Things have been pretty hard financially with my grandparents and aunts at home. We have the land case, one civil, one criminal and two lawyers for each case. Plus my family has two houses in Silay, all with electrical, water and telephone bills. You can just imagine. I have also had to renovate some parts of the house because somebody will be renting it. It’s not that we’re getting poor, hehehe we’ve just had a lot of bills to pay these past two weeks. So I was really touched when they prepared a small dinner for me on my bday. It was just family and John. My grandfather killed one of the ducks he was raising and prepared it with my grandmother with their bare hands. (Brutal I know!) My two aunts cooked barbequed chicken and fried meat too. We also had macaroni salad and my bday cake for dessert. When I came home, everyone was busy and sweating. I helped out with the cooking. John babysat the kids. Nice of him, huh? 
My aunt’s fiance was there to help out too.As we sat down to dinner together, I can’t help but be touched. Our helper is on vacation and we haven’t been able to find another one so it really has been difficult with the chores and the kids at home. I understood how much effort it took for them to do everything and that really made me happy. I could feel my eyes water as my grandfather, who just recovered from pneumonia, said grace. It wasn’t much but so much better than a big party with five helpers preparing the food (which is what usually happens). I guess it’s always the simple things in life that are important, that we remember the most.
It was a good bday present. Sniff, sniff*