I know I haven’t made any real post lately. I have been busy with work and with the Twilight saga book that I am reading that I reduced the time that I spend online. But here is a summary of my updates:

* Bela is sick again as I blogged here. I took a leave from work today so I can take her to her pedia. I was more at peace now because her pedia said that we don’t have to worry about her eye irritation. She confirmed what the doctor at Patient First told us and she said the same thing that we just have to treat her colds.
* I was able to go to Divi as I posted here.
* I posted Bela’s latest anecdotal report here.
* I also posted pictures taken during the Filed Trip at the Park activity of the Jumping Joeys class here.

I promise I will post more real updates and stories once I am finish with the Twilight saga book (I am now reading Book 3). Thanks for all the visits and the EC Drop and I will start to make my rounds again tomorrow.

I submitted my training plan last week to my boss after he requested us to make one since he is really encouraging us to attend different IT trainings. He said that there is an allotted budget for trainings and so we should all take advantage of it since it is a win-win scenario for both us and the company – we will be getting new skills and knowledge and the company will get to benefit for the new skills that we will be learning.

I am really into attending trainings as I know that IT is a fast changing field and so attending trainings will really help us get updated with what is the latest in the IT field. So I am really happy that our new boss is showing his support for our need for continuous education.

Who knows, the company might even sponsor our education if we want to take masteral or PhD degree. I have been reading a lot about online degree and there is a school known as Capella University which offers online courses for working professionals like me. This means I don’t have to quit my day job in order to get a masteral or PhD degree.

This blog post is based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.

Yesterday was a hectic day for us. We went to my boss house since he invited us over for brunch. We stayed there until 1 PM and we had a great time getting to know my boss’s family and just chilling outside work. After the brunch, we went straight to Shakey’s Magallanes to attend the 4th birthday party of David (son of Howell’s high school best friend). After the party, we went to Glorietta as Howell wants to attend the launching of Planet Comics shop where they invited the illustrators behind famous Marvel comics and they are available for autograph signing. While Howell attended the launch, Bela and I did some shopping at the Kids Zone.

While shopping, my nanny noticed that Bela’s eyes looks irritated as it often has morning glory. We decided to have it check so we went to Patient First and have a pedia checked her eyes. Good news is, it is not sore eyes since it is not swollen and it is not reddish but it looks like she has colds that’s why her eyes gets irritated. We just need to treat the colds and were good to go. After Bela’s check up, we head to Greenhills to fetch my sister who manned our cellphone shop.
We were really tired when we arrived home so we all hit the sack early after one tiring day.

Have you tried having a pictorial at Blow Up Babies? Blow Up Babies (BUB) is the country's one and only full-production photography studio that is managed by seasoned professionals from the advertising and film industry. They take care of every detail of the photo session from make-up and costumes to sets and lighting and even the digital post-production work.

I really wanted to be a member of Blow Up Babies ever since I found out about them and schedule a pictorial there with our daughter but my husband is really against it. As some of you might know, my husband does photography as his sideline and so he feels that we don’t have to spend that much just to have a pictorial since he has the gadget to produce great quality pictures. I have been arguing with him since I know that having nice props and good studio lighting will really contribute to the outcome of the picture but up to know, I still can’t convince him. He just don’t like the fact that we have to pay more than P500 for the prints and another fee just for the photo session and we won’t even be getting the soft copies of the pictures.

Oh well, I guess we won’t be having any photo sessions at Blow up Babies anytime soon. I hope I will be able to convince him to have a full production pictorial at BUB for our next baby.

Last Friday, I received Bela’s Anecdotal report from school and it really put a smile on my face after reading the comments of Bela’s teachers.

Their topic or theme last week is about the people in their neighborhood and they have been identifying the mailman, the policeman, the fireman, etc. And according to Bela’s teachers, during their discussion Bela said, “I want to be a policeman!”

It really did put a smile on my face and was so proud of my daughter. But if you will ask me, I want her to be like us who are computer engineers or like her grand ma Pen who does work like the Fort Worth Personal Injury Attorney. I have been doing some reading and I learned that Fort Worth attorneys really provide the best legal representation to accident victims especially for those accidents that have been caused by negligence of a third party. It really made me interested with the work that lawyer does and it really made me wish that someday my daughter would be one of the best lawyers of the country,

But of course, it will all be up to her to decide what she wants for her future. We are just here to support her with whatever dream she has.

