Last Edition - Vacation Pics

Well, we made one more stop on our vacation adventure - at a small flight base in northern Luzon where we spent many growing up years as well. It is still owned by New Tribes, and we got to stay in one of their guest houses - it happened to be our old house! Here is a pic -

One of our family traditions growing up was having pancakes for supper every Sunday night. True to tradition, we had pancakes together there. It brought back memories to be cooking pancakes on a Sunday night in my mom's kitchen! Ben was my helper that night - and pretty happy about his position.

This was the same swing set I played on as a kid - now my boys are playing on it! You can see the school I went to for elementary in the back...

There is so much fun stuff to do there for kids - it was a wonderful place to spend some growing-up years, and it was amazing to get to share it with the kids. They had a ball. One of their favorites was the giant trampoline.

Go Zach!

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to climb trees, and here is Zach in one of the great climbing trees up there. There was another little 4-year-old boy up there, and he and Zach hit it off great. They came running up one day to tell me that they were not only the same size and age, but they could "jump the same high" too!
We took a couple little excursions from the base. One was a hike across the rice fields to the little hill you can see below. Behind it is a river. We had Sunday worship by the river as a family then had a great time swimming and riding the rapids. Unfortunately for you, we ALL jumped in and swam so no pics of that part. There were several exciting parts on our little hike. The kids did great - even at one part where we literally had to throw them across the stream into Daddy's arms!
We also drove a couple hours up to see the Banaue rice terraces. They are absolutely gorgeous - a picture doesn't do it justice. Here, Mikayla is trying to help Ben look up at the camera. :)
This one shows the amazing view from the base itself. Brought back so many memories. A good childhood. We had a blast at Aritao. We stayed 5 days, and it was so relaxing. It is clean (a real treat!) and green grass is everywhere - we went barefoot the whole time! And it is all fenced in, so the kids just ran and played with their friends, and we didn't have to worry about them. We all had a blast. So very thankful for such a great vacation and visit with my brother and his wife. God is so good to us.