After Holiday Sale

They say that the biggest sale always comes out after Christmas day. And I can say that it is totally true. I received a number of emails today and it is all about sale, sale and sale. Here are some of the emails that I received:

1. Banana Republic is giving 60% plus an additional 20% off if you shop in stores and online from now until January 1, 2009. Just enter the EXTRA20 upon checkout to redeem the promo online.
2. from Gap
It is the last day for the extra 25% off GAP is giving for all their sale items. Enter SALE upon checkout to redeem the offer.
3. Old Navy is having a clearance sale and they are giving up to 75% off on selected styles. Promo is valid for online purchases only.
4. Ralph Lauren is having a 65% clearance sale also plus you can get an additional 30% off on selected items.
5. Coach is offering free standard shipping for orders more than $75 plus they have released their new collection starting at $228 only (online and in stores).
6. Piperlime is having a handbag sale up to January 29 and you can get additional 20% for all their bags that are already on sale. Just enter the promo code WOW upon checkout.

So don’t you think after the holiday season is really the best time to shop? Too bad I already maxed out my credit limit after doing all my holiday shopping.

Dec 25 with hubby’s family

After spending Christmas with my family, we left our house around 4 Pm to go to my in laws. My mother in law requested that we attend mass again with them as hubby’s brother will be officiating the mass at 8 PM.

We had an early dinner before we went to church to hear mass. After the mass, we went back to my in laws’ house for the gift giving. Bela was still very energetic even though she did not sleep the whole day. She was so excited in distributing her gifts and receiving gifts in return.

She also enjoyed playing with her cousin Gelo, which is just two months younger than her. She also loves the tiger stuffed toy that she received from her grand mom and grand dad.



We left my in laws house around 11:30 PM already as hubby got too engrossed catching up with his brother and sisters. We arrived around 1:30 AM and even though hubby initially planned to install our new Grohe faucets when we arrive home, he decided to call it a day and hit the sack as soon as we arrived home.

Dec 25 with my family

We woke up a little late on Christmas day as I slept late also as I have to finish some tasks before going to bed. A number of my god children were already knocking at our door even and we are still on our pajamas.

When Bela woke up, I told her that it is Christmas day and that she has to take a bath (getting her to take a bath is really a challenge these days) and wear her pretty clothes before she can open her gifts. And so after finishing her first bottle of milk, she excitedly went down to take a bath. She was even dancing while going to the bathroom which is really a miracle.

Then I accompanied my dad at CCME to pick up the food that we ordered for them. They don’t accept deliveries anymore as they already have a big load and we placed our orders late so we need to pick it up.
Our family reunion was held at my grandmother’s house this time so we brought bags and bags of our gifts at their house for our gift giving. The food was a big hit to all my relatives except the lasagna which is a little dry. We are all very full after lunch (thanks to my aunt’s Rancilio Silvia Espresso machine, we enjoyed a cup of good coffee after the sumptuous meal).

After lunch we had our gift giving.


Bela was really ecstatic upon receiving big boxes of gifs from her aunts and uncles and grandparents (I will make a separate post about Bela’s gifts) and she was also all game as she distributes her gifts to all her relatives. The house was over flowing with gifts and you can see from the children’s faces how happy they are with all the gifts.

Because of all the frenzy, we forgot to take pictures of each family (there were five families present in the reunion). But our Christmas was really happy and meaningful once again as we spent it with family.

Christmas Eve 2008

How was your Christmas? Ours was a really busy one.

On the eve of Christmas, I still have to go to work but I was glad that we were dismissed early and I don’t have to work overtime so I was able to fetch Howell and we were at home by 5:00 PM. We will be attending the 7:00 PM anticipated mass at my alma mater which is our annual tradition so hubby and I were able to rest before going to mass.

All of us were present to hear the mass including the family of my mom’s brother. Too bad my two cousins, Tessa and Joseph were not able to be with us as what we usually do as they are still at the hospital attending to their father.

After mass, we had our Christmas dinner. My aunt prepared a simple meal which is the family’s favorite - my aunt’s special spaghetti and barbeque. After we had our dinner, we were glad when my cousin Tessa and Joseph showed up. They have to go home to get some clothes as they will stay for the night at the hospital but they decided to drop by my grandmother’s house and so I was able to give our gifts for them and we were able to spend Christmas with them even just for a few minutes.

