. for mockups v. 3 and 4, then resubmit. Hopefully we'll know by tomorrow.

Sept. 15th, 2009,
Received an offer! I'll probably start working for them remotely next week.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks - but rewarding! Thanks to everyone who supported us with thoughts, prayers and any other sort of good mojo you were throwing our way!

So - This is where I'll be working, and the area to which we'll be moving:
47.701098, -117.009287

Bacolod Bird Sanctuary, a tiki, a hat, mush and a stick

We visited the Bacolod Bird Sanctuary recently and got to see and learn about some endangered animals-not just birds-here in the Philippines. It was a good educational visit for all of us. Brandon's favorite was the Visayan Leopard Cat. He even asked the caretakers if we could have one as a pet :-P

This was a pretty cool bird that we probably won't get to see anywhere else. It's called the Rufous Hornbill.


So Ærowyn caught a tiny baby tiki the other night and they decided to make a little "home" for it. At least they don't do this with spiders. It's so tiny, you have to look really close to see it in the pics, but it's there.



After we went grocery shopping the other day, Ærowyn made a hat out of a small grocery bag. She wore it for 3 days before it was totally ruined.


Last Saturday my friend came over to teach me some more yummy Filipino recipes and her daughter, Jamie, came with them. She is 6 years old and is friend's with Ærowyn. They decided to create some of their own recipes... ahh those were the days.













Every time we leave the house to go somewhere, the kids pick up little bits of sticks and flowers along the way. Ærowyn likes to give here "collections" to the guards and Wrævn ends up stashing his in the bushes before we get on the jeepney. It's been a fun ritual lately. Because we always take an umbrella with us, Wrævn has also liked wearing it on his back. It's a perfect fit.













Don't forget to visit our Family Website for more Philippine pics :)
(you can click on all the above pics for a closer look)

2 Princesses

Though it's not quite what The Spin Doctors had in mind, the other day Wrævn came running in and says "Daddy! I'm a princess!"

Ærowyn came in shortly thereafter to admit it was all her doing.

These are the pictures that correspond to Wrævn's proclamation.

Last Weekend...

THANK YOU, THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of you that sent us your prayers, fasts and positive thoughts!

I just interviewed with a company on Tuesday morning. It went so well they immediately set up an in-person interview following. I'll be flying to the US next Monday for a battery of tests and interviews, then flying back here to the Philippines on Thursday.

It's just a 2nd interview, but it looks to be a solid opportunity - and they wouldn't be footing such a bill if they didn't think I had what it takes. Even if this doesn't turn out to be the right job in the right place at the right time, I know with your support, thoughts and prayers we'll be just fine.

We'll all be flying back to the US into LAX around the end of Sept, beginning of Oct. I'm going to try to attend a conference put on by Adobe, and then hook up w/ my nephews for a bit. Then it's off to Huntsville, UT to fetch our beloved cat Fæd, then to Newdale, ID to fetch our beloved car Fit, then if the interview goes well... to where the job is (I'll save that part for next week - if when I get it.) At some point we'll have to go to Seattle to get our stuff out of storage (so you know it's not in Seattle) and hopefully pick up our stuff from the Philippines that we're trying to ship over there.

Anyway - a battle has been won! Help us win this war by continuing to channel your thoughts and prayers our way. For all the Mormons, Next Sunday is Fast Sunday, so we'd ask that you include us in your family's fast as well.

Thanks for your help!

Brandon, Kristy, Ærowyn & Wrævn

Fasting This Weekend

Hello family and friends.

For those of you who don't know, not long ago my work contract unexpectedly and abruptly ended. What was supposed to be another 6 mo. turned into 2 weeks. So I'm currently unemployed and we're rapidly burning through our savings. Though we've looked hard, we've not been able to find any telecommute work that will allow us to stay here in the Philippines - so it looks like if I'm to find work we'll have to move back to the US soon - probably within the next month. We're sad to have to cut what we'd hoped to be a very long adventure into a very short one, but we're resigned to go where ever the winds of fate and faith take us.

