Philippines Trip - Part 1: Tarlac

James and I had an awesome opportunity to go back to the Philippines and visit my mission.  We were there for seven days and had some incredible experiences that I feel like I need at least another week to share.  I'm afraid I won't be able to do them justice.  But here's some sort of attempt at it...

We started off our trip by flying for days haha through LAX, Tokyo, and finally to Manila.  After 18 hours on planes, and many more at airports, we were thrilled to finally be in the Philippines.  James was a little shell-shocked and a little like a deer-in-the-headlights when we first exited the Manila airport and hit the wall of hot, humid air and saw the super crazy traffic.  But he quickly (and literally) warmed up to everything.  I was so thrilled to be back (and relieved to be off of the plane) that I maybe didn't do the greatest job introducing him to the country, but we figured it all out.  We were only in Manila for a few hours while we waited for a bus to take us to Tarlac City, Tarlac, Philippines.  This was one of my areas on the mission and we stayed at hotel here.  We got in to our hotel at about 9:30pm and went straight to bed.  Traveling sure takes it out of you.  But the next day we were up and off bright and early. 

The courtyard of our hotel and view from our room.  We ate breakfast poolside each morning.  The rooms were simple but well kept and the bed was comfortable so we slept well.  Which was really what we needed most.  Haha

Here we are for James's first adventure in a Trike.  Trikes are everywhere in the Philippines.  They're one of the top ways to travel and get around.  Probably one of the least expensive forms of travel too.

 The motorcycle has a little sidecar attached that can fit 3 people (sometimes more when they really cram in) and the motorcycle also usually has a covering over it to protect a little from sun and rain.

We spent the day showing James my area in Tarlac and meeting some of the people that I knew on my mission.  We first met up with Joy, one of my favorite converts from my mission.  If I had a little sister I think it would be her.  She came with us the rest of the day and we had a wonderful time with her.  It was also great for James because Joy speaks English.  So they were able to talk together and Joy was also able to help translate for James while I talked to other people. 

This is us with Joy and some pretty flowers.  It was cute to see James get excited about the flowers and plants and different colored houses - just like I did when I was missionary there 6 years ago.

This is the Martin Family and Joy (Brother Jimmy was at work so unfortunately he's not in the picture).  The Martin Family was always very welcoming and always allowed us to teach investigators in their home.  The Christmas that I had in the Philippines on my mission I spent in their home.  They are such a kind and loving family and it was fun to see the boys so grown up and the family still strong in the Gospel.  They were a huge help when we were teaching Joy and they have continued to provide support and friendship to her.

These are some pictures of the Martin's house.  Very humbling to see the living conditions of the people.  Especially when I think about how little they have and yet how happy they are.

And everywhere we went, the little kids LOVED James.  I mean, what's not to love right?  But it was so cute to watch him with them.  They loved to give him high-fives and always obliged for picture taking.

James's first Jeepney experience.  We took him on the Jeepney route that leads from Joy's house to the house where I used to live as a missionary.  Jeepneys were introduced to the Philippines after the war when the US left their army jeeps in the Philippines.  Resourceful as ever, Filipinos transformed the Jeeps into forms of public transportation.  Each jeepney has a typical route that it runs all-day, every-day.  And you just flag down the jeepney and can get on and get off anywhere along the route.  Another very affordable form of public transportation.

More jeepney fun!  Because... why not?

This is the Quiballo Family.  Another sweet family from my mission days.  They always fed us snacks or dinner when we visited them.  True to form, they gave us a snack upon arrival and then insisted on preparing us lunch before we left.  So sweet!  I was sad to see that they have stopped attending church.  And the difference was noticeable.  They weren't as happy as they had been and they also weren't as happy as others who were living the gospel and going to church.  It was a little hard to see that they had stopped doing the things I had tried so hard to teach them when I was on my mission.  But I just pray they will be able to remember and start doing those things that truly make them happy again.

James had a lot of fun playing with the boys in the big "backyard" - which mainly just consisted of a large open area with lots of trees and animals.

