Get-togethers and getaways

I left off at July the last time I blogged in retrospect. I think I owe it to my blog to update it once in a while, so here’s looking back to August, September and October in photo collages. I’m starting to love this once-in-a-couple-of-months bulk blogging, though. Haha.

August: dear youngest sister’s 18th birthday dinner at Sunburst

September: after-exam dinner with classmates at Iliganon (photos from Joyce)

September: Dee and Greggy’s wedding at St. Ignatius de Loyola Chapel, Patag and reception N Hotel (photos from Coi and Dee)

October: tapok with stat classmates (photos from Diane)

Halo-halo get-togethers: Coffee at Aruma with Sam, Fiah and Dee | Sundaes at Ice Castle with Fiah | Sun-date at Thai Me Up | Bo’s Coffee with B and A | Pizzarella with B and A | Aruma with Ate Karl and Ate Sweeky | Late lunch at Vienna Kaffeehaus with B, M and A

As for November, it was off to a fun start with a weekend getaway with the barkada to Jasaan.

Day 1 – Monte Richi Beach Resort (photos from Bee, Ma and Tats)

Day 2 – Agutayan Island (photos from Bee, Ma and Tats)

Here’s to hoping the rest of November will be just as fun. 🙂

 

In Retrospect

More than an attempt at updating my blog, I think I need this to remind me of happy days before the midterm stress monster gobbles me up.

February

Constitutional Week

As usual, I was at the helm of prettifying our tent and that included waking up real early, showing up at the Children’s Park first and even helping putting up the tent. I didn’t play ‘varsity’ (haha) mixed volleyball like last year although this year’s tug of war was much more fun. We won over the sophies, the juniors and the super seniors but lost out to the freshies. Haha.

4th years

Tug of War!

Happily showing off our class shirt.

March

Purplehood

After Consti Week comes Purplehood. As 4th years, we had to organize the event especially held for the ‘super seniors’ or the 5th years. As if heading the ‘tent committee’ wasn’t enough, I was again placed in control to head the steering committee. What followed was a month of stressful, crazy, busy planning but well worth all the effort in the end.

Masquerade Ball

The Grand Ballroom (from our Asst. Dean’s Instagram)

With some of my amazing group mates.

With closest friends, N and F.

April

Another Meson Bonding

Another Meson wedding (the batch’s baby, Licka) which means another happy get-together with high school classmates.

Pre-wedding get-together at CommCen

Meson Girls

Meson with Newlyweds Licka and Jasser

May

Tatay’s Birthday

We got to celebrate Tatay’s birthday, albeit, belated in Missy’s pretty little house (not on the Prairie, haha) at Portico in Gran Europa, CDO.

Bee and Ashy made it there too. 🙂

Fam.♥

Everyone

June

Hello, Shoti

Atsi na si Shobe!

July

Davao Wedding Weekend

The fam (minus Potch) went on a road trip to Davao for my cousin’s wedding — the first in Tatay’s side of the family. Plus got to hang out with Bee and Bong at Damosa, which was just across our hotel, and we got a tour of the Freedom Park and some chika and laughter over some beers at MTS.

Bong’s coffee treat at Cafe Firenzo

Bridesmaid

Dramatic shot from the 12th floor of The Marco Polo. Haha.

Cousins. With the Best Man and Groom at Sta. Ana Church.

Back at the hotel after the wedding

Happy Birthday!

Celebrated my 29th birthday just the way I like it – dinner with the fam at my favorite restaurant in Iligan, good ol’ Sunburst. OMG, 29!

Thank you Lord for another year.

Oh, and another thing about July, I started running and discovered Rock My Run.

Image from Rock My Run

They have killer running mixes which keep me going during my run days, three times a week. Fast forward to August, I rocked my first 5K run!

6th place for female open category. Yay!

Day Fourteen #febphotoaday

♥

My Valentine’s Day dates.  And that’s a heart-shaped balloon although it doesn’t really look like one.

Long weekend — Sugba Festival

August 29 — Family friends started arriving for the MSU 50th Foundation Day celebration on September 1.  That evening we convoyed with family friends to MSU Naawan for a night of grilled seafood yummies with their sugba festival.

While waiting for the fam friends to arrive… outfit shot!

With dear sister.

Goodbye Summer!

Last day of May. And here I am trying to finish this post before the day finally ends. Since my last post, life has picked up speed, gotten busy and caused me to lose that bloggin’ feeling (woaah that bloggin’ feeling) Go ahead, sing along!

