Pics of my Kids, our Home including during Building, Pool Construction, and Pizza Oven Creation.

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Blue lights at night...



These guys built this place and are great friends so they get invited to the parties.



It took a lot to get this pic. My amigo, Peter, had to maneuver the boat just so. Dolores stood on something on the balcony, then the monster refused to smile.

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We picked up the 200 bricks a while back but I had Sho on something else. Now, back to the oven. The dome is closing.

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A lot of small touching up to do on the inside mortar. After that the whole thing gets cleaned with a wire brush on a drill. You can see where the work resumed.

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Sho is getting into his work. The dome is closed! I'm planning on a space blanket over this, then a 2" layer of refractory insulating mortar, another space blanket, then a 1" layer of refractory insulation then another space blanket then the perlite insulation.



Meanwhile, Abby and Dot got new cheap sunglasses with princesses on them, or something like.

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What a day! Bonifacio's 46th birthday, Abby, unasked, put a tiny baloon in a bag and put a ribbon of sorts on it and gave it to him and said, "Happy Birthday Uncle Facio!" F i v e years old.

I could not be happier.

We threw a party for Sho, cake, drinks, Zrrib came by with his good wishes, a fine day!

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That's where we stand with the oven.

This is my study.

The study with building computer desk. We have a few pieces of furniture to build yet then the floor to finish and a few odds and ends and the 3rd floor will be done. The other room, a bedroom, is already finished. During the major brownout we all slept out on the balcony over the ocean. Cool breezes, very few mosquitoes, we still sleep out there sometimes. It was and is so enjoyable listening to the waves lull us to sleep.



Fidel, an excellent carpenter, and a friend. Language can be a problem but we talk carpenter. The shape of the desk is a miniature of the shape of the room. The side walls flare out to bring the focus to the ocean and all that goes on there. As I sit here I have to stop sometimes and watch a tugboat or two push around one of the rare big freighters pulling in to load limestone, or one of the common barges.



Abby loves this room and often plays here while I play IV. Sometimes she pretends to make me cakes, or brings me play icecream. We have a couple of play birthday's every week. In a storm we roll those big glass doors shut making a window wall something like 3 yards long, on both sides. French doors open on the balcony.

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Abby pics!



See where the tubig (water) comes in?



"Smile Abby"



"Point at the water." Always with 3 fingers at that age because she was three!

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Abby, where does the water go?



She's getting good with her hula hoop!



"Look Tatay, shing shing." (Finger rings)

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Beautiful cloud formation caught by the lowering sun over the volcano.



The formation kept evolving and becoming more intriguing.



Sometimes ya just gotta plant it and watch God on a roll.



Its really, really good, to be me. Thanks be to God. It has been far from good much of the journey. Its nice, here in the gray years, to be at ease in a wonderful place among loved ones.

I am very grateful to the God who helped me so very much.

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Augustine actually strung together a few words into a sentence last evening. In Visayan he said; "Poop finished Nanay." While that may not seem like much, in his first 2 years he was very ill. He had been born in the mountains of Surigao, Mindanao to a tribal woman and her husband who had wandered there from Jagna, Bohol and is cousin to my wife. In the mountains there a typhoon stuck and wiped out their small farm. The father brought Abby to Jagna looking for someone to adopt her. We took her in, and when we found out about her brother and their condition, and that he was sick, we told her father we would adopt him too. It was obvious Abby missed him very much. So we gave him travel money and off went the father while we looked after Abby who had worms, which Dolores knew how to handle. Augustine got here in pretty bad condition. A settled in pneumonia and really bad worms. His body needed nutrition to fight the pneumonia, but the worms were taking it. Several hospitals later including a pediatric hospital in Tagbilaran and he was rid of worms and pneumonia but still weak and contracted typhoid. So we dealt with that, and he's now healthy.

My concern is that the illnesses starved his brain and perhaps they did, but how extensive is the damage if it exists? We got him at 1 year and a half, he's now almost four and like I said, last night he formed a sentence.



Last Christmas...







Abby loves him very much and with the business we're building plus eventually US citizenship I'm certain that she would always look after him but we really hope he can stand on his own, go to the US, live a full life. We show him educational videos and try to get him to repeat the words on them when prompted but this is the first sign of learning beyond simply repeated words, its huge! A big event in his life and all our lives. Answered prayers, thank you God.

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So here's the study all set up, excepting curtains. The monitor is a Sony TV, the new ones have a computer input. Maybe 20 years ago I told a friend, Gary, that as our eyes go the screens would get bigger so no worries there, and so it is. On the screen is WPC...

The breezes blow through the big sliding walls, one on each side. On the ocean side are french doors and 2 windows. Can't see em but there's two rows of three drawers on either side of the chair. That leaves a little room on the sides which has a door on either side for the small space. Abby has some stuff in the side shown, an empty movie container and the CTP box also empty, iirc. Treasured possessions...



The louvered doors on the back of the comp desk open up and allow the breeze to tickle the toes. The soda is "Cali Light" "Sparkling Pineapple Drink", pretty good stuff! Here I have a shower, bathroom, water, comp, and the wife occasionally brings rations. Oh yeah, and Civ.



The aircon is still covered in plastic. Above the aircon is a big exhaust fan in case the breeze fails. Used it a few times.

Need to have Dell build a chair.

Today was maybe 80F up here with few ocean breezes so I had the exhaust fan on but it was still too warm. Went out and cleaned the pool early and swimmin late to cool off.

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Before and after: Building the pool.

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Teresa's house for vesperas, the day before fiesta, the previous fiesta. Its mostly a time for family and close friends to get at the food first. Next day is fiesta and anyone can come eat. When we lived in Pondol the most pigs we ever cooked was four. I figure fiesta is a great wealth redistribution program which gets protein to people who can not otherwise afford.

Food was great! Augustine in the foreground...



Hangin with Miguel, Abby and Loung Loung Aka Augustine



Kids games in the living room. Ashes, ashes we all fall down!

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The mall in Cagayan on Mindanao. Abby drive the "boomboom."

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A few more Abby graduation pics...she's about to go back to school.