Random pictures of this week's activities

lunch with Statistics staff

Anne Behbahani visited us one afternoon

Enna-Marie wearing Anne's shoes

















Monalyn Peralta and Eric Pastores just had their speech at their farewell gathering (Mona's sister Jeanette who also served at BWC, is a good friend of Menchie). Wishing you both happiness in your new path of service.

group picture

happy faces despite her departure

Menchie and Sarah enjoying the video prepared for Monalyn in honour of her birthday/farewell

family breakfast at Mandarin

EM attempting to slide in her favorite place...the playground in Merkas

EM listening to daddy's encouraging words

visit at the upper terraces

peek-a-boo play with daddy

climbing the steps is one of her favorites, nowadays she doesn't want to be held...real sign of independence!

It's reading time...

Our dear little princess loves to read books. Her books are combination of the ones we bought and borrowed (thanks to auntie Katharine Phelps who lends her daughter Layla's books to the mothers and babies at BWC, and of course some books come from the Lending library here). We put together all books that we owned in one place and all the borrowed ones in another pile. Each morning she will come to both set of books and read as much as she can, well she really can't read yet, but knows how to scan each page and looks, points at the pictures and talks (she probably does this 2x or 3x during the day). And of course later you will find most of these books scattered on the floor and couch. We are teaching her to return these books to their proper places, and so far she is learning well and already doing this, same with her toys. Her favorite book now is the biggest book she got full of colorful pictures with Dutch terms that was given to her by Opa Nasser and Oma Yolande.












Here I captured her reactions while papa reads to her at bedtime:

seriously listening to the story about butterflies

and here she reacts and points to the picture

oops..one book is not enough..."here is another one please papa!"

this is a bedtime book about a baby bear who ended up sleeping at mama bear's lap

getting engrossed with the story

Passing of the last Hand of the Cause of God

Hand of the Cause of God Dr. Alí-Muhammad Varqá passed away on the evening of 22 September 2007 at his home in Haifa. We were privileged to attend the funeral at the Bahá’í cemetery two days later.
















For a brief account of his life, click here.

Happy Birthday uncle Arnold!

This month was the birthdays of auntie Canan and uncle Arnold (I pronounced his name "uncle atot"). Despite their busy schedules, auntie and uncle surprise each other e--very single year organizing a birthday dinner. This evening we joined the celebration of uncle Arnold's birthday at a dinner at uncle Shahram's place. As always, we enjoyed the food and company of the friends. My parents said though that I was a bit difficult at the later part of the evening because I was stubborn and unstoppable in playing and moving around the house.

singing "happy birthday" to uncle Arnold and uncle Navid (it was also his birthday a day before)

birthday cake

this is a sweet picture that says..."I love my baby girl!"...

Laroya family

uncle Arnold with the host and chefs of the night!

auntie Canan and baby Elfida

it's me making my muscles stronger

and again me...I just love going to any bedroom closing and opening doors...

the friends who came to greet uncle...

Tando visit with Tara and Rylan...

Here are some photos of our visit to Tando with friends Tara and Rylan last Tuesday (welcome back again Tara and auntie Sieni from your vacation). Tando is an indoor play area located in Vardiya, just few minutes drive from our home.

auntie Kami explaining how to share and take turns when playing

and it's Enna-Marie's turn to ride in this swing

Rylan is one of EM's favorite playmates these days as they see each other 2x-3x a week. She always includes his & auntie Kami's names in Allah'u'abha song & mentions their names each night be4 sleeping

cutie Tara who is getting bigger and starting to pull up and walk

she loves playing in this corner where she can climb and jump without hurting herself

and here's her happy smile, a sign that she's enjoying a lot

with mommy taken with a timer

oops...showing her sad, desperate face unable to lift the wooden cart up to the stairs. EM loves playing baby dolls nowadays and Tando has lots of these.

Teacher's Training...

Last Saturday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It was so nice driving in the road, the streets were quiet and all Israelis were at home celebrating their New Year. That same day was our third and last teacher's training for the upcoming Bahá’í school this year, which starts on the 22nd of this month. I am going to assist in the pre-school and will be in-charge of doing activities with the children during break time. The ages of the children are from three to five years old. In the trainings I attended, I especially learned different ways of memorizing a quote or prayer, some tips on telling a story, making crafts, and also learned the new Bahá’í school song. There were also workshops on making lesson plans and class organization. The theme of the third training session was classroom management.

I am so glad I was able to attend these trainings as these are very helpful tools in teaching and training Enna-Marie at home and also for future children’s classes I will be involved with.

Here's a very nice quote we memorized during the second session that I'd like to share with you all: "According to the explicit divine Text, teaching the children is indispensable and obligatory. It followeth that teachers are servants of the Lord God, since they have arisen to perform this task, which is the same as worship. You must therefore offer praise with each breath, for you are educating your spiritual children."-‘Abdu’l-Bahá

busy discussing about classroom organization

teammates attentively listening to the person talking

our group finished first...he..he..and we were just waiting for the rest to finish their discussions

our trainings were facilitated by Irva Johnson, she's very good and very experienced

after this session we had a meeting with the parents of the children who will be attending the Bahá’í school

Welcome to Keon, Bahia and Lilli...

Here are the newest babies born recently, congratulations to the happy parents...

Keon Chase Sobhani

Bahia Eady

Lilli Simin Wong

















and finally here's a picture of Alexander Amin from Holland (he's 4 months old here) whom we mentioned in our previous postings that we didn't have a picture available of him at that time. Alexander's mom Shirin Milani is the sister of Maarten's sister-in-law Molouk.

Halo-halo fiesta

Remember this photo we posted two months ago?













This is halo-halo (Tagalog word "halo" means "mix") a popular Filipino dessert that is a mixture of shaved ice and milk to which are added various boiled sweet beans and fruits. After the Holy Day programme last Tuesday, we had lunch at home (I made pork adobo) and afterwards had halo-halo for a dessert. We invited Mildred and Christine over, and Jalal also joined us. The halo-halo ingredients we used include beans (red mung, kidney and garbanzo), sugar palm fruit (kaong), coconut sport (macapuno), jackfruit (langka), nata de coco, ube (purple yam), flan (custard), and gulaman (gelatin). I made the flan myself and Mildred prepared the gelatin. I remember buying halo-halo from a sari-sari store next to our house back home during the hot months (March-May), sometimes I bring my own glass so I can bring and enjoy it at home :-).

Here are few photos of our happy, excited faces. We enjoyed it a lot, I think this is one of the best halo-halo I tried. I only gave Enna-Marie a bit of the gelatin as she was already going to nap. So do u want to be our guest next time so you can try this mouth-watering dessert??

Mildred adding some ice, we call this ice shaver "pang-kayod" in Tagalog

finished product (gelatin and flan on top)...YUMMY!
















Jalal was the first one to try

mixing some more ingredients

I later joined the girls

and Maarten of course had his share...!