Before going home, we dropped by my mom’s house to give our presents for them. I initially planned to give my mom bamboo shades as their shades really needs to be replaced. But I know my mom and my dad. I know they didn’t shop for their clothes again that they can wear for Christmas as they are too lazy to go shopping so I decided to give them clothes as our Christmas presents.


After asking them to open our gifts, we went home as we already had a long and tiring day. But before we hit the sack I asked hubby to take a picture of our Christmas tree as I know in just a few hours, all the gifts under it will be going…going….gone.

Weekend Snapshot # 25 - Bela and Mc Queen

Last Sunday, we attended the Christening of the daughter of hubby’s best friend. The christening was held at Espirito Santo church and the reception was held at Congo Grille in SM San Lazaro.

On our way to the restaurant, we saw this cute Cars backdrop where you can take pictures. SM is having a Disney Christmas theme and backdrops with Disney theme can be found all over the mall.

Since my daughter loves the movie Cars so much, we didn’t have a hard time convincing her to post with Mc Queen.

Bored and Unhappy

I was so glad that I was able to catch my friend online last night. She is my best friend and she just moved to Arizona with her parents. I was just a bit sad for my friend because she sounds bored and unhappy while I was talking to her.

You see, she is one of the new and upcoming make up artist here. But then she has to leave her job here since she has to move with her family to Arizona. She is having a hard time looking for a job there and now she feels that she made a mistake of leaving her blossoming career here.

But while we are chatting, I was already checking the site of Find a Beauty School because I know that they have a list to all accredited beauty schools in arizona and the whole of United States. The schools are sorted by state or zip code and so my friend can easily search for a prospective beauty school that she likes since she can easily click on the links of the schools that she likes. I gave the site to her and she started searching for a prospective beauty schools within their area where she can get additional training.

She got all excited with the information that I gave her because she knows that the schools can even help her find a job after her training. I am glad that my friend cheered up a bit after we spoke. She is a very talented person and I am sure that once she get adjusted with her new set up in Arizona, she will have a successful career on beauty in Arizona.

Frost in Benguet

I heard from the news that the continuing drop in temperature in the Cordillera brought frost here and in some parts of Benguet the last two days.

I got all excited upon hearing the news and it made me reminisce about my first snow experience when I was in Canada last 2001.

I was sent to Canada last 2001 for a one month training. It was almost the winter season when I went there so I brought plenty of winter clothes and jackets with me. I even noticed when I arrived at the hotel that the Gas Fires in the hotel are turned on already to bring heat inside the hotel.

We are in the middle of our lecture and our instructor called our attention when he noticed that the first snow is already falling. Our instructor knows that we all came from countries where there is no snow so she immediately turned on the Electric Fires as soon as she saw that the snow is falling.

It was really a nice experience specially since I came from a tropical country where there is no snow. I walked on my way back to the hotel to enjoy the snow. It was really one of the memorable experiences that I had when I went to Canada. So when I heard from the news about the drop in temperature in Benguet, I already imagined installing Hole in the Wall Fires in our house where I can just cuddle in the living room enjoying my hot cup of chocolate drink.

But I guess it will just be a dream for me now as it is almost the end of December and the cold months are almost over.

Just in time

Our boxes are here. It arrived today and I was glad when hubby gave me the good news that it finally arrived. I have been waiting for it since last week since it arrived in Virginia first week of December so I am already expecting that it should be here in Manila by second week of December.


But maybe because of the holiday season, it got delayed for a few days. I thought that it will not make it before Christmas and I am starting to get worried already as it contains our gifts for my brother and my cousin and the polo shirts that I bought for hubby which he will wear on Christmas and on his birthday. The box also contains the Baby Alive doll that I ordered from Amazon which is my sister’s Christmas gift for Bela and my purple shoes (which by the way I really, really like).

So I will be a little busy as I have to do some gift wrapping over the weekend.

Finally

Guess who is getting married? My brother will tie the knot on 2010 to his long time girlfriend of 10 years. Well it is really about time that my brother leaves the world of the bachelors. I can’t help but feel excited for them as I know that it is just a matter of time and they will really end up with each other.

