I’m one of the many proud moms watching my little 2 year old performing in the stage… Sitting in the front row, I can’t help but to clap my hands all over again from start to finish when Claire’s batch perform their “My toes, my knees” song. I’m amazed how she simply cooperates without running and moving around the stage.

We got her certificate of completion and also her report card… and I’m so happy to see all her compiled art projects that according to the teacher, Claire performed them all. I’m just glad we decided to enroll her to this summer activity. Now that summer is over, our little sacrifice to wake up early and change work schedule just to drop and fetch Claire in School is also over,… I can say that it was fruitful and such a great accomplishment as a parent.

Family baby, bonding, Bright Academy, Family, kiddie party, kids party, love, Play Group, Summer School

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom whom since day 1 of my conception took good care of me until I was born and finally lead me to where I am now. And to all mother’s out there, this is the most special day to honor all of you!

From Wikipedia, Mother’s day is an annual holiday that recognizes mothers, motherhood and maternal bonds in general, as well the positive contributions that they make to society.

Motherhood is the best thing for me, I never realized how special and heroic all my mom’s sacrifices for me before until I myself get to taste the stage of motherhood. It is a special responsibility that each mother portrays uniquely and by instinct… I always love to hear my friends’ different stories who are now parents how they care and support their kids. I learned from them, and most especially I learned from my mom who showed me one of the best example of motherhood.

A mother does not only care for her kids but also to the father of her kids… this for me is the essence to perfect motherhood because when my little daughter sees how her dad and I bond and take care of each other, I see in her eyes how lovable she is and how sweetly she expressed that love to both of us too, and from there I can say that it is my first step to lead her to respect me as her mom.

Happy Mother’s day great Moms!

Family, Friendship bonding, Family, Friendship, mother's day

Finally, it’s Glenah’s wedding day and I really make it a “date” to attend and witness this very special occasion of her life. Glenah is one of my high school friend that I can always remember because we once shared a piece of our “admiration-to-a-nun” fever (just my own term, hehe) before… I can’t say the full details here but those high school memories are enough for me to be present in her special day… Well if our favourite FMA knows how well we managed our life after high school especially Glenah, I’m sure she will be very proud… And oh, not to mention, it’s been quite straight 11 years since we didn’t see each other. The first time we chatted after 11 years was on my cousin’s wedding day last year and gladly I met her again during our high school small reunion dinner last 3 months ago, where she announced her wedding date and invited us.

I’m glad to be with my high school classmates again, exchanging stories and news, it’s a nice feeling because these are the people whom I’m not seeing everyday yet when I got to see them occasionally and in an event like this, the happy thoughts of high school keeps pouring in… Oh, how I miss high school life.

To Glenah and Roy, my sincere Congratulations! I appreciate how you organized your wedding! You did it well, you’re such a nice couple to look at! The occasion is beautiful, well not to mention your motif is my favourite color. I’m also lucky I got your give aways (thanks to Iping), it’s a nice remembrance of your wedding, very useful… now I know why it’s ‘honey’. I wish you both a happy married life!

Friendship, Wedding bonding, Friendship, group dinner, high school, love, Wedding

It’s Rowel’s birthday and I’m glad how this day turned out to be such a memorable occasion not just to the birthday boy but as well as to me because I play paintball for the first time… at last! The birthday party is held inside a paintball game site and everybody had so much fun, eating, singing, picture taking, drinking… until one of my colleagues suggested that the boys will play paintball after eating. How about the girls? Well, at last… I’m brave finally, I don’t want to be left out also since the other girls will play.

When the game is about to start, I honestly feel scared thinking of how painful it is if get hit! Scared but excited… and my excitement reached to the highest level when the umpire gave a loud ready-set-go signal. What a nice feeling when I tried to run as fast as I could to find a perfect spot to hide myself at the same time find the target opponent and shoot… The best part is when the game is about to conclude and when I tried to go out from where I’m hiding to look for the enemy and… OUCH!, I’m HIT! I felt two paintballs splat on both legs! But at least we win! Happy!

Paintball is indeed a “No Paint-No Fun” game and it’s fantastic! No wonder many loves to play paintball even the girls, now I know how much fun it is! It is painful and even I go home with 2 large bruises, at the end of the day, I decided to play again! Hope I could organize and invite all my girl friends!

