Merry Christmas from the Philippines!!

We were planning to just spend our last day at AUP, however it was Christmas break and all the staff were going home. So we called Wendy and asked if we could, once again, stay at her parents house in AIIAS for the night. She said that would be fine and that her and Dwayne were in the area and could swing by and pick us up. So we were able to spend the day before Christmas Eve with Dwayne, Wendy, and her parents.
While driving down from Northern Luzon, Wendy and Dwayne had pulled off to the side of the road and found a little pine tree and brought it home with them. It was so nice to see a REAL Christmas tree.
Later that day we were able to meet Wendy's dad for the first time, which was funny seeing as to how we'd spent the night at their house 3 times since we've been in the Philippines. The first time was when we flew in from the U.S. and he had left for work by the time we woke up. The next time we came he was in Bangladesh. So it was nice to finally be able to meet him, he was such a fun person to talk with.
Later that night, while we were eating dinner, we heard whispers outside the front door. Mr. Guptill went to see who it was and it was a group of 6 children all dressed up, Christmas caroling door to door. It was SOOO cute! We couldn't even remember the last time we heard Christmas carolers.

Saying goodbye to Monica. :/

The next morning, Christmas Eve, at 7am, we said our goodbyes to Wendy and Dwayne (Somehow we didn't get a single picture with them...I don't know how that happened) and took a bus to the airport. It wasn't until we got to the airport and were checking in that we learned our tickets that we had boughten over a month ago had been canceled due to Allison's credit card not going through and even though we had received confirmation for our tickets we did no longer had reserved seats. So we had to buy our tickets at the gate (which was expensive, about $100 a piece.) Then as we were going through security, Wendy called to tell us that our computer power cord (which we didn't even know had be removed from our bag) was left at her parents house. Both our computers were already almost dead and we needed them to skype our family to spend Christmas with them. :( Then as we were loading the plane, Allison realized that her camera lense cap had popped off somewhere and was gone. So we were pretty down about our recent turn of events.

But on our flight back to Palawan we were able to reflect on all the blessings we've received especially these last couple weeks. In fact, when we thought about it, the entire month of December we had only slept in our own bed 4 times. We have been constantly on the move, living out of suitcases and having adventures all over the Philippines. We realized that we are very blessed and that God would have a plan for us to be able to enjoy our holidays. So as long as we were able to make it home and sleep in our own bed tonight, we would be happy.

Landing back on the beautiful island of Palawan.

The day before we flew out, Danny had called the shuttle company in Puerto to check, for us, if they ran on Christmas Eve. They told him that their last shuttle left at 12:30 pm....our flight didn't get in until 1:30pm...So Tanya and Andrey decided to make the 4 hour drive up to Puerto (on Christmas Eve) to come get us from the airport so that we wouldn't be stranded in Puerto for the holidays. Words do not even express how grateful we were!When we finally got home to Brookes, we also realized that Michel had left her computer behind. So we were able to skype our parents for the holidays. (God is SOO good!)

Christmas day we skyped with our family and the Bruntz family in the morning and then had some unexpected guests in the afternoon. One of our children's program families stopped by to say "Hi". Needless to say, we totally spoiled them. Giving them treats, toys, and extra food that we had laying around the house. We hadn't seen them in such a long time. So it we were so excited that they stopped by.

That night we enjoyed a very nutritious meal of Chips and Cheese dip, Homemade pizza with LOTS of olives, and sparkling grape juice. It was the Christmas dinner of champions! 

That night we were able to skype our family once again. This was the first time we've ever been away for Christmas, and I think we did ok. Skype definitely helped make it easier. But overall, Christmas was a very relaxing time. Once again we are able to sleep in our own bed and to not be living out of a suitcase. It just feels good to be back in good ol' Brookes Point, Palawan. Till next time...

~Me and Her