I still don’t have much detail yet about their weddings and anyway it is still more than a year away. All I know is that they already booked the venue for their church ceremony and it will be held at Caleruega in Batangas.

I have been chatting with my future sister in law and looks like she is a hands on bride too like me so for sure I will give her the details and contact numbers of the suppliers that we use for our wedding. One tip that I will definitely give her is that in order for them to save money, they should get wholesale flowers too. It is more affordable than getting it from a local florist but still, they will be able to get fresh and nice flowers for their wedding.

I am sure my future sister in law is already excited to start preparing for their wedding. Who wouldn’t? She is marrying the love of her life and that alone can get her really excited and happy about their wedding.

My day

I get off from work at 1:30 PM every Friday. I made a plan last night on how I will spend my afternoon while waiting for Howell since he will not be off until 4:30 PM:

* I plan to continue with my Christmas shopping as I need to buy gifts for all the couples in my family and hubby’s family. I initially plan to buy cakes for each one of them from Becky’s Kitchen but they won’t accept orders without a down payment and I think that we won’t have time to drop by their store before Christmas. Good thing Peachy shared with me her great shopping finds at Marks and Spencer and so I plan to go to Marks and Spencer at the Midtown Wing of Robinsons after I get off from work.

* Then I want to have a hair treatment at Jesi Mendez after I am finish with my shopping.

* Then I will buy SD card for our video camera so we can use it during the holiday season.

But instead of doing all this, I stayed at the office until 4:00 PM since we have to finish all the preparations for the renovation work to be done at the 8/F and 6/F. And since we are short on staff this week since two of my colleagues is on leave, I have no choice but to stay and work overtime. At least I have extra money at the end of January from my overtime pay for more shopping.

But I am still thankful that I was able to get off from work by 4:00 PM. At least I still was able to beat the rush hour and I was still able to finish shopping for more gifts items at Marks and Spencer. Hopefully I will find the time before Christmas to go to a salon for my hair treatment.

HK Day 4 - Nov 23, 2008

At last I was able to finish my last installment story of our day four in Hong Kong. We just went to Avenue of the Stars and then spent the whole day shopping at Causeway Bay.

You can read my full story here and you can view more pictures here.

BOO TO STANDARD CHARTERED BANK

I made a post here a few weeks ago about my problem with STANDARD CHARTERED BANK. I filed a complain and requested for an investigation on what happened with my envelope because I can’t really accept the fact that it will just magically disappear. Unfortunately, after days of waiting, I followed up about my complain and just as I expected, they gave me the same explanation and said that it is impossible that a payment envelope will disappear just like that and they have no choice but to ask me to pay again.

If I am really a bad client, I will just ignore them and will not make a second payment since I really am 100% sure that I already paid them my balance and it is not my fault if they lost my envelope. But I have been so stress this past few days after the incident since their collections department has been so rude every time I call them and I am being treated as if I owe them millions of pesos when in fact I only owe them P11,414 which I already paid for anyways. They keep on telling me that my case is very rare and it is the first time that they encounter a lost payment envelope. Well, as for me, I have four credit cards and I also use the payment machines for all my payment but it is only in STANDARD CHARTERED that I encounter this situation and it is the first time ever that I have been treated so rudely since I always make it a point that I pay all my credit card balance in full and on time.

So last Monday, I decided that P11, 414 is really not worth it to cause me all this stress. I even cried one day because I can’t take how their collections agent is treating me. So even if I can’t accept their explanation on how my payment envelope just magically disappear, I made a choice to make the payment again and cancel my account from them as I don’t want to deal with STANDARD CHARTERED BANK ever again.

You see I heavily rely on credit cards for all my purchases. Like this holiday season, I really maxed out the limit of my credit card and I even requested for a increase in my credit limit because of all my purchases. This really made me think if I need credit counseling so they can help me be debt free and make better financial choices. I must say that I am good when it comes to handling and using my credit card since I never fail to pay all my credit card balances on time but I think a Credit Counseling can help me reduce my credit card expenses and in the end save me a lot of money and be debt free.

Davao Trip: Looking for City Hotel

As I posted here, I already booked our overnight stay at Pearl Farm but I still need to book a hotel on our day 1.

