Heyo Family and Friends,
We hope you’re having a nice long holiday weekend filled with sunshine. We’re hunkering down for a possible typhoon this weekend, which is the first of the season. More will come as summer is drifting away and raining season is creeping in. The month of May has been… phew… an extremely busy month for us. The first week Travis was on work travel in the U.S. and then Ali and Matt visited us here in Philippines for two weeks. During their visit, we hosted Merrick’s 3rd birthday bash at our home and to round out the month, our family celebrated Merrick’s actual birthday in El Nido, Palawan. That trip was immediately followed by work travel in Ireland for Travis. While we’re incredibly grateful for all of these things, we’re looking forward to slowing down in the next two months and welcoming the rain. More to come on Merrick’s birthday bash but for now, we want to talk about our incredible visit with Ali and Matt and our trip to Palawan together.
As you know, Ali and Matt are our Singapore family. They moved to SG a month after us and we immediately became friends, having many adventures and life changes together during those three years. Our little group is affectionately called “Mediocre Company”, which was a nickname created on our Liveaboard dive trip together. It essentially means we’re the “okayest friends/company”. After two years apart, they visited us from 04 May to 17 May, with a few local Philippine trips in between. Because they were a day ahead of Travis’s return from the states, we took it easy on the first two days, allowing them to rest, play with the kiddos, and get a boxing workout in with Samantha. It also allowed us to prepare for our Coron, Palawan trip together upon Travis’s return. Let’s start there. This was our first trip sans kiddos, so we were nervous wrecks until we were able to video chat with our babes and see they were thriving. A huge thank you to Marg and Charity for keeping them safe while we were away.
Travis arrived at 9PM Friday and the four of us headed to Coron the next morning at 6AM… or so we thought. We arrived at the airport only to learn that our flight was delayed by almost three hours. Thankfully a Denny’s nearby came in clutch and we filled our bellies and chatted over coffee until our flight. We stayed for two days on a houseboat resort nestled in the picturesque lagoons of Coron, where the accommodations were built on rafts essentially and were completely surrounded by steep limestone formations. Each rustic houseboat is split into four private cottages, all with a private deck equipped with sun beds/umbrellas and an outdoor eating space. There are sixteen cottages in total, each all self-contained, sustainable, and eco-friendly. Their innovative practices are super cool and you can read about them on their website. The best part is the location, as it’s only 500 meters from Twin Lagoon and a very short distance to the most famous sites in Coron (see the map at the end of this post). This allowed for some epic explorations. During our time in Coron the weather was great and we explored all the gorgeous azure-colored sites: Twin Lagoon, Barracuda Lake, and Kayangan Lake. We also spent an afternoon listening to music, chatting, and drinking beers on Vivian Beach. Throughout these explorations we kayaked, snorkeled, went diving, and played euchre. We ate exclusively at the houseboat Italo Filipino houseboat restaurant, located around the corner in Green Lagoon. Each night we’d take a boat “home” from the restaurant where the bioluminescent plankton lit up our pathway through the water. An incredible sight to see.
Diving is an activity that the four of us love to do together and Coron did not disappoint. Our first calm dive was at the protected marine sanctuary, Sietes Picados, at 12-18 meters with lower visibility. Notables included nudibranchs of all colors, huge fan coral, and bright purple coral. Our second dive at Twin Peaks coral garden was the star. A shallow dive at a consistent 12 meters, we experienced some current and we saw a plethora of marine life and colorful coral. Some notables included: fire coral with white worms, a couple purple skirted magnificent sea anemone with clownfish, fields of anemone, pufferfish, barracuda, fluorescent parrotfish, and some dogface pufferfish. All-in-all, a couple of great dives.
On Monday, Travis and Samantha headed home and Ali and Matt stayed at a hotel near the Coron airport for the night. The next morning, they departed for a personal trip to Boracay for the week. Boracay provided them a much-needed vacation full of relaxation and incredible weather. While they were gone, we had a typical week at home, which included a Mother’s Day celebration at Merrick’s school. He sang, did the cutest little bow after his performance, and then we had tea and snacks together. Ali and Matt returned to our house feeling refreshed on Saturday, 13 May and we spent the rest of the day in the pool with the kiddos. That night the four of us had cocktails at a speakeasy (The Back Room) followed by a tasty Peruvian dinner at the Shangri-La. The following day was Mother’s Day and we spent the morning celebrating Samantha with a handmade card and flowers. The rest of the day we celebrated Merrick’s 3rd birthday at our house with friends. His only requests were “a COLORFUL birthday cake and a COLORFUL party”. He had just that and even though it rained in the middle, we all still had a great time celebrating our firstborn. Most importantly, he had a blast. After nap time that day, our family and Ali and Matt watched Merrick open all of his gifts excitedly. Arden played in the boxes and with the wrapping.
The last few days of their visit we spent a lot of quality time together chatting about life, playing euchre, golf cart joy riding, adventuring with and playing with the kiddos, and soaking up the sun in the pool. They also surprised us with matching Mediocre Company shirts for the whole crew. An awesome and thoughtful keepsake. On Wednesday, 17 May their trip came to a close and while we had an incredible time together, we were sad to see them go. Looking forward to seeing you both again hopefully soon.
The following day, our family headed to El Nido, Palawan to celebrate Merrick’s actual birthday. Our next post will recap this trip and Merrick’s birthday party. Until then, we have some more of our Singapore family visiting soon… Brie, Richie, and Merrick’s very first friend, Scarlett, will be here next week. Again, we haven’t seen them in two years and we’re so excited!
All our love,
xo Team Jansen
Samantha’s memorables. Reuniting after two years. Beers and our homemade ocean obstacle course. Early morning exploration of Twin Lagoon with no other tourists in sight. Seeing the kiddos have so much fun with their Tita Ali and Tito Mateo. Catching up on life and chatting about the future. Keeping the tradition of Ali and Matt attending Merrick’s birthday party. Winning Philippines euchre tournament with my trusty partner, Mateo… untz. untz. untz.
Travis’s memorables. Buying that bottle of Don Papa for everyone then being left alone to finish it. Ocean obstacle course completion with Eye of the Tiger to securely deliver a San Miguel to Matt. Mid-dive coffee clutch. The commitment to ruthless sarcasm during euchre.
Merrick’s memorables. Waking up Tito Matt in the morning. Showing Tita Ali and Tito Matt his school in the golf cart. Giving Tita Ali flowers. Playing run-run (i.e., chase) with Tito Matt.
Ali’s memorables. Reuniting after almost 2 years. Meeting Arden for the first time. Playing with Merrick. The whole houseboat weekend was 10/10! Not-so-favorite memory…Vigil and Puffy penguin losing in euchre. Thankfully we are still on top from our SG reign!
Matt’s memorables. Reunited and it felt so good. Meeting the new addition. Seeing what life has been like on the other side of the world. Denny’s. Obstacle courses. Beer tornadoes. 2023 Euchre domination. Piccolina.
Team Jansen Abroad 