Tomorrow I will be picking up F.B. at Philadelphia International Airport! He left for his flight to the USA about 7 hours ago. He will arrive in Los Angeles around 6:30pm this evening. (9:30pm Philadelphia). Then he will catch a flight to Dallas Texas around 12am. (3am Philly). He will leave Dallas around 6:30am and arrive in Philadelphia around 10:30am. Praying he doesn't have any delays. We talked on the phone last night and he texted me this morning before boarding his flight. Unfortunately it's supposed to rain heavy tomorrow so hoping he arrives on time!

Yesterday & today I spent getting the last of the cleaning and organizing done. I'm finished! (And exhausted, lol!) I only have to put clean sheets and make the bed tomorrow morning.

Besides the toiletries and a few clothing items I got F.B. I also have a snack pack for him in a Spongebob tin, hehe. There's Herr's thin ripple chips, Ruffles chili cheese chips, Goldfish Pizza crackers and two Snapple Iced Teas in the tin. Plus a belated Valentines day card, since we decided not to send any packages.

I also hung up our 'Sarah' & 'F.B.' hearts that originally were on his bedroom door in the Philippines on one of my trips there. They are on my closet door now.


My cousin Chrissy and her husband Matt who are in Georgia, sent F.B. & I cute 'his & hers' towels and a pretty frame. :) I put one of our wedding photos in the frame.



I have the whole week off work to spend with F.B. and get settled in. We will be heading to the Social Security Office probably on Monday to apply for a number for him and also do a little clothes shopping. Were also going out to Chinese Buffet with my family this Wednesday. Lot's to do!

In ratties updates! I've had to take 3 ratties to the vet in the past few weeks. After Basil passed away I decided to try integrating all my girls so I could open up the levels in the Ferret Nation cage. There were a few scuffles and some fighting but it wasn't so bad. Until I noticed where Honey had bit Iris and Clover they had swelled into lumps. This happened to Jasmine a few months ago and she had to go to the vet and get a Baytril injection and antibiotics.

Iris was bit in the neck and it swelled exactly like Jasmines wound had. Clover was bit on her back and it swelled into a painful lump. They were given Baytril and antibiotics and now Iris's lump is all gone and Clover's is just about gone. I've never seen rat bites swell & get infected like that, and it's only when Honey bites someone that they do swell. She has a viscous bite.

Iris

Clover

Then Barley, my hairless rat started to have this weird odor to him. I couldn't figure out what it was. I gave him a bath and I could still smell it. I thought maybe it was coming from his mouth, maybe he had gotten food stuck in his teeth. The smell turned out to be coming from his left eye! He had a vet appointment this past Tuesday. The vet used a magnifying camera to examine his eye and also ultraviolet drops and light to check his cornea.

Barley had something in his eye that the vet removed. They thought it was a piece of litter, but I don't use litter. So it was either food or lint or who knows what that had gotten stuck underneath his left eye and that's what was causing the odor. So strange! Hairless rats do not have eyelashes so they can get stuff in their eyes. He has an eye ointment he has to have for 10 days. But he is doing much better and doesn't smell anymore! Poor guy! :-p

Barley

Sadly... I did not get my SRR Rat Train rats today. Our driver went MIA and never contacted Brittney. The original driver even disconnected their phone number and unfriended Star's Rat Rescue Facebook page. So weird... I don't understand why someone would go to such lengths if they didn't want to do the drive anymore. It would have been nice to just say they had changed their mind. Sooo... we are back to the original plan and Brittney is hoping April or May we can get this rat train going!

It's my husband's 31st birthday today! Happy Birthday! I love you and I miss you. F.B.'s birthday gifts already arrived on the 5th in the Philippines. Sent him Butterscotch & Banana Tastykake's, Andy Capp Hot Fries and 2 PC games he wanted. Oh and the bestest birthday card ever! One with Spongebob on it, lol! (Hey Walmart only had 2 sucky husband birthday cards!)

I was lucky enough to be with F.B. on his 29th birthday a few years ago. Hopefully next year when our immigration process is finished we'll get to celebrate both our birthday's TOGETHER!



From F.B.'s 29th Birthday:

Four of you entered and three of you got all the questions correct except one! I had to use a random number generator to determine the winner!And the winner is.... Jacki from Keeping up with me!