We will take the 8:30 AM flight going to Davao and we will arrive there around 10 AM. We will not be able to catch the first boat ride from Davao Marina to Pearl Farm which leaves at 8 AM and the next schedule that we can catch is the 1:30 PM schedule. The boat ride will take 45 minutes to an hour so we will reach Pearl Farm late in the afternoon already and we will still pay for the whole day fee which I think is not worth it. So we decided to just get a city hotel and we will have our city tour on our first day.

Our options for hotel:

1. Royal Mandaya – the cheapest among the hotels on my list. My friend stayed here last year and she said that she has no complains for this hotel. But I read from reviews that the hotel is quite old and the staffs are not friendly.

2. Waterfront Insular Hotel – Looks ok plus hubby was able to check this hotel when he had an assignment in Davao. But it is a little far from downtown.

3. Marco Polo Hotel – Hubby really recommends this hotel as they always stay here for business every time they are in Davao but there is a big difference with the price compared to the first two hotels that I like.

I will have to think it through and make some computations first but I definitely need to make our reservations soon.

I can't wait

I booked our hotel accommodations at Pearl Farm Beach Resort for our upcoming vacation last Saturday evening. I booked our hotel through Asia Travel and I just received a confirmation that our booking is paid, confirmed and accepted by the hotel.

And look at what is in store for us:

I can’t wait. I am so stressed out with work lately and my system is already craving for a nice and relaxing vacation. Which reminds me that I have to buy a one piece swimsuit since what I have are two-piece swimwear and I don’t think I can find the guts to wear it since my tummy is really bulging (remember, my colleagues have been asking me if I am pregnant since I really look pregnant with my big tummy and with my weight gain). Or my other option is I can buy Lipovox in order to loose weight.

A Gift for Her

I need a gift for my sister. I initially plan to buy her a dress or a shoes but I got really busy with work (since I always work overtime and I even work on weekends) so I was not able to go to the mall to buy her something.

Good thing I saw this Holiday Glass Frames from Zenni Optical and since I know that she is planning to replace her eyeglasses, I figured that this will be a nice gift for her:


What do you guys think? I have no problem with the price as they even offer $ 8 Complete Rx Eyeglasses so it is really affordable.

Thank God for Zenni, the popular online eyeglasses shop, I can easily order an eyeglass for my sister and I instantly have a Christmas gift for her without all the hassle of going to the mall to do my shopping.

Preparing for our Davao Vacation

December is really a busy month for us. I am so busy with work, with my sideline and with finishing my Christmas shopping. I was able to do some shopping two weeks ago for all my cousins, my god children and Howell’s niece and nephews but after that, we didn’t have much progress with our Christmas shopping list.

We got so busy with all our activities this holiday season that I almost forgot about our Davao vacation this coming January. It is only a month before our vacation so I have to make our reservations for our hotel accommodation.

We will only be there for three days and this is our itinerary:

Day 1:
Checked in at City Hotel (Our flight arrives at 10 AM and the next ferry to Pearl Farm is scheduled at 1:30 PM so we decided to just have our city tour on our first day and checked in at a city hotel)

City Tour

Day 2:
Take the 8 AM ferry ride from Davao Marina to Pearl Farm
Check in at Pearl Farm

Day 3:
Take the 4 PM ferry from Pearl Farm to Davao Marina
Souvenir shopping
Leave for the airport to catch our 8:30 PM flight

I already booked our accommodations at Pearl Farm but I am still waiting for the conformation. Hopefully our booking will be confirmed by Monday. I am still looking for hotels for our city accommodation and I am thinking if we need to splurge and stay at Marco Polo or we can just settle for Royal Mandaya Hotel which is 50% cheaper than Marco Polo since we will only need it to stay for the night since we will be out the whole day. I will have to discuss it with hubby first but I have to make our reservations too for our city hotel by Monday.

Tomorrow

Before I start looking for weight loss supplements online (as I have been receiving a lot of comments that I look pregnant because I am getting fat), let me post first what we will be busy with tomorrow).