This Sunday we're going to have a special 24-hour fast that I'll be able to find the right job in the right place at the right time. There are a few irons in the fire, from Post Falls, ID, to San Francisco, to American Fork, UT, to NYC, NY, to Raleigh, NC and more. There are a lot of opportunities out there though, so finding the right one where the Lord needs us (and is right for our family) is paramount.

For those of you who might not know what I mean by fast... Fasting is the act of abstaining from food and drink for a period of time for the purpose of drawing closer to God. While fasting, you should engage in sincere prayer for specific purposes. When you fast and pray with faith, you are humbled and are more receptive to receiving answers to your prayers and blessings from the Lord. Fasting is private and spiritual, and you should not draw attention to the fact that you are fasting.

We'll be starting our fast immediately following lunch on Saturday the 29th, and ending it 24 hours later after church on Sunday the 30th. We invite any of you who feel they'd like to join us in our fast to please do so. Even if you're unable to do the fast at the same time (or at all), your prayers are still most welcome and needed. Your faith and prayers will greatly strengthen ours and hopefully bring to pass an employment miracle for us, and anything else you may choose to fast about. We're also fasting on behalf of others in my family who are currently struggling.

Thanks for your help!

Brandon, Kristy, Ærowyn & Wrævn

Site Update

Well, we finally updated our family website so go see it!! You can either click the link to the right or click here.

You will notice there is a "Philippines" link at the top so check out all of our pics. Our movies section is pretty lame right now-it consists of 2 short clips-but we are in the process of adding more there. We will let you know when we get those up.

We've also updated the kid's pages with new pics and info so give them a visit too :)

We hope you like it and would love to hear any comments you have.

My cat is on fire.

In these trying economic times and my current state of unemployment - I've taken mycatisonfire.com to the next level - 11. Please take a few minutes to visit the site - look over the translation of MCIOF in 50 languages and counting! Comment on any imperfections, add missing languages and more!

Also, consider visiting the MCIOF store and purchasing some fine MCIOF-branded products. You can pick a language from the blog, then customize your product w/ it! I LOVE the intarwebz!

Oh yeah 10% of everything you spend goes to buy rice for my starving children. Not that they'll eat it - but at least I'll be able to buy it.

Honk! Honk! HOOOOOOOONK!

So - one thing that REALLY annoys me about Filipino drivers is their use of the horn. Using it for an emergency or to avert one is right out the door. It's used for:

• Getting people to ride your Jeepney/Taxi/Bus whatever


• Telling people to get out of the way, I was here 2nd (or 3rd or 4th or 5th or...), but I deserve to be ahead of you because I think I do.


• Driver wanting a candy or cigarette.


• Coming up on an intersection, or driveway, or side street or... so if someone is coming they'd better look out, 'cause I'm sure as hell not going to yield


• I've come home and am now a block away from the house - gotta tell the help to open the gate. Now I'm down the street, better do my special 'shave and hair-cut, 2 bits' honk again in case I was too far away the first time. Okay so now I'm in front of the house and the gate still isn't opened so I'd better honk again, a bit longer now.


• To show off my new air-raid/siren/La Cucaracha/General Lee horn


• 'Cause I'm bored


• No reason at all

So...

Yesterday we're standing near the parking lot at Ærowyn's school talking to this nice German ex-monk studying medicine at Ærowyn's school who has kids the same age as Ærowyn and Wrævn we met at the bookstore in the mall one day. (nice sentence eh?) Anyway - Wrævn breaks free as he is wont to do and heads into the menagerie of cars parked nearby. I tell Kristy it's her turn to go get him (though in all honesty I'm sure I'm like 2000 turns or more in debt, but that's neither here nor there).

I continue to talk to our German ex-monk Dr.-to-be friend. Pretty soon this car just starts honking. And honking. And honking. I'm all like - "Yo! Dude - there's nothing here to honk at. Nobody is moving. Gosh - you people honk at everything." Then I look over and Kristy is still in the middle of the cars, and Wrævn isn't anywhere to be seen. So NOW I'm all like - "No way." And the world is all like "Yes way!"

