Awake at 2am

So I've been sleeping but apparently, my siblings were not (it's day time in what Gabriel now correctly refers to as the "Eastern Hemisphere"). So they decided to give me us a call through Skype. Jojo answered this time (I answered 2 previous calls sometime during midnight). I do know when it's my brother calling me coz I can't seem to hear him at the end of the line. He says he hears us fine though. Too bad.

So after 15 minutes of not being able to get back to sleep, I logged in. And there they are, my siblings chatting. After about 5 minutes though, they suddenly had something else to do, and so I am left here... online and alone. How about that?

Well, let me instead write down how the week has been. Gabriel turned 8 last Thursday, he was really happy as his classmates gave him handwritten birthday greetings, tons of bookmarks, and $1. They are so sweet, he was really happy. For dinner, Gabriel wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A and as it was his day, he's the boss. Definitely, low key.

Friday night around 6pm, we went to Dealey movie night featuring "Kung Fu Panda." It was my first time to watch the movie from beginning to end and I realized that I missed the middle half of it before. And yet, I have put it down as 3 stars in my list. Oh well, the rating didn't change even after finishing the movie. Once again, we sat with Margaret although this time, a few of Gabriel's other friends joined our blanket: Gabriel and Dominic; Olivia; and Andrew.

Earlier this week, we dropped by Vera's Bakeshop to reserve Gabriel's birthday cake for his party on Saturday. He chose a dinosaur-themed one and I hope I remember to take a picture before it gets eaten. We also went to Party City for his goodie bag stuff. We hope it's a success, and at last count, 28 kids are coming.

The other day, we saw the trailers for Twilight. Looks great, I can't wait to watch the movie. These past few months, I would rather wait for the dvd to be available on Dvdplay kiosks, but I don't think I can wait for this one. So we probably will watch it in AMC. As we will be in Houston when they open, we might go out one night while we're there and catch it. If not, definitely when we get back.

Some friends of ours are planning to have a "bowling night" and I just hope that with our schedule, we'll be able to make it. So far, we're booked for the weekends through Dec 13. Mostly chess tournaments and parties.

We also had an early Thanksgiving Potluck at the office. Good times, good food. And what's even better, I was able to carry out a bag for dinner. My family enjoyed it.

Cyndee invited Gabriel to join Julian's indoor soccer games, and so he now has soccer practice from 6:45 to 8:15 every Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He'll be exhausted but we imagined this will be good for him as it is getting to winter and he won't be able to play or even stay outdoors at all.

Wow, so much has happened this week. And more tomorrow. See you later.

Reading and drugs

I really like the book - The Pillars of the Earth. Got it as a birthday present from Aileen and Bong (thanks very much!). It makes me think about a different kind of life. A simpler one, if you will, but not that much different to our lives now. The story is set in the 1100s, and offers the author's views on how it was years ago. I've learned a lot just by reading. If you find the time, pick up this book.

This morning, it was mid-40s outside. So fast - the winter has come. Maybe it's one of the reasons why I got the cold. Julie recommended that I try Airborne, a vitamins or dietary supplement for the immune system, and so I did. Nah, it didn't work, I still have the colds, but I don't feel that bad. So maybe it helped a little. Jojo recommended that I start taking multivitamins, and so I will. 

For now though, since I feel a headache coming and feel really tired after a long day, I'll get myself to drink Theraflu which usually knocks me out after 10 minutes. Gives me a good night's sleep too.

Cowboys 4-1

Last Sunday, we had sort of a mythbuster episode part 5. The myth: whenever we (Village People) watch a game, the team we're rooting for loses. The result: busted! Cowboys were playing the Cincinnati Bengals, and you gotta hand it to them - they played hard. But we played harder.

It wasn't the best of games but it wasn't a joy to watch either. We were leading 17-3 at one point and they caught up, 17-16! So that's where the excitement was, and I even proposed going home in the middle of the game, lest the myth was true. But we didn't go home, and after the nail-biting and cheering from the top of our lungs, we were victorious. The Cowboys won.

(To answer those who ask, where y'all together when that game was lost, the supposedly walk-in-the-park match against the Washington Redskins? Yes, we were. But come on, we've proven that there is no jinx. So let it go.)

