Optimus

This year when I asked Adam what kind of birthday party he wanted, he had only one answer- Optimus Prime. Not Transformers, Optimus Prime.  This for me was…a hard theme. I had no idea who Optimus Prime was.  The boys have only watched Rescue Bots transformer (the less scary Transformers) and Optimus Prime is in the first episode for 20 seconds. But those 20 seconds must have made an impact because Adam was positive. So I had to do some research…and watch some Transformers. 
I planned a whole bunch of fun things and told Adam all about the plans.  He drew a picture at school when we were still planning his party, with the balloons, streamers, lollipops and party guests- Adam, Malcolm, Victoria and Carter. 
Morning of the party we set everything up and waited for our guests to arrive!

So that brings me to this…..

I decided to hire Optimus Prime to come to Adam’s party to make it a bit more exciting. I found a costume rental company who informed me it was the same price for someone to come and wear the costume as it was without. I of course asked for someone to wear the costume…..and something must have been lost in translation.  Day of the party, the costume arrives and the person who delivered it informs me that he is the assistant and not the costume wearer…we regroup and I let Randy know he will get the once in a lifetime opportunity to be Optimus. He leaves for a bit and somehow manages to bribe our friend Tom to wear the costume. Not sure what he promised him.  Tom is  6.5 feet tall, with the boots for the costume that made Optimus over 7 feet tall! I was worried the kids would be afraid but they LOVED it!

Happy Birthday Adam!!

5!

There are a million reasons why I love Adam but for his 5th birthday I’m going to name my top five.
1.  Even at five there is no fooling Adam. His logic is dizzying and I am already terrified of when he outsmarts me daily in his teenage years. 
2.  He loves to learn. I always let him and Malcolm pick one book from the Scholastic magazine. Last month Adam’s choice was Ultimate Rocks and Gems Collection and this month’s choice is Winter Knit a Critter, so he can learn to ‘sew’.  I hope he always loves to learn and explore and create as much as he does now.  
3.  Even though Malcolm can sometimes beat up on his older brother, Adam always wants the same as Malcolm. “Whatever Malcolm wants” “Is Malcolm going?” is always his answer. 
4.  His favorite foods in the world are dried seaweed, dumplings and steak, not necessarily all together.  
5. He is such a little love and gets so excited about the simplest things, whether it’s making Christmas cards for his friends, going to Wildflour for breakfast, playing chutes and ladders, building legos, reading books in my bed,  helping to vacuum, learning to buckle his own carseat, building a dinosaur costume, figuring something out, drawing his birthday party, riding a new birthday bike for the first time, playing soccer, 
Every day I’m amazed at the little person that Adam has become and I’m so excited to see who he becomes!  For Adam’s birthday we had a full day of celebration!  Adam woke up to birthday presents and surprises, including a new bike!

Presents from Maria and Shierel! They were so sweet they also gave Malcolm a present.

Randy and I went to Adam’s school for his birthday walk around the sun.  Randy and I showed everyone pictures of Adam from each year and cheer as he walks around the sun.

Then we all had cupcakes!

I took the rest of the afternoon off of work and we headed home for lunch. Then adventure zone with friends for slides and ball pits. The birthday ended with dumplings and ice-cream. A pretty perfect first day as a five year old!

Ber Months

Christmas celebrations start in September in the Philippines. Trees and lights come out. Songs are playing in the malls. But in the Ali home we waited until after Thanksgiving to pick up our tree. There are very few real trees in Manila. So I put my name on the list at SNR (the Filipino Costco) on August 20th….and of course as always happens when I went to pick it up on November 30 there was some..confusion. Here we are waiting for our tree…
But eventually my sweet husband managed to convince someone that we were in fact worthy of tree and we brought this beauty home. 

Malcolm only wanted to help with the lights. He kept insisting on more lights and more lights.

Once the lights were up it was ornament time.  It’s always my favorite to look at the ornaments and remember where we were when we bought each one. Most of the ornaments are from when we’re traveling and two every year for Adam and Malcolm so they all have a lot of meaning. I loved sharing these memories with the boys. Adam lasted longer than Malcolm and stuck with me to the end putting all the ornaments up.

Before we knew it our tree was done!

I think Adam had more fun vacuuming the pine needles up.

And now we’re ready for Christmas!

