cebu, philippines

the main reason for our trip was to visit the temple in cebu city.




i didn't enhance the colors. the sky is so perfectly blue here.
i also have no idea how the women wear their hair down.
it is so hot. i think i tried wearing it out of a bun for maybe three minutes.






mariel and spencer are friends of my uncle and were the best tour guides


the warrior lapu lapu








we went to this restaurant where you choose your fresh seafood,
then they cook it however you want.

our lobster was looking around at us before he met his fate in the kitchen.
we also tasted scallops, fresh seaweed, sour green mango, prawns, lapu lapu fish,
oysters, squid, and these things that look like a tongue rolled up in a shell.
nate was much braver than i was.

this guy was huge! he would have cost 7,000 pesos to eat

i'd say this sums up our flight home. wild woman.

bohol, philippines

we spent thanksgiving in the philippines this year.
there was no pie, no turkey, no leftovers, and no family.
but
there were beautiful sunsets, geckos in our room on the beach, mango smoothies, and massages.

our beach hut

we went to go see the tiny tarsier monkeys, but you're not allowed to hold them anymore
because too many people were smuggling them in their pockets.
didn't get any great pics of the real monkeys, but i think this monkey is pretty awesome.

the chocolate hills are naturally shaped like hershey's kisses.
sage wanted to sit on them...

nate wanted to jump over them...

and when it got to my turn, sage was d.o.n.e.

so we snuck in a quick family shot before the crying ensued. it was bright and hot.

this woman named her pet turtle after my uncle matt, who was a missionary on this island years ago.
she makes fresh, tasty empanadas from scratch and wouldn't let us pay for them.
she even sent us home with a bag of snacks. all the people we met were so humble and kind.

acuna's empanadas and pastries

who needs snorkeling when you can go in a glass-bottom boat and see the same thing?

my kind of laying on the beach: hammocks

to me, the best part of traveling is seeing different cultures in action.
we saw the rice paddies mid-harvest, men carrying palms on their bare backs,
cows and roosters roaming everywhere, naked little kids running through the fields,
and the lush, green landscape of the island.
i hope we can come back to bohol.

slumber

today was one of those days
where i had to make a million horrible phone calls
to airlines and insurance companies
and my eyes hurt from staring at my computer screen.
every time i looked over at sage playing next to me
she had this face like "really mom? just stop and come play with me"
and then it was too late.
she got tired and fussy and crashed on our bed.

so i had to take a picture of my sweet baby girl
{who looks like a boy in her navy outfit with no bow}
because next time i'm just going to stop and play.
watching her sleep so peacefully makes me forget everything bad about the world
and remember why i absolutely love being her mom.

the best of holiday advertising

halloween and thanksgiving are almost nonexistent in singapore, so they skipped right to christmas. we've been listening to holiday tunes in every store since october, and the decorations have been in full swing for a few weeks.

today i got my local grocery store's holiday sale magazine and some of the advertising lines were too good not to share. so in the spirit of thanksgiving, here are some of the best phrases advertising holiday specials like "crispy pork knuckle" and "spiral beer sausage"...

delis so fine, tummies will pine!

a spread so lavish, guests will relish

sweet and creamy, kids will be merry

bite-size delights, keep all smiling wide

toasts so good, to soak you in the mood

make children scream with glee, for just a small fee!

boys want action, we give them satisfaction (advertising toys, c'mon now.)

awesome, right? poetry at its finest.

girls week

you'd think i'd be used to nate traveling, but i'm not. i still dread it.

but, someone's gotta bring home the bacon around here.
while nate was in india, we had girls week.
i took the opportunity to do some things for others this week
that were inconvenient or time consuming for me, which doesn't matter.
the point is that it was so good.
i am constantly reminded of how important it is
to get outside of myself and think about other people.
i was happier, i missed nate less, and i didn't hate singapore once
even when i had to go to three stores to find baking soda

we also...
went to the zoo

in a sweaty, napless daze


i always forget how lush singapore is until we get outside of the concrete jungle.
the zoo is actually a rainforest - so beautiful.