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I don’t know how we can survive our day tomorrow. First, my nanny will take a day off so it is just me and hubby who will take care of Bela. Then we will attend the Christening of the daughter of hubby’s best friend. Hubby will be the official photographer too. Then after the Christening, we will go to Greenhills to do some more shopping. I need to but gifts for the office staff at Toddlers Unlimited, then gifts for the nanny there as they will be having a Christmas party on Monday and I have to buy a gift too as my nanny joined the Kris kringle for all the nannies at school. Then part of my shopping list also is the stuff that I have to buy for my friends in Los Angeles. The sister of my best friend is leaving for LA next week so I have to bring all the stuff for my best friend by Monday so she can take it with her when she leaves.

I don’t know if one whole day is enough to finish all my to do list for tomorrow. And I fear that Greenhills will surely be crowded as it is just a couple of days away before Christmas. Surely it will be filled with a lot of shoppers rushing to finish their Christmas shopping list.

So I better hit the sack now as I need to reserve all my energy for our busy day tomorrow.

Offline

I haven’t been online for a month now. I miss yahoo messenger, I miss twitter and I miss visiting all your blogs.

We have been subscribed to Destiny Cable fro years now since they are the only Internet cable provider that is allowed at RCBC building. But they really have poor service as they are always down, their connection is slow, and their customer service is really bad (it will take hours before you can get hold of a customer service agent). To sum it up, their service is really bad.

Last month, our Internet has been down for more than a week and even if we have called their customer service a couple of times already, they still did not send an engineer to check our connection. So my boss got really pissed already and decided that we switched to PLDT DSL since they are now allowed to provide Internet service at RCBC.

The processing of application for a DSL line can take up to three weeks but we received an update last week that they are now ready to install the wiring for the Internet. Hopefully, it will be installed next week as I need to do a lot of tasks like I need to search for information about toll free number and find a solution for one of the laptops that I am building and of course I miss going back to my online world.

Macau: Day 3

Want to see more of our Macau pictures? I posted my story in my other blog as well as pictures here.

HK Day 2 - Disneyland

Our Hong Kong Day 2 stories and pictures are now up. We spent our second day at Disneyland and boy Bela is the happiest kid on the planet. Check out the pictures here and my detailed story here.

Questions of the Week #42

Join us here.

1. I want to see you. Can you post the very latest photo of yourself? Or link me up with your latest photo.

2. Do you remember what last week was? What? Last week was the first week of December. Since we have a long weekend, we were able to start with our Christmas shopping list.
3. Are you going to spend more money or less money than last year’s Holiday Season? I think less money since I don’t have a choice since I am already broke anyways. LOL.
4. Do you prefer your clocks/watches to be set on 12hr or 24hr time? 12 hr.
5. Do you like the funny junk mails that friends or relatives send you? Not really.
6. Have you ever fainted? No.
7. What other capital city aside from your own country you’ve been to already? What was it? Ottawa and Washington DC. I love Ottawa because it is so quite and I feel safe. Same is true with Washington DC and both cities are really clean.
8. When you see a number between around 1900 and 2050, do you automatically think of years? Yes.
9. How many hours of sleep do you get on average on weeknights? 6 hours
10. Santa can only give you 3 things this Christmas and each gift can only be $15 or less. What are you going to get? Link us up;-) Hard Cover collection of Book 2-4 of the Twilight saga. LOL.

Debt Free

I made a post here yesterday about my problem with Standard Chartered bank. They informed me last Thursday that they deleted my payment record for November since they can’t find the envelope that I used to pay for my balance. The branch manager promised me that she will do her best to try to look at their payment machine for my missing envelope. But then again she also informed me that I have to pay P11, 500 again if ever they won’t be able to find my missing payment envelope.

It should have been my last payment for my EZ Pay Installment loan and I am already looking forward to be financially free from debt. And then all of this happened and this made me think if I can really get out of debt. I made my last payment and I can’t accept the fact that there is a chance that I have to pay them again since I know that it is not my fault if they lost my envelope.

I have been arguing with them and trying to explain my side but they would still insist that I don’t have any other option but to pay again. I read form the Internet that there is a company that can help me with my debt elimination problem. I know this company can prepare a financial plan for me to help me manage my debt but I wonder if they have programs too that can help me deal with credit card companies. Maybe they will be the solution to my problem. They have the knowledge on how to deal with credit card companies so they might help me argue my case against Standard Chartered.

