Being involved in the past in project management, I can tell you as a project is coming to an end there is an excitement going through the project team. It is pretty much the same here in our household as the outside work on our house construction in the Philippines is wrapping up. There is still some painting to be done before it will be complete but we have moved most of the work to an inside project.

The most recent pictures in the album are pictures of the sliding door and windows that we have added going to the outside terrace. This will be a place where we will spend much time entertaining and celebrating with our friends and family in the Philippines. It looks like we may have to have another house blessing done. If you’d like to see the whole album including the latest updates please click on Our House Construction in the Philippines.

Also I have had a few questions about the size of our home in the Philippines and I have been responding with measurements of the original size as I haven’t been able to do another measurement. I am just providing the basic measurements from the home package we purchased when we originally had the home built.

I’ll start off by saying our house construction in the Philippines is getting recognizable as what we envisioned when this all began. if you are interested in how it looked before and what the home has progressed to, feel free to visit the photo album I have been keeping. Just click on the following link: Our House Construction in the Philippines

I just wanted to pass along a blog I have been following which I may have mentioned before but I’m not sure. You see when my wife moved to the United States she moved from Israel, although she is a filipina.
She was working there when we met and had worked various places around the world as an OFW. Generally she lived in areas of big cities so when we moved to Virginia Beach it wasn’t that big of an adjustment. When I retired we moved to West Virginia into a smaller city but still a city with not all the comforts of other places we had both been over the years. It took us a little while adjusting to the advantages and disadvantages of being close to everybody and basically being in a place where you were no longer just a face in a crowd. With this new arena we were exposed to other things such as becoming the topic of people’s Sunday dinner conversations, and everyone knowing our every move. Now that may appeal to some people but for me it’s too Mayberryish (made up that word). I appreciate the closeness to family and such, but I am more of a face in the crowd person and enjoy my anonymity.

What this is leading to is the author of the blog I was referring to and his wife, a filipina, seem to live in even a smaller town than we do with all the advantages and disadvantages. Ben and MaryAnn seem to enjoy it where they live and that is fine but as I read I can recognize some of the things that are driving me to get back to the larger cities where I feel I belong. Anyway, the name of Ben’s blog is My2Pesos and you should read this blog to see how an American and Filipina have made their marriage work in small town USA. That’s all I have until next time Salamat Po!

For all you interested readers I have updated my photo album of pics of our house construction in the Philippines. Looking at the weather news in the Philippines it looks like a good chance of rain for the next few days so I would say the outside should be complete soon and they will be moving inside. For all you Americans living in the Philippines and experiencing rainy season for the first time, I know how you feel because I’ve been through it and I actually like the rainy time of the year there.

I’m still here in the U.S. for football season but soon I’ll be back in the Philippines and working on furnishing the house and getting the kitchen appliances installed. I’m really homesick for the Philippines right now and look forward to getting on that airplane and returning. Until next time………

As you can see from this and the other pictures in the album our house construction in the Philippines is in the latter stages. It’s a good thing because in our phone conversation with family it was raining so hard in Laguna that we could hear it through the headphones. I’ve posted one of the pics from the album at the beginning of this post and the rest can be found in our Moving to Philippines photo album. Click on the link to see them.

In other news, I have been contacted from a tourism student at a University in Manila to be interviewed for her thesis entitled “The Philippines as a retirement destination for foreign tourists” If our schedules match up I may accept her offer and get together with her and her group for a sit down. I’ll post more on this later.

Well thats all I have right other than to say I’m counting the days until my return back to the Philippines. As soon as the college football season is over I will be on my way. See you all soon!