2017 has been a rollercoaster ride. Akala ko di ganun ka eventful dahil sobrang busy at toxic. Di ko napansin tapos na pala ang isang buong taon. But looking back at my planner, marami din palang ganap.

January, DJ transferred work. Nagkaroutine na din ang workday ko. Dati kasi flexi time sya kaya nag aadjust din ako sa time ng pasok nia. Yung tulog ko wala sa ayos. This time mas ok kasi by 8am, he's off to work. Yung tulog ko umayos na din.

I've found this easy tutorial in Pinterest which I think anyone can also do. Basically it consists of preparing the following parts:

1. black head with a pair of eyes
2. spider arms (made of long black socks stuffed with scratch papers or newspapers)
3. black-long sleeved top
4. black pants/trousers
5. black shoes
6. pumpkin Halloween basket (to complete the look)
7. black gloves (optional)

I'm excited for this coming weekend. Kiel will be going to two Halloween parties kasi. I'm most excited sa costume niya which I DIY'ed after I found this scary but cute costume in Pinterest.

"In the Catholic Church, infants are baptized to welcome them into the Catholic faith and to free them from the original sin they were born with."

At the venue, they had this contest where you can post your selfies (taken that day) on social media. Since we were early, we had plenty of time to take our photos. Kiel was very cute that day so we also took pictures of his OOTD to add to his #KielOOTD collection in Instagram.

It's my 3rd visit to Bohol and this time it was extra special because I have my family with me. It was just me, DJ and Kiel, without the yaya. The main agenda actually was to attend my college classmate's wedding. She lives in Bohol, thus the venue. It also became sort of a reunion for us but unfortunately, others were not able to come due to conflict in work.

(Kiel at 22 months)

We were at an ice cream house in Kapitolyo one time. Kiel was sitting on top of the table, nagkukulit as usual. Then a group of Korean teenagers entered and sat at a table near us.

Etong si Kiel, pag nakita nyang me magandang nakatingin sa kanya, lumalabas ang pagkapagong. Haha, nahihiya kasi.He tends to hide his face sa pamamagitan ng pagyuko or kaya isusubsob mukha nia sa amin, then susulyap sulyap sa chicks to check if tinitingnan pa din sya. Haha, you could just imagine him so cute while doing that.

So ayun na nga sa ice cream shop, nakita niang tinitingnan sya ng isa sa mga Koreana, eh di natahimik at naging pagong. So tinukso tukso namin sya. Hehe.

After a while, extra kulit na sya sa taas ng mesa so binaba na namin para makapag lakad lakad naman.

Aba eh, pumunta ba naman dun sa isa sa mga Koreanang nakaupo at tumambay sa legs ng babae. Haha! Parang gusto pa nga magpakandong! Haha, mukhang crush nia. 😄

Tinry namin sabihan na bumalik na sa mesa namin kasi nakakahiya. Aba ang bata, ayaw pa magpakuha. Sapilitan na namin syang binuhat para ibalik sa mesa namin.

Pero ayun at bumabalik pa din talaga dun. Haha! And take note ah, ang pinakamaganda pa talaga ang napili nia. Napatawa tuloy kami pati na din yung mga Korean teenagers.

Ganun pala si Kiel pag nagkacrush, aggressive. Hihiya hiya pa kunwari..Ahahaha!

Napaisip tuloy ako, baka kaya trip ni Kiel ang Koreana kasi nung pinagbubuntis ko sya, mahilig akong manood ng koreanovelas?

 

We celebrated Mother's Day a day earlier this year. Last year kasi, since first time namin magplan on our own, sobrang nahirapan kami to find a place where we could eat on Sunday mismo. So this year, Saturday pa lang we celebrated it na. And dahil sigurista, we made reservations na din.

(Kiel at 22 months)
 
Kiel became hooked to ABS CBN's summer station ID (Ikaw Ang Sunshine Ko song) these days. As in on repeat mode ang song sa tablet nia. 

Yung gusto pa nia hinahawakan ang tablet para sa kanya, eh ngalay din. My sister had this bright idea of using her mini tripod para dun ilagay ang tablet.

