Thursday, May 03, 2007

summer escapade in our garden


it’s scorching. intense. it's a hot hot summer! haaayyy... the heat turns our chikiting “masusungit” and uncomfy. still couldn’t get the chance to go out for a swimming, hopefully before the summer ends and still hoping (and praying) my medication will tame my stubborn allergy huhuhu (well, this is another story). anyways, for the meantime, to work out france’s incessant demand to go swimming, i went upstairs. dug out the huge box (where i kept all rarely used items and “abubot “) and voilĂ ! they can now beat the summer heat with the instant swimming pool. yey! charles is no longer scared of the cool water , i guessed he just wants some fun in an open space such as this~ swimming in our own garden with his ‘ate france hahaha. it feels so goood to see them giggling and enjoying the water . this activity is now part of the our daily routine while the heat is on.

btw, want to share the fact i had just read from the newsletter (voice of south). did you know that boredom and unproductive activities for months can cause “SUMMER SLIDE” also known summer” brain drain” to the kids. It is wearing away of the things they learned from school. many of the parents (including me :( ), however, don’t even know that there is such occurrence as this. so help stop summer slide, engage your kids to productive summer activities or simply let your kids read books to improve reading skill and broaden their vocabulary.

Friday, April 27, 2007

maid not made for...

thought we’ll gonna have our new maid after the last one left 6 mos ago...but grrrrr...you won’t believe it, our new maid decided to leave after staying with us for 5 hrs only! that’s unbeatable!... sometimes we really don’t know what’s running in ones’ mind.
...my mom & my aunt brought the maid to our house this morning and already conversed with her the general details. i can say that the job is light because she will only be in charged of the laundry/cleaning and gardening matter (we’re only 4 in the house) and i’ll take care of the children and the cooking stuff. i was excited pa naman and i prepared lunch and afternoon snack for all of us early. after some casual queries about her, she confirmed to us that she really was determined to work. When everything was set and my mom and aunt were about to leave, she said to me “sasama po ako sa kanila” parang nabingi yata ako...ano?! bakit? she didn’t answer. confused and starting to get furious, we asked her again and she finally answered “masyado pong tahimik the subdivision na ito” ahh...now i know what made her change her mind when i emphasized to her that it’s a no no na mangapit- bahay. yun na.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

ready for the next level


The final stage of preparation for primary education had come to an end for our daughter france when she graduated from senior kinder/prep last march 25. She surpassed the assessment and will be an incoming grade 1 this s.y. 2007-08 at Don Bosco Technopark. Is she ready to face a greater challenge at age 5? Indeed, she is young for this level as the age bracket for grade 1 is 6.5-7 yrs. old. Nonetheless, her overall scholastic performance showed distinction as she excelled both in academic and non-academic program for prep. In fact and despite of being the bunso of the batch, she still managed to get the 2nd honors plus 5 other medals where she was likewise recognized as best in english, best in public speaking, best in vocabulary retention and the non academic awards for singing and poem. With this feat and most importantly the continuous parental support, I believe that our france is now ready to face a better challenge. We will be walking with her through her new learnings...
....For now, we’ll give her a break! bakasyon muna yipee! :o)

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Winning Piece : "The Lord Our Shepherd"

once again, we are very proud and happy to congratulate our bright daughter, france for winning the 1st place in their school’s public speaking contest held just this morning.

pls. watch her winning piece.

Monday, March 12, 2007

the shadow

"huh?! what's this huge thing that keeps on following me, i can't escape from this monster huhuhu help!" translating from child's own paraphrase, this is what i can read from our son's young mind when he sees his shadow. while charles is so brave putting his finger in the rotating electric fan, he is so scared of his own shadow. this is one of the funny things i discovered with him at his age 1 yr & 2 mos. just few nights ago, while he was walking on the sala i noticed that he was starring at someting with his eyes wide opened and can't continue walking as if urong sulong siya everytime the shadow moves after him and he suddenly shrieked with fear. i embraced him and laughed when i discerned the cause. on the next night, he found his enemy again and did the same thing but this time he attempted to touch his shadow and shrieked...i will certainly miss this thing when he grows up...

