Christmas in the past meant a lot of hectic traveling for the Balagtas family. This year was a little less hectic and with a little less traveling. On Lyn's side, the Xmas party was held on the Saturday before Christmas at Lyn's parents ranch; this made Xmas less hectic because the party is normally held on Christmas day. For Alfred's side, the Xmas party was held on Christmas Eve at the Balagtas home, so there was less traveling. At both parties, time was spent eating, playing games and enjoying each other company. In addition to these family get togethers, Alfred and Lyn also spent time with college friends at the annual Tran/Del Rosario party.

Click here for pictures at the Balagtas Home.
Click here for pictures at the Bautista Ranch.
Click here for pictures at the Tran/Del Rosario party.

After some failed late attempts to take a family picture to send out Christmas Cards, we sent this digital card instead:

Holiday Card [ends 1/2/08]

The Patio. It isn't a big patio about 137sq/ft so it was a nice learning project. All together, it took about 8 weeks working mostly on weekends and interrupted by rain and family commitments. The project also suffered from "scope creep" (where new requirements are added to a project). A biggie was deciding to move the AC from the long side of the patio to the short side. Alfred and Lyn could tell moving it would give the small area more usable space and they had to do it before the pavers were installed. However, moving the AC doubled the cost of the project ($400 alone to have the AC disconnected/connected). Rey (Lyn's Brother) did the wiring and helped extend the AC line sets. The addition of the 'micro channels' was a minor modification, but eased installation of the pavers. Instead of having to slope the grade to a center drain, the grade was sloped in one direction from the house to the micro channel at the end of the patio.

Overall, Alfred and Lyn are happy with the results. The biggest lesson learned was when they guy comes around a quotes you over 2 grand to do your little patio....pay him =}

More pics of the patio pics.

Witches, Cats, and Zombies....oh my. That is what the Balagtas kids dressed up as this year.

Here are the scary pics.

The fires in San Diego didn't really threaten the Balagtas', but they evacuated 1 night when neighborhoods a few miles away were under voluntary evacuation orders. They didn’t want to worry about getting woken in the middle of the night.

For the 3rd year, Alfred ran the America' Finest City Half-Marathon which starts at Point Loma and ends in Balboa Park. This year, Alfred's friend, Kevin, came down from San Francisco to run it with him. Alfred also dragged Lyn and the girls to watch which meant they had to get up at 4am just to see him cross the finishline.

Alfred had hoped he could beat his time from last year, but he gave up that idea when he arrived at the start at 6am and it was already warm. As luck would have it, it was not a good day to run 13.1 miles. Instead of foggy overcast weather, the sun came out and it remained hot for the entire race. He was hoping for a 10 min/mile pace, but could only muster a 12 min/mile pace.

Here are the pics from the race and Uncle Kevin's visit.

Earlier this year, Madison and Camille put away their hula skirts and started taking Filipino dance lessons. After just four months, they had their first performance at the Philippine Cultural Arts Festival on August 12th at Balboa Park. The girls did really well; Alfred and Lyn were very proud of both of them. They performed 3 dances Bao, Salakot, and Polka Senao(sp?) with 6 other girls. The only obvious mistake was when all the girls got a little confused, but they recovered from the mistake without getting upset and continued dancing. Good job girls!

Here are the pics from the festival.

For Madison's 8th birthday, she had a small sleep-over with Camille and cousins Haley and Jadyn; it had a camp theme. The camp started with an initiation at Lake Luggi (the pool). Each camper had to swim through the Burning Ring of FIRE (a hulahoop). Once completed, they received their camp names: Haley=Barracuda, Jadyn=Dolphin, Madison=Starfish and Camille=Seahorse. They learned the Camp Wannahaccaluggi cheer. It starts with the campers in a circle with one hand in the center and overlapping. Then they yell "Always....Do your best, Do what is right, and have fun.... in everything you do..... Camp Wannahaccaluggi (3x)... Aaaaaaaaah........Patui (spit)!

Their activities included: baking cookies (easy-bake oven), making smores in the bonfire (fireplace), making crafts, sleeping in the cabin (a tent on the balcony) and learning the camp songs (The Bear Song, Cutest Worm, and Baby Bumble bee).

On Saturday morning, they woke up to a bacon, egg, and toast breakfast. After breakfast, Dolphin (the playground champ) gave a clinic on how to play and win at tetherball.