If there is a TV show that I would like to watch again, it would be Sex and the City. I know it is not really from the past as I think it was only several years ago when they decided to end the show. But I really miss the girls, their shopping adventure, their struggle to find true love, etc.

Sex and the City has been a part of my system already. LOL. I remember there was a time before that I will just stay in my room the whole day and just watch DVDs of Sex and the City the whole day. I even sometimes skip lunch just to finish the whole season.

So when they released the Sex and the City movie, I was one of the girls who watched the movie during the first week of its opening and I watch it more than once. I was even emotional during the opening part where they give flashbacks of what had happened with the girls and I even cried when Carrie got hurt when Big did not shop up on their wedding.

Yah, that’s how attach I am with the SATC girls.

Having been attuned to the carefree attitude that goes with it, I started to lay down the card to my sister who is now on her teen, the proper ways on how to maintain and keeps her skin consistently clean and healthy looking. As stress from the environment and everyday living can take their toll on even the most health conscious, anticipating the alacrity of the attack of flat or bumpy acne, I briefed my sister on how to use acne treatment cream which is not just another beauty product. Its dermatologist recommended medical personal device that I used before and continually using heretofore which prevent acne breakout. It contains revolutionary skin care technology for face which keeps it healthy and protect against environmental hazard.

As of today, so far so good with regards to my sweet sister, on her beauty, well it keeps on oozing…

She has coughs and colds and she has a slight fever when we got home last Friday after our busy day. We went to her pediatrician yesterday and she was given medicines for her cough, cold and fever and she was also give antibiotics. We were advised that if she still have fever until Monday, she has to undergo a blood test just to be sure that it is not dengue since there are a lot of reports of dengue cases.

She has no fever now and hopefully her fever won’t come back as we don’t want her to undergo a blood test. It is already a big effort to make her drink her medicine and it pains us to see her cry while we are forcing her to drink her medicines so we don’t want to see her cry even more if she will undergo a blood test.

To my blogmates, I’m sorry if I haven’t blog hop yet and responded to your emails. I promise to do it as soon as I find the time. And to my cousin, I know I promise to help you job search. I will try to start with it tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone.

Do you remember back in High School when we had our prom night? I am reading one of those romance novels and I am in the part where the characters in the book have to go shopping for formal dresses in preparation for their prom night.

I can still remember my prom night. I guess that is one of the most anticipated events for a girl in her high school life. I remember months before the prom, our topic of conversation is always the prom dresses that each of us will be wearing for that special event. We were all excited for it since it is really a new experience for us.

I guess girls are really like that when it comes to fashion. We always never settle for less that’s why deciding the best homecoming dresses to wear is really a major decision for us to make that time.

Oh well, we all just want to look good of course; especially prom is really a big thing for High School girls. Don’t you agree?

Prayer has always been my refuge and my something that I depend on to whatever I am feeling. If I feel sad, I pray. If I am worried about something, I pray. If I am happy, I pray. Prayers have always been a day to day part of our family’s life.

But we have truly felt the power of prayer when we received the good news from my daughter’s pedia that the hole in heart is already close. My daughter was born with a congenital heart disease called Ventricular Septal Defect. I cried when I learned from my doctor’s cardiologist that she has this disease just two weeks after she was born. But instead of loosing hope, we relied on prayer and the love of our friends and relatives to be our strength.

And indeed God is good. Before she turned one, her cardiologist aid that there is really a big chance that the hole will close as tissues are already forming around the hole. And before she turned two, it was confirmed via a 2D Echo that the hole is now totally close. Which is indeed a miracle since there a few cases like this where the hole will close and so we really feel blessed and happy and we really felt the power of prayer.

Nursing has been one of the in demand courses nowadays. Why? It’s because nursing graduates can get to work abroad and earn big bucks. I have a lot of friends who are now working abroad as a nurse and I can’t blame them for moving to a foreign country since what they are getting is really ten times (or even more) than what they will be getting if they just work here.