I will wait for the manager’s call again on Monday to update me on whether they were able to find my envelope or not. If not, I guess I really have to get an expert to help me with my problem.

Pacquiao VS dela Hoya

Howell was really excited and was really looking forward to watch the match between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar dela Hoya. But unluckily for him, he might not be able to watch the actual match and he may just catch it up during the re-runs in the evening.

I tried calling Sky Cable to avail of their Pay-Per-View of the match but they were not able to get the contract from Solar Sports. According to Sky Cable, they have been negotiating to get the contract but unfortunately they were unsuccessful. Maybe it is too expensive for Sky cable.

So without Pay-Per-View, Howell would have went to SM right away to buy tickets so they can watch the match live but unfortunately, he has to work overtime tomorrow. They have a visitor and so they have to set up an offsite office at the Diamond Hotel tomorrow. He is just hoping that he can watch it at the hotel tomorrow .

Oh well, as for me I will just watch at home at the Kapuso channel. One of my colleague is a friend of Pacquiao and they flew to Las Vegas to watch the match ad support Manny. They are seated at the VIP seats so I promised him that I will wait for him on TV. (Lucky guy. Howell was so envious when I told him about my colleague).

I am sure the all Filipinos will be glued to their TV tomorrow to watch the match. Even though I so love Oscar dela Hoya because he is so good looking (LOL), I would still want Manny to win this match. Good luck to Manny.

Hong Kong Day 1: Done

For day one alone, we have 900++ pictures already. So I have to look through and resize thousands of pictures before I can finish uploading all pictures from our recent vacation. So three more days to go. I have finish uploading our pictures for our first day at Hong Kong here.

We had a long first day. I posted my detailed story here but our itinerary for Day 1 includes:

Checked in at Disney’s Hollywood hotel
Visit to the Lantau Island
Ocean Park
Short shopping trip at City Gate Outlet store

I will never really get tired of visiting Hong Kong. Although I really don’t like the people there since most of them are really rude and they are always in a hurry that they will not mind pushing you when going up the escalator even if I am carrying a toddler but it is just a shopping haven for me. Plus I love their transportation system that even though I am not good with maps and directions, I was able to survive our day to day commute. Their transportation system is very organized.

Hopefully we will be able to go back again here soon.

Pissed with Standard Chartered

I am so pissed right now with Standard Chartered. Here is what happened:

My brother paid for my last balance for my EZ Pay Installment loan through machine at the Standard Chartered branch in Ortigas. After a few days, I called them to request for the cancellation of my account since I don’t want to retain my credit card with them since I rarely use it. They allowed me to cancel my account since my balance has been settled already but they gave me an option to retain my card and they will reverse my annual fee. So I agreed.

So all the while I thought that my balance with them is already settled. But I was surprised when I received a phone call from their collections department yesterday asking me why I haven’t settled my payment yet. I told them about my payment for November and I was informed that no payment has been reflected for this month.

I called the Standard Chartered Ortigas branch to clarify and I was informed that a payment has been recorded in their database but they were not able to find the envelope when they collected all of it from the machine. So what they did is they deleted my payment record from their database, thus no record of payment has been reflected for this month.

I bet they are not using ETL Software for their database management since their records are all screwed up. I requested for a record of my account from them but all they can give me is the last 6 months record since they only keep a record per client for 6 months only. If only they have the best data management and data protection software, they would be able to give me a complete record of my account because that’s what ETL software do – it can help improve query performance and back up and protection of data.

I was able to talk to the branch manager today and they can’t give a very logical explanation on how my envelope got lost. Isn’t it that a transaction will not be completed unless you insert an envelope with your payment? And my payment transaction was successful and they even admitted that it was recorded in their database. So my envelope got lost starting from the time when my transaction was completed until they retrieve all the envelopes from the machine which points to them causing this whole problem.

But now, they are asking me to pay P11, 500 again and they can only tell me that they can’t do anything about it. They won’t even investigate on how my envelope got lost? The manager promised to get back to me on Monday as she wants to thoroughly check the machine for my missing envelope.

Hope everything will be settled soon as I can’t imagine paying them another P11, 500.

Congrats and where to next?