Monday, February 12, 2007

HK disneyland tour


"one more trip to hong kong, bitin" that’s an unanimous decision we have made after our 4 day hong kong- disneyland trip(feb 6- 9). it was too short to hit some of scenic spots and must to do stuffs , the trip was not really considered 4 complete 24 hr- days because we arrived at the hotel at around 8:30 in the evening and left for departure early morning on the final day. anyways, we arrived at the chep lak international airport at around 6pm.

aesthetically speaking , this airport is far from NAIA2 as it is clean, modern and it’s huge that you need to board a driverless electric train inside the airport for a short ride to get your baggage!. (all other filipino there were asking each other where to get the baggage hehehe pasensiya na, wala sa pinas na ganun ewan ko dun sa pending NAIA 3).


alongsides of the arrival area, there are plenty of kiosks displaying variety of brochures of tourists info, these are very helpful especially the map if you’re traveling by your own. after the immigration, we boarded on the coach for a transfer to hotel in kowloon. we got the chance to have quick view of some of the impressive hotels in lantau /disneyland area as there were passengers with us in the coach that were dropped by in that area. as we were routing to our destination we noticed cluster of towers and more towers after another that were still lighted up that night, my SIL first thought if it's usual that the offices in HK are staying late but as a matter of fact those sky scrapers pala are for residential. we had enjoyed seeing the sight of the harbours, bright towers, hanging bridges, double deck buses and luxury cars. (our france was still frenzied that night, taas pa ng enegy level throughout the journey) as we were approaching the downtowns the locale were becoming congested but the flow of the traffic were still moderate (wala pa rin tatalo sa manila!). that time, we were puzzled how our hotel will look like (though we saw the pix iba pa rin yun actual) as some of the hotels in the vicinity are not that stunning as compared to lantau/disney area, maybe because they are a bit old and jam packed) but thanks God! the metropark hotel is nice.

the ODD #1: two days prior to our departure, sasa, my SIL called up and broke the news that this hotel was the link to SARS spread out, a BIG OH MY! she got the info from their tita hazel (sister of papa) who’s working with cathay pacific airlines and w/ her british family residing in HK for years now. she’d asked us why she was informed late about our plans. back to SARS, i was a bit paranoid when i learned about it, indeed, i even researched about this and it’s true! i tried to cancel the hotel booking and book for another hotel. btw, asiatravel has the facility to amend or cancel the booking but it’s too late, the date was beyond the cancellation period which is about 3-7 days prior the first day of accommodation., py and sasa told me there’s nothing to worry about. actually, that was 4 years ago and whole area had been disinfected completely and no more similar incidents has been reported since then. sa awa naman ng diyos we’re still healthy hay naku umandar na naman ang paranoia ko.

lesson # 1: when booking for a hotel, try to be even more resourceful and there’s nothing to loose if you consult someone who’s far knowledgeable about something.

at the hotel, we registered and checked in at the executive room. however, we were not able to catch any of complimentary evening cocktail (for executive room) which was schedule 5pm -7:30pm only as we were out of the hotel during the specified time.

lesson # 2: we should book an early flight and late departure to maximize the stay and to avail the full rate benefit of the hotel. nevertheless, we gorged ourselves with their daily western and asian buffet breakfast (dun na lang bumawi).