 James trying some sili for the first time.  It is a small and very potent chili pepper native to the Philippines.  No one ever eats them plain because they are so spicy... no one but James ;)

Trying some kamias - a very sour fruit.  He was all sorts of brave trying everything that anyone gave him.  Thankfully no one gave him anything harmful ;)

This is the Briones Family.  Another family that I taught in Tarlac.  When we met them, Brother and Sister had not been coming to church for quite sometime.  We helped them come back to church and their two oldest children got baptized.  I was thrilled to find out that their youngest has since turned 8 and been baptized.  They have also all attended the temple and been sealed together as a family.  So exciting!  We got to spend some good time with them.  Krystal (the oldest daughter in blue) played her guitar for us and the family sang.  Krystian (the son in gray) play his beat box (like a bongo drum) and showed us his Rubix cube solving skills.  It was fun to be in their home again and they celebrated my return by feeding us chocolate cake and soda pop.  Love this sweet little family and it was so exciting to see them doing so well and living the gospel.

Kids and flowers and dogs and the streets I used to walk.  It was so much fun to be able to take James on my trip down memory lane and share stories about place that we passed.  Tell him things that had happened or that I had done and actually SHOW him the place where it happened.  We shopped at the store where I had shopped each P-day.  I took him to the Palengke (we market) where I bought all my food each week.  I showed him restaurants where I ate, houses/streets I remembered.  It was all just so great!  And it was wonderful having Joy with us.

So that was a really quick run through of our visit in Tarlac.  More of our Philippines trip to come...

One Year!

I cannot believe that it has already been an entire year since our sweet little Kaya bug joined our family.  And what a wonderful year it has been.  And it has FLOWN by WAY too fast! Kaya has been such a huge blessing to our family and our love for her grows everyday - which I didn't think was possible... when she was born, I thought I loved her with everything in me and with everything I had.  I thought, "I'll never be able to love anything or anyone more than I love this little girl."  Which was only partially true.  It's true with only Kaya, herself, being the exception.  I will be able to love her more because I DO. I love her more and more every single day.  My heart just keeps growing and growing. All of the hard times, the sleepless nights, the poopy diapers, as well as all of the good times, the snuggles, the family walks, the giggles, the "firsts" - all add to my love for her. And I am just filled to bursting!

This year has been a wild and crazy and wonderful ride that I never want to forget, but, unfortunately, I find that it's already fading.  And I haven't done very well at keeping record of things that have happened.  Kaya has just learned and grown SO much SO quickly.  But here are a few of my favorite times and things from this past year:

---Kaya’s love of books.  She’s our little bookworm.  Books were the first object to really motivate her to crawl. She is SO cute with them.  She loves to sit on your lap and be read to and wants to hold onto the book, no matter how big it is.  She loves to look at books on her own.  She loves to thumb through the hymn book at church and she’s surprisingly gentle with paper pages.  I think her favorite is a book called ‘Animally’.  She will sit and look at it FOREVER.  There’s a dog on one of the pages and she will always turn to that page and touch the dog and make a little barking noise.  She loves to look at that puppy.  Really, she loves to look at any puppy in any book.  And she has an uncanny knack of finding dogs in books.  I hope she always keeps this love of books and that it fuels a love of learning and curiosity.

---Outside adventures.  This little girl LOVES to be outside.  We’ve had fun going on walks and visiting the park and the duck pond.  We’ve had fun adventures going up the canyon and on hikes.  I hope to always help Kaya love and appreciate Heavenly Father’s beautiful creations and that we can always enjoy them together.

---She’s such an observer.  She’s already a little people watcher.  And she learns so much from observing.  It’s definitely a humbling reminder to me to be careful in how I act, because she is learning so much from just watching me.  Whenever we visit Kassie’s, Kaya always comes away having learned something from one of the kids.  About a week ago, she tried to navigate herself down the stairs after seeing Cienna do it ONE time.  She also mimics facial expressions.  You pull a face at her, you better believe she’s gonna try to do it right back.  A couple weeks ago Joseph was playing with Kaya and started blowing raspberries.  It only took her a couple of minutes to figure out how to do it herself.  Now she does it all the time.  James has some really bad allergies this Spring and has been having to blow his nose a lot.  The other day he was holding Kaya and had to blow his nose.  He grabbed a tissue and blew in to it.  Kaya started reaching for the tissue so James grabbed a new one and held it up to her face.  And she blew out her nose into the tissue!  It was so cute.  She is SO smart!