Congratulations to the three MBAP mommies. Thank God that all of them had a safe delivery. So who will be the next pregnant mommy among the MBAPs?

Howell and I wanted to try to get pregnant again next year so hopefully we will join the baby boom next year. But before I get pregnant I requested from Howell that we have another vacation first. I know that if we have two kids it would be more difficult to travel. First, we will need a bigger budget since we will be four now and second, it would really be a handful to travel with two kids in tow. So it might take years before we can have another out of the country vacation again so I asked hubby that we do one last out of the country travel before I get pregnant.

Just yesterday, I was looking for possibilities on where we can have our vacation next year. It would be nice to get a Westgate reservation and visit our friends in Florida but I have been doing the math and it looks impossible for us to be able to save up for a US vacation. I think an Asian destination is all we can afford for now but where else can we go that is child friendly? Any suggestions?

Twilight

I was finally able to watch the Twilight movie the other day with my cousin and my sister. I wanted to watch it with my MBAP friends last Sunday but we have to go to my in-laws’ house so I was not able to make it to our movie date. I was so envious when I saw their pictures with Edward (which I was not able to do) and how much they had fun while they watched the movie together. So let’s watch the movie again girls?

The movie was just ok. There are a lot of scenes from the book that was not shown in the movie. I was expecting more scenes where they will show how romantic and how ideal a guy Edward is. But I guess novels that are turned into movies usually turned that way since they really can’t show all that is written in the book in the movie since they are bounded by time and budget. Especially for Twilight since they say they only have $37 million budget for the entire film.

One of my favorite scenes was when Edward entered the cafeteria. He was so delicious. LOL. I also like the baseball match and their scene in Bela’s room where they first kiss. Edward was so hot. LOL.

Overall, I did not really like the movie that much but I still love Edward.

Christmas Shopping List

I was able to strike from my Christmas shopping list all the kids in my family and Howell’s family as well as all our god children. The only ones left on our list are our adult relatives.

Honestly, I really don’t have any idea what to give them. After spending so many Christmas with them I feel that I have given them all the possible gifts that I can give them. I am already running out of ideas, but good thing my friend gave me a site where she bought most of her gifts for her adult female relatives. And look what I found:


Aren’t these fashion jewelry sets lovely? I can’t even make up my mind on what to buy for my relatives since the site offers a wide collection of fashionable jewelry sets and all of them are a true beauty and are of high quality. And the best part is, the price is such a steal.

I am sure I won’t go wrong if I buy these for my female relatives as I am sure they will definitely love it.

Weekend Snapshot # 24 - Happiest Place on Earth

I still haven’t uploaded any pictures from our last Hong Kong vacation. Blame it on my laziness and I got sick too. So I am posting here again some snapshots when we went to Disneyland.


You can see from the pictures how happy Bela was while we were there. She just took a nap for an hour I think and then went back to enjoying the rides and interacting with all the characters roaming around the park.


One of our favorite was the Disney parade and Bela was all smiles when she saw the float of Toy Story and was ecstatic upon seeing Woody, Jessie and Buzz in person. Too bad we were not able to catch their Christmas parade as it will start a week after our visit at Disneyland.

Yaya Updates

Our new nanny has been with us for two months now, and so far she is doing well. At first, I was really having problems with her since she doesn’t speak that much so we thought that she doesn’t understand Tagalog that much. She is also very quiet and she can’t express herself that well so we really don’t know if she understood what we are telling her to do or not.

But after a while, she was able to adjust and so far, she is the best among all the nannies that we had for Bela. She is always on the look for Bela and she never takes her eyes off my daughter. And my daughter really loves her that they clicked right away the first time she arrived at our house. And she always keeps her hand busy by doing other stuff in the house if Bela is sleeping. And since she is shy and timid, you will not find her gossiping with our neighbors or with the other nannies at Bela’s school.

So far, we really like her and hope she will stay with us for good. Our only problem is that she doesn’t know how to cook so we always have fried viands for our packed lunch and for breakfast which is really not healthy. But like what hubby said, we should start practicing healthy cooking since we are both not getting any younger and we should start to watch our health. This will really be a challenge since I really don’t know how to cook so I have to learn the ropes of cooking but it is a challenge I am willing to take. So wish me luck.