the shuttle for HK disneyland tour arrived on time on the following day. we headed to lantau island for an hour drive with an english and mandarin speaking tour guide giving a brief info about disneyland. there were still few guests in the park when we reached the it before noon. moreover, the park was not that crowded throughout the day, a weekday schedule makes sense somehow. of course we had our video and picture taking, ang walang katapusan picturan! we had pictures taken together with almost all of the popular disney characters thus, we were not able to complete all the disney attractions and rides. generally, the park is more of fantasy and dreams especially designed for kids. not so much of thrilling rides except for 2 to 3 attractions of tomorrowland where i got the chance to ride on the space mountain, it has a thrilling factor combined with a good visual effects as if you're riding in the rocket through the space. the winnie the pooh adventure was one of france’ fave rides. other main attractions that we had witnessed were the disney parade and fireworks display and undoubtedly, we shopped, shopped and more shoppings at the souvenir stores (selected items nga lang kasi medyo expensive)

the ODD # 2 : py and i had petty quarrel – tampuhan blues before we entered the main street USA of the park chiefly because of misunderstanding on the comments he made regarding the quality of picture we had shot (toink! ang babaw ba?). thanks to my SILs gay and sasa for patching it up.

the third day was a free day for us. tita hazel had asked her yaya minda , her trusted and dependable kasambahay to accompany us to mongkok market (where i found for as low HK$5- HK$50 shirts and sheathing) and mall stores for more shoppings. there were not much of bargain items pala because it’s winter season. after some window shoppings in the telford mall, we went to dey’s (uncle ian, tita hazel & their really big kids jessica & cameron) residence at clearwater bay, actually, their place is far off from the congested locale of the downtowns. learning about our length of stay in HK, tita hazel was persuading us for an extension, but it’s too late to rebook the flight as it will already be considered as ‘no show’ like it will cost us buying new sets of plane tickets, whew! malaking amount yata yun, hence, we decided to visit hk again plus trips somewhere outside the HK border maybe in macau and shenzhen(pagiipunan ulit). before the day ended, we had our hot pot/shabu shabu- dinner at korean resto inside citistore mall tseung kwan o.




we had an early breakfast at the hotel on the final day and bought some more pasalubong (beating the time as usual) at the grocery store just across the hotel before the coach picked us up for departure to airport. and that’s it! balik pinas.
home sweet home again....hanggang sa muling paglalakbay....

Monday, February 05, 2007

packing for HK


starting tomorrow until feb 9 we will go around and explore the downtowns, harbors, markets, disneyland and other theme parks of one of the most vibrant and dynamic city - hong kong. well, will be trying at least to fit the must-to-do/see to this limited time , hoping that we can squeeze it.. hehe sana...magkasya. initially, the plan was scheduled by end of march to early april after france’ graduation. this is our graduation gift to france which we are anticipating her outstanding award (go, that’s the fighting spirit!. what gives me the guts to enunciate that? actually, she’s in the list of the top 3 pupils for 3 straight quarters and now they only have one last quarter left, hence, we boost her up to perform further. in fact for the past days she's doing..i mean..we are doing(ako nga pala ang dakilang mentor) our advance lessons to cover up her 1 week leave. huhu... kawawa naman anak namin naprepresure na yata, nonetheless, it pays to study hard, cause she will definitely be enjoying the trip particularly the disneyland. she hardly wait to see the disney princesses and characters of the disney channel, even more, she’s expecting to see brenda song and ashley tisdale her fave teenage stars of zack and coddy and highschool musical (sa ngayon, hanggang wish sa na lang muna anak). grabe! she addicted to disney shows! wala na yatang araw that i will not say to her “that’s too much TV!, that’s enough! you’ll get blind na, c’mon you study your lessons now”. and she will plead, but then i have to discipline her somehow. anyways, this HK trip will absolutely be memorable to her as it will be her very first flight and first out of country. in fact, she has started the countdown eversince we booked the tour and tomorrow is the big day for her! speaking of booking, our itineraries- tours and flight are all self catered , we booked the items separately based on our own pace. moreover, the total cost is less than any other package tour i’ve checked so far. we booked the flight with cebu pacific air in which we grabbed their lowest airfare promo offer (yeap, the reason why napaaga), while the rest of the items i.e hotel accommodation, airport transfer and tours were booked thru asia travel (you can refer to earlier post about some personal tips on how to get the best deal of online booking). btw, we’ll gonna miss our cute bunso, we have decided not to take him with us, at his age (just turned 1) he will just be physically drained and he will not going to enjoy it yet anyway.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

