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Thankful

I am thankful that we have such a wonderful smart boy who loves fishes and dinosaurs and is so generous with his toys, his time and his love.

I am thankful that Adam (and soon Malcolm!) goes to such a wonderful school with teachers and classmates who love him so much and give him room to grow and discover what time of person he wants to be.

I am thankful that I have a job I love where I am able to leave to join a two hour Thanksgiving lunch at Adam’s school.

I am thankful that I have a husband who loves to cook and celebrate the holidays with our friends. We have had people over for the past 8 Thanksgivings and Randy has cooked all but one of those meals.

I am thankful that I have this wonderful little boy loves to explore new things and is growing into such an independent, loving, smart boy.

I am thankful that Randy is such an amazing and patient dad and husband. Did I mention that he cooks!

I am thankful that we live in such a wonderful apartment with a beautiful view with lots of room to have all our friends over.

I am thankful that I live someplace where I can walk to the market early in the morning with the boys to buy beautiful flowers (and 4 poinsettias and an orchid.

I am thankful that I live in a country where I can find turkey and mushrooms and even cranberries.

I’m thankful that we all have so many wonderful friends who make Thanksgiving away from our family that much easier.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Meeting and Greeting

One of the perks of working at the Embassy is when President Obama comes to town is that we get to attend a ‘Meet and Greet’. It’s a pretty amazing opportunity.

When the President came to Manila last year I took Adam and Malcolm and we were able to get a blurry picture to prove it.

Not the best photos. This year Adam made it into the kids area! I’m still waiting for the White House photo of all the kids next to the President but for now see if you can find Adam below.

Perhaps you’re wondering how you end up meeting and greeting the President. Well, first you have to head over four hours early to wait for the buses. We headed over and whiled some time away.

Finally it was time to board bus to head over to the Meet and Greet spot.

Once we got to the tent we luckily had screens to occupy us for a couple more hours.

Luckily we had good friends to spend the time with.

Knowing how much the President loves kids I knew that it was worth convincing Adam to wait in the kids area to get to spend some close time with President Obama. The age limit was 6 but Adam and his friends Victoria and Maddie were able to sneak in. I was hopeful that having his friends around would help Adam make it through. The kids had to wait a very very long 40 minutes.

Luckily when Adam started getting antsy a very nice secret service agent brought Adam over for some words of encouragement and maybe a bribe of ice-cream if he could wait just a bit longer.

After a nail biting 40 minutes we made it!

Well, we all didn’t make it. This one went ahead and slept through his second Presidential Meet and Greets.

Adam got the chance to give the President a high five!

It’s pretty amazing that we had the opportunity to hear the President speak in person and even shake his hand!

We had spent the morning talking with Adam about President Obama and how he was the President of the United States. Right after this all went down I asked Adam if he gave the President a high five and he replied yes, but not the American one, the Philippine one. President Obama was the only one up there so I let Adam know it was in fact the US one. It’s so interesting watching him try to grasp with concepts such as where we live, where we’re from and reconciling these. These may be simple concepts for some but for us it takes a bit more explaining. Some times when I ask Adam where we’re from he answers Greece, sometimes Egypt, sometimes Manila, sometimes New York. I love it! So many experiences that Adam and Malcolm have had already in so many amazing places and so many more to come!

Hello President Obama

This past week was APEC week in Manila. For the rest of the world this doesn’t mean all that much but for us is Manila is was all consuming.

What is APEC? Well I’m glad you asked. I was voluntold to appear in two videos ‘All About APEC’. Every time I appear in one of these, I swear it’s going to be my last. But here you go, for the sake of learning I’ll share.

APEC Primer

and here is some more on APEC….

All About APEC- Scholarships

Ok, so now that you now more than you ever need to know about APEC on we go.

So what does APEC week in Manila mean? It meant that 21 world leaders and all of their entourages descended on Manila. This included President Obama. Which means the Embassy has focused on his visit for months.

Working at the Embassy and especially in the public affairs section dealing with Press definitely has it’s perks. I got to be involved in so much of the visit and learn so much.

