Every May, the town of Maria, Siquijor holds their annual festival. Maria is the place that my Filipino family is from (on the island of Siquijor). Last year I was not able to attend since I was 35 weeks pregnant. This year the whole family attended and we also convinced my parents, sister, brother, aunt and cousin to join us. It was a full house with many memories made. The first week only my sister and cousin were in Manila and we kept them busy exploring the various sights. My sister came to visit us last year, but didn’t get out of the city really since I was about to give birth. This year we made sure she experienced more outside of the city. After our time in Siquijor we were able to show the rest of the family around Manila and have some fun.
My sister and cousin’s week in Manila before the rest of the family flew in.
My cousin had a direct flight from LA, California. We let her put her suitcase down and then took her to Matt’s basketball game. She didn’t last the whole game.
The boys had never met our cousin before, but quickly accepted her and would spend a lot of time sitting with her on the couch.
Jet-lag is brutal. These two would fall asleep around 7pm every night when they first arrived.
My sister came from Texas, so we loaded her up with goodies to bring here for us. Many of these treats went to friends and co-workers. The people here really appreciate sweets from the states.
I took the girls to Pagsanjan Falls. Blake and I stayed at the resort while they went to see the falls.
The girls went to Taal Volcano while I stayed home one day. It is always nice to get out of the city.
We tried out the trapeze and my cousin was really good at it.
We went back a second time to do trapeze with the whole gang.
Matt took my youngest brother out to do wake-boarding one morning.
We had to take them to Mall of Asia. In 2006 it was the largest mall in the Philippines, but now it is the third largest in the country.
When it was just my sister and I at home, Matt had a hard time telling us apart from the back.