Thanks for Rowel’s birthday and “WebOss Paintball”… visit their website at www.weboss.ph.

Birthdays, Occasion, Travel birthday, birthday cake, bonding, paintball game, weboss paintball

To be able to go to the summer capital of the country, Baguio City is one of the places I wanted to go eversince and at last I am here now enjoying the fresh cold air and the city’s various scenic and historical spots. I planned our Baguio trip for 2 months, secured an early promo booking for our plane ticket, trying to look for the best hotel to stay, constructing itinerary, list of things to bring, the budget and even acquire our own personal map – my travel partner’s idea..

I just want to share how the whole trip goes and why it is such a successful, memorable and blessed trip even for a short time.

Exactly 8:25 am – A very fine weather makes our flight and arrival to Manila safe and sound. I already feel the excitement even if our craft captain announced the delayed of our arrival due to the problem of frequency signal in NAIA.

10:30 am – We ride an airport taxi to bring us to the nearest Victory Liner terminal in Pasay. Just in time we got the last ticket for the 10:30 am trip. We make ourselves comfortable bringing with us food and drinks for I’m already aware how long the trip to Baguio base on my research. But the clean and cosy bus did not give me any discomfort plus I have the comforting company of my hubby. I enjoyed the view while on our way and when we were nearing Baguio, the fog almost covered our view and I’m so amazed to see that Baguio is a city within a mountain.

6:30 pm – It drizzled when we reach the bus terminal of the city and when I stepped out of the bus, I already feel the gentle cold breeze and it excites me the more. When a man approached us and offered us a ride to our hotel and later learned he is a tourist guide, I decided to hire him for only 2,500 for a whole day trip the next day.

Burnham Hotel is the hotel I booked for our whole stay in Baguio, It is a simple, small and old hotel in the city. It is accessible and a walking distance to most of the popular tourist spots so even if it isn’t the best choice of a hotel, I don’t mind.

7:30 pm – We go out and take a walk in Session Road and trying to find a restaurant where we can eat dinner, I have no idea what is the best place to eat here aside from the common, Jollibee, KFC, Don Henricos, Pizza Hut, etc… until I sight “Solibao”, they served Filipino cuisine and it’s worth a try because I’m satisfied with the food I ordered and the service is good.

Our 2nd day in Baguio is the highlight of this trip. I’m so excited to wake up early and the rain doesn’t stop us to tour the whole city of Baguio. Our tour guide is good for he was able to tour us around almost all the places of Baguio City from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm and the rest of the day we do it ourselves.

These are the scenic places in Baguio where we spend the rest of the day (in order):

Lourdes Grotto. Early morning and I got an exercise by climbing the 252 steps, whew!

Baguio Heritage Hall and Prayer Mountain. We are so lucky to get inside this heritage hall, for this place is supposed to be restricted to ordinary travellers, good thing our tour guide has an access so the guard allowed us to see inside. It is a ruined yet historical building and I cannot state the whole history here, our tour guide is very good in explaining to us. I find the place spooky yet magical, especially when we got to go to the top of the ruined hall where you can see the other side of Baguio.

Easter Weaving Room Factory. I can’t believe I finally saw weaving in action!

Botanical Garden. The very famous scenic spot in Baguio, very wonderful place and I cannot forget the photo shoot we have with the natives. It’s perfect for postcards… hehe

Wright Park. The horseback riding in Baguio, and it’s my first time riding at the back of the horse! Haha, super fun!

The Mansion. Right in front Wright Park is another long stairs, and even how tiring it is I have to hike about another 100 steps just to add the fun! We took this way towards the Mansion, exactly a perfect frontal view even if I am still a very long walking distance towards it.

Mines View Park. The place is very cold as if you are on top of the mountain. There are lots of souvenir shops and I got confused what to buy because there are so many.

Camp John Hay. On our way to Camp John Hay, I got a perfect view of different and beautiful pine trees surrounding our way, we passed by the Golf Estate, Camp John Hay Manor, took picture at the mini statue of Liberty, and tour around the beautiful place.

Paintball Republic. I don’t want to miss to see how this famous Paintball Republic in Baguio is set up. Indeed it is a big game site, where pine trees become one of the obstacles of the game. Butterfly Sanctuary is beside the paintball game site but because I’m so hungry already, we missed it.