Congratulations Jacki! Please email me your address to: tunaymahal8279ATyahooDOTcom so I can ship your prizes to you!

Here are the answers to the quiz and where they could be found on my blog:

1. Where did F.B. & I meet online? Lindsay Lohan Forum

2. What does F.B. stand for? His father’s initials: Felicisimo Bernardo

3. How many years have F.B. & I been in a long distance relationship? 6 years

4. How many trips to the Philippines have I taken? Four

5. The first thing I said to F.B. in person was? “You’re not so short”

6. My favorite drink at Starbucks is? White Chocolate Mocha.

7. F.B.’s favorite thing to eat is? Ruffles Chips

8. Date we were engaged? 01-10-2007

9. Our legal date of marriage is? 12-18-09

10. F & I like to watch this cartoon? Spongebob Squarepants

11. How many tattoo’s do I have? Two

12. I am obsessed with this theme- when it comes to books? Tudor Dynasty

13. How many rats have I owned altogether? 14

14. What does ‘Tunay Na Mahal’ in Tagalog mean? “True Love”

F.B. & I have been married two weeks now. We got to spend our first Christmas & New Years together as husband and wife.

Christmas Eve day F.B. & I went to Robinson’s Metro East early in the morning. We hung out at a net café for a couple hours while I uploaded more wedding photos, etc. Afterwards we had lunch at Wendy’s in Sta. Lucia Mall. (Baconator…mmmm… deadly, but delicious! Hehe!)

We stopped at an electronics store after lunch so F.B. could get me a Christmas gift. He got me an 8GB USB Flash Drive. Yay! We also stopped at the Guess store again… I have a bad addiction with that store in the Philippines! I’ve gotten 4 t-shirts from there already, and it’s not exactly cheap. They were all around P800-P1300. ($17-28 USD).

Christmas Eve we went to church around 9:30pm. The church was packed with people. When we got back to F.B.’s house we had ‘Noche Buena’ around 12am. We exchanged Christmas gifts with the family and took pictures. We had dinner around 1am and didn’t get to bed until around 3am Christmas Morning.

Christmas Day we stayed home and relaxed. Around 6:30pm we went to Mega Mall to Saisaki Buffet to have dinner with F.B.’s family & relatives. Afterwards we had Starbucks.

Christmas Photos:

F.B.’s aunt got me this cute wooden mouse pen and wooden mouse toy for Christmas.

Mugwort eating in the kitchen:

December 28th we had a free overnight stay at the Malayan Plaza Hotel in Pasig City. It was a gift from one of F.B.’s aunts. It’s just around the corner from Mega Mall and Robinson’s Galleria in Pasig City. Our hotel suite had its own little kitchen, with a microwave, stove and full fridge. There was also a DVD player, but we didn’t bring any DVD’s with us!

Our Room:

Our Kitchen!

View from our hotel room:

We wanted to go to the IMAX Theater at Mall of Asia, but it was still packed with holiday shoppers, etc so we ended up going to Robinson’s Manila to spend the afternoon there. I got another cute keychain mouse/rat to add to my collection! We also checked out Fort Santiago but it was really hot that day so we didn't stay long.

New Years Eve we headed to church around 9:30pm. We got back home around 11pm. It was pretty loud with people setting off firecrackers and fireworks all over the place. At 12am we had dinner. F.B. & I had Spongebob necklaces that light up from Ate Malou’s daughter, Jenny.

New Years Photos:

With Jenny:

I also got to call home to my family on Christmas & New Years. My ratties are doing well while I'm away. They even got banana chips as a Christmas Gift from my Mom. Hehe. Here's a photo of Saffy they sent to me, she's wearing a Santa Hat!

Sunday we are headed to the Best Western Astor Hotel in Makati City for 5 days, 4 nights. We check out on the 7th. We also still have to pick up our marriage certificate sometime soon and we are also still waiting on the professional wedding photos. We want to head back to Tagaytay one day this month too. For our first wedding “monthiversary” on January 19th, we are going to go back to the Manila Hotel.

