My 18th Birthday at Crown Regency

Last April 12, 2008 I celebrated my 18th birthday! Lolz! Any violent reactions? Well I consider myself 18 years old… 18 times 2 that is.. now do your mathematics! Hahaha! (TRIVIA: I celebrated my 18th bday on a Good Friday) Why did I choose Crown Regency to be the venue of my celebration? The place is safe and it can accommodate my family, friends and officemates. I also thought of the kids who love to swim, so this place is perfect for them.(FYI: there is no limit to the number of persons who would use the pool for free)

I would have opted not to celebrate because I have had so many expenses lately. I paid my annual life insurance fee of almost 10k and I'm still paying 2k monthly for the installment of my cellphone but I thought.. my birthday just comes once in a year so I deserve to celebrate with the people I love and care for. The room was worth P4300(but I was able to get a 20% corporate discount c/o the company that my sister works for).



I got a lot of help from my visitors who were willing to help me with the food. My brother Mark donated buko salad, my good friend Sharon donated shrimps, my officemate Jocel donated fresh vegetables for the chopseuy, Odrale a bottle of champagne, Karlo a jelly roll, and the rest bought 2 pcs lechon manok. Their donations were a big help to add to the food that I prepared for all the visitors.





I reminded my officemates to bring along some swim wear so they could swim in the pool or use the Jacuzzi but they don't feel like swimming. It was a good thing I took a Vacation Leave a day before my birthday so I could some sleep and help my mother prepare the food.





I was really happy coz my entire family was there (except for my bro in law who was in Manila for 2 weeks) and my best friend Jean was able attend my celebration. I invited her but did not expect she would be able to make it because of her busy schedule(she texted me asking for directions at around 5pm but an hour after there is still no trace of her so I expected she could not make it.. but she surprised me when she stepped inside the room with her son Ahren). Most of my officemates arrived at around 10pm ( duty? Hahahaha!). I asked my friend Sharon to bring her magic sing so we would have something to keep ourselves busy with throughout the night. I could not believe it I stayed up for more than 24 hours on the day of my birthday! Whoaaa! I was already awake 5:30am that Saturday and I was only able to sleep after all my officemates went home and after I ate breakfast, 8am Sunday.




It was good that it was kinda cloudy that Sunday morning coz the kids still had ample time to swim before we checked out. I would really like to thank all of those who remembered me on my birthday. To those who greeted me thru text, friendster, email, YM... I won't mention all your names.. mahirap na baka may makalimutan ako mag tampo pa.. hehehe.. also would like to give special mention to Sharon for the shrimps, Odrale for the champagne, Karlo for the jelly roll, Jocel for the fresh veggies, and to the rest of my officemates for the lechon manok... and of course Amie and Jay who helped me clean up the mess.. to Amie who cooked rice for our breakfast and to Jay who helped wash the dishes.. thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

mOre PiX aNd sOmE viDeoS beLow

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Canibad, the Hidden Paradise

Last April 6, 2008, I had the opportunity to visit for the first time a very beautiful beach in the Island Garden City of Samal. This resort is known as Canibad and it is situated in Baranggay Aundanao in Samal.

It is quite a long trip going to this place. It takes about an hour from the pier in Babak to reach this place, not to mention the very rocky and steep roads that you will have to pass through. The kids who were with us kept complaining why the travel took us too long.

Plus you need to hike down a few meters from where you will park your car. It is not advisable to bring along pregnant women and old people who cannot manage going down and up coz it can be pretty exhausting. I myself had to stop several times to catch my breath as we were climbing our way back up on our way home.

This paradise is on the other side of the island of Samal and it is facing Mati Davao Oriental. I was playing with the white sand on my feet and i can feel the very fine white sand compared to the white sands in the other beaches in Samal that I have been to. If you love corals and shells then this is the place for you!

