Corregidor that is.

Photos snagged from corregidorphilippines.com and corregidorisland.com. I promise to post our pictures soon

Our company went there last Thursday for our Team Building Exercise. This is my firs time in Corregidor. I know this is a very historic place and is really very popular to tourists and even locals but I never really had interest to go there. One reason is that I know that the main feature of the place is the Japanese Tunnel and the Malinta Tunnel and I am really not the kind of person who enjoys exploring caves and tunnels. Second, I don’t like hiking and trekking too and one of the highlights of the tour is you can go hiking to explore the island.

But after our team building exercise, I can say that I did have fun. Our Tour Guide prepared adventure activities for us. We have to find the map inside abandoned buildings and then using the map, we have to go to our next location and do some adventure challenges to get our next clue. We hike, trek, went inside Japanese Tunnel to get our final clue. I was catching my breath in between these activities and we are all perspiring a lot. I even had a hard time climbing up the Japanese Tunnel as the wall is almost 90 degrees. But I realized it was really fun. We are always last for all the challenges but we won the last game so our team was the overall winner.

After eating lunch, they took us inside the Malinta Tunnel. I was really reluctant to join the tour at first but the tour guide said that I have to go since this is the highlight of the tout so I tried it also. It was scary and is something that I will not try again (hehehe), but at least I was able to get a glimpse of the life during World War II.

I was not able to find the time to download our pictures yesterday but I promise to post some here. (Yeah, so at least I will have some proof that I did went inside the Japanese Tunnel and Malinta Tunnel. LOL.)

When we were preparing for our own wedding, our first choice for our church and wedding venue is Tagaytay. Imagine getting married with the scenic Taal Volcano in the background. That is really romantic. But then we decided not to have our wedding there because we know it is difficult and more expensive to plan for an out of town wedding. The logistics will be more difficult plus we have to think of our relatives also who might not be able to attend because of the long travel time from Manila to Tagaytay.

So when my brother spilled to me the great news that they are getting married in 2010 and they have chosen Tagaytay as their wedding venue, I got really excited. (At least, even if it is not my own wedding, I will have a chance to plan for a Tagaytay wedding.) They booked Caleruega church for their church ceremony and Sonya’s Garden as their wedding reception.

We went to Tagaytay a couple of weeks ago and we learned that there will be a bridal fair there. I told them to attend the bridal fair so at least they will get to meet with Local Wedding Vendors in Tagaytay so they don’t have to get suppliers from Manila hence, they will be able to save out of town fees.

I am really so excited for my brother’s wedding. They plan to bring the whole family the day before the wedding so we can even have a pre-wedding party. For sure this will really be one fun and romantic union.

He changed his mind again. Two days ago, Howell was really decided to get a car loan so we can buy our second car. But just yesterday, he said that he wants to priorities the renovation of our house in Bulacan. He wanted to move there ASAP and leave the polluted city life.

Then he started talking about the design that he would want for our house. He even promised me that he will build me a big closest (Just like the closet that Mr. Big built for Carrie where I can put all my bags. But I warned him that if he will do that, he has to give me money so I can purchase more bags to fill the closet that he will build for me since I don’t have that enough bags to fill it with.

But aside from the big closet that hubby promised to build for me, I am also excited at the prospect of having a swimming in our backyard. Our lot in Bulacan is quite big that we can have a garden, a backyard, a garage and even a space for a swimming pool (complete with patio furniture).

Ever since I was a child, I have dreamed of having a house with a swimming pool. We will enjoy a dip at the pool or enjoy a cool drink under our patio umbrellas. That is the beauty of acquiring a property in the suburbs. The price for a piece of land is so cheap.

Now our only problem is to find the budget to renovate our dream house in Bulacan. I am not even sure if we can even afford wicker furniture now, much more the construction of a swimming pool. But like what my hubby said, one step at a time. Maybe when we are finish with our housing loan, we can acquire a loan again for the construction of our dream house. (And then the next challenge for hubby is to convince me to leave my life here in the city, which by the way is the life that I lived since I was born, and move to the quite life in the suburbs.)

I am still busy at work and that is the reason why I still haven’t find the time to visit all your blogs. Yup, I am not lazy this time. Things are just really toxic for me at work. I miss all your chikas so hopefully I can get back to my blogging groove soon. And since I am not sure if I will find the time today to blog hop, I will just great all of you here:

Happy Heart’s Day everyone! So where will you celebrate your Valentine’s Day

And today is also the birthday of my dear cousin, Tessa!

Happy, Happy birthday ‘cuz. Wishing you happiness that you truly deserve and hope you will find the man of your dreams soon!! LOL. (Bela has to be your flower girl you know, so I am pressuring you to find your Mr. Right).