How 'bout them Cowboys?

Still busy but at least finding time to write

The weekend was a blast, well, at least for Gabriel. Saturday, we went and took him to back-to-back parties, where he had so much fun. In one of the parties, he was able to see his classmates after a week out of school, and he was able to experience the Big Kahuna! Hold your horses, nothing too much to be excited about. This is a waterslide setup right in the backyard, but it was huge, and kids his age were bounced right to a puddle of water below. Cool!

Here's an image if your imagination is a little faulty this time of day.



And then Sunday for Father's Day, we accidentally met up with a couple of friends in our favorite restaurant for lunch. We also took a dip in the pool, and it feels so good to be able to do that as it was really hot and humid.

Good food and friends

The weekend has been good.

Last Friday, I finally got to meet Jojo's friend, George, who visited Dallas with his Tita Dulce and Tito Ped. It was great! We had lobster buffet at Plano, which was enjoyed by all. We spent the whole night eating and drinking, and the next day, more of the same, without the drinking. Haha. We had lunch at Bistro B and that was a hit. Even Gabriel finished his Com Thit Nuog Xa (grilled pork with fried egg).

Sunday was just spent at home, after going to church and lunching at Bangkok City. Played the Wii, and also managed to sort clothes that will need to be shipped to Manila.

Oh, and I did color my hair! It's now yellow - eeew! But I like it, and Gabriel says I'm now officially a rockstar! Well, I'll take that as a compliment since we try so hard with Guitar Hero. We love Wii! And we can't wait for Wii Rockband to arrive. Mental note to pre-order in Amazon before it goes out.

I'll see you later.

Toronto, Canada

So I've been here in Toronto for a couple of days now. Yesterday was busy with work, we were in meetings from 8am, and of course I had to meet Renee even before that so we had breakfast in the lobby at 7.

What can I say about the city? Really have not seen much of it except the 7 blocks we walked from the Novotel Hotel to Sheppard Ave. It does have the look of being provincial but not really, if you know what I mean. Today I'm meeting Renee at 8 for breakfast so I better get going then.

I did talk to Lyn who I haven't seen since college. She said if I wasn't doing anything on the weekend, they'd like to show me around. Tita Norma remembered me from years ago and I heard is also excited to see me. That's nice!

I'll blog soon enough.

Christian in the office

I'm in the office today, second time this week since I have been keeping strange hours the past few days because of this crazy work schedule that has fallen into my lap.

Anyway, Christian, Diana's 4-year-old came to the office with her. So we were having fun, and I guess we got pretty loud because Michael had to shut us up. Haha.

And I suddenly felt this urge to blog and only then realized that I haven't in such a long time. So you've been missing a lot of what has been going on in my life lately, I guess. I hope to be able to get the time to get you caught up.

Let's see. Last Friday, Gabriel spent the night at Joel's and I heard it was a blast. Jojo and I, in the meantime, had a great time at Diana's party and I get to try some new stuff that I've never before tried in my life. Well, there's always room for a first-time, right? Like I already said, it was a great party and we met a few cool people over there too. No time wasted.

Saturday, Joel and Paolo decided to come with us to see Gabriel play soccer. Their team lost but the important here is the kids had fun. So, we tried to tell Gabriel that. The kids played some at home before going home.

On Sunday after church, we bought some fish and crawfish and liempo, so we had a feast over at Anne's. We truly enjoyed it. It was my first time to like eating crawfish. One batch we cooked using the boil we bought which was a Louisiana favorite. The other batch we cooked in gata. Yummy!

And then the next update is, I will be going over to Canada on Sunday for a 2-week client workshop. It will be a long one and I will truly miss my boys. But I'm thinking there will probably be more time to blog over there than here. So see you again soon.

A phone call can change your whole schedule

So it has happened again that a phone call completely and drastically changes the day, or in this case the evening, for us. I just received the good news that Jan will now be able to get out of the hospital. In the meantime, his kids are at home on their own, so they asked us if it's possible to go and accompany the kids while the nanny goes home for the weekend. I readily agreed, of course, knowing that some of the other plans that we now have will get affected by it. But, I'll do what I want to do, and this time, I want to help out in as much as I can.

