hongkong hangover

i can't believe it's december already! in a matter of days, another year would have passed and we'll be welcoming a new year once more.

our family did end november with a bang! we decided to spend the last 4 days of november in hongkong. we went there with my sil's family. there was a lot of walking in those 4 days but it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed every minute of it.

main stop for the trip was disneyland. it really is one of the happiest places on earth. it doesn't matter what your age is, you just feel like a kid all over again in that place. timing was a bit tight for us so we were not able to take any of the rides. but we did see the show attractions - the golden mickeys, the lion king and stitch encounter. we also saw the "it's a small world." met a few characters along the way, watched the disney parade and capped off the night with the fireworks display.

i can't fully describe the elation i feel when i am inside disneyland. it's like reality is suspended and everything is magical. sadly, the day had to end and it was back again to reality.

we also took the ngong ping 360. it was a cable ride that took us to the ngong ping village where the tian tan buddha statue is situated. we took the cable ride to reach the village, then walked past the village to the foot of the buddha. then it was 268 steps up to reach the buddha. my legs were aching as we were going up but the experience was incredible.

the cable car ride was a bit scary at first being up there and hanging mid-air, but after a while, you get to enjoy the view and savor the expanse of the horizon as the cable traverses towards the mountain. it is one of those things that you are glad to have experienced at least once in your lifetime.

it was a tiring, fun and enjoyable vacation. unfortunately, time was short that we were not able to visit the other attractions like the peak. will definitely put that on top of our list when we get the chance to visit hongkong once more.

here are some other photos during our trip. i'll have to post more of these over at my facebook account soon.

back from vacation

it's good to be back to blogging again! hubby and i were out on vacation for a full week and we definitely had a blast. it's been almost 2 years since we last went on a vacation. as i've shared in some of my posts, we had to prioritize our house construction. unfortunately, any vacation trips had to take a back seat.

thankfully, my in-laws celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and we were requested to attend the celebration in their hometown, dipolog city. it's in zamboanga del norte, to give you an idea. we made a side trip to cebu and stayed there overnight before actually proceeding to dipolog.

the trip was a lot of fun. and while in dipolog, we went to dapitan city (that's where our national hero, dr. jose rizal was exiled for 4 years) and in dakak. yup! we stayed overnight at the dakak beach resort and enjoyed the beautiful beach with its fine white sand.

there's still a lot of stories and photos to share. but that will have to wait for a different post. it's going to be a series of posts if i don't want to bore you. lol!

leaving you with a photo taken at dakak by nelo and a shot i took at dapitan. will be posting some scrappy stuff tomorrow.

scrappy holiday

we were off from work early for the christmas holidays. there was no work already from december 23 until january 4. just actually returned to work last monday. that was almost 2 weeks off.

of course it was a busy season with some last minute shopping and preparations for christmas and new year. not that i shopped a lot nor did i devote a ton of time for the preparations. lol! still it was fun being away from work for a bit more time and there was no need to wake up very early in the morning.

what added to the excitement of the long holidays was more time to scrap for me! woohoo! it was a very productive 2-week vacation. i was able to do 8 layouts and 1 little project. that's a mean feat considering that i tend to take 3 days at a time to finish one layout.

i do hope i'm able to continue churning out more layouts. i still have tons of scrappy backlog and i don't even know if i'll be able to catch up with any of them soon. lol!

i'm sharing here 2 of the layouts i finished. these were made from the christmas magic kit at a walk down memory lane.

family christmas

journal: family is the best gift for christmas

materials used: awdml december kit

additional materials: chipboard die-cut - autumn leaves; stamp - prima; ink - versamagic; alpha sticker - making memories; felt embellies & rub-ons - american crafts; chipboard flower - heidi swapp; embossing powder - ranger










winter wonderland

journal: this was the closest i ever got to experience winter - a christmas wonderland set-up at the lobby of holiday inn in clark, pampanga. (december 13, 2008)

materials used: awdml december kit

additional materials: alpha - american crafts; embossing powder - ranger; glitter glue; pen - staedtler triplus

uniquely singapore

we were at singapore last june as a post-anniversary celebration.

the first 2 days were spent in malaysia and then the remaining 3 in singapore.

it was a tiring yet fun vacation. we were like backpackers in these countries just trying to explore the most we can. there were a lot of adventures and misadventures along the way but it was all worth it.

i'll probably have to create a separate entry on our adventures here. i'm sure it will be a long entry! for now, let me share with you some of the photos we took from this trip:

we're back

from a 5-day vacation in malaysia & singapore.

it's been a while since i've last posted an entry. the trip was tiring yet we had so much fun. i'll just blog about the details in the next few days.

for now, i just want to share some photos from our trip to melaka, malaysia. here are also some images that i was able to shoot.

family pictorial

we had so much fun in our family pictorial yesterday! great shots were taken courtesy of our friend jeff lopez!

