Tisoy. For many of you this probably the first time you hear of the word Tisoy. You are probably thinking to yourself, WTF is a Tisoy? Tisoy is a Tagalog (Filipino) word describing someone who is of mixed race. In Read more…
Want to know just how Filipino you are? Take this quiz to rate your Filipinoness. You might just be surprised at the results!
Scoring: Give yourself 3 points if you can relate to the following characteristics yourself, 2 points if it relates to an immediate family member (mom or dad) and 1 point if you know of someone who has the characteristic.
Post your score in the comment section.
(more…)As a parent volunteer at my boys’ elementary school, I frequently have children laugh at me and ask why I’m wearing a pink bracket or shirt. For them pink isn’t a boy’s color. Perhaps when they are older they will understand I wear it not as a fashion statement or because I look good in pink, but rather to show support for my wife who battles breast cancer.
In all likelihood, I will never endure the pain of being treated for breast cancer. The fear you have when you discover that lump is indescribable. The sickening feeling that overwhelms you when your doctor discusses the results, and options, is equally horrible. I will never endure the pain and suffering, both physical and mental, of having a double mastectomy and subsequent recovery. What I can do is stand proudly with my wife every step of the way, hold her hand to comfort her, and assure her that she is not alone in this life-changing battle.
(more…)My 2012 New Year’s Parenting Resolutions
I have plenty of adult resolutions, too … clean up after myself, stop leaving my clothes laying of the bathroom floor, and play less Angry Birds. But I also have a separate little iPhone app filled with parenting resolutions and ideas. I’m trying to make them simple enough to actually. I came up with 6, and hopefully I’ll actually do ’em. Wish me luck. Remember, if your kids are acting up, champagne tastes just as elegant in a sippy cup.
1. Make interesting meals. It seems the only things my boys want to eat are hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pizza and candy, lots of candy. I know this is not the healthiest of choices so I’m hoping we can find some fruits and veggies that the boys will enjoy. I’m sure their dentist will appreciate it.
I have dreams of cooking from this vintage Winnie the Pooh cookbook, which came out in 1969. The recipes might not be the healthiest (spoiler alert: there’s a lot of honey), but now that Jordan has his very own kitchen I think he’ll enjoy “baking” alongside me. On weekends, anyway.
(more…)Today we leave Fatima, Portugal and head to Salamonca, Spain which is about a 4 hour drive. We had to take the same toll road back and this time the toll only cost me €2.50, talk about the difference a ticket in hand can make. Pretty smooth drive all the way to the next hotel. We made a quick stop at the Portugal-Spain border for some photo opps. Thanks to Rick Steves, I now know that once you are in Europe, crossing the borders are now the same as crossing state lines. The only time you are asked for your passport is when you arrive from outside one of the 27 participating nations… or when you are checking into a hotel.
Met some wonderful folks from The UK while eating dinner around 10 pm. They convinced us to head over to Mayor Square and check out the sites. I was pleased to discover that in Spain, things don’t start up until 9 pm and last well into the morning. We left mom at the hotel, grabbed the kids, found a taxi and headed over to Mayor Square. The man I spoke with earlier was spot on. This place was packed with people everywhere. Most of them were college age as there is a university nearby.
(more…)The good thing about a GPS is that it can get you to where you want to go. The bad thing about a GPS is the it doesn’t know when roads are blocked off and may not know how to find an alternate route. What is worse is when you can see your hotel, but can’t find a way to get there. For those who haven’t been to Spain or Portugal, here is another observation. If you find flat land, I guarantee you will not find a city. Cities here are always built on hill, the better the city, the steeper the hill it is built on.
Fatima, in all its glory, is no different. Hilly terrain with windy roads and no sense of pre-planning on the parts of the city engineers. Much like a Russian astronaut with a hammer and a broken spaceship, I just kept hammering away until I achieved a desired route. It only took me 15 minutes. Most of which was spent waiting for people to cross the road or move their double parked car. Man there are a lot of Spaniards over here today.
Last night we stayed in a KOA type of campground. We had a two room bungalow that sleeps 8. It came with a kitchen and utensils so we could cook our own food. The place had a mini store so Read more…
The boys had a hard time adjusting to the time change and was up until 3 a.m. Jordan began spiking a temp so we gave him Motrin which brought it down. Sometime in the early. Morning we fell asleep. I Read more…
This is part 2. Part 1 is still on my iPhone and i will upload it later. Sunday, September 26. Arrived in Madrid around 7 in the morning. We were one of the last to exit the plane and had Read more…
What is a Tabo? Pronounced tah-bow, a close translation to English would be a water dipper. They tend to vary from the standard plastic dish with a long handle to a small cup or other water holding container.
In a Filipino household a Tabo is often used in place of toilet paper, and for many non-Filipino visitors this may be an item of mystification. While toilet paper is usually available, you will typically find a Tabo next to large bucket or Timba (tim-bah) sitting within reach of the toilet. Don’t let this frighten you because now you will know what it is and shortly you will know how to use it! The Tabo is essentially a manual bidet.
To start off, go about and get your business taken care of. “Drop the kids off at the pool”, “Take the Browns to the Superbowl”, “Back the big brown motorhome out of the garage, “Free your chocolate hostages” or what ever term you use. Once you are done pumping a clump of dump out of your rump you are ready to use the Tabo.
(more…)In the mid 90’s a popular quote from Africa that was used as a title for a book by Hillary Clinton entitled “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child” I often feel as if someone in Africa has me in mind when they coined that phrase.
You see I find myself in an inimitable position here, for most of the year life kind of takes me where it wants to go with business as usual. But then comes May, the month that we set aside the second Sunday to honor mothers. Early in my youth this was an easy process. In kindergarten I recall making my mom a candle that we made in class by pouring wax into sand at the communal sand box. I hid this precious gift in our pickup truck under the seat so no one would find it. Yeah this was the 1964 Ford Pickup that hauled all six of us around where ever we went. No seat belts back then, but with 4 kids and two adults; I doubt there was really a need for belts to be worn. Many a time I recall being the one sitting on the passenger floorboard between someone’s legs as we drove down the road hitting every bump and pothole along the way. At least it was warm down there all balled up next to the heater.