I'm right now waiting outside of Gabriel's building while he finishes his violin lessons. Then the fun starts! We'll take him to Joel's for the sleep over and head on out to Frisco. Hopefully, we'll still be able to make it to Diana's birthday party in Plano, but it won't be a big problem if we don't. Besides, the party doesn't start till 8pm, and there's plenty of time between now and then. I heard Jan is just waiting for paperwork to get done, and then he can leave. All is set.

I'm so happy. This is after all, good news. I'm sure Jan won't be back to work soon, but I know his recovery will be fast and smooth.

I was at Kohl's yesterday buying a present for Diana (yeah right, ended up buying a present for me!). Suddenly, they was power outage and after about 10 minutes, we were all asked to leave the store. There were real nice about it though, so there was no cause of complaints. Only that I left the store empty-handed. Haha.

By the way, since I want to say that the battery power of this Dell latitude 620 is better than my last one. It probably lasts a couple of hours at least. Still, this is a loaner laptop and I shouldn't get too attached.

Finally, last night we received word that Jojo's uncle, Tito Nonie, passed away while at the hospital. It's a difficult time and Jojo knows that my sympathies and prayers goes out to the whoel family.

No coke on Dell laptops

So one morning, I was working from home and drinking coke. I accidentally spilled it on my laptop and guess what? My laptop died. Like instantly. I immediately unplugged the power cable and Jojo tried to help me dry it, but didn't work. That same day, I found myself using a loaner laptop and having no access to archived email and no back up files from my hard drive. Shannon said that she'd had water spilled on laptops before with no problems, and I told her, if it's any consolation, it's diet coke.

I'm still using a loaner laptop. And it does seem like I'll be using it for quite sometime, until I get my upgrade. I hope it will be soon as I want to customize the settings and what-have-you to suit my taste. I did get my archived email and some back up files though.

It has been a relatively relaxing weekend. We were able to bike around White Rock Lake again and it was pleasant, except for the little body aches. I have to say, I like biking. Wish there are more days. My only complaint now is the grip and hopefully we'll find some type of gel-solution to wrap around the handle without affecting the gear control.

Well obviously, we worked up an appetite after the workout, so I hurriedly cooked dinner for us three. I asked Jojo to put the quail in the oven, and sauteed some shrimp with coke. Gabriel loved the shrimp and ate almost the entire serving. I on the other hand, feasted on the quail as usual.

I got a call from my aunt today who lives in New York while we were out visiting with Jan in the hospital. It was nice getting caught up with family.

To end the day, I baked strawberry cheesecake. Hope it's good. I'll let you know.

Not just April, also the weekend

Happy birthday, Ate April!

Wow, I have not blogged for quite some time. That wasn't a plan, it just happened like that. And in the meantime, there's so much that has happened so let me tell you before I forget.

Last weekend, Friday night, Vangie and the kids slept at our place. Jan had to go back to get intensive care and so we tried to make it up to the kids and have them play the Wii. We also sampled Diana's macaroni with ham and cheese, and it was ok. Not as tasty as I would have liked though.

Saturday, Gabriel had another chess tournament and he won second place. Another trophy for him, yehey! He's really doing a good job, and we certainly know now how serious a player he is. Even with the knowledge that there are 4 kids in our house whom he can play with the whole morning, he chose to compete. We're so proud of him. He knows his priorities.

After the tourney, we went to his soccer game. They lost but no biggie. I'm just glad he's enjoying himself. And because he's been wanting to go watch Horton Hears a Who forever, we went to Studio Movie Grill both for the movie and the food. I liked the ribs better than the movie, is all I can say.

Sunday, after hearing mass, we accidentally bumped into Anne's family in Linens N' Things. As we were on our way to lunch then, they decided to join us in Best Buffet. Then, we talked about trying out the bike trail in Rowlett Creek Preserve while the kids play Wii. I liked the trail, at least what little I saw. I only did Loop 1 because Aileen wanted to go back feeling that her bike is not up to par to mountain biking. We went home after dinner and had a wonderful time just spending time with them.

