Saturday, July 19th ....

Jamie and Nera have been very worried about her family in Balatan over the past few days as they were right in the path of the typhoon. Nera had a couple of sleepless nights waiting for news and was very anxious when she couldn't make contact. Eventually, she heard from her sister in Manila that all was well and they had come through unscathed.

They were also worried about their own house which is right on the beach and very vulnerable. Nera's father organised for some large rocks to be put in front of the house but they couldn't do much more than that. The typhoon destroyed the house next door to them but only tore off part of their roof. There was some other external damage but it could have been much worse.

We heard also from our friend Kit who lost some trees from her garden in Calamba and some roof damage to her resort which is not far from Balatan. She is more concerned about her tree plantations because she lost 5000 mahogany trees in the 2012 typhoon and can't afford a loss like that again.

It's been a beautiful day in a Deloraine so I took Jamie and Nera, and Madi and Josh up towards the Great Lake looking for snow. There was still a lot lying on the ground so they had a good time chucking snowballs at each other.