---She thinks it is so funny to be tipped upside-down.  She will smile so big and just giggle!  It’s very cute.  I can’t get enough of her contagious little giggle.

---Rocking sweet baby Kaya when she cries... Don't get me wrong, I DO NOT LIKE the crying and sad baby, but I do LOVE being her mommy.  I love being able to be the one to comfort, console, and calm her.  I love being able to help her feel safe and secure.  I love that when something is wrong I'm the one that she wants.  That she reaches for me and finds love and comfort in me.  

Update!

Aaannnnndddd.... We're back!  After a slight (or not so slight) hiatus, we return with news from the McClatchy abode.  Kaya is now 8 months old... What!?!?! Where does the time go?  She has learned to sit up by herself, eats solid foods like a champ, and is trying to learn to crawl!  She is a really good eater.  Her little personality is starting to show more and we are in love with her.  She's adorable and gets more so every single day.  As of right now, she has a very mellow temperament and is content with whatever life gives her.  She doesn't get too worked up about things and she's good at making her own fun.  She doesn't need a lot to be happy.  She's a very pleasant little girl.  Even with teething she's a little sweetheart.  One night about 2 months ago she started fussing really bad - well "bad" for her because she NEVER fusses. We were stumped for a bit (because she NEVER fusses) and finally concluded she must finally be teething.  We gave her some Tylenol and she eventually zonked out.  The next morning we went in to find a happy little girl with her very first pearly white full on poking out of her gums. Kaya grows teeth over-night... what's your super power?  She now has 2 full teeth and a third one on its way in.

James is hard at it with school and work and being the best husband and father ever. He works harder than anyone else I know.  And he does it with a smile on his face - unless it's past 11pm... then he starts to get a little grumpy.  Kaya is like him in that way - at the first signs of tired/sleepiness, you've gotta stick 'em straight in bed or you'll have a monster on your hands. James is studying Nutritional Science and has some very hard classes this semester.  But, of course, he's rocking them. It's fun to see that's he's found a little niche and is excelling.  He's got two more semesters after this to finish up his Bachelor's and then our plans are for him to go on to a Nurse Practitioner program.  He's gonna be amazing (but of course he'd be amazing at anything he did) and we are so blessed that he works so hard for his girls.  He radiates love and we hope that we reflect it right back to him.  He's our Superman. A few days ago I got a 24 hour stomach bug.  It was the worst I ever remember being sick.  I was so sick that I could barely lift Kaya.  James came home from work to lift Kaya into the highchair and feed her lunch.  He told me to go take a nap while he fed her.  I woke up a few hours later to find that he had taken Kaya back to work with him so that I could sleep. He takes such great care of his girls.  We love him!

As for me... well I'm a muddled, most-days-messy, mom, but I'm tying to make it work for me. Kaya and I try to have fun between laundry and cleaning - and we usually succeed.  I also started my own little business as an Independent Consultant for Usborne Books and More.  My degree in Communication Disorders is the main reason I fell in love with these books.  They are awesome books and great resources for helping kids with sound and letter recognition, vocabulary growth, language development, reading comprehension, literacy skills, motor skills development, and much more.  Ask me a question about them and I'll probably never stop talking about them.  I love them!  I joined as a consultant mostly for the discounted books, but I've actually been doing pretty well selling them too.  And I love that it's something I can do from home during Kaya's nap time and make a little extra money while still being at home with her.  The holidays will definitely slow business down but it'll be good to spend all my time on family.

Well there's our long over-due update.  Hopefully we can stay more on top of things... don't I always say that?... whoops...

