Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas 2006

It was one of our best Christmas--our second Christmas in the Kingdom of Thailand. We were three hours far by plane from the Philippines but thank God for fellow Filipinos here in Thailand, we were never away from home.

Usually, we do celebrate "noche buena" (good night in Spanish) or the traditional dinner during Christmas eve. (For our part we usually take dinner, well aside from the regular dinner, around an hour before midnight or before it is officially Christmas!). For the past five years that Lorie and Jim were married, they celebrate it religiously, thanking God for His Son, and all the blessing of this past year.

This year, however, was different. We celebrated it with friends. We still stick to our old tradition of praying and thanking God but with the guests, it was a time to remember good times. The Millo Family and Nique's Teacher, Mr. Melvin Martinez and his cousin were kind enough to be our guests.

The kids definitely enjoy the company of Danny and Liza's children while we enjoyed the chatting and watching Monster House! (well, the kids were watching it first and we ended up watching it when they started playing.

It was a very good Christmas, indeed! Praise the Lord!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

You're not ugly


We were having dinner last night when Nique (I think she reacted to Nel’s teasing) complained “Nanay, pangit daw ako” (Mother she said I’m ugly!). Then Nira interrupted, “Hindi ka pangit mukha ka rabbit...” (No, you’re not ugly you look like a rabbit.) in a very soothing tone.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Nique's First Day in School

Nique on a bus ride to school.

Early this year, Jim and Dei agreed that their kids, specifically Nique was not going to school. The reason was the uncertain schedule of our trip to Australia. The compromise was to enter Nique in a summer school.

Nique went to the newly established Bob Hughes Learning Center in Bangkok, Thailand. The school was quite new, in fact it was still processing its permit to operate. The school was renamed Bangkok Baptist Learning Centre at the start of this school year. It's curriculum is based on the Accelerated Christian Education, which focuses on engraining biblical and high academic standards.

Nique was informally under home school for about a year--with her mother as her teacher--even before the summer school in Bangkok. We got a home school module from our family friend, the Panlilios, who introduced us to it. The module is based on the Distar Fast Cycle Reading Program.

So, with the informal training that Nique had, we were confident that Nique would make it through the summer in a breeze. And she did!

By mid-year, we informed friends of our blessing and now, the dilemma of registering Nique to school even if it was almost over a month since school began.

After thinking it over, we decided to ask the school for Nique's late registration. She's in.

Nique (left) with her sister Nira on their way to school. Nique still has a long way to go but she definitely has the will to walk to it.

She entered as a pre-school and halfway through the school year, she's now in Level 1 because of her progress (at 5, she reads, write and could throw a sentence or two of good English, she's also learning to speak and write Thai!).

Well, she's got the best teacher/coach at home anyway--her mother.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

The Caro Family


The Caro Family are Jim, Dei, Nique, Nira and Nel. They hail from San Pablo City, 82km south of Manila in the Philippines. This family started in 2001,

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Our 2006 Vacation… and its in the Lion City!

This was our first entry on our first attempt to blog as a family. Since we're consolidating our accounts with Google, we're moving here!

With the largest Merlion in the City-State at the
background, we pose for a souvenir at Sentosa Island. Tired but we enjoyed the
place a lot!

Yes, our first formal vacation this year was at the Lion City of Southeast Asia, the small but proactive city-state and “fine” city of Singapore. The kids enjoyed our holiday–the third for Nique (her first was in Cebu City, when she was 1 Dei was pregnant with Nira), the second for her siblings! But it was a special holiday for our youngest daughter, Nel who was spending her first holiday outside the country (well, relative to our adopted home-country for now–Thailand).

We’ve got some hiccups in the location of our hotel but the remedy was to go out as early and as regular as possible. It was indeed great as we enjoyed Sentosa Island during the first day. We can’t get enough of the relatively OK bird show at the Sentosa Park so we hit the road for Singapore Zoo on the second day, which was also awesome for the kids but was rather exhausting for us. So, we decided to take it easy on the third day and took the MRT to Orchard Road. We knew that Lucky Plaza in Orchard Road was a famous hang-out for Filipinos but we never expected that they would so many!!! And you can buy Philippine delicacies like Chippy, Nova and even Philippine pre-paid cards!!! That’s the only time we discovered the Filipino Restaurant, as if craving, we just ordered some dishes although we usually have Filipino dish at home, courtesy of the “light” of the house–Dei.

The fourth day we raced to Jurong Bird Park where we bump into other Filipino tourists! and who says that Filipinos abroad only work for the money, they are also there to spend some hard earned one for a worth earned vacation! Fifth day, we opted to take it a bit slow before we leave Singapore. We went to Esplanade Park and visit the Singapore River for our last souvenir.

One of the funny thing that happened during our stroll along the Singapore from photo shoots at the famous Merlion landmark in the area, a Japanese mother and daughter approached us. I thought they would ask us to take their picture but they asked us if my daughters could join them for a photo opt! especially my second, Nira! Well, she was really adorable to anybody who sees her and was a willing model as well (we could as well charge tourists for that!).

A last trip to our hotel to pick our luggage and we were off to the Airport. Back to reality for all of us but it was a good long weekend!

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Welcome to our site!

Welcome to our site, where we will be posting almost everything that's been going on in the family! Ciao! Sawasdee! G'day! Mabuhay!