the photo session was originally meant for my other sil, myla. but when we found out last february that charo and family will be going home for cecille's wedding, myla wanted a family pictorial instead.

so i arranged everything with jeff and asked him if it's feasible. thankfully he was very open to the idea and we've set the pictorial date for yesterday, april 9. good thing it was a holiday and nothing to worry about unavaialble schedules.

we met up near the ccp complex and initially started the shoot there. but since there were a lot of people and not much colors around to "play" with, we moved to a different location.

great decision from jeff! and here is the result (at least some of the shots) of that fun pictorial...

if you're interested in seeing the other works (and services) of jeff (and pia), check out their blog www.shootandscrap.blogspot.com

almost forgotten

i think that's how my blog has probably been feeling in the past 2 weeks.

nothing much to write about. fairly a quiet month for me.

oh, i forgot to note that we will be going to singapore on june! a promo was once again offered by cebu pacific earlier this month. the fare was cheap considering that we only paid for almost 10K for the 2 of us already. now it's time to start planning as to which areas we'll visit as well as finding a "cheap" hotel.

what else...

i think that's the only significant thing that has happened by far.

i still scrapbook in the evening after work. i'm able to relax more while i scrapbook so that's okay. but i did realize that i am so way behind in some of my scrapbook projects. there are a lot of things that i still have to do and i haven't even started on them yet.

i guess i'll take the lead from ria's blog and write the projects that i have been able to finish. i'll also add up on the projects that i still have to start on. let's see if that motivates me to finish those projects and move them up from the list.

we'll be having an eb this saturday at cca. sahrie was kind enough to host our eb for the month. that will be a whole day of scrapping time for me. hope i'm able to finish a few layouts.

that's it for now. see yah when i see yah!

texas journal ends

the texas adventure ends today!

we are now back here in manila and it was such a fulfilling month. it was the vacation that we have longed for in years and we were finally able to achieve it. i did miss my family and i was happy to see them again.

i just couldn't thank my sister-in-law & her family enough for this opportunity she gave us.

it will now be back to reality for nelo and me as we go back to work on monday. but it's okay. the trip was well worth it. the expereince is overwhleming and the memories are overflowing.

by the way, we ended up bringing home 4 boxes full of stuff back to manila! it's a little bit embarrassing but i have to admit that majority of those stuff were mostly on scrapbooks. nelo had a headache and an upset stomach thursday night while we were packing. it was a nightmare! still, we were able to bring home everything. we just had to pay though for the excess baggage.

i've learned my lesson in packing and i don't think i'll ever repeat the same feat again. hahaha!

so now, i'm still up and about. my bodyclock will have to adjust again and i do hope i'll have enough strength to be able to report to work on monday.

for now, there are lot of stuff to unpack and i still have to fix a lot of things. till my next post!

texas journal # 7

we're going home on friday and the tedious job of packing has began.

we are only allowed a maximum of 50lbs for each baggage with a maximum of 2 per person. i've accummulated so much stuff from previous orders that i am now in a big mess trying to fit everything!

add to that the fact that i ordered 2 choco fountains, 1 for me and 1 for clariz. 1 choco fountain already occupies 3/4 of the box! how the heck can i fit in my other stuff in that little space?!

we are now in a dilemma with this packing problem! my head hurts already and we're too tired racking our brains on this!

we'll see later today how else we can finish this!

texas journal # 6 continued

on saturday and sunday, oct. 21 to 22, we toured disneyland.

on saturday, we stayed the whole day at the magic kingdom. we waited for the parade at 3pm, then the spectromagic parade at 8pm and then the finale with the fireworks display at 9pm.

it was such a spectacular sight to see all these shows happening. i couldn't believe that i was really at disneyland at that time. i was like a kid again walking around the park.

on sunday, we were at the magic kingdom in the morning. then we transferred to disney-mgm by 4pm and then proceeded to the epcot center by 7pm for the lights show. wow, 3 parks in 1 day! still, it was all worth the tired and aching feet.

here are some of our photos.

texas journal # 6

we just got back yesterday (2am) from our trip to florida. it was a long trip and we had to adjust again.

we left corpus christi last week, october 17, for the road trip to florida. the trip was approximately 19 hours so we really had to start early. on our first day, we reached past the border of louisiana and stayed for the night at jennings. on the second day, we were able to cross past louisiana and mississippi and then entered florida. we stayed the night at crestview. the following day, which was already thursday (oct. 19), we proceeded already to universal resorts at kissimmee, florida. we stayed in that place until monday, oct. 22.

the time in florida was 1 hour ahead than that of corpus christi's so we also had to adjust our watch by the time we arrived.

october 20, we spent the whole day at universal studios. it was so much seeing this theme park. we rode in the various 3D rides like jimmy neutron, shrek (this was 4D and this one was a blast!), terminator and back to the future.

since we had christabel along as well, we also watched the barney show. we even saw dora walking around the park!

it was really so much fun! here are some of our photos:













more later on our visit to disney at magic kingdom....

