Home for the Holidays + Call for Visitors

Heyo Family and Friends,

We hope you’re well and staying warm. Our cooler months are dwindling, so we’re soaking up the cool evenings and mornings as we’ll head into the warmer months soon. We wanted to do a little recap of our time home with you all in December/January and also put out a call for visitors. So first… the latter.

It’s possible 2023 is our last full calendar year in Philippines and we don’t want to miss out on sharing our international home with you. We have a few friends coming to visit in the coming months before rainy season and that paired with our family’s upcoming personal trips, leaves our calendar essentially booked through early June. After that, rainy season will stick around mid-June to mid-October-ish. As we all know, time flies so we ask that you please keep all of this in mind if you’re thinking about visiting us here in Philippines. We’d LOVE to have you here and create some more memories together. For reference, current COVID regulations are as follows… fully vaccinated and boosted US visitors are good-to-go to visit and unvaccinated US visitors 15 years old and above must present a negative antigen test result valid within twenty-four hours prior to departure. Quarantine, at the moment, is a thing of the past. Kiddos below the age of 15 are exempt. For planning purposes, see our previous blog post about rainfall and average temps by month and please reach out if you’re thinking about visiting.

Now, on to the former. We had an exhausting but simultaneously wonderful time at home visiting family and friends for 3 weeks in December/January. It was our first time back for the holidays since 2018. The time change for the kiddos is super rough and it truly takes about a full week to get them adjusted… leaving Mom and Dad feeling like zombies. But in the end, we’re thankful for our third-culture kids, who are great travelers and then tough it out and adapt to the time change as needed. After his first international flights, we introduced Arden to everyone for the first time, which was amazing. During our extended time home, Wisconsin gave us a variety of weather including a snow storm and super cold temps to allow us the enjoyment of a toasty fire and snuggles. We also got to play in the snow a bit, which we haven’t done in quite a while. Our time at home was filled with many Christmas gatherings, catching up with close and extended family, spending time with friends and their growing kiddos, introducing our boys to the Jansen cabin, and lots of “first” experiences for our kiddos. It was worth the cross-world travels and we’re looking forward to getting back for a much shorter-yet-warmer trip to Minneapolis in August for the 909 Annual Reunion.

Our little family of four is headed to Singapore this weekend to show Merrick the beautiful city where he was born. It’ll be a quick 48-hour trip filled with all things Merrick will enjoy. Mama and Daddy will get to experience a bucket-list hotel stay at The Raffles Hotel Singapore as well… something that was delayed because of COVID before the move to Philippines. We’re looking forward to a quality family weekend together filled with some familiar adventures.

Have a great weekend and talk soon.

All our love,

xo Team Jansen