I even know some friends who are already a graduate of other courses but still they decided to take nursing. I really admire them as they still find the energy and the time to study a new course which will take them maybe around three to four years to finish.

I can’t imagine myself studying again and a medical course at that. I can’t imagine myself memorizing names of different medicines or studying the different systems in our body or analyzing cases like Deep Vein Thrombosis. I feel my brain has been stagnant for years now that even if I wanted to take up nursing too, I think my brain will no longer work.

This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

My brother’s brand new car arrived two weeks ago, just in time for our Baguio vacation. He can’t come with us as he has to manage our cell phone shop which is really busy during the weekends but he was so kind to lend the car to us.

Since the car just came from the shop, my dad really did a thorough check of the car before we use it for our long road trip to Baguio:

Batteries: Checked
Oil: Checked
Brakes: Checked
Gas: Checked
Spare Tire: Checked
Car insurance: Checked
Engine Coolant: Checked
Transmission Fluid: Checked
Lights: Checked
Wheel Wrench and Jack: Checked

And when my dad was really sure that everything is perfectly ok, we hit the road for our Baguio adventure. I posted my stories here on the places we visited in Baguio plus our Baguio Food trip here. I still owe the last post that I promise which is our shopping adventure in Baguio. Hopefully I can do it this weekend.

Every time we are out, like if we are in the mall, Bela would always want to be carried. She is like this ever since she was born. That’s why we were never really able to maximize the use of her stroller since she prefers to be carried than to be sitting in her stroller.

That was okay when she was still a baby and Howell and I can alternate carrying her if we are out. But now that she is already a toddler, it sometimes is difficult to walk around the mall if we have to carry her all the time. And there was even some time when she will just prefer to be carried by either me or Howell. So if one of us is tired already from carrying her, we can’t take turns in carrying her as she will just cry.

So for our upcoming Hong Kong trip, I realized that it would really be difficult to have a toddler in tow in Hong Kong if we don’t have a light weight umbrella stroller. Do you think it is a little too late to train her again to ride umbroller in preparation for our trip?

My sister was telling me that she doesn’t think that it will work as Bela is already used to being carried all the time. But my husband and I are thinking to buy an umbroller like the Maclaren Volo before the trip and have her use it when we are at the mall so she’ll get used to it.

If that works, it would really be a big help on our part and it would be a great convenience too since going around by foot is really tiring already and for sure it would be double the effort if we are carrying a toddler.

I was tagged by Vannie.

Some RULES:

::START::

RULES:1. Add your blog/s to the list. Feel free to add all your other blogs. It’s okey if you only post this questions in one blog as long as you answer them.
2. Get back to ME and I’ll add your blogs to the master’s list HERE {Note that you are not ALLOWED to change this links and make sure to leave the exact URL.}
3. Copy from Start to End.
4. Tag as many friends online you know. But you don’t need to be tag in order to join.

Who played along:

1. Music of my Heart 2. Me and Mine 3. Creative in Me 4. For the LOVE of Food 5. Little Peanut 6. Pea in a Pod 7. It’s Where the HEART Is 8. Around the World 9. Quicker8 10. Whats Up 11. Simply Me 12. Kitchen Deelite 13. A Mothers Horizon 14. Mommy Talks 15. Aggie Shoots. Aggie Scraps 16. All Kinds of Me Stuff 17. The Salad Caper 18. Winding Creek Circle 19. Ink Baby Studios 20. jOYS IN lIFE 21. dANCING IN mIDLIFE tuNE 22. lIFE IS WHAT wE MAKE iT 23. FunFierceFabulous 24. Ozzy’s Mom 25. Me,Myself+2 26. Kidd Designs 27. A Window to Our World 28. Jenny’s Wandering Thoughts 29. Hobbies and Such 30. Clark & Butchay’s Blog 31. Stripe&Yellow 32. Something Purple 33. Em’s Detour 34. Living the Healthy Life 35. Doll Me Up 36. Vanity Kit 37. Dancing With Butterflies 38. Twisted Angel 39. Pieces of Me 40. Just Let Go 41. Blessed Chic 42. My Colorful World 43.Random Thoughts 44. H ailey’s Domain 45. Hailey’s Beats and Bits 46. My Big Picture 47. Merger Guru 48. Tints of My Heart 49. Complex Life 50. My Little Home 51. Reveries of simplyJACY 52. My Little Home 53. In Depth 54. my kids are my world 55. my beautiful creations 56. Life of a Navy Wife 57. Beth & Cory’s Mom 58. A Mind Forever Voyaging59 . Just Gotta Share This 60. All Things Me 61. Because Life Is Fun 62. Feels Like Home 63. A Day Of Play 64. Live Laugh Love 65. At Home with Jemi 67. Our Journey to Life 67. Your blog/s