If you hate to travel by land, you also have the option to hire a private pump boat in Sta. Ana wharf. It would be best to travel with a large group to make the trip worth it, since you will have to pay P270 one way for the barge plus the gasoline that you will have to spend for that very long travel.

I would not advise taking a motorcycle ride going to that place after seeing the road that we traveled on. Hikers and mountaineers love this place. While we were there we saw several groups of mountaineers who passed by the place. It was a Sunday and several people were at the beach.

Protecting ourselves from sunburn with a very big umbrella!

with my good friend Sharon

kids looking for stones and corals at my back

with Tata (Sharon's Cousin)

OUR VIDEOS IN CANIBAD

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Proud of My Nephew

My nephew was given 3 special awards and a bronze medal for a meritorious award last Sunday at the CAP Auditorium during the Recognition Ceremony of his school Exegesis School of Davao.

He received awards for: Most Reliable, Most Thoughtful and Best in Reading. I am proud that my effort last summer of giving him tutorials and teaching him how to read paid off now that he is already very good at reading compared to other kids his age. It was good that he was trained of the phonetic sounds when he was still in Nursery.

As a tip to mothers who want to teach their kids to read, I would suggest that they start with the phonetic sounds then follow it up with A, E, I, O, U. After teaching them the vowel sounds, teach them by combining it to the consonants, meaning let them read ba be bi bo bu, da de di do du, fa fe fi fo fu, ga ge gi go gu, and so on… then slowly teach them to read words by combining it like SOFA, PAPA… it would of course be good if you buy a small blackboard and play with the kid so that they will enjoy while you are teaching them.

I made my 5-year old nephew read this post.. and below is the video of him while reading this blog post:

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Amie’s Birthday Celebrations

It was indeed a memorable birthday celebration for the celebrant Amie! The original plan was a beach outing but there were last minute changes and we ended up celebrating in a VIP room of Visa Videoke located at Victoria Plaza compound. We were supposed to occupy a 2k consumable room but there were problems with the player so we had to transfer to a bigger room that was supposed to be worth 4k.

It was good that they transferred us coz we certainly would not fit in that small room. Of course some people got groggy after a few shots of beer and started to do funny things. As usual, I had to settle for Cali coz of my allergy (thanks Amie for providing me with a can of Cali.. hehehe). One of our female companions kept dancing.. in fairness.. she was a good dancer.

The crowd went crazy and were screaming endlessly when Raquel belted out songs, not to be intimidated by the presence of 2 band singers. The center of the commotion was of course Jay when he started to sing his all time fave “Di ko na Mapipigilan” by the Sex Bomb Girls. We were shouting and teasing him as he sang and dance. We were even more surprised to see Joel stand up and dance in front of Jay for a very few seconds. It was the first time that we saw the very quiet and shy Joel do that.

The 2^nd celebration took place last Monday (the date of her birthday) at Amie’s residence. Her mom prepared a sumptuous meal for us.

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Easter at Blue Waters Resort

I spent Easter Sunday this year on the beach with some of my fellow night shift agents, Julius, Mhuy2x and Mamu( Mam Angie). I was excited coz it was going to be my first time to visit Blue Waters Resort in Limao, Island Garden City of Samal.



I haven't actually heard that there is such a resort not until Mhuy2x proposed about it. We went to Lanang Beach Club to take a 15 minute ferry boat ride.







Unlike Paradise Island Beach Resort where the ferry boats travel at a 5-min interval, you will need to wait for an hour for the ferry boat Danica to take you to the resort.

Boat fare is at P15/head if the number of passengers reach more then 10 persons, or else you will have to pay P150 for a special trip.

But if you are traveling in a large group and you have your own vehicle, you have the option to ride the barge to Babak, Island Garden City of Samal and pass through their back entrance. There is a big advantage if you take the back entrance since you will be allowed to bring your own food. If you take the ferry boat ride, food and drinks are not allowed. The guard will inspect your bags before you enter their area in Lanang Beach Club, but Wilmer was able to get away with his coke in can.