remembering our union

A happy family of four , that is the product of our 6 years of marriage as we celebrate our 6th wedding anniv today...and now we are on the road to 7th year of marriage.....whew! time really flies! the 7th year, according to some psycho-social analysts is the year of realization, it’s when unbearable problems and terrible fights arise and the passion is vanished...it’s either to fail or make for the couples. py told me not to entertain or preoccupy with those notions as it might delude me but instead trust in him. yet sometimes i can’t help it, sometimes i find myself plunging into the “how if...thoughts”...what an awful scenario and it makes me feel crazy! jeez! i have to shook my head...see! the thought is playing trick on me...problemahin ba ang di problema baka lalo magkaproblema. well, i am thankful that our relationship is still intact, i am not saying that we have a perfect one, no, we don’t, we do have arguments, fights, misunderstandings etc, etc over any matters yet i realized these are really petty things . i’m thankful that we're not experiencing what other couples i know are going through. i may say , that i can see myself growing old with him in God’s grace
....long live the union....ilypy.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

substance of the drinking H2O

since the birth of our son, my mother in law (mama), py and i keep on discussing and pointing out different notions and comprehensions about the kind of treated water to give to charles. it is my decision to give him distilled water. (syempre nasunod ang nanay hehe). however, mama persistently telling me that distilled water can make the tummy “maselang” since it has no minerals, but then i told her that baby charles gets the minerals from his food i.e. milk and not from the water as the amount of nutrients from the mineral water is insignificant. from then she never misses to talk to me about it everytime we get the chance to see. of course, i could not debate with her as much as i wanted and it’s when the worth of the blog comes in. on the other hand, my mother-in-law is just being concerned and i admired her for that ( uy! biglang bumawi hihihi).

honestly, i was really considering of blogging about what’s in our drinking water until I got an email from my college friend/classmate...this leads me finally to post some facts or still hypotheses to other experts about the water that we are drinking.

here are some of important excerpts from the articles/links below:

***The organic minerals are the only ones that our body can use. Only one kingdom can convert the inorganic to the organic, and that is the plant kingdom. One would normally find that more than 95% of the minerals in bottled spring water [and in tap water] are inorganic minerals, meaning our body cannot utilize them. If they roll up in our kidney, they form kidney stones and if they roll up in the gall bladder they form gallstones, and if accumulating in our joints they can be the main culprits of arthritis.

***"When pure water enters the human body, it leaves no residue. It is free of all inorganic salts. It is the perfect drink for internal cleanliness and health.


waterworld usa, inc

what type of water is the best

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

pushing to post 2007 greeting

grrrr.....this is my nth time since 5 days ago...can't post appropriately...can't use almost all of the features of this blogger from google. i suspect this is the upshot of the ongoing upgrading to the newest version from a newer version blogger beta...ay naku whatever version yan. i was reading the article of blogger buzz regarding the matter but most of the write ups are on the positive side i.e. "bursting with features" yet failed to tip off the effects such as this...just received a comment posted by jenee, while i have published it successfully i thought it will gonna work intact~in full blast but i was wrong, the syndrome's still on air...at least now nagwowork na yun posting but the other features especially the images and lay outs are still untouchable... be positive...be positive...anu pa nga ba...optimistically, this inevitable notches upgrading will certainly benefit the members...but until when will this transition effects?

anyways, though late (you know the reason...), let me greet "belated merry christmas and a peaceful, blessed, healthy, and better 2007". (sayang i can't add our family greeting card)

hoping this will gonna show up after clicking the publish (i'll cross my fingers)1,2,3...