Change of pace

I must admit, I have been slacking at work a little bit. And I do not mean that intentionally, however, I missed going to the office today and totally forgot about an internal call that I should have been in on at noon. I had early calls this morning which I managed to join, and then prepared to go to work, deciding to drop by the hospital to visit with Jan. I brought my laptop, thinking I can work there, but the news that he has finally left the Intensive Care Unit was just so big. I decided I'm going to stay for awhile and visit, and then get on home to work a little more. So that's what I did.

As soon as I came online, there were hundreds of instant messages at once. Everyone wants to know how Jan is doing, and I am just so happy to bring them all the good news.

It's funny how something like this changes your perspective in life. You see and value your friendship more, and yet realize that these friendships are in fact built from your career or work-network. So I just want to say to all my colleagues out there, I value you!

Happy Easter!

God is the greatest!

Yesterday was a tough day for us emotionally. I got a call from my boss' wife letting me know that Jan was in the hospital and is needing surgery. We went to the hospital as soon as we can and was able to see Jan before he was brought to the theater. We'll see you in a bit, Jan, was all we said.

The rest of the day until midnight was spent at the hospital with Jan's family.

Today, I called the hospital and they've said he woke up about 10 minutes before I called and the nurse on duty said he was doing great. Awesome, in fact, was the word she used. So I immediately informed Vangie and we'll be seeing her soon.

It's Rome's birthday today. I didn't even realize it until I opened my Outlook. And I was already on the phone with her this morning talking about Jan. Nonetheless, I know I will be forgiven. Happy birthday, Rome!

Too bad we will miss Chloe's baptism today, but something much more important has come up. We're the only family Vangie has right now.

Visita iglesia

I was going to take Friday off so we can go visita iglesia. But Jojo has convinced me it should be on Holy Thursday so I guess we're going tonight. I'll need to plot the 7 churches within the day, on top of everything else that I need to do for work. Let's see how I manage that.

I went with Diana and Shannon to Target during lunch break. I ended up buying stuff for the house, that I think will sit nicely under the frame we bought at Michaels yesterday. It's a relatively short 3-tier bookcase, but I also bought a wicker basket where I think we can put our weekly ad thingies. I'll see how it looks and decide if we're going to keep it. If not, we can always return.

Patrick's last day

And so we got on Diana's car for lunch and headed to Angry Dog. To be expected though, the Dog was full and we decided we couldn't wait and ambled on to St Pete's Dancin' Marlin. I had fish and chips which was forgettable. Diana said the tuna steak sandwich was very good, so I sure know which one to try out next time.

I need a visa for Canada so I will take care of that first thing next week. Looks like the rest of the month (March) and April will be full. Such is life, eh? See, I can do the Canada accent already!

I managed to get a lot of things done today, and I'm glad. I'm still singing the song from watching the Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon video clip, so that certainly puts a smile on your face. It's just so hilarious. I couldn't still make up my mind which one is funnier - that or the response by Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck. Find it in YouTube if you're interested. It will make your day.

Knock, knock. Who's there? I'm Fu. I'm Fu who?

Time for Tiff's Treats now. So I'll see you again later.

Date on Friday and the rest of the weekend

Last Friday, I decided to take some personal time off and went out with my husband. We first went to a couple of Borders Music Store to look (and buy) some board games that were on sale. Then off we went to watch a movie, Vantage Point at Cinemark. The movie was not bad but it wasn't good either.

We had lunch at a chinese buffet restaurant nearby, and although we probably won't be going there again, it wasn't bad. We certainly had worse (read: Loop 12 Buffet in Dallas). But the Best Buffet in Plano have already set the bar for us as far as chinese buffets go. There was a time when we pretty much go there every weekend for the crabs. We don't anymore but this year alone, we've probably gone 4 times already. So it's getting to be a trend again.

We picked up Gabriel in school and headed towards Dick's Sporting Goods to go looking for heelys. Unfortunately, none were available so while I took a quick nap in the car, Jojo drove by Best Buy to buy extra dance mats for DDR.

The weekend was pretty much uneventful for us. We stayed home, bonded, and I made blueberry cheesecake again. We visited with Aileen's family Sunday night (Gabriel practically begged us to go). So even though I've already had a glass of strawberry margarita, we still went. We ended up staying till almost 11pm and because it was the kids' spring break, it wasn't a biggie.