Yup - Wrævn had found an open back door to one of the cars in the parking lot. The family was nearby having lunch with their student (don't ask, that's another post altogether). Wrævn had crawled from the back to the front, locked the doors and was standing on the driver's seat honking the horn. To be fair, it's not really that surprising to us - we've found we have to be really quick about getting into Taxis because if the driver isn't in his seat (e.g. he's helping us load groceries or something) Wrævn crawls into the driver's seat and starts turning the wheel and fiddling with handles and knobs and stuff - while it's running.

Luckily the windows of the car were rolled down half-way so we were able to unlock the car and get him out. Also luckily, the car-owners had a good sense of humour and thought it was all quite funny - which of course it is.

Maybe I've let him watch Death Race w/ Jason Statham a few too many times... or as Wrævn calls it "Guns!? Cars!? Fast! Vroom-vroom!"

Portfolio v1.0 is live!

In response to my current unemployment, I've finally finished my portfolio that I've been working on for over a year in my spare minutes. It's not full of all the content I'd like, but at least the coding is done and I can continue filling it with stuff as time goes on.

Please have a gander and let me know what you think!

http://www.uxd.me

Oh - yeah, so - in case you didn't know, I'm now unemployed again. My freshly renewed contract ended abruptly due primarily to the economy's effect on our client's cash-flow. So I'm now unemployed and looking for work. If any of you know of anything up my alley (see the portfolio and resume to get a sense of what that is) I'd really appreciate a head's up! ESPECIALLY if it's remote work that will allow us to continue to live here in the Philippines. However, we are looking literally world-wide for any suitable option.

Multi-racial family!

Those of you in the know may remember how dark I get in sunny climes. I give you exhibit a) my 'tiger' feet.



So the other day...

Ærowyn: Mommy - why isn't daddy white like us?

Guess it's time to have 'the talk.' What exactly 'the talk' is, I have no idea, but I guess it's time.

Sorry for the lack of recent events

Ok, I know I said I would keep up, but I'm in the middle of updating our website and adding some photo pages and a Philippine section so you'll just have to be patient until I get that done. Then you will be able to see everything in one place and it will be much more efficient. We will still post our stuff here, but the picture links will all go there. So, hang on for just a bit longer and I promise you won't regret it :)
Cheers!

Holy Moly, Cow, Crap, $@&!

On our trip to the East side of the island of Negros as we ascended into the gorgeous montains...

Brandon: "Wow. Look at that beautiful view. That's miles and miles of sugar cane everyone."
Kristy: "Beautiful. Ærowyn - do you see all the sugarcane?"
Ærowyn: (with the utmost exuberance) "Holy S**t!"
Brandon & Kristy: ":-O"
Brandon & Kristy: "..."
Brandon & Kristy: ":-O"
Brandon: "Ummm, Ærowyn - where did you hear that word?"
Ærowyn: "..."
Kristy: "Ærowyn - we won't be mad, just tell us where you heard that word."
Ærowyn: "..."
Brandon: "Was it at school?"
Ærowyn: "..."
Kristy: "Was it in a movie?"
Ærowyn: "Yes."
Brandon: "Which movie?"
Ærowyn: "Transformers."
Brandon & Kristy: ":-O"
Brandon & Kristy: (to one another) "Ugh - guess it's time to start monitoring that stuff a little closer."
... lecture on that's an awful word, never say it again please, say Holy Cow, Holy Moly etc. ...
Brandon & Kristy: (to one another) "Holy crap, it took everything within me not to burst into tears laughing - we must be really awful parents - but dang that was funny."

Ærowyn's Novena to Tuna Melts

About 1 min. ago...

