Many thanks to a Mom 2 Mom reader, Luanne, who visited us from the Philippines and left a message in yesterday’s comments. I’ve added this map and picture. What a lovely place!

Luanne writes:

“I live on an island! Maybe not the sort you have in mind, but a tropical island nevertheless. I live on the island of Mindanao, in the Philippines. We are missionaries and have lived here for 18 years. The weather is usually warm humid and sunny, or warm and humid and rainy.

The best part for me is that there is green everywhere I look! I can’t hear the ocean from my house. We live in the city, and the sound of traffic is what I hear most of the time. But we have a nice yard and in the mornings I hear exotic bird sounds, and in the evenings, our local geckos sound off, as well as the occasional frog.

It is April, summer in the Philippines, and the neem tree outside my window is in bloom! The wonderful smell of those flowers will be floating through the house for over a month! I look forward to April all year!

We can drive about an hour and go to a white sands beach. It is in a bay, so there are no big waves. Big shady trees grow practically to the water line. The water is warm and blue, and the snorkeling is amazing! It is like flying over another world, a world of strange shapes and flashing colors. Amazing to think there is a world like that under the water that God made, and so few have seen! What other wonders might there be that are yet undiscovered?

We buy most of our food at the open market. The fish is fresh and smells like the ocean. We love the fruit here, lansones, marang, durian, rambutan, mangosteen, mangos, pomelo, guavas, nangka, guyabano, atis, to name a few! The sad and battered tropical fruits you see in the grocery stores in America for such high prices, are nothing like the real thing we have here!

At the supermarket we can find the more familiar vegetables, many of which are grown in the mountains; broccoli, asparagus, lettuce, cauliflower and even zuccini along with things like ferns, fresh bamboo shoots, taro roots and bitter gourd. We like to cook with coconut milk, lemon grass and ginger.

We have a large house and two guest rooms… wanna come? :-)”

My answer: YES! Now I have at least two people I want to visit in the Philippines!