Having a Good Time This Weekend

We Had a great Time this last Weekend!

I finally got my digital camera working. I am almost embarrassed to share what the problem was. Everyone knows that all the latest digital equipment expressly states in the Operator's Manual that you should always use "ALKALINE" batteries. You do this to avoid the battery leaking battery acid when they become old and are not used for a long period of time.

Well guess what I did!!!!! You guessed it, not only did I use regular batteries but I didn't take them out right away. Needless to say...the camera didn't work. After figuring this out and cleaning the camera very well I placed NEW "ALKALINE" in it and WaLa! It worked.

So I have been shooting some pictures the last few days and want to share them with you here on the Blog.

This first photo is to impress you! I took it last Friday when we were invited to a very nice Motel here in Cebu. Montebello, actually it is promoted as a Hotel no a Motel. Evelyn and I were honored last year with a Free weekend at this really cool place as a anniversary gift from our pastor and his wife.

It has an Olympic size swimming pool and the food is excellent both Filipino and Western style food. The cost for all of the trimmings is less than $75 US dollars. Last year when we were teaching at Joy Christian Academy we would take the kids there every Friday for swimming lessons as part of their physical training class. It (Montebello) is actually the only Hotel within the city that has s beautiful garden like the one in the above picture.

Saturday was All Saints Day here in the Philippines and believe me everyone goes to the cemetery to pay tribute to their ancestors that have died. That mostly applies to the Catholics and that makes up the majority of the 2 million population of Cebu. We had friends that are Catholic, but didn't all follow that tradition, so they invited us to "their beach house". I got a chance to use my swimming suit. I never experienced "The Tide" before. Interesting, at noon we were in water (salt water) up to our waist and by 4:00PM we were standing on sand with no water. We didn't stop snacking all the time we were there....from about 11AM until 9PM. Here are pictures of that snacking going on. The picture on the right shows the outside of the kitchen where helpers prepare all the many different kinds of food that we had to eat. I was having a little trouble with my camera and didn't get a good picture of the overall beach house. It is quite large and made of native bamboo and stuff like that. I might add I was the only male there and I don't think the ladies ever stopped talking. It was mostly all in Cebuano so I only understood a little bit. But they were very apologetic and I assured them that I was having fun just absorbing the rays from the tropical sun. Next to the right is a picture of the girls young and old having fun. and doing what they do best.....it's called "chieka chieka" ( I don't think I spelled it correctly,but it is a Cebuano word that comes close to our American expression of a "Hen Party". You know I was going to share pictures of where we live in Cebu at our Happy Valley address but I had too much fun with the weekend activities so I will save that for the next Blog. Later- Dave