Enjoy your day!! We love you very much!! ~ Howell, Abie & Bela

Have you heard the latest news about a plane crash in Buffalo, New York? My husband mentioned it when he arrived from work yesterday as it was the topic of conversation in his office before he left. It is a small passenger plane that crashed in a home near Buffalo New York. It is now confirmed that the death count has reached to 50 but they haven’t released the list of victims. This is indeed very sad news and my husband was also alarmed because he knows that his friend and former colleague lives in Buffalo, New York but he confirmed yesterday that the site of the plane crash is far from where his friend leaves.

But even though there are sad news like this about New York, it will still be one of my favorite cities in the United States. My husband’s cousins lives in Brooklyn, New York and we were fortunate to be able to visit them there a couple of years ago. They took us to all the tourist destinations in New York like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building and the famous Statue of Liberty.

My husband’s cousin is a lawyer and has his own law firm in New York. He and his wife have seen how much we enjoyed our stay in New York that they are convincing us to move there. They said that we can easily find an IT job in Manhattan as there are a lot of companies offering manhattan it services. Information Technology is really a necessity in today’s business and with the help of an IT consulting firm, any company can get help in finding the right IT solution for their business.

But I guess we love Manila and as of the moment hubby and I have no plans of leaving our work here and migrating to another country.

It is so seething for the eyes to see how well organized and arranged everything inside the house. Standing at the forefront of this respective genre is the pop up tv cabinet that is superiorly manufactured from premium quality materials and designed specifically to compliments and accommodate the shapes and styles of our tv set as well as our audio/video components with a distinct touch of fashion. Combining the strength and charm of classic furniture with a versatility of a completely modular setup made of sturdy materials that looks great on its own and can hold variety of weights, the tv lift cabinet is an impeccable piece of furniture that fits well into our house.

The tv lift cabinet that blends well for a coordinated space with a custom designed look and with smooth contour of deeper and wider shelves that gives plenty of space room to properly ventilate our component is a total explosion of creativity that improved the quality of the atmosphere and adds for the expression in our art of living.

In honor of Valentine's Day:

answer the following....
1. If you could have any Valentine you wanted, who would it be? I would like to answer Hugh Jackman or Brad Pitt, but of course I would not want any other Valentine than my hubby, Howell. LOL.
2. What is your idea of a romantic date? Candle light dinner aboard a cruise ship.
3. Do you prefer chocolates or flowers on Valentine's Day? I love chocolates so I will say chocolates. And besides price of flowers on Valentine’s Day is so impossible that I would rather ask hubby to spend it on something that I can use instead of a flower that will just wither in just a couple of days.
4. What is your favorite romantic movie? romantic book? Romantic movie, I would say For the Love of the Game and the Notebook. For Romantic book, PS I love you.
5. Do you like those 'conversation hearts' or do you think they taste gross? I have no idea what are those. LOL.
6. Who is your Valentine this year? My loving husband, Howell.

Through the years I was jazzed and dazzled by the amazing watershed result incremented in me by the diet drug in combating my battle over the valley of what is popularly known as excess weight gain phenomenon. Time and again, one too many times I always feel delighted to give my piece of pabulum to friends and other women out there who wished to regain their standard body figure through the help of diet pill that delivered a high level of consistency in tackling down and burning my fats away quicker than I expected.

As I remembered, when I included the pill to my healthy diet regimen, it has proven that it healthy ingredients trumpets the fact of its startling capability to slake off and melts away my accumulated and stubborn fats and likewise prevents additional storage of fats that were forming anew in just a matter of days. Declared to be clinically safe and with no known reported side effects, I never felt any sign of weakness or any other mild symptom of drug interaction as the diet drug continued to accomplished more of its power to perform its amazing quick responsiveness to burn and burned away my excess and stubborn fats fast and faster as the days went by until I gradually reached my body equilibrium that looks fresh, healthy and of course alluring and beautiful, that revived my senses and warmed my heart forever.

Nothing is much stellar than the wonders of this slimming pill, it definitely is hard to beat. It’s a small price to pay for such a wonderful treasure. That is why until now my harmonious and eclectic relationship with it is forged forever. It’s a big yes to an amazing result.

Where will you celebrate your Valentine’s Day? Well as for me and hubby, we might not celebrate it on the 14th as it is my cousins’ birthday so we have to be home to celebrate with her as that what we always do.

But hubby and I are really not that big fan of Valentine’s Day. We just always have a simple celebration like a simple dinner or a movie date. For this Valentine’s Day we might just try a new restaurant. This reminds me that I should start looking for a nice but not expensive restaurant where we can celebrate.

I was checking the net and I found the site of Westword. It is the best source of information for Denver Restaurants. Their site is so easy to navigate as it is categorized so readers can easily get reviews about a particular restaurant that they are eyeing to make their choice easy.

Hope I can find a site similar to Westword so I can easily decide where we will celebrate our Valentine’s Day.