"Dear Heavenly Father, we're thankful for this day, bless that we could have a good day. Please bless that Mommy will never, EVER make this stuff again because it's REALLY, YUCKY! Please bless this food that it will nourish and strengthen our bodies. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Mambukal Mountain Resort

Well, we finally made it out again. I just don't think we're going to make it anywhere without it raining on us! Ærowyn didn't have school Friday (Independence Day) so we took the opportunity to have a semi-long weekend. We rented a car and headed up to the mountains for Mambukal. It's only about 30-45 minutes out of Bacolod and of course the drive there is amazingly beautiful. We got up there around 3pm and got a little bite to eat at the little eatery there. The food was amazing! Ærowyn and I had Lapu Lapu fish with fresh mango sauce and Wrævn and Brandon had pork chops. We shared a yummy fresh mango shake as well. We would go back just for the food it was so good :)

Anyway, it's a cool place. They have camping, hiking, hot mud pits, a giant swimming pool, butterfly habitat, a lake for paddle boating, bats everywhere, and 7 beautiful waterfalls! Friday didn't turn out to be such a great day to be there - it started pouring rain down in sheets - but they let us come back on Saturday free of charge because there weren't any vacancies in any of the cottages. So, we stayed at a hotel (the courtyard picture below) in Bacolod just to make a real vacation weekend out of it.


Saturday was a much better day. We got a better look at the butterflies, the kids got to go swimming in the pool, we had 3 more of their delicious shakes (mango, banana, and guyabano), and we went on a hike and saw 5 out of the 7 waterfalls.



It was an amazing weekend and we got to see so many beautiful things! We posted all our pics with captions in Picasa so check them out when you can.

ABC's and 123's

Ærowyn started school last Wednesday and is pretty excited. As I said before she wears a uniform. I can't say I think much of it, but she likes it so that's that.




She seems to like it. Yesterday I was looking over the work she did and she got a 9/9 on a rhyming exercise. They had to identify groups of pictures that rhymed. She has really been in to rhyming lately because we do rhyming exercises in the book I'm using to teach her how to read. Good Job Ærowyn!!!

As for her reading lessons, they are coming along great. She is reading some 4 word sentences and is catching on very quickly. It seems her reading book she will use at school uses the same technique so that is reassuring. Her teacher told me yesterday Ærowyn likes incentives (like I didn't know that already) and it's easy to get her to do things if stickers are offered. We've been trying to get around that one for a while now. She is one tough cookie and as stubborn as they come. Once she has her mind set on something, it's hard to deviate her from that path. Hopefully one of these days that will be a strength for her :) Hopefully Brandon and I will be able to help it be a strength to her... that is the hard part.

On Friday they have PE so I'll take a pic of her other uniform then and post it. She is making lots of new friends and even got invited to a B-day party this Saturday. We talked about boys yesterday on the way home. She is convinced one of the boys in her class is in love with her and wants to kiss her. I told her no kissing!! She said, "I know mom. I only want them for friends." At least she knows where to draw the line - for now.

I have to use a badge to pick her up. Here is a conversation we had on Monday:

Ærowyn: Why do you have to use this badge to get me mom?

Mom: It makes it so strangers can't take you. Only mommy or daddy can pick you up and we have to show this so they know you belong to us.

Ærowyn: What would happen if a stranger picked me up?

Mom: They would take you away and hurt you.

Ærowyn: Would they buy me lots of toys?

Mom: No, they would just want to do things that would hurt you and make you sad.

Ærowyn: Like feed me coffee?

Ahhh, ya gotta love her :)

Limelighter

I shot this video w/ my iPhone yesterday @ the mall (Robinsons). Welcome to the world of shopping w/ Ærowyn.

One ring to rule them all...

After 5 years of marriage I'd grown so fat I had to literally cut all my rings off my chubby fingers, including my wedding ring, with a pair of dykes. That's right - DYKES. That's what they're called. It's an acronym for Diagonal Wire Cutters. Look it up! (just don't do a GIS (Google Image Search) for dykes). Sperm Whale.

Anyway, today, 5.5 years later the one ring has finally been forged in the fires of Mt. Doom (downtown Bacolod). It cost me a whopping P150 ($3.25) and they even polished Kristy's symbol of bondage and slavery too!

I'm happy to have it on again.



And yes - that's the Joseph Smith signature ring. We have matching his/hers bands as our wedding rings.

Finally...To the Beach!!!

Well, we finally made it to the beach. We went to a little island just off shore of the northern tip of Negros called Lakawon. On the map it actually doesn't exist because it's so small, but there's a marker where it is. We left from the light yellow road that touches the water on the southern island.