Kaso etong si Kiel, bago sa paningin ang tripod kaya ginawang laruan. Ningangatngat pa pag di sinaway. 

Yung problem, detachable ang rubber ends ng tripod. Ayaw nia bitawan nung kinukuha sa kanya. Scary kasi choking hazard kaya todo bantay na lang talaga. 

That day he was playing with it sa tabi ko. Eventually nagsawa din sya and binigay sakin ang tripod after nia laruin. Chineck ko, buo naman. No missing parts. 

Then lumipat sya sa tabi ng sister ko. Kumuha ng biscuit. Maya maya me narinig na lang ako...

"Aaaack...aaack!"

Napatingin ako bigla sa kanya! Hawak hawak nia leeg nia. Takot na takot ang mukha! At grabe ang tulo ng luha! Mukhang me nalunok na something!

Feeling ko talaga tumalon ang puso ko nun. Napalundag ako papunta sa pwesto nia. Iniimagine ko nang magiging purple ang mukha nia maya maya. Waaah. 

Si Ate Luna, ang yaya nia, pinasok ang daliri sa bibig nia, tiningnan kung me bumara para dukutin sana. Wala naman. Muntikan pa nga syang kagatin ni Kiel.

Si Kiel ayaw lumunok, hawak pa din ang leeg. Sige pa din iyak.

Tiningnan ko yung nilalaro niang tripod kani kanina lang. Andun pa din naman yung mga rubber na detachable. 

It turned out na nabilaukan sya sa biscuit na kinakain nia. Nissin coconut biscuits yun. Lagi naman nia kinakain yun eh. Napalaki lang ata yung kagat nia at nilunok na nia bago nia pa manguya. Ayun nachoke.

Grabe takot ko nun, as in. First time kong makitang ganun katakot mukha ni Kiel. Mukhang sya mismo natakot din sa pedeng mangyari sa kanya.

Buti na lang talaga biscuit lang. Wag naman sanang dumating sa time na kung ano maisubo nia na pwedeng mastuck sa lalamunan nia.

Binigyan namin syang tubig at luckily mabilis natunaw ung biscuit. After nun, parang wala lang nangyari sa kanya. He's back sa paglilikot uli. Haaay Ezekiel! 😅

A few Fridays ago, me and my officemates went out for breakfast after work. Yep, 'breakfast' kasi nighshift kami. Specifically, its breakfast at 5ish in the morning kasi ganung time ang out namin sa office. The problem with our shift is that sobrang konti ng choices when it comes to where we can eat out since konti pa lang bukas ng ganun kaaga. Unless we wait for hours till magopen ang gusto naming kainan like those in malls. Or kaya, we do the eat out before work. If that's the case naman, we need to wake up earlier than usual and then consider the traffic pa, pagdating sa work aantok antok na.

When one thinks of a quick escape from the busy and fast-paced life brought out by living in Manila, Tagaytay usually comes to mind first. Just around 1.5 hours away, this fave hang out place became much easier to reach now because of SLEX. Local and tourists alike flock Tagaytay because it offers outstanding views of Taal Lake and Volcano. Add to that is its cool climate due to its high altitude. No wonder this place became the nearest go-to destination during the summer season.

On one of my trips to the US, we once had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory in California. If you happen to watch the TV series 'The Big Bang Theory', this is the restaurant where Penny works as a waitress. It's a chain restaurant in the US with branches in different states and is famous for serving large portion of high calories meals and of course a wide selection of cheesecakes and other desserts.

For Valentine's Day this year, we celebrated it as a family by going down south and spending it on a staycation at Azure Urban Resort Residences. Azure is a property of Century Properties located in Paranaque. This place is highly associated with Paris Hilton's name because she designed the amenities of its beach club, which was eventually named Paris Beach Club.

Summer is definitely just around the corner. The unusual chilly early mornings and cold breezy nights that we've been experiencing these past few weeks are now slowly waving us goodbye. And before we even know it, we are back to our usual hot and humid summer, very typical of our beloved Philippines.

