Christmas Eve Day

December 24, 2008: Have we introduced you to Rosemary? She's one of three staff members who work at the Mission. Rosemary cooks and cleans, Willy is the gate guard, and Gloria does the laundry. On Christmas Eve it was Rosemary's birthday. There's a clue to how old she is in the number of candles on the cake, but we promised we'd keep her age a secret! This is the Mango-Chiffon cake we made and below is a picture of the gifts my mom gave Rosemary.

There were two little miracles associated with Rosemary birthday celebration. First, Terri bought the cake while we were at the grocery store in Daet. We were standing at the bakery counter waiting for my mom and noticed the yummy looking cakes on display. Terri decided it would be a fun thing to buy, since it was only 100 pesos. We had planned to have it for dinner after our trip to Daet, but we didn't...so it was available to have for Rosemary's birthday the next day. The second was the gift of the measuring cups. We went with my mom to Robertson's Department Store (the Filipino version of Target...kind of) and she decided to buy the cake pan for Rosemary's gift. Just as her purchase was being written up (if you ever have an hour, I'll try to explain the check out process at Robertson's) she decided to add the measuring cups to the purchase. Turns out, Rosemary (who wants to sell baked goods) didn't have measuring cups.

I know we've mentioned Brother Willy a few times. He's one of the nicest people we've met here! Here he is making his (now) world-famous Banana Pancakes. My parents were hosting two open houses on Christmas day, so we spent a lot of time preparing food for them on Christmas Eve. Brother Willy probably cooked up over 150 pancakes and and then cut up 12 pineapples. He was a trooper!

While Terri stayed at the mission home to help my mom and Rosemary with Open House preparations, I went with my dad to run a few last minute errands. Okay, if you think shopping on Christmas Eve is bad at your local mall...try shopping at the Naga Market!! The traffic was so bad, my dad ended up just dropping me off at the corner and having me do the shopping while he drove around the block. I bought 3 kilos of Dalandan (green oranges), 3 kilos of Princess Bananas, and 3 kilos of grapes and 100 pesos of fireworks (these were an impulse buy since the fireworks stand was right next to the Princess Bananas).

After shopping at the Naga Market, my Dad drove us over to the LCC mall to see if we could find pearls and other souvenir type things. We had to park clear down the street from the LCC, so we took a Pudjack to get back to the car. The poor Pudjack driver was exhausted after pedaling us back to the car.

Before heading home we stopped at a bridge to watch the boats come in.

And here is a Rail Skate transporting chickens and other goods from the Naga Market to outlying areas. More about the Rail Skate to come!