Contrary to popular belief

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have never imagined my life as it is now 6 years ago. I have never imagined that I will find the love of my life in BYUH neither did I expected that he is going to be from a different culture. I know that in the Philippines there are a lot of women who marry foreigners just so they can get out of the country and search for a greener pasture; money comes before love. I honestly do not know how that works for them. I got nothing to say about that, they choose to do what they do and I strongly believe that nobody has the right to talk crap about them. I know for sure they too have made their own sacrifices for that. So why exactly am I writing about this?

It sucks that people always tend to generalize. I just want to throw it out there that not all women, especially Filipinas, who marry a foreigner wants a ticket out of their country. People really need to stop thinking that way. It is offensive and very disrespectful. Nobody knows what us (those who gets into intercultural marriage) have to sacrifice just so we can be with the love of our life. We have to sacrifice our language,  our culture and in some cases our home country. Every marriage is different and how a couple deals with their everyday challenges is what creates the "perfect life" for them.

Money does not rain on you when you marry a foreigner. We struggle the same way as those who are married within their race. It doesn't make us financially exceptional when we marry a foreigner. Sometimes people just need to think and to hear themselves first before they speak.

I have also believed that we are ought to serve in the country of our birth but I also strongly believe that even if you are far from your home country there are still ways for you to serve. There is nothing that can limit you when it comes to service. There are tons of way that you can serve other people you just need to try to be creative and think outside the box.

I am blessed to have this wonderful opportunity to learn and explore a whole new culture and language.  Not everybody has the chance to have this experience. You get to travel, eat new foods, learn a new language and learn about a new culture in the comfort of your home and the best part of it is you get to share all these crazy adventures with the love of your life.

2 years and 1 baby later

2 years and 1 baby later we finally said bye bye to fast foods well not really of course we still eat them but now its more a treat for us. I have to admit that for the last two years (just to put it nicely) I wasn't the best cook so all the time oftentimes we resort to fast foods. I throw tons of reasons to myself, to my husband and to others just to justify why I don't cook all most of the time but the truth is I'm just not into it. It's not something I like to do nor do I look forward doing. But it came to a point when we needed to change our lifestyle and be more conscious with our health. It is sad though that it came to this point before I realized how important it is to serve my family healthy home cooked meals but yeah they say better late than never.

I am really happy to say that I now serve healthy home cooked/prepared foods for my not so little family. I am also happy that we are all enjoying it even Aidan. He even snacks on vegetables and fruits which is what I really wanted him to do even before he was born. Not only are our tummys happy but also our pockets. Cooking at home really helped us save our money especially now thay we are paying Jesse's tuition in full since he cannot apply for scholarships until next Fall.

Well of course this does not mean that we are not going to eat out all. We have these family date nights which we sometimes call our treat nights when we eat out and try the different local restaurants and from time toi time fastfoods in our area. But even during these times we still try to look for the healthier option.

I have found a couple of websites that offers healthy and easy recipes, one is www.myhealthydish.com  I really find her recipes yummy and easy to make. There's really a lot of help in preparing healthy meals online and I'm really hoping that they can help us keep this habit of healthy and clean eating.

Enjoying our milkshake 

(His dad forgot to get him a highchair and went straight to the table, we were surprised that he walked to where the highchairs are and pulled one for himself, haha)

 McDonalds after weeks 

 First trying ketchup

New Beginnings

Big changes for our little family for the last 2 months. We went from a furniture filled condominium to a totally empty (maybe even older than both Jesse and I) apartment. From the chaos of city living in Manila we now live in literally the middle of nowhere. We live in a very small town, LDS church membership is around 50 and our stake center is 2 hours away from us. There is not much to do but we're grateful we have most of the things that we need to survive, Walmart, Mcdonalds, KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King (hahaha) and a handful of good local restaurants.

Jesse is now back to school which leaves Aidan and I at home most of the day. So far he's loving his classes but we'll see how it'll go since school just barely started. I am really happy that he's finally doing something that he is really excited about. There's a lot of sacrifices made to make these things work and we really hope and pray that everything will be for the best of our family.

