After purchasing 5 sets of pearls for friends and family, I just couldn’t resist anymore. The pearls were calling to me. But not just ANY pearls, the Ralph Lauren set of Pearls… And by Ralph Lauren I’m not referring to cost (they were actually quite reasonable around...
On Sunday we attended a baby shower for our good friends Andrea and Brian. Nick and Andrea trained together in Washington, D.C. and have been inseparable ever since. Andrea and Brian are also immensely likable because they are fellow Minnesotans, having lived in St. Paul before...
Yes, it is true. We are still sick. New symptoms seem to be showing up each day. I haven’t kicked my cough yet despite all the various remedies I’ve tried. And then Nick woke up on Saturday morning and told me he had an ear infection and needed it looked at immediately...
Last night was a big one for the Novak family – our first ever Marine Ball! Just to give you a little history, the Marine Corps Ball is an annual event that is celebrated each year on the Marine Corp’s Birthday. This year happened to mark its 240th birthday and...
Manila is big on bazaars. There is always one a month for the American Women’s Club of the Philippines. The US Embassy Club does 2 annually as well. And then there’s the myriad of church and local bazaars that spring up in other locales… point being that bazaar...
Friends, it’s been a long few weeks. I swear, our house is plagued by disease and injury. As you know, I picked up the nasty whooping cough in Hong Kong two weeks ago. It’s finally working it’s way out of my system (100 cough drops and 3 bottles of cough syrup...
All I can say is WOW. I am still reeling 5 days after seeing Michael Jackson’s This Is It. I can’t seem to get it out of my head… I struggle to even write a review of it, as the experience was more visceral than anything for me, making it incredibly hard to put into...
As you all know, while the location and view of our condo were fabulous, I had quite a bit of work to do to create an environment that felt “homey” to us. I’ve been laboring for the last 4 months and am finally ready to unveil the results. Please feel free to share...
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness!! I FINALLY got the one thing that I’ve been pining my whole life for (besides a husband and a blow-out wedding). I wanted what every little girl dreams of — a chaise lounge, of course! I can pinpoint the exact moment I...
Poor Monday – it always gets a bad rap as the worst day of the week. I’m taking a stand for Monday!!! I challenge you to inject your Monday with some FUN! Here’s a little inspiration to help…
The good news is that I can say I’ve finally been to Hong Kong. The bad news is that I can’t say that I’ve actually seen much of Hong Kong… here’s a peek into how my 4 days unfolded: I arrived in the city bright eyed and bushy-tailed on Wednesday morning...
There are few things in the world that I’m more passionate about then my undergraduate experience at the College of St. Benedict (CSB) and its partner institution, St. John’s University (SJU). To this day, I’ve never encountered another community quite like it. My...
I’ve been waiting for this day to arrive for a long, long time. Back in May I was awarded a Fellowship from the State Department to continue my coach training overseas. I am so impressed by this Fellowship, which provides funds for spouses to enhance their training and...
This weekend brought excitement a little bit too close to home. Our beloved Greenbelt 5, which is a 2 minute walk from our place, was subject to an armed robbery. The 7 person team of robbers were dressed in police uniforms and arrived in the mall’s basement parking lot at noon...
After passing a cold back and forth for the first part of October, Nick and I are finally starting to get our energy back. We managed to come up with a fun-filled weekend to get us back into the swing of “normal” life. Here are a few of the highlights: The Art Sale We took...
Wow, my spirits are still soaring after visiting the sensational children of Friendship Home today! It was a big day – the Halloween Party! There were 3 stations for the kids to rotate between and I brought bags of candy that they had to do “tricks” to receive! It...
It was a big weekend folks. My first dress-up, large-scale event in Manila. And it was not just any event, it was the Annual Hoedown put on by the American Women’s Club of the Philippines. This event unites the expat community (men and women alike) around down home...
Ahh, some days my new life amuses me. Like today, when I was invited to “High Tea” at the Peninsula Hotel. Can’t say I’ve ever been to “Tea” before, let along “High Tea”. This brings up a whole series of questions like: What does one...
This is a bit of a deviation from my normal posts, but it seemed too good not to pass along, so here goes! Just learned about this site called The Grocery Game. Teri, the woman that began the site, started studying the sale cycles of Supermarkets 10 years ago and producing a weekly...
I think I’ve mentioned this before but the Manila Embassy has a charity organization called the US Embassy Club (USEC). They sponsor 8 different welfare projects in the city and fundraise primarily through 2 Bazaars per year (one of which is in jeopardy by another impending...
Manila is finally drying out and beginning to rebuild itself. It’s been a tough few days and the stories are heart-wrenching. I haven’t ventured far enough out of Makati to experience the places where devastation was the greatest, but just hearing the first-hand stories is...
Hi friends- I didn’t realize the extent of the situation when I posted last night. I’ve been talking with expat friends and surveying the local news and things are quite bad. I’ll start by saying that we are just find and that traffic is flowing outside our place and...
It’s a typhoon! It’s a typhoon! It all seems a bit surreal and crazy right now. It’s more fascinating that anything, especially since I’m not out and about in it. The typhoon isn’t even going to hit manila but we’re feeling the heavy effects of...
When we were in training classes getting ready to head overseas, they presented a bell curve graph that showed the different phases of cultural acclimation. First was the honeymoon stage, in which everything was new and exciting. That lasted a good 4-6 weeks for me. Next usually...
Now that we’re approaching day 90, I’m really beginning to get my feet wet. There seems to be a natural progression that plays out for expats that parallels Maslow’s heirarchy of needs. It looks something like this: Learn how to get around in order to find food and...
It was a big week here in Manila. As you know, our stuff arrived a week ago, which means that we’ve been furiously attempting to stash things in any open location around the house. I have definitely learned some critical lessons about how much to pack and will be doing many...
