Skip to main content

We made it!

We are in Manila! It is currently almost midnight here, and is mid-morning in Wisconsin.

We are all very drowsy. Actually, let me take that back, Caleb is not as he slept the last 4 hour leg from Tokyo to Manila so he swears he is now wide awake. He didn't actually go to sleep until about 3 am our time - yikes! Hoping he can get some more sleep now.

Couple fun facts from our journey so far...

*Caleb has been drawing pictures in a notebook of all the different locations we have been. I wish I had time to take pictures of everything he has drawn and upload them now as they are very fun drawings of the airport, airplane, and Manila. Maybe tomorrow :)

*For my music students - the "ding, ding, ding, ding" on the airplane are actually SO - MI pitches!! I found myself echoing the pattern without realizing what I was doing!

*The layover in Tokyo showed us some Very cool origami. Hadn't even thought about things like that for our layover.

*The time to arrive in Manila is late at night because the congestion isn't as bad and the traffic was "light". We made excellent time to our hotel! Sounds like all of our other car trips won't be as fast from now on.

*All of the people we have met so far have been very friendly. They especially like Caleb.  :)  Or as we learned, it would be pronounced CAH-lub here.

*Our hotel is FANCY! We told Caleb it is probably the nicest hotel we will ever take him to. Ha! It was a little out of our price range but in the location we wanted and was highly recommended by others. We had quite the giggles more than once trying to figure things out. First we went up and down the elevator because we didn't know we had to scan our hotel room key first before it would let us punch our floor (16th by the way!) Then we couldn't find any light switches. Jon realized we had to swipe our card to turn on the lights. Good work Jon! UNTIL... the lights went out! And the doorman was ringing our door so he could deliver our suitcases. We were laughing so hard! We couldn't see a thing and just kept hearing this doorbell. Apparently we not only scan the hotel key, but we have to keep it IN the reader in order for the lights to stay on. Good times!

We start our morning meeting our caseworker, driver, and new friends around 9am. I think we are going to explore Makati and visit a museum tomorrow, although that could change. Hopefully can get a couple pictures up tomorrow!

GOOD NIGHT! I mean morning! I mean... oh goodness, time to sleep!

In Christ-
Mara

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Carol HakalaJanuary 23, 2015 at 2:36 PM

    I was with Laurie Carlsen, and Tina Henningsen this morning - at 11 we realized that you would be landing in Manila or on your way to the hotel! Thank you for sharing your impressions and experiences - makes me relive all of my experiences there as well! God Bless!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 23, 2015 at 7:34 PM

    Tater says he can't wait to meet him! He also wishes he knew that it would be such a long plane ride...He said he could've went with to play with Caleb

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Second day in Manila

Family picture from yesterday at the park. Caleb has a flying butterfly. Our second day in Manila was fantastic! We got out of the city and saw a ton of the countryside, multiple areas outside of the city, and a beautiful "lake" that houses a volcano.  We've been starting our mornings with this view. Starting out on our journey today we saw some gigantic billboards. These two were selling Jollibee and the other was selling TUNA... tuna!?!? Our first trip to Jollbee! This is the Philippines favorite fast food restaurant, it is similar to our McDonald's. Their primary food though is chicken, much like KFC. Where do pineapples come from!?! Did you say a tree?? Then you, like myself and Jon, are wrong!!!! These are Pineapple Fields! Pineapples are grown from the ground! When this is ready to pick, the pineapple will be sitting straight up on top of the soil.  Road side stop to see the pineapple fields also allowed us to see t...
1 comment
Read more

decisions to be made

Last week I was taken a little aback by the news that it could be 3.5 years until we would be bringing our children home. I knew this would be a process, a long process, and maybe I was kidding myself thinking that somehow our process would be shorter. We still do have the potential to have a shorter process since our parameters are not extremely narrow, but we will still be no where near what my head was hoping for. In the recent months it had crossed my mind that I could see us adopting more than once, but what a process that would be! If this is a 3-5 year process, to start all over again seemed like so much. But now our minds are racing with a new hope... Because of the letter they sent us, we learned that simultaneous adoption is an option. The thought had never even occurred to me to look into this option, but I'm becoming quite excited about the prospect. With simultaneous adoption, we would be part of two different adoption programs within our agency - Ethiopia & ...
2 comments
Read more

Our "Travel Quilts"

  In preparation for this adoption, we've already started thinking of ways that we can afford this whole process. It definitely won't be a "cheap" venture in our lives. The hardest part will be finding the money to cover the travel costs to Africa. To help with the travel costs, we hope to hold a couple events that will help us raise funds.   A couple years ago, when we first discussed adoption, my thoughts were with quilting. I get such satisfaction making a quilt or a sewn gift for a new child, or for a Christmas/Birthday gift for a niece or cousin. Thinking about a child wrapped in a quilt makes me smile from ear to ear. My thoughts then, and now, are to create baby/children quilts to sell. All money made from these quilts will be kept to help pay the costs of travel to Africa. Each quilt sold will be filled with thoughts and prayers for all children. They are full of my waiting stitches  and filled with love and joy.    The picture below shows the...
3 comments
Read more