It also meant I got an APEC delegate badge and I was able to use the APEC lane, which was a-ma-zing!! Traffic in Manila is bad on regular days, let alone when 21 leaders and their entourages come to stay. Traffic was so terrible and I felt terrible for all those that waited in traffic for hours and hours but thankfully I was not one of them! I actually got home quicker than on normal days.

It also meant I had a chance to assist with media for an event President Obama hosted on Trans Pacific Partnership. Sorry, we don’t have a video on TPP.

This one was pretty exciting! I was pretty close and this event included 11 other leaders! Since all i have is this fuzzy Iphone picture, I’ll follow it up with a professional photo that the media took.

Thank you Daily Mail.

Then to add some excitement on my way back to work I crossed paths with the Philippines President, Ninoy Aquino.

It was a long week and I missed these two like crazy but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for sure! More on the boys meeting the President coming up soon!

Astronauts

Adam’s school has been into astronauts for the last few weeks and I was able to join their Astronaut day recently. They practiced moon walking in the pool and repairing important space parts (aka – legos) underwater.

After a couple of sessions of swim lessons Adam can already keep his head underwater for a long time!

Adam loved every second of it!

Adam was so excited about Astronauts and space we decided his birthday party would be a space party. Adam is ready to blast off! He is so excited or his birthday and can’t wait!

Field Trip!

I was able to take the morning off of work a couple of weeks ago to join Adam and Amerikids on a field trip to the zoo.

It was a moment of reckoning when Adam hopped onto the bus and decided he wanted to sit next to Tyler. It was one of those moments where I could see how soon it would happen that Adam would rather go on a field trip without his mommy. But thankfully for now he still wants me there!

Here is my attempt to get all the kids from the class in one shot.

Adam was so excited to be at the zoo. I think maybe I was a bit spoiled after all those air conditioned zoos in the States but it was still nice to see Adam and his classmates so excited.

We even managed to get all the kids to sit for a huge snake!

Here is Adam showing me his best pig snort face.

I’m not sure what Adam was more excited about, riding a horse or feeding the animals!

First Days

The day after we flew home Adam started school. I debated not sending him until jetlag had work off but since I had to go to work I figured he had to go to school. Just kidding! We actually thought it would just be easier for him to stay awake around his friends.

This was Adam’s first day in the preschool class. The year before he had been in the toddler room. He was so excited about starting Pre-K and talked about it all summer. His new teachers Teacher Maureen, Teacher Sofia and Teacher Carol are amazing and so far he loves school!

Guess who else started school? Malcolm! He started at Adam’s old school, 9th Avenue. This school is right near our house and is great. Maria, our trusted nanny, goes with Malcolm so he feels comfortable. The first couple of times he was a little shy but now he loves playing and sitting in the circle and singing and dancing.

Almost 4 and almost 2!

Trick or Treat!

We were lucky enough to get to trick or treat two times! Adam’s new favorite is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle after a visit with his friend Vincent in Staten Island and since purple is still his favorite color Adam was of course Donatello and Malcolm went as his trusty sidekick Michelangelo.

The first trick or treating was organized through the building. It involved 15 groups of 15 all taking the elevators at the same time and 15 people squeezing in an elevator at the same time. We made it to three homes and decided to go home and give out candy. This was a smaller Halloween trick or treat on actual Halloween and it was perfect. We went with our friends Ben and Zoe and Ben was Leonardo! We were only missing Rafael.

Pretty cute contingent of ninja turtles! Happy Halloween!

Giant pumpkin, here I come

I think I owe alot of Staten Islanders an apology. I always judged the people who decorate their homes elaborately for every holiday. Like this:

But you know what, the older the boys get and the more excited they get about holidays the closer I get to that giant pumpkin on my lawn (well, we don’t have a lawn in our apartment, but you know what I mean).

This year, when Adam and I were at the mall we saw some pumpkins for sale. This may not shock the rest of you but normally in Manila the only place to buy pumpkins are at the Girl Scout pumpkin patch on one day in Dasmarinas village. So we of course scooped up a pumpkin and some gourds. Adam was so excited about the spiderwebs I just couldn’t resist.