Questions and Answers:

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says: “Then I heard through the grapevine he’d started going out with a girl called Charlotte whi he’d met at some weekend party- Undomestoc Goddess"
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first? Cabinet
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? Amazing Race Asia Season 3
4. WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what time it is: 11:25 PM
5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time? 11:16 PM.
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? The sound of our aircon
7. When did you last step outside? what were you doing? Aournd 7 PM today when I went to my grand mother’s house..
8. Before you came to this website, what did you look at? My blog
9. What are you wearing? PJs
10. Did you dream last night? I think so. But I can’t recall what my dream was about.
11. When did you last laugh? Before Bela went to bed as I was playing with her..
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in? Mirror and clock
13. Seen anything weird lately? Nope, not really.
14. What do you think of this quiz? Enjoying it
15. What is the last movie you saw? Monsters Inc.
16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first? LV bag. LOL (Maybe this time I will really not feel guilty if I buy one)
17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know:.I don’t like confrontations
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? I will make everyone selfless.
19. Do you like to dance? When I was still young and single
20. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? a boy? If I have a boy, I will name him Jacobo plus a second name.
21. Would you ever consider living abroad? Maybe.

Tagging Big Eyed Gal and Jhona.

Before hubby and I got married dated some years back, we both shared a picture of our dream house where love that abounds will be its staunch foundation between us and our siblings. It has become a dream that revved up our energy cells when we decided to walked the aisle. As I regaled the gentle and auspicious years that quickly swept away I found myself preening over our accomplishment and most of all brimming with so much happiness as I, hubby and together with our daughter are already enjoying the luxury of living in our own dream house. Our clairvoyant visions, our indomitable ambition and the years exerted by my husband slogging daily and diligently finally paid off.

However, our dream would not have come to a reality without the help of a mortgage company as well as the mortgage broker who was a swami in his own right and abreast of the system that goes behind the mortgage world. As he found us to be qualified and worthy to be granted of a mortgage loan he worked his way through his nexus and be able to acquire and present us the best and fair mortgage quotes corresponding perfectly to the style and quality of the house we wanted. Indeed his wizardry in his field that devoid us of the emasculating uncertainty of prolonged negotiations helped us so much to savor the joys of living in our safe haven.

With few more years our obligation to the mortgage company will be completed. Today as we look forward to all the wonderful possibilities each new day brings, we never stop thanking the ALMIGHTY for His kindness and abundant blessings He continue to shower us and for the impeccable comfort and convenience in living we all enjoy.

To be able to cope up with the fast pace world we live today and with great consideration on the difficulty of commuting, having a car is portentously significant to add to our assets. Then when I finally got a chance to acquired one I did not gave a second thought for it.

My first few days then were filled with feverish excitement as I drove down the roads. But later on as the day passes by the road accidents that I witnessed caused me to fret and begin to think if those accidents were covered by my auto insurance policy that I currently held on?

As I was piqued by my skeptics towards my car insurance which was part of the package offered when I bought the car, I started to read the policy to understand it better more so regarding its indemnity claim and guidelines for the policy holder. As the power of the internet is a worldwide knowledge to everyone to be a putative oasis for an excellent rummaging job and to brush and compare auto insurance of that of my car to those listed on the webs was a good opportunity that I took advantage. Albeit, in the midst of reality of the glutting numbers of auto insurance featured in the internet, it does not preclude the thrills of discovering something good about the present policy of my car insurance. Over and above everything I found out how accommodating they were to every question I throw on the phone. That certainly ditch of the vagueness for a good peace of mind and a happy driving!

