A good day.

3/6/04: Some oatmeal pear pancakes to start the day, a chat on the phone with my parents, then off we went our separate directions.

This morning I went to Laura Koch's place for a lesson in breakmaking. I learned a lot about why a breadmaker is good for mixing dough and not much else! The breads she made (and we got to play with) were so yummy, I hope I can one day replicate what she has been doing for years.
At the same time, Ian took the kids to the Yamaha School (Jupiter Street, Makati for anyone interested, they have classes starting at 4 yrs old, and give individual instruction in voice, drums, piano, violin, sax and just about any other instrument) for Katherine's piano lesson. Rebecca finished her 12 week course and decided she did not want to continue formally though she will continue to learn at home. Mom is a tough and impatient teacher, I hope she's up to it! Then they went to McDs for lunch, came home and cleaned up the house (wow!!) and fiddled around until I returned. We decided against going to the playground as a huge tent had been set up and it appeared there was the standard Filipino _Finding Nemo_ birthday party being held. Instead we went to dinner at Pasto at the Fort. The center courtyard was being outfitted for an evening band of some sort so we spent most of the meal at our outdoor table shouting over mic checks.
The food was decent though, even if my shrimp/asparagus/tomato fettucini didn't have any asparagus.
A "Gonuts Donuts" opened a few weeks ago and the line is consistently out the door with a 30 minute wait. Periodically they put up limit signs, today it was that orders could be 6 dozen or less. We bought two. Well, I should say that Ian bought 2 as he's the one who stood in line. The rest of us crossed the street to the field where a dozen kite flyers had their kites fluttering through the air. It was dusk, the full moon rising big and bright over the horizon, the mountain range could be seen in the distance under a pink sky. Among the kites, a flock (is that right?) of bats was swooping here and there, raising shrieks from my kids of being eaten by the vampires. A short lesson later about how the bats were eating bugs out of the air and all was well. After multiple games of tag, a man brought a remote control plane out which completely fascinated the kids. Nicholas left the field asking repeatedly if I would get him one someday.
Upon returning to Gonuts, Ian was at the counter and we stayed by the windows as Nicholas pestered a shiny beetle and Katherine took care of the baby beetles all along the sill.
We came home to indulge in fresh donuts that closely resemble Krispy Kremes (as everything here is an obvious copy of something back home) and the kids went to bed.
This was one of those days where more things felt good and went well, than not. It made me extremely happy and content and just thrilled to be so lucky. I love Ian, I love my kids. OK, Rebecca is iffy these days. Oh, I take that back. I do love her, but man it's hard to like her. I think I need to work on my Lenten focus a bit more!
But no, I do love them all so much. Thank You for thinking I was worthy to have them. I'm the lucky one.