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.