Tagatay

Here's some picts from tagaytay, home of the world's smallest active volcano. The trees and scenery was just beautiful. There was even a movie crew filming a movie in the park

the sun rises here about 5:20 am and sets around 6:30 pm. It makes us appreciate daylight savings a lot more.
I just love this scrunched up face of marianne sleeping.

Here's several pictures from the rest of our Cebu trip, including several of my mission friends.

Devin and Elder Irwin Boiser

The Cebu Temple
Yea for Mcdonald's play places and air conditioning in side

Here's a video of Spencer playing in the fountains at the mall. He draws quite a crowd. He just loves these fountains and we have literally 50 or more philipinos sitting here watching the little white boy running around

Cultural Celebration

This was awesome. The participants were amazing. President Monson, Elder Eyring and Elder Oaks were all present the Coliseum was very neat alhough it was extremely hot and I thought President Monsen was going to pass out in his suit coat: he stated that he was glad because otherwise "we would all sufficate from the heat" my sentiments exactly. We did not get the any great pictures mostly beacuse I was religiouly fanning marianne and myself and Devin was following our very active two year old around. But here you go. Devin even got to see a couple misssion companions that he hadn't been expecting

In Cebu

The Cultural celebration was going to be saturday night at the coliseum in Cebu. We got to our very clean and surprisingly nice and cheap hotel late friday night. Saturday morning we went to see some of the local historical sites. The first was Fort San Pedro which was built in the 1500's. It was great it had a cool court yard with lots of beautiful flowers and they also had several pairs of Americans which was just awesome. I tell you I crave americans in this country so yesterday was very refreshing. Lots of people who served in the philipines have returned and are here in Cebu The court yard

Magellan's Cross brought over by Magellan and buried in 1521

Here is the girl and a boy who followed us and gave us a tour that we did not ask for but was still pretty cool, so we paid them. And they of course loved spencer

THe fort

One of the 13 canyons

Cebu Boat Trip

Cebu is a visayan island in the central region of the phillipines and they are getting a new temple. At the last minute we found out that our ward had a few extra tickets for the cultral celebration and dedication. And one of Devin's favorite mission companion's Elder Boiser lives in Cebu, so we booked a boat ride over - so we could see all the islands and things (25 hour ferry)- we thought it would be a fun experience and thankfully we booked a flight home. We left thursday night This was tourist class which looked liked barracks with not even a sheet provided there were about 100 people in the room. We decided to book the higher price room.

Here is the 24 hour a day Karaoke party that was provided, These philipinos LOVE karaoke.

Here was our fancy bed, marianne and I slept on top and spencer and devin slept on the bottom and we had 8 people in this room (they didn't have a private room available- we asked). And to top of the luxuries we had a very very smelly bathroom :)

You can barley see him but spencer is playing with a little philipino girl they are both over in the corner looking out the window in the upstairs cafeteria.

Here is one of the islands. It really was a picturesque voyage however we spent hour upon hour trying to entertain spencer and we are very happy we will be flying home!

Lets say this is no cruise liner

Playing at the mall

This is Marianne's bed in case you were wondering

Playing at the mall, they have these play places that you can pay to go into at the mall and since we didn't have anyone come over today we thought we would indulge

Family Home Evening

For Family Home Evening we had the 2nd Counselor and his family over. Cora brough over all the food and we cooked while the some of the kids swam and then played with spencer. It was way fun.
Thye made Tilapia and Bangos with a vegtable salad that consisted of spinach onions, mango, tomatoes and eggplant all mixed up. They also made this really cool desert that had coconut, corn, bananas, sugar and milk. And of course rice which accompanies every meal here wheather it is breakfast lunch, dinner, or dessert.

The kids have a great time playing together, this familiy has come over several times to play with us, they have 6 kids from 18 to 11 and they all really like Spencer

This Week . . Birthday

Thursday my friend jewell from church invited us to there house dinner. So nice they have a nice house or should I say complex where like 5 families live. They had us eat in there living room area, and fed us on her fancy china. It was wonderful

Some friends from church over for a swim and then they came up to hang out. Just a side note I have had two families into our apartment since being here and as soon as them walk in they start sweeping my floor cleaning my apartment and rearranging my furniture, is this a philipino thing?

reading the scriptures

HAPPY 26TH BIRTHDAY TO NAOMI
We went out to dinner to Jolibee's for my bday a local fast food restaurant that is close by, so that was nice and then had a few people from the ward come over for merienda's and drinks. One even brought me a wonderful chocolate mouse cake for my birthday

Pretty fancy for something compared to Mcdonalds, real silverware and plates, and they carry the tray to the table for you, talk about good customer service.

