Friday, November 6, 2009

How to Make Veterans Day Coloring Books

Veterans day is next week. Please take the time to teach your children why we observe this holiday. This week we watched tragic news of the Fort Hood murders. Every day it seems a new attack takes place on our military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. Please say a prayer and a word of thanks to those who serve. For the kiddos why not make a coloring book to help understand the holiday. I wrote some basic instructions here, and provided links to images for coloring pages

How to Make a Veterans Day Coloring Book

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Additional Ondoy Damage Photos

More photos came through this morning so I am working on getting more posted here.

Folks who have water standing in their homes are currently living on their roofs. I asked how they are cooking, and was told they make a grill of sorts from a CMU Block with wood for fire.

This is what the bamboo was for, they have build walking bridges so they do not have to get wet to leave their homes



These were the folks lined up to receive food kits. The kids make pick ups if the mom or dad is not able to get there

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Flood view from the roof top

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The northern areas of the PI have had hundreds killed this week from mudslides.
I know relief operations are always criticized and tough because of the high emotions, but it doesnt seem to be reaching the areas needing so much help. The US military has now been allowed to help in rescue efforts from the mudslides. Hopefully they will be able to help reach those still stranded.

Please continue praying, the situation is truly desperate in so many places. I hope to be on a plane home by Wed morning at the latest and will update as I can when connections will allow

Philippine Flood Relief

Some days I just feel jinxed computer wise and then I think about all the world is going through and know how small my problems are. I've been trying to get pictures out to people today. It has been a challenge to say the least. I started here on this blog. Nothing would show except the video in the blog post below.

So I turned to email and worked to get the pictures in the mail only to find out it was 11 MB and would not go through. So I split it up and set two parts to go out. They hung up in my mail and didn't transmit. I finally got one of them to go out, only to find out the pictures don't show.

So I came back here to try again and after about 20 min I got pictures to show. Amazing..so I tried to see if I could get the pictures to show a little larger, clicked one and lost the entire blog post. I am jinxed!

But my worries and troubles don't even come close to comparing to what the folks in the flooded areas of the Philippines are going through, so without further whining I am gonna try once more to get pictures here with captions.


If you got the email without the pictures, hopefully you can see what went with the captions now. The video I mentioned is in the blog post before this one.


Mr. Manny, Chris's music teacher unloading 400 lbs of rice from our vehicle:



Packing up food kits to hand out. Mr. Manny keeps a list of who he has given kits to and when so he makes sure he is getting them to different families each time. I asked how they deliver them and the answer is the word goes out to the people and they come to Manny's house to pick up due to conditions. Each kit has 2 lbs rice, a can of sardines, and a cup of instant noodles. This is to help the family out for the week:



The entrance into the flooded areas. This is about one block from Mr. Manny's house. These are people able to still be in their homes, others are completely displaced. Note the bamboo poles laying in the street, you will see what they are for in future pictures.



Mr. Manny arranged for someone with a boat to take Johnnie out to see the streets where the people who are receiving the kits are living. The man in the picture is lining the boat up to move through the street. As you can see, two weeks later the water is still up to his waist and this is the area where conditions are considered good.



More to follow in another post.

kathy

You Raise Me Up

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Thursday, June 4, 2009

Living in the Rain

We've had a number of assignments over the years but we've never lived anywhere that had a rainy season. Rainy season seems to have hit the Philippines early this year though. From all that I read it is normally July and August but if this isnt rainy season I think we are in for a mess! I think we are on day 7 of rain now and the next ten day forecast is summed up in that one little four letter word..RAIN and more RAIN. Every assignment is different though and you just find a way to deal with what is thrown your way (or drops from the sky on you!)

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Manila Restaurants


We've been trying out the restaurants little by little since arriving in Manila. We've found some we like enough to go back several times, and some that we just ok. Around here everyone seems to deliver. We ordered chicken for delivery once, and we plan to try out subway delivery soon. I guess I should not get totally used to this delivery scheme because we know for sure we won’t have this luxury at the next location. But that's part of military life isn't it? Finding the things you love about each new place you go, and remembering the good times as you reminisce about where you have been before. The picture is from our delivery order of Bacolod Chicken Inasal. You can read more about it here.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Unsent Letters and an update

I forgot to come update yesterday. Bad start to keeping track of things huh?
I didn't add any new AC articles yesterday but I did do my today.com blog and worked on several articles I have started. I did promo on twitter for a few things.

Today I have done my today.com blog and am going to finish one more AC article today I hope.

I also want to highlight a new writing project. Michelle Devon has just started Unsent Letters. You can read about it here. The guidelines for submitting a letter for consideration for publishing on her blog or possible publication in a book are posted on the blog.

Michy is a great person who gives advice and guidance to new writers. Her website is Accentuate Services and there is a wonderful supportive group of folks in the forum there.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Earning income after PCS moves

I am one of the lucky few who has been able to bring my job with me when making a PCS move. I was a bit worried about whether it would be allowed this time since our move was to an overseas location in a completely different timezone. But I have retained my telecommuting job and am working through the different time issues to find what works best.With that said, I have also looked at things that could be done for income if the job were not available. Since I know this is often the case with military spouses who move with the member, or who opt to stay home with the children, I thought I would highlight the things I am doing online. Granted my income is very limited from online sources right now, but maybe someone can find info in what I am doing to help them out.

I'm also going to use the spot here to track what I have done on these on line resources, because it helps to keep me accountable on a page somewhere.

As the days go on I will summarize the areas I am talking about.

Today I did 1 blog post on my Today.com blog www.livingabroad.today.com

I submitted one article to AC for upfront payment.

If I manage to submit more before the day is over I will be back to update.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Mardi Gras Word Searches

We just left an area where Mardi Gras was a big celebration. Before living in Florida I didn't really know much about the festivals and had no clue what Fat Tuesday was all about. The kids were able to learn about the festival season and associate it with the lenten season also. To make the learning more fun we always looked for worksheets and puzzles to do. Here are some links to word searches for Mardi Gras, Read More Here

Friday, February 6, 2009

Yes we are still around!

We made the PCS move just before Christmas and I have totally ignored my blogs since then. We've had almost 2 months to adjust and it has definitely been an adjustment. I hope to get back to more active blogging in the next few weeks to come. I did start a new blog just for recording this adventure. You can read about our live in the Philippines here

If you have a spouse deploying soon, don't forget about the option of the Deployment Savings Program for a high interest savings account. You can read more about it in my AC article here.