Straight from a long haul flight from NAIA to LAX (with an hour stopover at HongKong), we were picked up at the airport and proceeded to Venice Beach for brunch that lasted until afternoon. I've been to Santa Monica Beach before but never been to its adjacent beach -- Venice Beach. It was summer of 2014 then, ideally perfect for a day worth spending at the beach. But if not for that very long and tiring flight with matching jetlag, I could have enjoyed this beach more.


If you're into people watching, Venice Beach is the place for you. If Santa Monica seems like a laid back and calm surrounding, Venice is the other way. It is teeming with different types of people from normal to crazy ones, haha! For sure you will be entertained. While walking along the world famous Venice Beach Boardwalk, you could be encountering mimes, break dancers, pianist, singers, painter, someone clad in a crazy outfit, snake charmer, body builders with very huge biceps, preachers, man walking on broken glass and other peculiar, unique individuals who likes entertaining other people. It would be a good idea to grab a beer or coffee and just sit on a sidewalk and have fun watching these people passing by.

 

Opened in July 1934. Located at the corner of 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles.

 

"Breakout Philippines lets you live in different scenarios with well crafted storylines full of unexpected twists and turns that you have to solve in order to escape. Immerse yourself in an interactive game where you need to find clues and solve logic puzzles based on various storylines and themed rooms." - breakout.com.ph

The objective of the game is to ESCAPE. To do this, a PLAN must be made. Since you are with a group, teamwork is a must. It does not only require you to search and ransack the place for a physical key. Sometimes you have to SOLVE a puzzle or a find formula to come up with a combination code to open a lock or a safety box or something locked that can't be opened by a key.

 

Before entering and being locked in your chosen game room, a staff will brief you of the rules while inside the room. A locker will be provided to deposit your things. Then each will be handed an eye mask to cover their eyes before being guided into the room. A recorded voice over will then be heard which will help you internalize the situation you are in. Once the voice over instructs you to remove your eye mask, that's when the game begins.

The game will not be fun without pressure, haha! So 45 minutes will be allotted to your group to open all rooms and breakout. Yep, you read it right. A game is not just a single room. It will be a series of locked rooms and locked doors to decipher before that sweet escape. A monitor is available to help you track your time remaining.

There's a variety of room to choose with difficulty levels ranging from easy to difficult. In Mandaluyong, they have 6 rooms available. They also have a branch in Serendra BGC and another in Katipunan QC. All 3 branches have different set of rooms to play so the fun doesn't really stop after opening the first room. Once you're done with all the rooms in a branch, you still have 2 more branches to try.

Here's us after we successfully escaped Room 13 (this is actually the easiest room). Since my teamates have been to this room already, they knew what to do and where to check until halfway of the challenge. In just 13 minutes, we were already out. I was just starting to get the hang of the game, internalizing being trapped and trying to play detective. But only a few minutes since we entered, we were already out! Haha!

So we challenged ourselves to another room -- Adarna's Lair. This room has a 5/5 difficulty level. This time we really enjoyed the game. It was fun testing ourselves on how well we could perform. We were on our last door to open when our time ran out. It turned out however that we were supposed to be out before our 45 minutes expired. There was an error on their part because the door that we've been trying to open is supposed to be not locked (BOOO! 👎🏻). We were kinda disappointed with what happened. Due to this, we didn't get the actual time of when we finished the game. They have CCTV monitors but they don't save the records so we have no way to find out.

Anyway, due to the problem on their part, we agreed on a random estimate of the time it took us to finish unlocking the doors (except the last one). And guess what, we got 3rd place out of all the groups that successfully broke out of that room. Haha! Happy pero not convinced! We were called 'Living Legends' because we got out on our first try. With that, we got this souvenir pic. 🤗

To know more about Breakout Philippines' reservations, game rooms, rules, rates and stuff, visit their website: breakout.com.ph

Our second out of the country company outing was in Vietnam. This happened late 2015 when I just discovered that I was a few weeks pregnant. What I did was to immediately advise my boss of my condition prior to the trip since I'm fully aware of his booze plans in every outing we had and this trip is not an exemption.


Since this trip is shorter than our Taiwan or Bangkok trip (we arrived Friday and went back early Sunday) we just stayed on the city proper of Ho Chi Minh and explored what it has to offer. Friday was spent on a company dinner and on Saturday, we were on our own. Listed below are some of the places we visited and some of the things we did that day.