Here are the pics from all of Madison's birthday activities including: new classmates singing and enjoying ice cream treats (Lyn brought), an old classmate coming over for a swim, and Camp Wannahaccaluggi

Madison and Camille continued to attend the same school even after moving into their new home. However, they transferred over to their neighborhood school at the start of the new school year. Although they miss their old school, the new school has a few benefits. It is literally a new school; this will only be its third year. It is a short walking distance from the house. They are making new friends and getting to know their neighbors. One of Cami's classmates lives next door. The best part of the new school is the Spanish Immersion program. Madi was too old to enroll [only kinder & 1st grade], but Cami was able to get the last available seat in the 1st grade class. Basically, all instruction is given in Spanish. By the time she gets to 6th grade, Camille will be fluent in both English and Spanish. It will be harder for Alfred and Lyn because they will need to supplement Cami's English studies at home, but they do that anyway.

For Fathers Day this year, the girls took Alfred kayaking in La Jolla. They took a tour with Hike Bike Kayak. In their tandem sit-on top kayaks, Alfred paddled with Madi and Lyn with Cami. They saw 'shadows' of leopard sharks, jellies, and sea lions. Also, they saw the La Jolla caves and kelp beds. Afterwards, they ate lunch and hung out on the beach. It was a fun but tiring day.

Alfred's niece, Jadyn, had a beach themed party with a waterslide for her 7th birthday. Her birthday is actually in July, but celebrating it early allowed more of her schoolmates to attend. It was a wet and messy party, but a lot of fun for the kids.

Here are the Pics

The 2nd graders at Madison's school had a multi-cultural day. Volunteers setup booths to represent different countries Traveling in groups to each booth, the kids learned about different countries and collected stamps for their passports. Lyn and Alfred's godsister, Arleen, 'volunteered' to put together a booth and represent the Phillippines. As part of their presentation, they demonstrated and taught the national dance of the Phillipines "Tinikling"; it was a big hit with the kids. Also, they had a lot of good Filipino food.

In order to save space on our server, we've started loading our pictures on google. Pics

It was time for Alfred and the girls' annual Death Valley 4x4/camping trip. Shile they were out Lyn and her friends (Debbie and Jen) decided to do some home improvements. Alfred and the girls knew that 'something' was going to be done; they just didn't know what. After having a great trip to Death Valley, Alfred and the girls returned to find the living room, dining room, and kitchen nicely painted. Madi and Cami also discovered they had new home-made beds! Debbie, Jen, and Lyn had a really busy weekend and did a lot of hard work; the results really showed! It wasn't easy and they overcame a lot of obstacles which Lyn will elaborate on later.

Alfred and the girls had another great Death Valley trip. They stayed in Panamint Valley and only ventured into Death Valley proper to play in the sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells. Alfred will provide a trail report later, but in the mean time here are some pics of the trip. Just like last year, the girls were responsible for pictures and video, so most of the pics were taken by them.

The "realty-gods" were smiling. The Balagtas' have a new home! They are still moving, so there aren't any pictures yet. If you are really curious, you can see teaser pics of the new place before they moved in here.

After running the America's Finest City Half-marathon (8/06), Alfred joined a local running group, West Coast Road Runners, with hopes that regular track workouts would help him improve his times. On his own, he was able to do long runs (16+ miles), but he didn't have the discipline to do hard track workouts on his own. After a few runs with the group, he decided to run a full marathon for the Fall season. Anyway, here is a brief summary of his marathon run.

• 06:30 Start running =>old & and feeble start
• 07:30 Still running =>faster runners start
• 08:30 Still running
• 09:30 Still running =>winners are finishing
• 10:30 Still running
• 11:30 Still running
• 11:50 STOPPED RUNNING!

Happy New Year! Did you have a good 2006? Any big resolutions?

You can view the Balagtas' 2007 resolutions here

2007 looks like it will bring a lot of changes for the Balagtas family. They will become "home bodies" not out of choice, but of necessity. If the realty-gods are kind, they should be moving into their new home by the end of January, 2007. Sadly, this means they will probably have to miss a few family/friend events while they get accustomed to living with less cash flow. Maybe their family and friends will visit them more. (hint...hint) =) Also, there won't be much $$ left over for furniture or decorations right away, so if you come to visit, it will be BYOC (Bring Your Own Chair). =)