It wasn't the most wonderful day because the wind was blowing pretty hard and at times we got sand blasted, but it made for fun waves to jump through. There were even a couple of wind surfers out enjoying the breeze. We rented a jeepney with our friends, the Shurtleff family, and took off at 7am. We weren't suppose to leave until 8, but the jeepney driver showed up an hour early!!! It was a day full of beautiful scenery and high adventure.

After we got home and showered we went to dinner at Joes. We met the Shurtleff family there as well as a Canadian couple (Ryan and Meghan) who had lived here for 2 years and just returned for another 3 months. Ryan runs an LDS owned call center here in Bacolod called Focus. It is based out of Ogden and they will be returning to Canada after the 3 months where he will work from home and come and visit once a quarter. They went back to Canada after the 2 years to give birth to a beautiful baby girl. It was fun to meet them and hopefully we can get together over the next 3 months and get to know them better.

We put lots of captions for the pics in our Picasa album so you can read all about our weekend journey and some other recent events.

To Market, to Market, Jiggity Jig

We had a pretty great weekend. First thing Saturday morning we packed around 24 people into a little truck thing and drove to Silay for a Stake primary activity. They learned about fire safety. The group that taught it was called Seagulls Rescue. It started as a group of young single adults whose objectives were to go the temple, get married in the temple, and to help people. Now they invite anyone to join.


Sunday was pretty uneventful which was nice. We relaxed and had a nice family day in the A.C.

Today, we went to Ærowyn's school to get her school supplies. She will have Math, Reading, English, and Religion courses. They had a kit with all of her supplies together in a little bag and it was less than $8 so we opted to just buy it instead of looking all over Central Market for all the bargin places. We will buy her uniform next month. It is pretty silly looking, but we're trying to be positive about it. She also gets to wear little bloomers for P.E. We did go to Central Market and I took some great pics of some of the different shops so you could get an idea of what it looks like. It's just a huge giant warehouse with tons of little shops shoved in to it. We ate at McDonald's so I took pics of that :) The quarter pounder tastes a ton better here for some reason...weird huh! Their menu also includes rice and fried chicken. Nothing too strange, but you have to make sure you tell them what you want to drink, because they don't ask and they will just give you Coke.

I took a few more pics of where we were and put them in our Picasa album for you to enjoy!

Fly me to the Philippines

Wow, what a crazy couple of months, and even crazier without the internet!! But, all is in order now, so I can get back to posting and keeping everyone up to date on our adventures.

First of all, let me catch up...I'm sorry it's a novel, I promise future posts won't be this long :)

After we rented our house out in Seattle and said goodbye to our wonderful city, we headed for Eastern Idaho to spend some time with family and friends. We spent a couple days in Boise with Uncle Darren's family, a week in Utah with Uncle Dano's family, and a couple of months at Grandma and Grandpa Ricks' house.

Wrævn turned 2 in February and is 100% all boy: likes trucks, planes, bugs, dirt, and guns of course.

We had a great early Easter at Aunt Taunia's house. We got to celebrate a week early because we would be gone on Easter Sunday.

It was fun to visit family and friends and we played as much as we could, but soon it was time to say farewell, so we hopped on a plane and were on our way. It was sad to fly over the beautiful mountains knowing we wouldn't see them for a long while, but it would be plenty green where we were going so at least we wouldn't miss that.



The long plane ride was actually the easiest-besides trying to get two very tired children and our bags on a plane at 2am-but thanks to some great friends (you know who you are) we had full bellies and made it to the airport with time to spare). We had one layover in Taiwan which was fun because they had a Hello Kitty play land and store that kept the little ones busy for our 4 1/2 hour layover. Ærowyn made lots of new friends and Wrævn enjoyed looking at the planes out the window.