To feel the holiday spirit last December, I invited my sisters to join me and Kiel in a park visit at the Liwanag Park on Meralco compound located in Ortigas Ave. Eversince I started working in Ortigas, I can't help but notice the Meralco Theatre every Christmas because of its beautiful building facade full of Christmas lights and its infamous 'M' logo. I pass this park daily going to work and has been interested on what it offers. They set up Christmas lights on the park grounds and it becomes open to the public every Christmas season.

So off we went to this park one Saturday evening. We took an Uber ride but was dropped off at the wrong gate (Meralco compund is such a wide place with many gates) so we had to walk to the correct visitor's gate located in front of Shell station at Ortigas Avenue corner F. Ortigas Jr Road. I immediately noticed upon entering the compound that most of the visitors were groups of families with little children, just like us. The place was bright because of the trees and plants covered with different colored lights. 'Travelling the World' seemed to be the theme they chose for this year. Although not evident on the pictures I took, there are mini structures like the Burj Khalifa, Petrona Twin Towers, Pyramid of Egypt, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Big Ben of London, Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco and many more famous tourist spots which were scattered around the park. Haha, what a clever idea noh? Imagine travelling the world in just a single night, for free! 👍🏼

Kiel clearly had a great time being makulit. He didn't want to be carried and just wanted to linger on his own. I just realized upon writing this that this is the first park he has ever been. Surely, he was dead tired and was already asleep before we reached home.😂

Before 2016 ended, I made sure to fulfill my mom's request to go to Kamay ni Hesus in Lucban, Quezon and buy some miracle healing oil for her. This shrine and healing center that we visited (this is my 2nd time to visit actually) is located on the slopes of Mt. Banahaw and is now a pilgrimage site famous for people who wish to attend the healing mass of Fr. Faller. Aside from attending the said mass, visitors could also do the approximately 300 steps climb to the top of the hill where a 50ft statue of the Ascending Christ awaits at the top. (They also call this the Via Dolorosa Grotto and is considered the 3rd tallest Christ statue in the world.) There is also the Garden of Eden which serves as a park and has life-sized images depicting scenes from the Bible.



Before going to Lucban, I made sure to inquire the schedule of masses held there every Sunday so we would know how to maximize our time. We drove to Lucban passing a zigzagging road (very much similar to the Iloilo-Antique route) which was kinda scary because of very steep curves and deadly cliffs just inches from where our car is passing. There's not much vehicles passing by this road either which made us all alert and wonder if we were passing the right road.


We intended to catch the 11am mass and good thing we arrived with some time to rest before is started (the 11am mass by the way is not a healing mass). Our main purpose actually was to buy some stuff and have it blessed. After learning that there's a 2pm schedule for the blessing, we decided to climb the grotto after attending the mass.

The Ascending Christ was undergoing renovation by the time we visited. Below is the unobstructed picture of the grotto taken during my first visit to Kamay Ni Hesus.

The climb was tiring but was rewarding once we've reached the top. Going uphill, you will be passing life-sized statues depicting the different Stations of the Cross where you could spend some time reflecting and contemplating. Upon reaching the top, a very nice view overlooking the province greeted us as well as the cool breeze of fresh air. We offered some prayers and rested our tired feet before descending the hill.





After the climb, we proceeded to the Garden of Eden to check out its grounds. The park has a life-sized Noah's Ark. As depicted on the Bible, also found scattered on the garden's grounds are pairs of animals which boarded the ark. Adam and Eve can also be found somewhere. There's also a playground for the kids and a small pond where koi fishes can he fed.


By 2pm we were already waiting for the priest to bless our purchased healing oil and other stuff. We also found out that cars can be blessed so we also had ours blessed. (Our car is not brand new but its fairly new 😄) Before saying his blessings, the priest first made sure that we attended the mass that day by personally asking us.

Heading back to Manila, we made sure not to pass the same road we used going there. It was already getting dark and there are no lights on that route so we made sure to use the national highway on our way back. There's traffic but at least it was safer. 👍🏼