An Anniversary, a Birthday, and a Huge Surprise!

Recently Crissy and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and before I made my way to Manila on the afternoon of the 28th Jan, a bunch of 99 red roses were duly delivered to the Philippine Airlines offices, to make a statement.

Travelling to Manila is always an ordeal, standing for an indeterminate amount of time under the beating midday sun, with little to no shade.  This time made more interesting by the two pickpockets, who assumed that I had no idea what they were doing.  I had to suppress a snigger every time they checked a box off of my mental checklist of Robber Form; shuffle surreptitiously near target, separate, distract, engage in conversation to show no threat, etc.

Leaving these two inept thieves behind, I got on a van which took the scenic route to Mall of Asia.  The highlight of the journey being when the driver attempted to thread our van through the eye of a needle, that being a concrete wall and speeding articulated lorry, it was pretty fun actually!

Its been a great year, reflecting on the adventures as I made my way around MOA, I thought of the build up to the ceremony a year to the day, then the wedding itself and the people who attended. The adventures had since.  I also had time to read a bit of book as well.

Heading to posh casino Solaire (chosen partly because it has a free bus to and from Mall of Asia, we are by nature frugal people) later that day, we get to our buffet restaurant early and took advantage of the photo ops whilst it was quiet.

There was plenty of food, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and most excitingly Indian.  I did burn my hand trying to get at the curry, as the staff had neglected to put a protector on the metal pan lid.  The complimentary drinks and chocolate cake for our anniversary (enterprisingly mentioned in an email weeks before) made up for that though.

After such a wonderful anniversary, we also attended a birthday party of one of Crissy’s ex-work colleagues, which contained five of our bridesmaids too.

It would be greedy to expect any other good news but then we found out we are expecting our first child!  So another new chapter opens almost a year since the last one. Next year will need to work even harder to top what this year holds!

Photos thanks to Crissy, dog marshalling, and choice of book (You Can Never Run Out of Love) picked by me for our child’s extensive future library.