As with our little chunky monkey, he's now walking by himself which means more wrecking and more running....for us. He is a very active baby, it seems like he never runs out of energy. He prefers to play with things that he shouldn't be playing with; he specifically loves pulling out cords and trying to put it back to the socket (I know we should be really careful with this). He's also getting heavy for me he's almost half of my weight. But despite all the chasing, clutter and all the "Aidan! don't do that" we absolutely love and adore our not so little baby. He sure is growing up so fast. 

Whines

I assume we, mothers are all allowed to complain whine about our life once in a while. Before anything else I want to make it clear, I love my life, I love being a mom to an active 8 months old little baby boy and I love being a wife to a 6'2 ft tall young man but I am no super human woman, I also get tired and I have my own limitations.  Jesse and I have been married for 18 months now, throughout that period we somehow have learned our individual responsibilities in the house.  But now that we have Aidan it feels like my our responsibilities are sky high.  Sometimes I feel like I could sleep 24 hours straight if only I have the chance.

 I have to say that there have been a lot of people who have been very skeptical about me getting married at an early age, people who have been very doubtful of my decision, people who at some point may have thought about the immaturity of my decision. I can imagine the now saying "I told you so", "you should have listened to me", "now you know what I mean".  I am lying if I say life has been easy breezy for our little family or my life has been everything I expected it to be.  I have to admit it wasn't, there was a lot of loopholes, a lot of rough rides into the crazy river of life.

This is absolutely not the life that I have planned or imagined 5 years ago.  I had so many hopes, my plan was while in college I will do my best to find the perfect internship which if everything works smoothly will give me my "dream job" and then after a few more years I will take the Foreign Service exam here in the Philippines (which is something I have always been dreaming of).  Getting married was completely out of my plan.  But then instead of finding the perfect internship while in college I found the perfect young man to whom I got married for all time and eternity and then instead of getting my dream job I got the most wonderful job a woman can have and that is being a mother.

Behind all my daily whining about life I am grateful for everything that I have now especially for my husband and my son.  Being a wife and a mother is not only physically demanding, at some point it can drain everything that is in you.  But then once you see the smile in your little boy's face, once you hear the words I love and thank you from your husband everything seems so perfect.  You will soon forget all the sleepless nights you have and all the other efforts you have exerted to make a day right.  I know that I am blessed to have these two men in my life.

People also told me that once I get married that's it I won't be able to enjoy my life to its fullest. Well with what I am experiencing right now I can confidently say that they are all wrong, I have never enjoyed my life the way that I am enjoying it right now and I will NEVER EVER regret getting married to the love of my life and also having the cutest baby at this point of our life.

Share Some Love for Baby Adrianna

We are currently raising funds for my sister Shere Lou and her coming little angel. Please click on the link below and read their story.


http://www.giveforward.com/sharesomeloveforbabyadrianna

Thank you so much for your time! 😊

'tis the season to be jolly,falalalala lalalala..

The past holiday season have been a blast for our family.  After eight long years my family was able to spend the holiday season together.  Kuya Bryan together with his family flew in from our Qatar and Ate Anne together with her family flew in from Texas.  We had so much fun spending time together.  We had Christmas Eve dinner here in our condo and New Year's eve dinner over at my parents home.  It feels good seeing everybody happy. Originally there are just 8 of us in the family now there's 17 of us (soon to be 18 with my Ate Balot's baby due this coming March).  Surely, there was a lot of fun times, good food and special memories to keep.

 Our first ever Christmas tree :)

The fambam on Christmas eve

Thunderbird Resort where the whole family spent a day of food and swimming

The famiglia :)

Update on our not so little boy Aidan:

He's now 6 months old, weighing 20.2 lbs and is 29 inches long.  He moves around a lot but he still can't crawl steadily.  He loves the water and interacts well with people(just like his daddy).  We will surely miss the little baby Aidan who lays peacefuly in our arms.