Air Ashby

I am quite sure we have a baller on our hands.

He is quite smitten with the basketball and spends hours shooting hoops with his dad and Tanner.

And by himself.  That is a sure sign that he loves it.

He is working on his vertical.  I think it is now about 3 inches..

Can you believe the dunking? So stylish... I give him a 10.

Yes, I know that he is on a trampoline.  I still think he is amazing.

He even has the "tongue out" shooting stance, just like Air Jordan.

Unfortunately,

he is not so coordinated with his feet.

Soccer is a hot mess with this kid.

But, I love 'em-runs really fast up to the ball and then takes a few steps back so

he can really give it a good kick.  Meanwhile, another team member or an opposing team member

has stolen the ball.  Maybe, with time, we can make him into a David Beckham.

I am quite sure he will grow up to be even cuter than David Beckham, but soccer skills... just don't know.

More Philippines Fun

These are photos we got from Chantelle's camera.
What a blessing!!

What a cute trio.

This was at the underground river entrance on Palawan island

Another cute trio.

Having fun at the Department of Ed building after a day of working at the school

They would have pyramid wars.

One pyramid against the other.

Usually ended badly.

Sara... we need to go!!

I love these pictures with the Filipino rugrats.

So cute.

They ate alot of these ice pop things.

Also, Chantelle has a soda in a bag which was also a favorite.

They would get these on the breaks at school.

Probably one of the reasons the Filipino children have bad teeth.

Every break they have from classes, they run to these booths that are set up with sugary beverages or frozen sugar pop thingies.

Our girls loved it too!

On the way home.

Did not want to be coming home!

Love this one.

I think this was one of Maddie's favorite days.

It was the day she swam with the kids in the poop water.

This is on the way back from the river to the school.

All the kids just hung out the window on their first bus ride through the country.

Maddie took about 30 minutes of video of this bus ride.

But, alas... it is gone... STUPID HARD DRIVE!

Maddie has a vertical of about 2 1/2 inches.

She takes after me.

On the way into the underground river.

So happy to have some more Filipino photos!

Thanks Chantelle!

More Rescued Photos

 These are some more photos that we pulled from Facebook.

This is one of my favorites.

It is Maddie and Alex (a girl in her small group) on a jeepney.

I think this is one of their translators. 

This is the "swimming pool" again.

Maddie is near the center of the picture in the grey shirt.

This was taken at the cultural exchange which was at the end of their time spent at the schools.  

The YMAD group had a presentation that represented American culture and then the Filipinos gave them a show that represented theirs.  It looked like it was very fun!

She almost looks like one of the islanders.

I know she wishes she was an islander.

She is really missing her adoptive country and the beautiful people!

Found

I am excited to present a few pictures that were saved...

They are totally out of order, randomly placed. But I don't care as long as I can see them.

Maddie, Jada and Chantelle getting pedicure's in Manilla on their last day abroad.

The cute boys had their beards dyed black at this same salon.

This was "the river" that Maddie swam in at lunch with the kids.

Heard afterwards that it was full of eels, leeches and poop!

She could have cared less.

She was fully into experiencing the Philippines like the natives do.

This was at the same Philippines mall that the pedicures were in.

This is a traditional Filipina dress. 

I think they look darling.

Maddie thought they looked "so weird!"

This was the group at Palawan island, I think.

This is a picture of Maddie with the teens in her group.

As well as the 5th grade class that they were responsible for.

She LOVED them all!!

Maddie and her crocodile friend at the Crocodile Farm on Palawan Island.

This is part of the teen group on Palawan island.

They worked really hard for about 8 days and then spend a few

days travel to experience Palawan Island and Manilla for a few days.

They totally deserved the little piece of heaven they got on Palawan.

Maddie said the full day that they got to spend in Palawan

(beach, swimming, touring underground river, zip line over the ocean)

was the PERFECT day.

I am so glad she had this wonderful experience with wonderful friends by her side.

Little launching harbor at Palawan.

Maddie was disappointed with all of the pictures she took at Palawan.

She said none of them did it justice.

Just pure paradise!

This is a picture of her group that worked together each day.

Riley, Danny, Alex, Maddie and Kylie.

Punched in the gut

Super great news today.

Our hard drive on our main computer is shot.

Pictures, videos, documents--all hopelessly lost.

I am the primary secretary-all of my primary organizational forms-gone.

Hours of work-gone.

The worst is that Maddie had made a video of her Philippine experience.  It included several clips of video shot of her experiences there and a montage of pictures set to awesome music.  It appears that we are not going to be able to retrieve it.  Luckily, she had posted most of her pictures to Facebook, but all of the video is lost.  I am so sick about it.

We actually have an external back up system, but because of the hard drive issue, it was not able to back up our computer for at least a couple of months.  Todd thought it wasn't backing up because I had too many photos--hah!! he was wrong!! Except, I wish he was right.

So now, I will be spending money on a new hard-drive and also spending money to ship my old (piece of crap) hard drive to California to some data-recovery business.  I am sure it will cost a month's salary for them to try to retrieve the items off the computer, but I suppose I will have to suck it up in order to preserve (hopefully) some of the post important things.

So so so frustrating.

Needless to say, it may be awhile before I am blogging again.  I have nothing constructive to say, and no pictures to post.

My life may not be worth living...

kidding...

kind of.

Philippines: Last Chapter

This is the ending part of Maddie's trip.

I know, it is totally out of order.  Like dessert first.

I have hundreds of pictures I want to post of her trip-a bit overwhelming.

So, I will do the airport first and then I will post pictures of her trip.

Too excited!

Sadie spent her time running on the people mover sidewalk-backwards. 

Waiting...

Waiting...

Waiting some more.

Seriously painful!

There was a huge group waiting at the bottom of the escalator.

There was all of the families of the YMAD kids and then a huge

group of family for 2 missionaries coming home from Hong Kong.
Kind of made me feel a bit silly realizing they had to wait 2 years
to hear about their child's adventure and I was impatient with the 2 weeks.

Our first glance of their group.

She was cute..started crying when she saw us.

(I hope out of happiness, not sadness-maybe a bit of both!)

After the airport, the girls insisted on Cafe Rio.

Yes, it was 10 p.m., but you don't argue with jet-lagged teenagers.

So we went to Lori's house and ate and looked at video and pictures.

I videoed them talking about their experience. 

All of them teared up again as they spoke about their

Filipino friends that they hated to leave.

It was a wonderful night!

So happy that she is back, safe and sound.

So happy that her heart was touched.