One of the taxi drivers was from the island of Siquijor…the same island that my grandfather is from. And he is a cousin of our cousin…small world!

We love the Shangri-La. Very kid friendly and relaxing.

We enjoyed the ocean and beach.

We attended the cultural night show and buffet dinner. Although the power went out of a few minutes, it was still enjoyable.

We rented a jeepney for the day to tour Cebu. The kids liked climbing on the back when we were stopped.

Normally we looked like this inside the jeepney. 2 of Nate’s friends from his mission served as our tour guide for the day.

Matt has a bad back and bad knees. So he opted to stretch out by standing on the back of the jeepney for most of the evening.

We went to TOPS in Cebu. It is on top of a mountain and much cooler. The kids had fun running around and playing tag until it started to rain.

View of Cebu as seen from TOPS.

We had a tour of the ProFoods factory where they package all of the dried mangos and coconuts. These are some of the items that they produce.

We saw the LDS Cebu Temple and it is BEAUTIFUL!

Welcome Elder Farley Family and Friends! It was a big social gathering in honor of Nate returning to his mission.

As guest of Honor, we sat at our own table and had utensils, glass plates and our own separate food from everyone else.

The majority of the group that attended the dinner. We picked up about 20 of them in our rented jeepney so they didn’t have to pay to come.

And then it was time to leave Cebu and the next day the Farley family left Manila to return to the states.

Since we took 5 kids on 4 different airplanes we had to be creative on how to entertain them. One time we did brake down and just handed everyone an electronic devise while we waited for our plane to arrive.

Old Roman Catholic Church, Baclayon, Bohol. Its first structure was built in 1595, but the current building is from 1724.

1565 blood compact between Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi and Datu Sikatuna, the chieftain of Bohol. A blood compact was intended to seal a friendship, pact, or treaty, or to validate an agreement.

Python Sanctuary…this snake is still alive but doesn’t move because of obesity.

We paid $2.50 to have this “ladyboy” do a comical rendition of Mariah Carey…Mason wasn’t impressed.

“Hanging Bridge” made of some steel wire, but mostly bamboo.

We paid this guy $2.50 to husk a coconut with his teeth…He did it under 10 seconds.

Trying to get tickets for lunch and the guys got rushed by strangers who wanted their photo taken with blonde hair, blue eye, good looking foreigners.

Lunch buffet while floating down the Loboc River. We had our own private musician for our boat.

Dancers we saw while on the Loboc River.

Chocolate Hills of Bohol…what the island is known for

You can see Tarsiers (smallest primate) at Bohol.

At the last stop of our tour we saw more tarsiers just before closing time and the worker put one on our hands.

Last stop on our tour was a super fun kids play area.

Walking around Nate’s old mission area trying to find food and to see if Nate recognizes anything from nearly 15 years ago.

We stayed at a pretty run down place, but it was near the ferry port. We all loaded up into 2 trikes and headed to the ferry terminal to go to Cebu.

While waiting to board the ferry boat there was a family of musicians to entertain us. The youngest daughter was a really good singer.

Ready to get inside a poorly air conditioned ferry boat for the next 30-60 minutes to go to Cebu.

The 11 days that they were with us were jammed pack spending time in Manila, Bohol, Coron, Cebu…that is 4 flights and one ferry ride for the 9 of us!

First meal in Manila was a Circle’s Buffet at the Shangri-La…this photo doesn’t even show the whole buffet area!

Everyone got to ride a horse up to Taal Volcano…and this place was SUPER busy on Good Friday.

It took us 3 canoes, but we all made it to Pagsanjan Falls. And all of us went under the main falls by being pulled by a bamboo raft

We took them to a dampa seafood place. You buy the food that want cooked and take it to a nearby restaurant for them to cook it how you want

We tried watching the fireworks at The Mall of Asia, but they didn’t have any because of the holiday weekend

Shopping at Greenhill is always fun. Buying purses, shoes, sunglasses, clothes, etc for a fraction of the price

Souvenir shopping at Balikbayan where there are amazing wood carvings, paintings, jewelry, etc.

We took advantage of having a nanny and went out for dinner with just the 4 of us.  Happy 10 year anniversary to us!