Well, we finally arrived on April 9th and walked from the airport out in to what I like to call the sauna of death. Hotter than hot, humidity dripping everywhere, and no breeze to be found. It's a good thing that isn't normal (the no breeze thing) because I would have to change my mind about staying. Brandon met us in Manila and after misplacing the stroller and having to track it down, we sat in the airpot awaiting our flight to our final destination. Air conditioning sure is nice :)

Let me just say that Easter weekend is not a good time to arrive in a country that is over 90% Catholic...everything was shut down that first weekend we were here so I must say my first impression was a little skewed. We visited one of the markets and did get some Buko (young coconut) which was a first for the kids and I. We drank the water and then scraped out the coconut and ate up. Yum! It might be a good thing they didn't have all the fish and meat out because it smelled pretty nasty without them there!

Click here for pics of the following:

After spending a wonderful weekend in the hotel, we were off to our empty rental house. We were able to get mattresses and sheets so at least we had something to sleep on. Over the next couple of weeks, we obtained the essentials to live and then we even got some furniture. I'm hoping we will have some money saved up so we can ship some of our furniture home because I love it: couch, coffee table, 2 chairs, 6 person dining table, king size bed, 2 night stands, and 2 twin beds all for $250!!!!

Before we had our furniture, our wonderful neighbor Ms. Mack, offered to let us borrow some of her patio furniture she wasn't going to use anymore. We were very thankful to her because it provided a place for us to eat. Our first family dinner at our new house was during a brownout (that is when the power goes off across the city for an amount of time; sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 2 hours), but because we have a gas stove we still get to cook. We purchased some fresh prawns earlier that day and bought some yummy mangoes from a street vendor. I must say mangoes are the most delicious fruit I have tried to date. So it was, we ate by candlelight outside on our borrowed furniture, but it was one of the best meals we'd had in a long time.

We visited a local beach a couple of weeks ago. It was quite an interesting experience. There were lots of people there and it even had little covered huts which turned out to be a good thing because it rained on us most of the time we were there. It wasn't a white sand beach with crystal blue water, but it was fun and the water was warm. Apparently we weren't thinking too well before we left and we didn't take any food with us, but we made some new friends there who fed our entire family! It is surely a day to remember.

We celebrated Ærowyn's 5th birthday and it was really fun. She didn't even get upset that there wasn't a Dairy Queen here - that is where she has been talking about having her party for the last year. The only thing we need to do better next time is have more food. If there is one thing Filipinos are passionate about, it is food; they love to eat.

The kids are loving it here! They chase the tiki lizards around all day and find and play with all the bugs and beetles they can. If we can ever find one, we will take a picture of and record a tuko which makes the coolest sound.

We've met so many wonderful people. One filipina, Medley, was actually driving in the opposite direction we were walking and turned her car around to ask if we were ok. She married an American and is living in Texas, but is building a vacation home here. Her mom lives here all the time. She thought we were a family of lost Americans and didn't like to see Wrævn out in the heat so she gave a us a ride. I shouldn't say ride, because it was more like a shuttle to all the places we needed to go. First, she took us to pick up our computer from FedEx, then she took us to her house where she gave us a tour and gave the kids snacks. Then she took Brandon to work and drove me and the kids home. She is back in the states right now, but will be back soon. She gave us her cell number and her mom's home number and told us to call anytime. She is excited to come back and introduce us to her husband. What an amazing lady! Who does that?

While Brandon was working downtown (no internet at the house yet) he made some good friends. One of them invited us to his house last weekend. They were having their house blessed. There was tons of food, Karaoke, and lots of fun people to meet and chat with. Everyone has been so wonderful to us. Ærowyn really likes Karaoke. We would get a set, but A) it's super expensive, and B) we don't have a TV (which we don't miss one little bit).

I didn't have much culture shock (and the kids adjusted right off), just a few surprises here and there.