I can’t get enough of this story about Arnel Pineda, the Filipino who became the front man for Journey’s comeback tour in 2008. This 10 minute CBS news interview tells the story best – don’t miss the part about where Arnel had to sing in front of Nick’s...
Awesome news – Our car has finally cleared customs at the port and is available for us to pick up! After celebrating for a few moments it dawned on me that I had no idea how I was going to get the car from the port to our house as neither Nick or I are crazy enough to want to risk...
On Sunday our Camera Club was having their third outing. On the first outing in Fort Santiago, I ended up wandering off on my own too long and missed the meeting part. Outing two didn’t work in my schedule. So here I was, all pumped for outing 3 at the La Mesa Ecopark in...
Greetings- I apologize for the long overdue recap of our trip to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo. We got in late Friday night to the Kota Kinabalu (KK) airport and were transported to the Pacific Sutera Hotel. It’s a part of the Sutera Harbour Resort that encompasses 2 hotels, a marina...
Wow, it’s been a long time coming…. but after 73 days of patiently waiting I FINALLY got exactly what I’d been dreaming of – a perfect lunch of Ravioli and Diet Coke! And let me tell you, it was just as grand as I remembered. Now the key will be to stick to the...
Hi All- Forgive me the LONG absence! After 5 days of being away, I was swamped with emails and to-do’s upon arriving home. Oh yeah and it took me 6 hours to edit down the 400 photos from the trip…. perhaps digital photos aren’t the greatest thing in the world. ...
Remember how I wrote a month ago about how I had all these amazing taxi experiences. I guess all good things must come to an end because yesterday I ended up with my first crazy cabbie. Here’s a play-by-play of our conversation: Cabbie: Ah, mum, you are beautiful! Sarah: Oh, sir...
Oh, but WAIT! The story’s not yet over from our weekend in Batangas. As if failing at SCUBA wasn’t enough for my weekend, we got another little surprise when we got in the car to go home. (Background information: We had rented a car and driver through a Craig’s...
Just got home from a long 3-day weekend spent in Batangas, in the Southern part of Luzon (the island Manila is on). We’ll just cut right to the chase – YES, IT’S TRUE. I FAILED AT SCUBA. Seriously, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s failing. It stings...
Here we go… I’m off to get up close and personal with the marine life of the Philippines. 3 days of pool sessions and open-water ocean dives! I have some serious concerns about my stamina but I’m holding out hope that my body will pleasantly surprise me! ...
Who knew? It turns out that I have breathing issues. I go to the dentist and I get yelled at for being a “night mouth breather” (which causes gum bleeding) and then I get in the pool for my first scuba session and can’t stop exhaling through my nose no matter how...
So for weeks and weeks I’ve been hearing about this S&R place. People would RAVE on and on about it and I was getting a bit tired of not knowing what all the hype was about. So last weekend we had an Embassy car and driver (they allow you two loan periods of 3 hours until...
Nick and I hosted what I would consider our first Manila dinner party. Well technically it was lunch but we served enough food for an army. An Army of 12, that is! We invited over our long-time friends (we met in January 2009) from Nick’s training class, along with their...
We must be feeling comfortable here because we’re starting to venture out beyond a 3 block radius of our condo. Last night we were offered the opportunity to join a group of people heading up to a restaurant/bar called Cloud 9 in the Manila suburb of Antipolo. If I heard our...
I’m enjoying doing a random update every so often, as I have a few fun pieces of “news-worthy” stuff that don’t merit an entire post (unlike corn dogs!!). As long as everyone’s okay with this bullet-oriented style of posting, then we’ll just keep...
When our photography class wrapped up at the beginning of the month, there was widespread interest in creating a camera club to maintain our new friendships and keep improving our skills. This past Sunday was our first meeting and photo shoot in Fort Santiago, Intramuros (the site of...
On Saturday the unimaginable happened. I FOUND CORN DOGS! And not just any corn dogs, I found MY BRAND of corn dogs. How is that possible??? I do not know. I am still trying to wrap my mind around this fabulous new twist. Here I was, certain that I’d have to go two years...
As of Friday, we are officially 3500 pounds heavier. Round 1 of our “stuff” arrived on Friday. In case you hadn’t already guessed, this is a BIG DEAL. My chance to set up shop had finally arrived and boy was I ready! First, the bad news: it was NOT the shipment I...
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I know that 2000 pounds of my favorite things are arriving tomorrow morning. Or maybe I’m just having my first hiccup. But today, for some reason or another, I am longing for the familiar. I’ve been stepping out and...
It’s a big week, activity-wise. In typical Sarah fashion, I’ve decided to plunge right in. Be sure and check back in a month – I’m sure I’ll be totally overwhelmed. On Wednesday I have my first meeting for the American Women’s Club of the...
The church hunting process in Manila has begun. May I first begin by saying that I HATE church shopping. I find it all quite arduous. So much time is often spent at the “wrong fits” before you find “THE ONE”. Enough complaining…..This weekend I tried...
My, how quickly the days are passing! I think that’s a good sign, right?? Pretty normal week here but it seems worthy of a posting. The Helper- We finished our first week and are gelling already. I am amazed at how fast I adjusted to having her around. I honestly missed...
Have you noticed that business cards don’t seem to fit very well in this new technological age? Granted, they’re obviously a valuable tool, there’s just no forward button that you can use with them! And have you ever noticed that when you really need to hand one out...
Since my posting got a bit wordy yesterday, I’ll keep it more succinct today. Just wanted to introduce you to my second home (AND NO, it’s not Starbucks)! I am priveledged enough to live right next to a fantastic mall called Greenbelt. Being that I visit her religiously...