Our Only Apo’s 4th Birthday

Yesterday was the fourth birthday of our only apo (grandchild) so please allow me to go personal today and have this recorded on the web so that she could read something about the celebration we had and she grew up.  Her fourth birthday party can be considered as something unplanned because she was supposed to celebrate it in Tokyo, Japan. Her parents planned to bring her to Tokyo Disneyland but the disastrous Magnitude 9.0 earthquake last March 11, 2011 canceled it.

Our only apo flew in with her mother from Osaka two (2) weeks ago. They move to that southern city of Japan from Tokyo and stayed for a week to see if the situation will improve. When things seem to be getting worse, her parents decided to move her back to our place. She had just stayed in Japan for a few days less than three (3) months when the disaster struck. The plan was for her to live there with her parents until her mother finished her doctorate studies by October this year.

It would have been a nice opportunity for our apo to experience another culture at her age now but nature would not allow it. At her age of only four, she distinctly remembered her ordeal during the recent earthquake. It was the first story she told us right after arrival complete with motions of how was shaken by the strong earthquake. She even said that she does not want to go back to Tokyo anymore. Because of all the things that happened, her fourth birthday celebration was really simple with only ours and that of her mother’s immediate family members in attendance.