and we...
danced to a little mj and florence + the machine

read goodnight moon many, many times

splurged on a milkshake at ben and jerry's

and did incredibly exciting things like paying bills

it's good to have our dad/hubs home again.

five months

this kid gets more fun by the day.

our new saturday tradition is to put on our swimsuits with tennis clothes on top.
sage hangs in her stroller and watches us play tennis, then we all jump in the pool.
she loves to kick those little legs in water.

her favorite toy is the costco baby wipes pack.
good thing we stocked up on those for our move here.

her favorite thing to do is watch someone, anyone vacuum.
her eyes follow that vacuum with a look of intense concentration and awe.

and last but not least, she's getting her parents nice and nervous about
all those long flights back to america for christmas...she's a mover.

eat me

let's talk about grocery shopping.
the bad news is that while you can actually find a lot of products here, you will pay for it.
and by pay, i mean triple the price.
the other bad news is that i don't live by any of these specialty grocery stores.
as mentioned before, there's a very local flavor around here.
also, singaporeans like to play a game i call "now you see it, now you don't."
things just disappear from shelves the next time you go back to get them.

not everywhere is pristine and clean like singapore is known to be

wet market

sweet corn, yam, and mango neopolitan ice cream

on sale

eggs don't need a refrigerator

i walk past this aisle in confusion every time.
i have absolutely no idea what any of that stuff is, but i want to know what it is.

why make blueberry flavored oreos when they could be blueberry ice cream flavored?

every day, the uncles are out chatting and reading in the corridors

the good news is that the australian cookie that ruled them all is sold at my local store:
in short, a thin mint on steroids. delish.

the other good news is that grocery shopping is always exciting.
and by exciting, i might mean hard.
i made a goal to try one new thing a week, so we've tasted some different things here and there.
i'm working myself up to more exotic things like dragon fruit and quail eggs, but not quite as exotic as squid ink and octopus balls.

*it was really weird to have my big camera with me and just be snapping pictures in the grocery store, so the quality isn't great since i was trying to be sneaky and hold a baby--multitasking at its finest.

nostalgic

"good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre." -- gail goldwin

life sped up and changed completely in the past six months. my routine of teaching and studying came to a halt with graduating, sage, and singapore. i was sorting through pictures and came to a folder of my students. oh man, i loved those kids. i felt sad as i saw pictures of kids who i knew had a rough start at life, and i wonder now where they are, what they're doing, if they have good teachers who care about them, if they feel loved. i laughed at the crazy antics those kids would pull when i came across pictures of stages made out of blocks, mics made out of plastic giraffes, and songs they performed "like bee-yawn-say!"

mostly, i'm just feeling nostalgic. those were hard years that i wouldn't go back to, but i still love those kids.

even now, i look at this and feel proud. his d's are looking so good! he made an AB pattern by himself! he's come so far!

it's funny how drastically different my daily routine is now, but i couldn't be more happy being with sage. although, i'd really love my brain to come back...some days i feel like maybe once upon a time i was smart...back when i could remember where i set my keys 37 seconds ago. nate talks about how he can't wait for her to grow up a little so he can teach her things {i still want to freeze time every day}. being a parent is definitely the biggest and most daunting teaching job i'll have, but the benefits far outweigh the two weeks of vacation and good friday off i was getting on the south side of chicago. i'd take this girl over anything...you knew a sage picture was coming, didn't you? i can't help myself.

rain + chinatown

the rainy season is in full swing here.

our pocket of singapore is old and new smashed together, and it's got character, so we go on lots of walks to explore. we were walking through chinatown when those gray clouds just opened up and dumped rain. like, i-feel-like-i-just-took-a-shower kind of rain. i was in a cab the other day and i practically had to yell my destination up to the front seat because the rain was pounding so hard on the car. it's that loud.

the shop houses on a gray, rainy day...