Summer lovin'

We've been having a pretty fun summer.  Wednesdays are our favorite days of the week.  James doesn't go in to the medical office but instead mows lawns with one of the young men from ward.  They're quick so not only does he make quite a bit of money in one day, but he's home usually by 1 o'clock.  Leaving us plenty of family fun time.  Once he gets home we grab a quick bite to eat and get suited up (literally) to go swimming.  The Provo Rec Center is right down the street from our apartment and we invested in some summer passes.  Kaya loves the wave pool.  She's 4 for 4 on falling asleep in the pool.  And she floats like a boat.  So she's easy to hold.  We just support her head, shade her face, and she bobs soothingly up and down in the waves.  It's adorable.  Once Kaya hits 6 months and can hold her head up by herself really well, she and Tash can start doing some "mommy and me" swimming classes.

Fridays are pretty fun too.  It's another day where we get to spend a lot of time as a family.  James' office is closed to patients but he goes in to catch up on paperwork and return phone calls.  Kaya and Tash get to go in with him.  Tash earns a little money cleaning the office and Kaya  drools and makes faces at daddy while he's on the phone.

Our summer has also been full of some fun weekend trips.  We spent the 4th of July weekend in Brigham and Stansbury.  In Brigham, we got to visit with Grandpa Larry, do some yard work, and attend church with Nana.  

In Stansbury we had hamburgers, played add-on with the brothers on the trampoline, made and played a game called 'Antidote', and watched fireworks.  Kaya both fell in love with swings, and fell asleep swinging.  It was a very fun weekend.

We also got to spend a weekend with Grandpa Chuck for his birthday and the annual Sharp Family Picnic.  It was fun to be with Grandpa Chuck and watch him with Kaya.  It was also good to see Gr'ma Sharp and some of the Sharp-side aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Another very fun weekend.

Celebrating!

Kaya is 3 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  She is growing so fast and time is flying by!  Sometimes it doesn't feel like it's been 3 months and other times it feels like it's been forever.  Isn't time funny that way?

For Kaya's 3 month celebration we decided to join the ward for a campout.  We thought since she's finally sleeping through the night why not go out and sleep in a tent on the hard ground and relive the days of not getting any sleep at night. Haha.  Kaya did great!  She slept straight through the night and was a snug little Kaya bug.  James and I, however, did not sleep well at all.  We kept waking up worried about Kaya - checking to make sure the sleeping bag and blankets hadn't covered her face, feeling her face to make sure she wasn't freezing, putting our hand by her nose or on her tummy to make sure she was still breathing - we were a little bit of a mess.  But we had a great time!  James and the young men were in charge of dessert (dutch oven deliciousness) and breakfast (hardy camping food - pancakes, eggs, and sausage).  The young men in the ward are such hard workers and really great boys.  We're blessed that James is able to work with them so that we get to know them.  We learn a lot from them.  After breakfast we decided to go on a "little" hike.  Kaya and I hadn't gone prepared to go hiking, but I thought, "Oh, if it's just a little hike it won't be a big deal."  4 miles and 3 hours later we were back at the camp with sunburned faces and necks and really hungry tummies.  But we learned really fast what things we need to pack for the next camping adventure - sunscreen, snacks, and hats.  We had a wonderful time and Kaya really was such a happy little camper.  She was the youngest camper in the ward and probably the most easy going.  We are so blessed that she's ours.  She's perfect for us.

snug as a Kaya bug in a tent :)

beautiful view from our camping spot in Provo Canyon

We also celebrated Father's Day.  James' first Father's Day as a father.  He's the best dad.  He loves his little girl so much and works so hard to provide for and protect her.  Watching him with Kaya teaches me more every day about the love that our Heavenly Father has for us.  The way that James goes out of his way to make sure Kaya has everything she needs reminds me that our Father in Heaven wants the best for us and goes out of His way to give it to us.  The way that James sometimes has to do things that he and Kaya might not like in order to give her the very best reminds me that our Heavenly Father sometimes does things that we may not understand but we need to trust that it is for our good.  The way that James' face lights up when Kaya smiles and the way that his heart melts when she is sad or cries reminds me that our Father in Heaven weeps when we weep and rejoices when we are happy.  In the words of one of my favorite Primary songs:

"Fathers are so special, with a very special love.  They watch us and protect us.  They guide us and direct us, back to our home above."

