Happy Anniversary!

Today Allan and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. We left the kids home and went out for a nice lunch at one of our favorite Filipino restaurants--a little place that serves American food called TGIFridays. We enjoyed one of Allan's favorite American foods- baby back ribs! This seems fitting since we spent our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, TN and ate alot of ribs that week. It was a yummy meal and we enjoyed spending time together. We have gotten to spend more time together in the last year than in any other year of our marriage.



TGIFridays at Sta. Lucia, Philippines







The restaurant we went to today is near the Marikina River. When most people who were born before 1975 think of the Philippines, they remember the tv images of the closet of Imelda Marcos and all those shoes. Marikina is the shoe making district of the Philippines and they pay tribute to Imelda with a shoe museum that contains about 250 pairs of her shoes. In the middle of the Marikina River is a barge with a large high heeled shoe.

Across the Marikina River, near the big shoe is a monument to the of history Marikina. Marikina was one of the largest private haciendas in the Philippines during the Spanish colonization. Its residents were comprised mostly of farmers. These farmers were quite productive allowing each family to own more than two carabaos. During that time, if you possessed several carabaos you would be considered really rich. This herd of 28 stone carabaos follows the old path taken by the carabaos from their owner's homes to the fields as a reminder that Marikina was once abundant farmland. I am not sure why one of them is white.