I once received an email where the topic is about men’s passion for toys. The email said that as men grow older, they never outgrow their love for toys but their toys just gets more expensive.

And I do believe that. Take a look at some of my husband’s toy collection:

These are just some of his collection. If you check out our second room, it has dozens and dozens and dozens of action figures on display from 6” NBA action figures to 12 and 18” NFL action figures. We even have one wall in our house where I think more than 30 pieces of 6” NBA action figures are hanged (That alone can buy me a Speedy LV bag. LOL). I tell you, if one day I decide to sell all of his toys, I will be able to buy any Louis Vuitton bag that I want. (But I will not dare as it might be the end of our marriage if I do that. LOL)

I’m almost done with the party preparations for Bela’s third birthday party. I booked almost all the suppliers and I guess I will start again with the final preparations a month before the party.

But I am still not over party planning as my aunt asked for my help in organizing and preparing for the seventh birthday celebration of my cousin. (Yes, I am the official party planner in our family as they know how much I love party preparations.)

My cousin’s birthday falls on the 31st of October so we might have a Halloween theme for his party – complete with Halloween invitations, Halloween decors for the venue and Halloween themed cakes, balloon decorations and souvenirs. We might also ask the guest to come in their best Halloween costume.

I’m so excited. I am sure it will be one party full of fun and surprises.

I promise to make a separate post about our food trip in Baguio so here it goes:

Day 1:

We arrived around 12 nn in Baguio so we head to the place where we are sure that we can find a place to east. So off we went to SM Baguio.

We had lunch at Don Henrico’s (as if there is no Don hen in Manila), but we all want pizza, pasta and chicken so Don Hen is the perfect resto for us. We ordered Caribbean Green Salad, Seafood Pasta, Fettuccine, Buffalo wings and 14” pizza.
I think we ordered quite a lot as we have leftover foods until breakfast.

Come dinner time, we tried the “turo-turo” restaurants at Burnham park where I saw Jacqui and her family (saying sis, we were not able to go out on our second day. Next time). We ordered bulalo, papaitan, inihaw na bangus and inihaw na liempo.

Day 2:

We still have left over pizzas from Don hen the other day so we just have that for breakfast plus the complimentary coffee from the hotel.

My dad was craving for Don Hen’s Buffalo wings so we had lunch again at Don Hen. We only ordered Buffalo wings and rice this time and Caribbean green salad for our appetizer.

For dinner we tried eating at Café by the ruins. We had a hard time looking for it as it is not along Session Road (actually we really had a hard time navigating Baguio. They have a lot of intersections that is why we find their roads so confusing). We ordered Kinulot and Crispy Tapa though we are not happy with our food. We didn’t find anything extra ordinary specially I find it more expensive.
Day 3:

We had breakfast at Chocolate de Batirol inside Camp John Hay. It was recommended to us by my brother and we were able to taste the best chocolate drink ever.

It is another rainy evening. It makes me want to just stay in bed the whole day tomorrow and skip work. For the past weeks, it has always been raining and we rarely see the sun. I love rainy months but I would love it more if I can just stay at home the whole day, eat some chocolate porridge and just laze around while watching my favorite DVDs or TV series. But instead, I have to commute to work even though the weather is not that good.

How I miss those days when I wish I can just run to beach, enjoy lying down on the sand under my Beach Umbrella and just enjoy the water. I can’t wait for summer and I’m that excited for the coming of summer that I am already doing my research on where to go for our next summer destination. (Yes, I am that excited.)

I, my husband and even Bela really love the beach. The beach is one of our favorite place to visit if we really want to have a truly relaxing vacation. I can’t really wait for the time that I have to pack our bags and bring all our beach gear and head to the beach.

I was tagged by Jane. Thanks for this sis.

Players: All things YUMMY Mommyhood and Me My Charmed Life My Joys Shangrila Journey Sassy Finds Our Journey to Life

Play along and show us what’s inside your fridge!