We love the fathers and grandfathers in our lives and all that teach us.  They are so special to us.

Catch up...

So when I said WEEKLY blog, I really did mean it.  I have the best intentions, it just seems the follow through is sloppy.  So here's to catching up and hopefully staying on top of it.

Kaya is now smiling and cooing.  James loves to have "conversations" with her.  He says something, she gurgles and coos, he responds.  It's adorable.  I love to think about all the possible things she could have said to him if she could use words.  Sometimes their conversations, as they occur in my head, are pretty hilarious.  Kaya is growing super fast.  She about out of three month clothes and has been in size 2 diapers for a while now.  Fat and happy, we like to think.  She's such a good baby.  Granted, we don't have anything different to compare it to, but she's perfect for us.  We love her more and more every day.  Every single second of every minute of every day.  It amazes us how much we love her.  It basically overwhelms us, but it's our favorite thing. :)

James went to Scout Camp with the Young Men to Zion National Park.  They got to hike the narrows and Zion subway.  They had a great time.  James spoke in Sacrament meeting today and shared some of what he learned.  He talked about how this little stream had cut deep trenches in the rock.  No one single event could cause such beauty.  Instead, it was this little stream, through persistence and perseverance.  James compared it to the Atonement.  We shouldn't see the Atonement as just a one time event.  Instead, we should use it persistently in our lives.  We need to use the Atonement daily to help us persevere.  He did an awesome job.

I've just been adjusting to life as a mom.  It's different not being in school and so I've been trying to figure out how to feel my time.  Kaya and I have fun playing and wearing matching outfits and cleaning the house and doing the laundry and running errands and doing Primary stuffs and such.  We have a really good life.  We love it.  It's simple, but it's ours.  And it's the BEST!

First Blog

Hey Family and Friends!

We've decided to start a weekly blog to hopefully help keep you all updated about us and our little family.  We hope it will help us feel a little closer even when we're apart.  Plus, what better time to start than right now, with the arrival of Kaya, to keep track of all the exciting adventures that we're having.  Tash wanted to start when she was first born, but just like with everything else, we a little late.  No surprise there for anyone who knows us.  When James calls and says he will be home from work in 30 minutes, Tash knows that really means at least another hour.  When ward council starts at 11, we're rushing out the door at 11:07.  And, not that it helps, but our clocks are even set 5 minutes fast to give us the feeling of urgency 5 minutes before it would typically set in.  And so, keeping true to who we are, here we are starting this little blog 2 months after Kaya was born.  Let's just say we meant to start it at her 2 month mark and not at her birth... it will make us feel better, and make everyone else not feel like they're behind in knowing what's going on with us.  So here goes...

We just celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary.  We celebrated by buying a new (used... but new to us) car - a 2007 Toyota Corolla, going to Sizzler (thanks Grandpa for the gift card), taking a walk to the duck pond on BYU campus, watching Spectre (the new James Bond movie) on VidAngel (which is AWESOME and allows you to filter language, violence, etc. We highly recommend it), making raspberry cheesecake treats, eating popcorn with chocolate chips, and watching a lightning storm on the deck (while Kaya slept soundly in her crib).

Kaya is about to celebrate her 2 month mark.  She's been preparing for it by eating ALL THE TIME, sleeping 6 hours at night (Hallelujah!), smiling and cooing more, and only crying when she's hungry. She really is the best baby EVER.  We love her more and more every day.  She is such a little miracle in our lives.  We've started trying to implement a bedtime routine.  We get her in her jammies, kneel to pray, then put her in her crib and sing "Families Can Be Together Forever".  We love the words of that sweet song:
"I have a family here on earth.  They are so good to me.  I want to share my life with them for all eternity.  Families can be together forever through Heavenly Father's plan.  I always want to be with my own family and the Lord has shown me how I can!"

We know that Heavenly Father loves us and that He has a plan that allows us to be together forever as a family.  And we love that we have the opportunity to teach that to our little girl.  We are so blessed!