Snorkel and Goggles

For our second day in Bohol we decided to rent a boat and go to a beach where we could snorkel.  Of course things don’t always go as planned in the Philippines.  My friend had given us a number to book tours.  It had worked the day before so we went ahead and used them to book a boat. The water was so calm and the weather was perfect.  Our boat picked us up and we headed out on the calm sea. 

The boat ride was 40 minutes long with the loudest engine ever. We finally arrived at the island and there was not a beach in site. It was just a place for boats to pull up to. Then you rent another teeny tiny boat and snorkel.  I was planning to spend time on the beach with the boys while Randy and I took turns snorkeling. I was at a loss for a bit and debated having us all go back to the hotel.  Luckily, this is when Randy stepped in and asked why not try to all go snorkeling.          

Randy was of course right.  Adam jumped right in and was so good using his goggles to spot the sea turtles.

Malcolm took a little more warming up but eventually he got in the water and loved trying to spot the turtles.

We headed back for lunch, which included a mango shake with an umbrella and halo halo for dessert.

For our last night out we went back to Paprika for another yummy meal!

We’re glad we got a chance to share beautiful Bohol with Grandma! When we got back we only had a few more days that passed too quickly. We love you Grandma Yuyu!

Back to Bohol

We wanted to bring Grandma somewhere fun in the Philippines while she was visiting. We had been to Bohol a long time ago when I was just pregnant with Malcolm and loved it, so we decided to go back. It’s amazing that the last time we were in Bohol Adam was this size and Malcolm was the size of a pea.  

 This time these two were a little bigger and very excited to go to the beach mommy, daddy and amma Yuyu.

When we landed it was rainy and there was a storm passing through the Philippines. It was supposed to rain the entire weekend.  We ran to the beach when we got to the hotel, it wasn’t rainy and we wanted to take advantage of the weather.  Turns out we could have relaxed. It ended up only raining a little bit the first day. The rest of the weekend the weather was beautiful in Bohol, even though it ended up raining everywhere else in the Philippines.

This beach is perfect for exploring.  There were hermit crabs and starfish galore and low tide for 20 feet.

After the beach we all took a much needed long nap after our early morning flight and headed out for a special Thanksgiving dinner.  We went to Paprika, a great restaurant in a nearby hotel. There were frogs everywhere after the rain storm and the boys wanted to spend all night hunting them down. 
Sadly, we only have blurry Iphone pictures of the beautiful star lit, frog filled path. 

Malcolm was up early the next day so I took him out to the balcony so Randy and Adam could sleep. Silver lining, we had a chance to see this beautiful sunrise over the ocean.

Soon enough everyone was up and we all headed for breakfast. Adam spent every breakfast in Bohol watching the awesome, friendly people at the hotel make this shake and collecting umbrellas.

For our first full day in Bohol we planned a day of activities – partially because we thought it would rain all day but also because we knew the boys and Grandma would like to see the tarsiers, butterflies and a local farm.  The boys were pretty exited to see Tarsiers so we made that our first stop.

We went back to the Tarsier sanctuary we went to last time.  They let the tarsiers run wild so you have to spot them. We were lucky enough to spot 5!

After the tarsiers we headed to the butterfly sanctuary.  These butterfly sanctuaries are always interesting.  This one was better than most and the boys enjoyed it.  

 
Our last stop was Bohol Bee Farm for a tour and a lunch. Adam is very into recycling so it was great to see all the innovative ways they reused everyday things.

 After our tour, we headed to lunch right by the water. Some of us took some time to warm up to the view.  This is my favorite Malcolm face ever.  He makes this face and tells me I’m mean, a little something he picked up from Adam.

We even squeezed some beach time into our full day before dinner.

Grandma comes to town!

Guess who came to visit us last month. Grandma Yuyu!  Everyone was excited to see Grandma and everyone was even more excited when they saw the amazing presents she brought.  She brought an Air Patroller (if you don’t know what this Paw Patrol magic for kids is, consider yourself lucky) and an awesome construction bench and lots of fun clothes and shoes!
We were so excited to show Grandma everything, soccer, our favorite restaurant, the pool and everything else! We’re so excited to have Grandma in the Philippines. Here are some pics from our first couple of days. 