Here’s ours. (pardon the picture as I only used my cellphone's camera)

* If you will notice our freezer is almost empty as we don’t stock that much meat and chicken as we only cook for lunch every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We always have our dinner at our grand mother’s house as it is the tradition of our family. My mom’s siblings all live in different houses but it has been our regular routine to gather during dinner time at my grand mother’s house. So we only buy for at least five meals every two weeks.
* Some of the items in our fridge includes Bela’s juice, Dutch Mill, Yakult, Prune Juice, milk for our cereals, fruits, mustard, mayo, Drysdale mango juice and Good Shepherd’s Ube Jam.

* Eggs, my choco pie, cereals, chocolates and sauces.

Tag along Toni, Eds and Nice.

After Howell and I got married, I tried to learn how to cook. But then I got pregnant a few weeks after and so I got lazy to do the cooking for my husband.

Our former nanny does all the cooking for us. Since our new nanny just arrived last week and I am not in the mood to give a lecture on how to cook the tuna pasta that I want, I decided to just cook it myself.

So I whipped up some ingredients and followed the recipe that my friend gave me and I was successfully able to cook my favorite tuna pasta.


But take note, this is just the sauce for the pasta. My nanny will cook the noodles tomorrow. LOL. And this is just a simple recipe. I just sautéed garlic and onion, added in the tuna (I used Century Tuna hot and spicy) and then I added the Clare Ole Italian sauce. When the sauce is already boiling, I just add in some salt and sugar to taste and half grated cheese. And that’s it, the sauce is ready.

I just got a private message from my good friend Rafter and he is now in California after his three months training in Baltimore. He just watched the US Open and next week, he will be watching Janet Jackson’s concert too. I think he is also scheduled to go to Las Vegas.

I so envy him. I wanted to go to California and Las Vegas too. Las Vegas has been one of my favorite cities since I can just be spontaneous and have non stop fun. But since I am not a gambler, I just tried playing the slot machines just to have a feel of the gambling life in Las Vegas and I got really lucky as I won $100. That is 400 pieces of quarters. My husband got really excited since he wants to collect all the quarters for all the US states so he got really busy checking all the 400 quarters to check for all the quarters that are missing in his coin collection.

Well that is just my husband. He really loves collecting all sorts of things. His current collection now is the new dollar coins from Collectibles Shopping network which I think contains the seal of all the US presidents. Who knows, someday this will become rare collections? We can really make good money from it.

A lot of my friends in my blog roll have been convincing me to create an Entrecard account for all my blogs. Last Friday, I was able to find the time to read the FAQ page on the Entrecard website and I did an account for all my blogs.

I started receiving adverts already and I have started to drop cards to my friends who have Entrecard also. I am still learning my way and thanks to Ems for always being there to answer all my Entrecard concerns.

I am really enjoying visiting all your blogs and just finished my second round of EC dropping this morning. I will see you all again tomorrow.

No weekend snapshot entry for me today. Hubby sent his camera to Canon Service Center for cleaning and maintenance last Monday. It was already ready for pick up last Saturday but we were at the Ortigas area and did not find the time to drop by Makati to pick up his camera.

So even though our weekend is filled with a lot of activities hubby was not able to capture it on camera. So hopefully next week, I will be back with my entry for the Weekend Snapshots.

I woke up around two AM last night and I saw my husband still in front of the computer. Look what he has been busy with:

He will be covering a wedding this coming September 19 where he will be the official photographer. The client is a colleague so he is also helping them out with the wedding preparations by not just being their photographer, but my husband has been helping them with other details of the wedding since his colleague knows that we personally prepared for all the aspects of our wedding when we got married last 2005.

The couple wants a unique personalized wedding favors and so they are asking for his suggestions since we had a personalized wedding favors too during our wedding. And so he decided to dig in to our wedding pictures to look for the picture of our wedding favors.

He got so inspired after looking through all our wedding pictures that he even made an entry about it in his blog.

Tagged by Eds

::Start Copy::

1. You can include in the post a picture of your favorite soap or the soap you are currently using.
2. Please post this in the blog which you will add in the “blogs that joined.” You can add unlimited number of blogs as long as this tag is posted there.
3. Please link back to the person who tagged you and pass this tag to many of your friends.
4. If you have more than one blog, please post this to all of your blogs so your other blogs can be listed to the master list too.
5. Remember to come back here at DANCING IN MIDLIFE TUNE (pls. don’t change this link) and leave the exact post url so I can add you to the master list as this is one way to help increase our rankings and improve our Technorati Authority.
6. Tag as many friends as you can.

