These Days

A simple birthday celebration for Rich. He didn't want to make deal out of it, but we can't not do something so we had dinner at PF Chang's.=)

Neil had his brown belt karate testing on March 10. He was sick on the original testing date so this was a special session just for him. Congratulations, Neil! 

Ela started Gymboree classes one month ago. Aside from immediate family, Sunday school classes, and waiting in the sidelines during Neil's karate classes, she's had very limited exposure to others, especially kids her age. We wanted to give her more opportunities for structured, age-appropriate interactions so we looked for classes. Gymboree was the easy choice because we have history with them in Manila with Neil. It's great that there's one 6 miles from where we live. Ela did her trial class for Play and Learn on February 18, then we signed her up for Parachute Club. In one month, she attended 33 classes, including Art and Music. (Yes, I tracked and good job, Daddy!) Sulit na! The biggest benefit for her is exposure to new activities and people, having some structure to her day and being active given that we can't go out as much when it's cold. She loves it! Kuya and Ela

Bank of America has a Museums on Us program that gives account holders free entrance to selected museums one weekend every month. We took advantage of this last Sunday with our first visit to the Atlanta History Center. AHC is located less than 20 minutes from our apartment, which makes it the perfect Sunday afternoon excursion. We can explore and be home with enough time to rest and recover for the week ahead.  The main building has the exhibits (Civil War artifacts, etc.) and there are historic buildings in the complex as well. The most popular would be the Swan House which was used as a location for The Hunger Games movies. We arrived at 3:30PM, which I thought was enough time since they close at 5:30PM. However, the historic buildings apparently close at 4PM so we did not make it to the inside of Swan House.:( We just explored the grounds, farm and cabin. The Civil War exhibit was really good. History lesson for the whole family.

Last Sunday, February 26, we checked out the Lego Brickfest at Cobb Galleria. We went to a  similar event in 2015  and the elaborate Lego builds are always impressive. I bought the early bird tickets last October and blocked the afternoon so we can see what awesome things people build with Legos. As expected, there were displays, free build areas and vendors. We hung out at the Lego Duplo area the longest because there were two half-Filipino kids who played with Ela. There were things that caught Neil's attention but overall, he was passive. He said he's not very interested in Legos anymore (aww, sad face) so we will skip these events next time. Unless he changes his mind or Ela gets bitten by the bug.