Although the busy part has been the good kind of busy — being with the family and vacationing relatives and enjoying some quality bonding time. Dear sister  no. 1 arrived home from Bacolod for dear tatay’s birthday, which was two days prior to dear aunt’s (dear mother’s younger sis, who we fondly call Mummy) birthday. That’s two special occasions for us every May but what’s even more special this year is that it was Mummy’s big 50th birthday so dear mother’s other sisters from Cotabato City and Oroquieta City came, brought our cousins and what came next was a crazy fun reunion of sorts.

Dear Tatay's birthday

Calda Pizza night out

Dear Mummy's birthday

And if there’s a good kind of busy, there’s also a not-so-good kind of busy: the opening of another stressful new school year with new class sections to boot. I still prefer our old section names, Cicero and Plato, to these new ones taken from Chief Justices (the other section’s Teehankee). But new section names are the least of our worries. These subjects, on the other hand, are our greatest worries (and stress and fears, haha)

STRESS!

So that ends my summer blogging fling. But no, not the end of Chuck and Dee… yet.

Family Affair

It’s all about Summer Time in Girls Talk this May. And first up in this month’s blogging series is about the most memorable summer.

I have two summers in mind. One was spent with my sisters and close family friends’ kids in Manila back in 2003, our first summer together away and without our parents. We stayed with another close family friend who took all of us on a fun road trip from Tagaytay to Enchanted Kingdom to Baguio to Vigan (my favorite!) and Ilocos Norte where we got to enjoy their private beach at Ambucao and stayed at their ancestral home in Sta. Maria. Unfortunately, I’ve no pictures to show for it because we didn’t have our own digicams back then. That fun summer trip would have made for some great picture taking.

The second one, I’ve already written a bit about before — my 2008 Boracay summer with the family and relatives. My sister who was  working in Iloilo that time has been planning for us to enjoy summer in Boracay and as if the universe conspired, one of our relatives in Iloilo, TitaM is based in Boracay with her husband, TitoJ who co-owns and manages a beach house in Boracay, smack right in Station 1. When dear Nanay told her sisters about our summer trip, my aunts and cousins were more than happy to come along.

So it turned out to be a fun bigger family summer getaway and together we enjoyed beautifully decorated accommodations, a wonderful Boracay sunset, a serene early morning walk, the white sand beach, fun night outs, spotting a few celebs, marveling at the scenery and most importantly, special family bonding moments.

What’s Cooking: Cream Puffs

This Sunday is twice as special because it’s cooking day and it’s Mother’s Day! Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms/mothers/mamas!

Here’s something easy and fun I whipped up for our afternoon snacks that you can do for your moms too — Cream Puffs!

On Easter Break

Photo credit

No cooking today.

I have all the ingredients for something sweet I’m excited to make. But we just got back from grocery shopping and the family has a special double birthday dinner party to celebrate with family friends later, so I’m out of time for my sweet treat.

Hopefully, I can do some baking *clue* within the week. *fingers crossed*

Weekly Photo Challenge: Old

Hello, Week 7! The DailyPost‘s weekly photo challenge inspiration is Old. I browsed through Chuck’s drives and here’s the oldest photo I found:

An old childhood photo with my sister and our childhood family friends. I was amused when I found this photo in our family friend’s photo album during one of our family’s visits to their home. The little kids in the photo are all grown up now. Some are married and have their own little kids, some are happily single, some are pursuing their careers. But the wonderful thing is that after all these years, we’ve all grown up and remained very good friends – almost like family even.

Can you spot me in the photo?

Save it for later

My not-so-little sister graduated from high school this afternoon. No wait, it’s past midnight as I write this so I guess I could say my not-so-little-sister graduated yesterday.

Ah, how time flies!

That same thought occurred to me when I rifled through my closet for something to wear and found this purple dress hanging there for over a year, unworn. I bought it for a wedding in Manila last year with a purple motif and to cut a long story short, I purposely left it here and bought something else there. So I never had a chance to wear it and no occasion has also arisen to give me reason to wear it. Well, I guess it was waiting and saving itself for my sister’s graduation day to make its debut. Haha.

 

Photos taken using Canon PowerShot A495 on Self-timer | Polaroized by Polaroin.com | Photo collage effect by Photovisi.com

I wore it with my new nude pumps which were surprisingly comfortable for their height. These heels were made for walking and standing! I’d have to say, the “tape trick” really worked. I learned that taping together your third and fourth little toes make wearing high heels a lot more comfortable because apparently it helps ease the pressure at the balls of your feet.  Neat, huh? And because of that, over 6 hours flew by with me in high heels and not secretly wincing from pain.