SuperMoon

By far one of the best parts about living in Manila is that we have by far more leeway than we would in the U.S.  Recently was the closest supermoon in 68 years.  Our apartment building is 53 floors and by simply asking all residents were allowed to traipse up to the roof on floor 54 and see the moon! The moon wasn’t that impressive but the views were fantastic! Our friend took some great pictures of our neighborhood from up there! 

Not a Real Vacation

I am way behind…let’s blame Christmas Cards, picture book making, Christmas and Birthday planning and of course Black Mirror and Crown watching. 
So let’s catch you up! When Randy went to Thailand two weeks ago, the boys and I decided we would go to the beach with Victoria and her family.  It’s about a two hour drive away and I had to get around a whole lot of jeepneys and trikes but we made it and it was worth it.  The beach was nice and the water was warm and shallow for a long way out. My favorite type of beach. 

It was even more fun that our friends were there to play in the beach with us!

After lunch all the kids went to the play area (with the nannies of course) and i got to read a whole trashy magazine from start to finish. Heaven!

Then it was back to the room for a shower before we headed over to our friends rented condo for dinner.

The next day we were able to squeeze in some breakfast and beach before we headed home! While we were at the beach I asked Adam if he liked his vacation so far.  His reply- this isn’t a real vacation. I asked him why not? He replied because we have to leave the country like daddy to be on vacation. I tried to explain that vacations can be close or far, in the same country or a different one. Didn’t work so I told him we could call it a mini vacation and that was acceptable! Mini or real, it was a nice break from Manila!

Happy 241 Birthday Marines!

Every year the Embassy Marines here in Manila (and around the world) host a big ball in honor of the Marine’s birthday.  This year was the 241st birthday, which is pretty crazy when you stop to think that the United States is only 240 years old.  Good old Wikipedia filled in the gap for me.  Apparently the Continental Marines were the marine force of the American Colonies during the American Revolutionary War, so they were here when we were fighting for our independence.

These days, the birthday means that you get to wear a fancy dress and head out to a hotel for a night out.  But first I made sure to leave time to take photos with Adam and Malcolm.  Adam was all for it and jumped right in.

Malcolm, not so much.  I think maybe he was a little upset that we were all dressed up and going out without him.

We tried to take some pictures anyway, with limited success.

The next morning we went to Wildflour with the boys and gave them our souvenirs to keep. They loved them!  Happy birthday Marines!

The Great Wall That Almost Wasn't

Ever since we moved to Asia, whenever Randy asks me where I want to go my answer has been the Great Wall. For the longest time either tickets were expensive or fight times were terrible or we had not enough days off to go. But this time all the stars were aligned and we made it. 
Randy spent loads of time researching which part of the wall to visit and finding a good tour guide. And then of course Murphy’s Law kicked in and we were woken up by poor Malcolm throwing up in the middle of the night. The poor guy was sick all night and at 5:30 am after a long night we were pretty sure that we weren’t going to be able to make it to the Wall.  We called the airline and tried to change our ticket since this was our last chance to go. But there were no flights to Manila for a few days. We pushed back the time our tour guide and car were picking us up and talked about just Adam and me or Adam and Randy going.
It’s funny how even though the whole purpose of coming to Beijing for me was the see the Great wall, but I didn’t even care.  All that mattered was that Malcolm was ok. 
After a couple hours Malcolm seemed better. We went down to breakfast and Malcolm had some toast and water and kept it down. We kept waiting for him to be sick again but he wasn’t. We packed three change of clothes for each of us just in case and headed out to the Great Wall. We had our own car so we figured worst case we would just turn around and go home if Malcolm got sick again. 
The car ride was two hour long so we had lots of time to see how he was. He thankfully was fine, watched kindle and fell asleep for a long time. 

We arrived and decided to take the ski lifts up to the top. It was the easiest and the quickest way and it was beautiful.

Malcolm was still asleep so he missed this amazing view. 

Those are Adam and Randy’s legs in front of us.

Once we got to the top the views were even more breathtaking.  Even Adam had to take a break and peek out.

Malcolm woke up and was still feeling ok (aka- he didn’t throw up all over me) although he wouldn’t let me put him down the entire time. At least I got my work out in.

For the way down we decided to take the Toboggan down. I was going to take Malcolm on the ski lift but he would have none of that.  It was amazing to be all together and see the Great Wall and even better that Malcolm was ok!

And just like that our Beijing adventure came to a close.