Yup, 500 words. That is the requirement for the essay that I have to compose as part of the requirement for the new adventure that hubby and I is cooking. I was so lazy to do it at first (imagine 500 words and I am not even getting a single centavo for it). But then when I started typing, in just no time I am finish with my 500-words essay.

Even hubby got surprised as he needs to do one too and he is surprised at how fast I was able to finish it. Well, thanks to my blogging hobby, I got used to constructing essays no matter how many words are required. So blogging is really a good training. If you want to pursue a career in writing, better start your own blog. It will be a good practice for you to keep your creative juices moving. Although my vocabulary still needs a lot of improvement. But I am happy as I was able to meet the deadline and finish my 500 words essay in time.

Since I suddenly became so interested with the new adventure that hubby and I is planning, we will be really busy this weekend to prepare for all the things that we need for this new adventure. I learned yesterday that we have to submit all the requirements this week to make it to their deadline; otherwise we have to wait for a year to try again.

So far, we have completed most of the requirements except for the medical certificate and our ID pictures. Can you imagine we were able to accomplish most of it all in one day (talk about cramming). And then tomorrow we will go to our family doctor to get the medical certificate and then we will rush to LBC to mail the requirements to meet the deadline. (If everything turns out as planned, I think we have to postpone our plan to look for small business opportunities as we have to concentrate on this thing that we will commit to which I think will eat a lot of our time).

Hopefully we will finish all of this before lunch as it is Bela’s first day of class at Halili Ballet School. We miss her trial class last week as she got really sick while we are on our way there. Then we have to attend a party after Bela’s class.

The next day, we will be out the whole day too as we are off to Tagayaty for Bela’s Family Day at Tagaytay Highlands.

Whoooh, I think this will really be one tiring and exciting weekend.

1. Please don't tell anyone that I can’t sing. (Although I think most of my close friends and relatives knew that already. LOL)

2. Can you wake me up in the morning?

3. The color red makes me want to eat strawberries!

4. I have a craving for Café Monaco’s Bibimbop.

5. If my life had a pause button, I'd pause it today as today has been a really crazy and busy day.

6. Eyes are the window to one’s soul.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to turning off my PC and finally being able to have a good night sleep, tomorrow my plans include going to the doctor and take Bela to her ballet class and accomplish all the requirements that we need for hubby and my project and Sunday, I want to just stay at home and rest but I can’t since we will be off to Tagaytay for Bela’s Family Day activity at school!

I am up for something new. No, it is not a new Louis Vuitton bag nor it is not another travel adventure. It is something that I started doing before I got married but then I got pregnant and had Bela and I suddenly discovered a lot of reasons to procrastinate and not to proceed with what I have started.

Actually this is hubby’s idea and he is the one who convinced me to go with it. I initially dislike the idea and I didn’t even pay attention to it but hubby was very good in convincing me and so I gave in. And since he is also up for it, we can do this thing together which will make it easier and exciting for me. At least we have another thing to do together. And honestly, I am quite excited for it. It has been years since I last did this thing and for some reasons, I think I am looking forward for it.

I don’t want to divulge the details for now as nothing is still certain yet and it is still under process and we still have to wait for the results. I will give more information about our new adventure when it is already final and when I have more information about it.

For the meantime, I will browse the net first to look for coilovers for my brother’s car.

My dad loves to smoke Cigars. He has no other vice – he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go out, he doesn’t gamble. But cigar is one thing that you can’t get out of his system.

He is a retired overseas worker and now he enjoys his retirement with the company of his wife and his grand daughter. Since my husband and I are both working, we can’t take our daughter to school and my father volunteered to take our daughter to school everyday. So that is what he do during the weekdays, he will take my daughter to school and he will wait for my daughter for two hours doing nothing but smoke his cigar. That is how much he treasures his Cigar – he treats it as his companion that no matter where he goes, he always brings it with him to keep him company.

My dad is a very lovely man. I can’t ask for any other father than him and next month, he will be celebrating his birthday. And so for his special day, I am thinking of getting him the finest cigars in the market.

Of course I am no expert when it comes to cigars so I asked the help of my friend who is a cigar expert and he gave me the site of Cigars Direct where I can order online the finest and premium cigars that I am sure my dad will really love. They have hundreds of cigars on their site and I would really love my dad to have a try of all of the finest cigars that they can offer. So you know what I will do? I will get the Cigar of the Month club for my dad where they will deliver 5 different types of the best cigars on my dad’s doorsteps every month. They will carefully hand select the best cigars to deliver for my dad every month so my dad can get to taste a different variety of cigars. Isn’t it great?

I am sure my dad will just love the gift that we will give for his coming birthday. I am so excited already as I can already imagine the smile on my dad’s face upon receiving his gifts.