Ibay’s Silver Shop. After our late lunch, we dropped by the most famous silver shop in Baguio.

Burnham Park. The very heart of Baguio City! I don’t want to miss the boat riding in the park’s lagoon, wonderful experience… when we get out from the boat, the rain began to pour but it did not stop us to stroll around the park. We dropped by the Orchidarium where it is in this place I am so amazed with different kinds of orchids that I haven’t seen ever since… the more I get inspired to install one mini orchidarium at home.

Baguio Cathedral. After a short rest back in the hotel which is a walking distance from Burnham Park, we took another walk and trekked another long stairs towards Baguio Cathedral. It’s 5:30 in my watch and we have to catch up the 6:00 pm anticipated Mass.

SM City Mall. After the mass, we planned to end our Baguio tour going to SM City Baguio. I think this is the only mall I know in the country that does not have AC installed… well, the coolness of the city already serves as aircon. And indeed it is very cold inside that I had to wear my jacket on.

Classic Savory Chicken Restaurant. We had a sumptuous dinner on our last night in Baguio. The restaurant is nice and clean and the service is good and the food we ordered is delicious!

It was a beautiful and enjoyable day… an occasion that I will never forget. I will definitely go back to Baguio and bring the rest of my family and friends…

Travel baguio city, birthday, bonding, botanical garden, burnham park, love, travel to baguio, wright park

Three months before his birthday, I already thought of making his birthday a memorable one and I wanted to celebrate it in the place where both of us can have a special bonding together away from home. Our current budget and time cannot afford to go out of the country yet so I think of a trip to Baguio City… I told him this plan and he approves it, I am so excited!

The weather cooperates to the occasion, I prayed so hard that amidst the storm in Manila, God will keep us safe and let us enjoy this special day, and thank God He answered my prayer. From Baguio, we arrived in Makati safe and the typhoon is gone although we experience some rainfalls but we ignore it, I tried my best to make him happy on his day so no room for any complaints even how uncomfortable I am with the rain… hehe. But when we arrived in the Mall of Asia, the rest of the day is already his day, we have so much fun!

We have lunch in “Burgoo” – I am amazed with their unique style of having their table covers in a blank white paper and they have coloring materials ready on top, then I found out that we can freely mess the table and write anything on it… then I write a big “happy birthday” greetings to the love of my life… hehe… perfect background which reminds us why we are here, it’s his birthday! Less than 15 minute, our food is served – I tried their chef’s choice of soup for the day – the creamy mushroom soup, it’s delicious! The main dish that my hubby chooses is one of Burgoo’s best – the Shrimps and Rib’s platter, we enjoyed our lunch up to the last rib! My mango shake is perfect too… the restaurant is cozy and very comfortable, it’s one of the best dining experience.

Then we spend the rest of the afternoon in the Science Discovery Center which we highlighted the 45-minute planetarium show Ice World. Everything we shared together this day is first time and special to me and I’m sure he enjoyed his birthday! It is such a blessed day and a memorable one!

Happy Birtdhay, mwah!

Birthdays, Dining Experience, Family birthday, birthday party, bonding, Burgoo American Restaurant, Family, love, Mall of Asia, Science Discovery Center

This year’s holiday is the longest vacation I acquired. I got 14 days leave from work with pay! And what is important is the opportunity to bond together with my little princess, and for me this is the most special occasion of the year – having time with the special people in your life. I value this occasion because most of my time are spent with a busy day-time job, think and work on our little businesses and some household events and chores that sometimes hinder me to give a quality time with my little girl.

I observe the following inexpensive checklist to ensure quality time together:

• Chill in our room, play and laugh
• Movie Marathon – Dora, Disney Princess, Disney characters
• Play rhyme songs and sing with her
• Feed and cook for her myself
• Go out and stroll in the mall – a fun ride in Timezone
• Dine out and order her favorite Congee in Chowking
• Attend kids birthday party to simulate her interaction with other kids
• Go to church together
• Hang out in our living area and teach her how to walk

… and I can see how my little girl responded happily to the quality time her dad and I give her.

Holidays bonding, Family, kid bonding, love