A different side of Texas

It's March in Texas, and it's snowing! I'm not kidding. The snow flakes are too real and temperature too cold to joke about. I'm actually working off of Jan's home office today, and I called Jojo to pick me up instead of me driving home with Michael. And the reason? Because I would love for Gabriel and Jojo to experience snow falling on their heads. The snow in Arizona was already on the ground. It was deep, it was cold, but no actual snow fell on our heads then.

This will be a first for them. I hope they get here in time.

(Post Script): They were in time for light snow, and we had fun making a snowman! Will be posting pictures soon.

It's quiet in here

I'm in the office and it seems pretty quiet. Maybe it's the weather (it's chilly today with a foreboding promise of snow by 6pm). Which means I'll be out of here earlier than usual to avoid the rush hour. 5pm and rain just don't mix well in a city full of highways.

Can't believe the weekend's over, it's just too soon! And what's this I hear that it's March already? That was quick.

My friend and colleague, Patrick, just tendered his resignation effective 2 weeks from today. I wish him good luck and it does seem like he's going to be getting some. He got an awesome deal from a previous employer, so it won't be so much like he's going to be moving on to completely new things.

White Rock Lake Bike Trail

We spent most part of the weekend by the White Rock Lake. Remember I told you about the mountain bikes? Well, we finally got a good break from winter, so we headed off to the lake. Saturday, Alan joined us. Gabriel still had his training wheels on at that time as we weren't sure he'd be able to do it without, but we were quite mistaken.

Sunday, more friends joined us and without Gabriel's training wheels, we made it all the way around the lake. Yup, all 9.2 miles of it. It was fun! I truly enjoyed it. The bike trail was very family-friendly, and the view of the lake was just awesome. There were geese, swans, and I'm sure there were other aquatic creatures that I did not recognize.

This spring, I'm seeing that we'll be spending a lot of time at the lake. Make good use of the bikes, and really, just spend the day outside enjoying the lake breeze, birds chirping, smell of the grass, and great food (that we'll tote with us in our picnic baskets).

In the meantime, it looks like the coming weekend will be cold. But we have made plans to be indoors already so it should not be a problem.

Uploaded new photos

I finally did it, I uploaded new set of photos from Houston, Galveston Island, Arizona, and a couple ones from MystiQal - the Dallas premier Mardi Gras. Now I haven't gone through each one and did not add any caption yet, so please bear with me. I won't be able to add them today so please don't expect. And oh by the way, I've uploaded tons of pictures so prepare to spend some time going through them.

So yes, definitely we had a lot of fun.

What else has been happening? We've been busy hanging out with friends mostly. We truly enjoy the company and Gabriel is able to spend more time with kids his age (more or less). He's still bugging us about getting a baby brother or sister for his 8th birthday, which at the rate of things, is not going to happen. But it will in a couple of years, I hope.

We're double-booked for Mar 1st, which isn't pleasant and I kinda have a feeling we'll be missing one of them. We agreed to a game night at Patrick's (a colleague) prior to being invited to Joel's (Gabriel's best bud) 8th birthday party. It's tricky because Joel's party starts early (5pm) and Patrick's at 7pm. I don't think we can wiggle out after 2 hours, but we'll do our best, for sure. Gabriel has already asked me to tell Pat to re-schedule the game night. Haha, like that's ever gonna happen.

Photobooks

I've been waiting for the photobooks to arrive the whole day, the suspense is killing me. However, it's the end of the day and still the UPS guy is a no-show. So I should take this as a sign and accept that I will get the books tomorrow, not today. And I was so looking forward.

Today is a happy day, I was able to catch up with 3 of my colleagues early in the morning, and in the afternoon, I was able to chat with Madie. It's always a pleasure and I hope we'll get the chance again sometime soon. Thank you for your time, Madie!

I also got an offline message from my sister in New Zealand who I haven't spoken to for quite sometime. The message, although very brief and made no mention of how she was doing, was so welcome since it reminded me so much of the way she is. Which reminds me, I still have not responded to my other sister who also left me a message on my phone. I should be doing that now.

(Postscript: Btw, the photobooks arrived past 6pm.)