Spencer wanted a picture of his sippy cup, so here you go

Nana bought this brown haired blue eyed cabbage patch doll for marianne before she was born, good job matching they are twins in purple. including the chubby cheeks- Marianne is 16 weeks on Monday

Here is our cool washing machine that our friend bought just for the apartment for me. so nice, I hang the cloths on a rack on the porch to dry them.

Water, Water, Water- So one last complaint - We can't drink the water here we buy great big gallons of water to drink and brush our teeth with. Not so bad, and there is no hot water here at all- not for showers or dishes, so there you go. The water is about cool, not luke warm just cool. So we are learning how to take quick showers so that is good. And with it so hot it is not as bad as it sounds.

So I am starting to get comfortable with the market and phillipines in general and all the changes so that is good

So it is $5o Pesos to the dollar, so I was thinking oh for sure everything will be cheap here. Not quite what I was thinking. Some things are cheaper like devin got a really nice hair cut for $4.00. but like $5,00 a gallon or more. I am starting to get the hang of the money. Most things seem about half of what they would cost in the states so that is nice. On the streets it is cheaper but we are not on the streets cause it is too hot. so we are at the air conditioned mall (see below) where everything is high price for all the rich people

We visit Devin's work on Friday they were having a birthdya party for this senior atorney who is retiring this summer at 55, that is his daughter who is 4 years old. They were all super nice. Devin had his first day yesterday adn loved it. How could you not it is air conditioned :) but really he is excited to work on the cases with this firm Baker Mckensie who has clients like, LOreal, disney, and other huge companies.

Here is devin playing with Leo's little girl Alair which means happy

We went to Manila to see the National Museum, (which had no air conditioning, so we didn't stay as long as we wanted)

here is the cathedral

Market! Market! The Mall / grocery store, it is a huge 5 story mall that is just $1.00 taxi ride away. and is fully air conditioned, which means there are 2 million people in it at all times. But which also means we will be in it a lot. it has everything from the gap to all the phillpino versions of fashion stores, hair cuts, a theater and the local grocery store. They sell lots of food on the street eveywhere which is a lot cheaper but you just never know, so occasionally we have bought some fruit on the street but thats about it. so the grocery bill is only about 3/4 of what it would be in america

don't even know how they drive in this mess it is nuts, everyone honks constantly, and then the lanes move or there are no lanes, i am just glad every night we make it home in one piece, but I don't see any accidents anywhere, don't know how they do it. Spencer Taggart I can't believe you drove here at 14 - crazy

So the kids are living it up in all the transportation here- because there are no seat belts let alone car seats. Here we are in the back of a taxi. They have jeepney's here that are really cheap taxi/bus type things, they were modeled after world war two jeeps (picts to come later) and we have rode in them to the market when we are all together. But I told devin that unfortunately for him I am more high maintenance than that and with two kids I need a air conditioned taxi to take everywhere. This heat is awful! but it is only like $1.00 for the taxi, however the jeep is $.14 for a ride, so devin takes those to work.

We have a fridge, that has a small shelf that acts as a freezer, and the eggs where on the door that was near the freezer part, so of course they froze. And for those who think you may have to throw them away at that point, i'm here to tell you they actually taste just fine, you just have to scramble them :)

Frozen eggs anyone. Oh and check out those really cute little bananas that they have here, they taste just like bananas, they work great for a snack for spencer.

Here is the internet cafe, that is right buy the pool, area, I wish it had air conditioning though, phew it is hot right now as I am posting and it is only 6:30 am.

another difference, box milk- yum? I think not, yea not our favorite, although surprisingly spencer drinks it pretty well, we just wont have cereal this sum

It actually tastes just fine when you had chocolote- so we are living it up and having chocolate milk everyday, its the only way to get that calcium in. I am such a dairy girl and so is spencer and not have milk, and very very very expensive cheese is a little different, oh well we will manage. the yogurt tankfully is not to bad.