texas journal # 5

we've been here for more than a week already, 10 days to be exact. it's been a fun vacation so far and it is sometimes hardr to even update this blog. either am so tired after going out or i check out other stuff on the net.

anyway, what have we been up to here:

who can ever forget shopping while you're here!

last week, nelo & i have gone through some of the stores along padre island already. kung di ka ba naman talaga addict sa pag-shop, last week, almost 1 mile (2.5 km) ang nilakad namin hopping from one shop to the other. and since di namin alam ang route ng bus, talagang nilakad lang namin! grabe! sa kainitan ng araw eh lakad lang kami ng lakad. but since we were going inside each store, we never really noticed the distance until after we stopped and realized how far we've gone already.

ang saya dito, ang daming sapatos na fit sa akin! sa 'pinas, either sa confetti or sa sm lang ako makakabili ng shoes coz of my feet size. nakabili ulit akong ng isang sandal and a pair of rubber shoes. i'm sure pag may nakita pa ulit ako, may mabibili na naman ako.

well, the usual pa rin, i also bought pa rin more scrap stuff. there was a sale at h.e.b and most of the papers were on sale! who can refuse that huh?!

baka makalimutan ko lang, but these are the stores we've been through: joann, krispy kreme, barnes & noble, old navy, bed bath & beyond; there was also payless shoe store, sunrise mall (ang liit ng mall na ito! mas masaya pa rin ang mall sa 'pinas), jc penney, bath & body works and macy's.

i saw a victoria secret store and remembered an officemate asking me to buy something from there. but i forgot what it was so i'll just probably wait for their email.

just this thursday, we went to san antonio, texas. it was a trip with the whole family and a 3-hour trip and we left the house around 9:00am. we arrived there past 12nn already.

our first stop was the natural taverns cave. wow! ang ganda ng cave na yun! the guided tour was almost an hour. we went inside this cave and it was awesome! you can see the stalactites and stalagmite formations. the cave was huge and it was breathtaking! yun lang kapagod inside coz for the whole trek, you have to go up and down a slippery pathway. but it was worth it seeing the wondrous formations there.










after the caves, we proceeded to the tower of americas at the downtown area. it was this tall building which had restaurants and shops below. when you go up at the top, you can see the entire san antonio area! ang ganda tingnan ng area from above. if you're afraid of heights, matatakot ka while you're there.

but before we went up, there was a 4D show titles the sites above texas. ang galing! it was "interactive." they give you the 3D glasses that you wear while watching the show. there was this scene there na para kang tutukain ng rattle snake and you really felt as if nasa harap mo na siya. may isa naman dun na parang nag-spit sa iyo yung bull, may water ka talaga ma-feel na mag-splatter sa face mo! hahaha! feeling yucky! super enjoy dun!

we then went to the downtown area at the alamo. but when we got there, the place was already closed so we just took pictures in front of the structure. well, it was actually better there in a way coz when nelo & i came back the following day, no pictures were allowed inside the fort.

tapos, we went to the riverwalk. it was actually a riverwalk area surrounding yung place na yun. there were shops & restaurants there. tapos, you can take a boat that rides around the entire riverwalk area. it was romantic at night!

pero di na kami sumakay kasi pagod na din sila mama & papa. since nelo & i were staying for the night in san antonio, we decided to leave na. we just had dinner at this italian restaurant and then they dropped us off na sa inn where we just stayed for the night.

the following day, grabe ang lamig!!! buti na lang may dala akong jacket, kung hindi, super giniginaw talaga ako sa lamig ng hangin.

ulit, puro lakad lang ginawa namin ni nelo going around the area. since 7pm pa naman ang bus ride back to corpus christi, may tiem pa talaga kami mag-ikot.

on our way to the alamo, napadaan kami dun sa hemisfairway park. ang lapad ng park, nakakatuwa. and there were ver nice statues there also. tapos, may lagusan na din dun papunta sa riverwalk. pagdaan namin, open na pala yung boat ride kaya nag-tour na din kami. ganda ng riverwalk structure nila. and ang haba rin pala ng iniikutan nun. there were old buildings there which they said were restored into hotels rather than demolishing it. we even saw this tree that was growing from inside a restaurant. this was a result of a flood that happened years ago that almost destroyed the san antonio area.

we then went back to the alamo and went around the entire structure. ang ganda din doon. si nelo nga pala has found a new hobby -- collecting pressed pennies! ayun, lahat ng place na puntahan namin, naghahanap siya ng penny pressing machine. good thing ang dami dun sa the alamo.

after, nag-lunch muna kami and then went to the wax museum and the ripley's museum. ka-aliw din dun, daming unusual exhibits.

last stop we had was for the aztec on the river na sound & lights show. short lang yun and was just a preview to the actual show inside. we didn't take watch that anymore coz we had to run to the bus station already.

we took the greyhound bus back to corpus christi. we got back here past 9pm na din. pagod kami pareho pero it was all worth it!