I hope I never have to drive here because I don't think there are any traffic laws; you can drive down the wrong side of the road, there aren't any stop signs so everyone just goes when they want (although there are 2 stop lights in town...a town of 500,000 people!), and surprisingly enough there aren't that many wrecks...go figure! We ride jeepneys for the majority of our transportation. It's pretty fun and nice because they stop wherever you need them to on their route. It costs 7 pesos per adult each ride which is about 15 cents. We walk a lot too. Brandon and I have each lost a little more than 5 lbs and we hope that we keep on losing :)

Shopping is fun and interesting. They have 2 big malls-Robinson's and SM-with awesome movie theaters which we visit as often as we can because it's only $2! That made me happy to know we won't have to catch up on movies when we get back one of these days. The malls are just like in the states, there is even an iStore. They both have department, grocery, hardware, jewelry and clothing stores, and there is even a Toys 'R Us at Robinson's. We do most of our grocery shopping at one of them, but mangoes are usually cheaper on the street. I won't pay the prices for most of the stuff in the malls because I know I can get it cheaper on the street, especially clothing. Bacolod is known for people who like to spend money so I guess there must be quite a few wealthy people who live here. The house down the street owns 2 BMW's if that says anything. I personally like all the little street shops. I must say I have never seen so many shoes in my life. There is one part of town that every store on two sides of the block is full of shoes of every kind. We all bought some Crocs and the most expensive pair was $5 which is awesome! There are several open street markets all with different things. There is Central Market with baskets, fabric, sewing shops (design stuff, take them the fabric and have it made for super cheap), homemade everything, this and that, anything you can imagine. Then there is Libertad Market with all of the local fruits, veggies, fish, meat, and other food. It's the only place in town to get buko (young coconut). If you want good prices go there, but you have to make sure you wash the food a couple times over. Burgos Market has food and other stuff. Those don't include all of the little shops along streets. I've never seen so many places to shop in my life!! It's just store after store after store for as long as the eye can see. I will have to take some pics all over town and post them later so you can get an idea of what it's like.

Ærowyn will start school next month. She was accepted into a private school where they speak English. She will get to wear a little uniform which she is excited about. When we showed her the picture her first comment was, "Why is it immodest?" We told her she will wear a little shirt underneath so it won't be sleeveless. What a kid! There was one school that didn't even consider her because she wasn't 5 1/2 and couldn't read. Most schools here accept students as young as 1 1/2 and they are reading by age 4-how crazy is that!!

The simple life is great! It took me a little while to adjust to hanging the laundry, doing the dishes by hand, and having our clothes be dirty after only one use, but I really like it here.

So, that's that. I still have to take pics of the city and we have plans to visit lots of places, but for now, this update will have to do. It's great here. I was lying in bed last night with a big grin on my face thinking of how happy I am. I don't know if it's the simplicity of our life right now, or just knowing I'm doing what the Lord wants, or maybe it was because my kids were asleep and I got to spend some time with Brandon alone, but I am happy and loving life.

Cleaning the House - part I

So on Sunday I go to our new ward and meet them. Great people, just like any other ward in the world.

I mention to the Elder's Quorum President - Pres. Padol, that I'm gonna need some help this week getting my house all cleaned up before my family gets here. The owner is supposed to do it, but I seriously doubt that the people she hires are going to get it thoroughly cleaned to our tastes in that short of a time frame. He says sure, and announces it at the end of Sunday School - 7 AM on Tuesday - we'll meet here @ the Church then @ 8 we'll go to Bro. Ward's house down the street. They like early here I guess.

Later I quickly plan a lunch menu w/ the Relief Society President - Sister Espy. Of course, it's chicken and rice - what else would it be?

So this morning, I get up @ 6:30 so I can get over to the house by about 7:30 to make sure the guards know to let in a couple of visitors I'm having over to the house. Chances are though, that this being the Philippines and a bunch of Mormons, what was supposed to occur at 8:00 probably won't really begin until 9.

So at 7:52, 3 people show up at my gate. Wow - people came I thought - and on time! They hand me a list and say a few others are waiting at the gate and the guard needs my signature before he'll let them in.

So I sign and wait. 3 minutes later ... well, watch the video.



When was the last time you had a turn out like that for a ward party, let alone a spur of the moment service project lasting the ENTIRE day in the middle of the week for a member you met 2 days ago?

Man - I love the Philippines - and Philippine Mormons!! :-)

I'll be posting more of the actual walk-through and cleaning videos later - they're much longer/larger.