BLOGS THAT JOINED:
Dancing in Midlife Tune - Aeirins Collections - BiznHoney - Kidd Designs - My One Desire – Eds Mommy Life- Our Journey To Life - Your Blog

~ These are some of the soaps we use ~

Soap Questions:

1. Favorite Soap: Safeguard
2. Facial Soap: Pond's
3. Body Soap: Still safeguard
4. Intimate Soap: Lactacyd
5. Laundy Soap: Tide
6. Undies Soap: Same soap we use for laundry
7. Baby Soap: Johnsons’ Top to Toe Wash although I’m thinking to switch to Cetaohil
8. Favorite Shampoo: Pantene
9. Favorite Conditoner: Pantene
10. Baby Shampoo: Nivea Silk Shine Shampoo

::End Copy::

I think most of you did this tag already so just feel free to snag it if you haven't done it.

Hello everybody. I haven’t been online this weekend as we are out for two days in a row. Here is a run down of our weekend activities:

1. We accompanied my grandmother again for her check up at American Eye after her cataract surgery a week ago.
2. Then we were able to do some shopping while since American Eye Center is located at Shangri-La mall. Howell bought Bela new toys again so the little girl was busy and happy during the weekend playing with her new toys.
3. We did a clean up of the house and Howell decided to put linoleum in all the floors. There are still some stiff that we have to sort through and decided if we should still keep it for storage or we can just give it away.
4. Then we were able to do our groceries and I was able to buy the best diet pills for my cousin who asked me to find nothing but the best diet pills for her.
5. Then we went to San Felipe Neri to hear mass where my husband’s father is the officiating priest.
6. Then we went to Robinsons Place to do shopping again.

Busy? Yah! I was really so tired after the weekend and it really made me wish that I hope weekend is still not over.

I can’t believe that we need to send our car again for major repairs. Just two weeks ago, we paid 18,000 to change the compressor. It really made us broke for that month as we really don’t have that big budget for car repairs. And so when we thought that everything is fixed already, we received the bad news again from my dad since he sent the car again for check up the other day. It turns out that the simple problem that we are experiencing right now with our car is really one major problem that needs major repairs which means we need to spend major amount again for its repair.

That’s the problem when buying a second hand car. We have to constantly send it for repair every now and then. Good thing there is midwest auto recycling where we buy used engines and transmissions which cuts a big amount in our expense.

But you know, next time we plan to get another car, it would definitely be a brand new one. Yes, brand-new car is more expensive than used cars but in the long run, we really can save more since brand new cars require less maintenance.

DAY 1: Manaoag Shrine, American Residence, Wright Park, The Mansion and Mines View Park

We just got back from our three day weekend in Baguio. We left Manila last Friday at around 5 Am as we want to reach Baguio by 12 nn. We took the new express way, the SCTEX, which is really a faster way compared to the old route so by 10 AM, we are already in La Union. Since we arrived earlier than what we expected, we decided to drop by at the Shrine of the Our Lady of Manaoag. We are using my brother’s brand new car so we took the chance to have it blessed.

After Manaoag, we hit the road again and head straight to Baguio. By 12 nn, we are already at Session Road. We went to SM Baguio and had lunch at Don Henricos (I will have a separate post about our Food Trip in Baguio). After lunch, we went to Camp John Hay and started to look for the American Residence located inside the camp as we are scheduled for a tour from 1:00 – 3:00 PM.

After the tour we checked in at the hotel and rested there for a while. Then we went to Wright Park as Bela can’t wait to ride the horses at the Wright Park riding circle. She got excited as soon as she saw the horses and while my dad was parking the car, she kept on saying “Let’s go. Ride horse.” Bela was the one who selected the pink horse and she really had fun.

After Bela’s horse back riding adventure, we went to The Mansion for some photo opps. Then we head to Mines View Park. It was already 5:30 when we reached Mines View so we just had a few shots and decided to go back to Session Road to look for a place to eat.