The 23rd I will be heading home. I've already been in touch with our lawyer. I will be contacting him when I'm back in the USA, so we can start F.B.'s immigration process. It's estimated to take 1 year to 2 years at the most. We are doing a longer process on purpose because it will save us money in the long run and F.B. will be a permanent resident when he finally steps off the plane in the USA.

NOTE: Our lawyers Peter J. Gonzales & Shanna Stanton have changed firms. They are no longer with Kahiga Tiagha. They are now with Green and Spiegel LLC, but still located in Philadelphia. 

F.B.’s parents booked a two night stay at the Manila hotel as a wedding gift to us. We checked into the hotel around 3pm on Saturday. The hotel was really nice. We had a large room with a huge memory foam bed. There was a 40 inch flat screen TV in the room and in the bathroom there was another flat screen TV built into the wall above the bathtub. If you wanted you could watch TV from the toilet, hehe! There was also a huge separate shower.

Pictures of our room:

F.B. really enjoyed the complimentary robe. He showed off his karate moves! Lol!

He also enjoyed his ruffles!

At the hotel:

Out to dinner:

We spent a lot of time watching Spongebob, Nickelodeon and eating junk food on our honeymoon! Sunday we planned on going to Manila Ocean Park. They’ve been doing a lot of construction and part of the new mall is open now. We had lunch at Gerry’s Grill. Afterwards we went to get tickets, but there were so many people they were making you take a number to wait for your turn. There were over 100 people ahead of us, so we decided to head to Mall of Asia instead, which also turned out to be a bad idea because of all the weekend holiday shoppers.

We were going to watch a movie at the IMAX theater but it was sold out. So we decided we’d head to a net café, only there were no seats left. Finally we decided to go to a different mall in hopes there would be less people. We headed to Robinson’s Galleria and went to a net café first. F.B. updated our relationship statuses and I changed my last name. Afterwards we had dinner at Yellow Cab where we got Hawaiian pizza and tried their Alfredo Pasta. We picked up some bottled water and snacks to take back to the hotel.

Monday we checked out of the hotel around 12pm. We decided to head back to Manila Ocean Park since it was a weekday. This time we were able to get tickets and got to check out of the park again. They also had a special Jelly Fish exhibit that we had to pay P150 extra for ($3). It was nothing special though.

We got pictures with Tiki Dude this year! Yay!

Also… why does Tiki Dude have a little tiki?

I called this fish Crazy Eyes he just kept staring at us!

Another fish:

Seahorse:

Stingray:

Crazy cowfish, but looked like an alien fish to F & I!

This crab looked like it was meditating!

I got a cute little mouse/rat made out of seashells at one of the gift stalls:

We were planning on having Saisaki Buffet for dinner so we didn’t really have lunch. Instead we went to Robinson’s Manila and got Frappucinos and Egg & Sausage sandwiches from Starbucks. We walked around a lot and I got a new book by Jennifer Weiner. Later on we headed to another net café to check stuff online.

In the bookstore I was really confused because we saw Where’s Waldo books, only he’s called Wally over here?!

We left Robinson’s Manila around 5pm to head to Mega Mall for Saisaki buffet but we hit horrible traffic. We were stuck in traffic for 3 hours so by the time we were close to Mega Mall it was too late for the buffet. We headed to the 24 Burger King and decided to have a Burger King buffet instead, lol! Whoppers, fries, onion rings, chicken Tenders and dessert! I think our honeymoon was the weekend of eating, hehe! (After all the wedding dieting!)

When we arrived back to F.B.’s house after the honeymoon there was a sign greeting us in the dining room:

We also had a ton of wedding gifts to open when we got back home:

Tuesday we finally got to have dinner at Saisaki Buffet. We had lots of sushi and tempura and some other stuff too. And we actually got to try the desserts this time. We also picked up two pairs of my jeans from the alteration shop. They needed new zippers. We spent a long time at Mega Mall on Tuesday we didn’t arrive home until around 12 midnight!

It’s been such a busy week so far! We’re exhausted. We slept until 3pm this afternoon! And there are still a lot of things coming up, Christmas Eve tomorrow night, Christmas Day on Friday. And on the 28th we’re staying overnight at The Malayan Plaza.

To view all of our wedding & honeymoon photos click here!

Happy Holidays!!!