DAY 2: Mile HI, PMA, Burnham, Ukay-Ukay, Wright Park, Café by the Ruins

We started our day by checking the stores at the Mile Hi Center. Of course I was able to grab some good finds (I will make a separate post about my shopping adventure in Baguio).

After shopping, we went to PMA as requested by my husband. After PMA, we had lunch again at Don Henricos (they are sill craving for Don Hen’s buffalo wings). We decided to leave the car parked at SM and we walked from SM to Bagiuo Cathedral and to Burnham Park where Bela rode the Swan boat with her dad and grand dad. Then we walked again from Burnham Park and checked out the wagwagan center.

Then we went back to SM to pick up the car and went back to Wright Park as Bela wants to go horse back riding again. After this, we went back to session road to look for Café by the Ruins and had our dinner there.

All of us slept early that night. We all got really tired from our hectic second day schedule.

DAY 3: Good Shepherd & Baguio Market

Bela woke up with a slight fever so we decided to just buy souvenirs and head back to Manila. We had breakfast first at Chocolate de Batirol inside Camp John Hay then we went to Good Shepherd to buy our favorite Ube Jam. Then we had a short trip to Baguio market to buy some pasalubongs.

By 12 nn, we are on the road again on our way to Manila.

I don’t get to visit twitter these past few weeks as we are really busy in the office. I miss my twitter mates and all the stories that they share there. I get all the latest gossips, intrigues and tips about blogging from them that my day won’t be complete without a visit to the twitter site.

This morning I was able to get a chance to log in to twitter and read some of the updates from my twitter mates. It got my adrenalin going as their topic when I logged in was one of my favorite things in the whole world. Of course, what else but shopping.

They shared a lot of sites of multiply sellers where they usually order stuffs from diapers, to accessories, to shoes, to clothes, to unique baby gifts or just anything you can think of. I have bookmarked each one of them and I can’t wait to finally have the time and the budget to just sit down and do online shopping.

Oh well, hopefully I can save this month so I can get my hands on the computer and order a lot of things for me, hubby and Bela.

I was checking my archives for this blog when I suddenly realized that I have been blogging since 2004. That means it is almost four years since I discovered the wonderful world of blogging.

My blog has kept my friends and relatives updated with what’s going on with my life. When I started my first blog, it is about our wedding preparations up to the day when I said I do to my husband. Then I gave birth to my beautiful daughter and I started another blog dedicated for her. I enjoyed blogging so much that I started a third blog which is all about me – my passion, my hobbies, my shopping addictions, my favorite TV series and the like.

Ever since, I have used the free web hosting service of blogspot. I am one happy client and I can say I already learned my ways with blogspot. But I have been reading some web hosting tutorials and I learned the many benefits of getting a web host for my blog.

So should I take the next step and move my free blogspot to a web host? So what are the benefits of having your domain hosted? I read a lot about web hosting awards for different web host providers and all of them offer the same benefits. One is I will get my own domain name instead of using a blogspot address. Then I will also get e-mailboxes that matched my domain name. Then I can easily publish my web content by using the tools provided by the web host provider. And since web host provider uses state of the art data canters, I will be sure that my data such as the photos and videos and my web content are safe since they have a backup and restore system in place.

But of course, getting all of these benefits has a price tag so I still have to weigh if the price that I have to pay to get my blog hosted will really outweigh the benefits that I will get. But if ever I made a decision to get a web host, I will definitely check out web hosting rating so I will be able to assess the best web host providers for my blogs based on my needs.

Since we arrived early in Tarlac than what we expect, we decided to drop by at the Our Lady of Manaoag Shrine. It is my and my dad’s second time here and the first time for hubby, my sister and Bela.

“Our Lady of Manaoag (formally: Nuestra Señora del Santissimo Rosario de Manaoag, literal translation: Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Manaoag) is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, associated with a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, said to be from the 16th century. She is the patroness of the sick, the helpless and the needy. This holy image is very popular among Roman Catholics in the Northern Philippines, and has been much popularized among the inhabitants of the Pangasinan provincial Area. The province of Pangasinan is one of the Philippines' most widely visited Roman Catholic Pilgrimage sites. Many people from across the Philippine archipelago come and visit the town of Manaoag, where the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary is enshrined in a church dedicated to this name.”

Source: Wikipedia.org