Entrance fee to the resort is a P100/head and the cheapest open cottage is at P150 (good for 4 persons). Btw, you will need to book for a reservation before going to the resort. They also have a swimming pool (P50/head) where you may swim once the tide gets too low.

They serve delicious food in their restaurant and the price is fair enough for a resort. A viand good for 6 persons would cost more or less P500 and the serving is just enough. We were also given free bottles of mineral water each, which was good since the soft drinks are priced at P25/ 8oz bottle.

What I loved about this resort was the clear waters and I really did not feel any itch from Jellyfish bites which I usually get when we go to Paradise Island Beach. There were corals which would really hurt your feet but there are also areas where you may swim without the corals. These corals are of course the reason why we see a lot of fishes swimming and several marine creatures in the area. I also enjoyed gathering some hermit crabs which I brought home for my nephew.

We took the last ferry boat ride back home at 4:30pm with happy faces and we obviously had fun. It was a very fun-filled outing and I would definitely go back to Blue Waters Resort .. I hope soon ..

cLiCk heRe foR moRe Pix



>>> VIDEOS OF OUR BLUE WATERS ESCAPADE <<<


part 1





part 2




part 3



part 4

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Addicted to Zuma

I heard of this game way back last year when a friend of mine was asking me if I had a code or if I knew someone who has a cracked version of the game. She said it was one of the games being offered by yahoo games and that she got hooked to it, but the problem is her trial version of the game has expired.

Early this year, my younger brother was able to install it on my PC at home and I also got hooked to the game. What's surprising was my mother got interested watching me as I was playing the game and began playing the game in no time. It was her first time to manipulate the PC and the mouse. She had a hard time controlling the mouse moving it from left to write and moving it in circles as she was playing the game.



Stage 1 was of course very easy to hurdle. When she reached stage 2, she began complaining that is was quite a struggle for her. She keeps telling me it would be impossible for her to surpass that stage. But a few days later, she was able to complete stage 2 and moved to stage 3. As usual she keeps commenting she won't be able to complete stage 3, but after a few days of trying she was also able to complete it and moved to the next stage. She is now playing on stage 8 and she still has the same comment. If I am not mistaken, she can reach up to stage 8-4.

As for me, I am now stuck at stage 12. The hardest stage for me to complete was stage 9, as soon as I completed it, I proceeded without extra effort through stages 10 and 11 and unfortunately lost all my lives on stage 12.

Even my 5 year old nephew now plays the game, but he only plays stage 1-1, 1-2 and 1-3. Aside from his favorite game Need for Speed, he also loves Zuma. Now I have so many competitors in using my PC.. thanks to this addicting game Zuma.

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Movie Review: My Big Love

Last Saturday, after our weekly badminton session, the girls and I decided to watch the movie “My Big Love” which stars Sam Milby as Macky who is an overweight chef, Kristine Hermosa as Niña who is a socialite-columnist, and Toni Gonzaga as Aira who is a gym physical trainer.

Aira is Niña’s physical trainer and Macky has a big crush on this very beautiful celebrity, which he expresses by leaving flowers and pastries on her doorstep. Niña does not have a clue who Macky was and how he looks like not until the day when she finally convinced him thru chat to meet with her in person. That date of course was a disaster. Aira was a witness to how Macky was a die-hard suitor of Niña and she knew how heartbroken he was when that disastrous date happened.

Aira took it as an opportunity to earn by offering herself to be Macky’s personal trainer, to which Macky turned down but soon accepted when he realized how much he really needs to lose weight. He was not able to finish the program sine Aira had to leave for Japan to work for the Japan branch of their gym.

They were not able to see each other for years, but when they saw each other again, Niña and Macky were already a couple and that left Aira very hurt. Before Aira left for Japan, they had both expressed that they liked each other and promised that they would keep in touch, but they lost communication which left Macky with no choice but to go back to courting Niña.

But Macky became confused when he and Aira started going out. He rediscovered the fun and bubbly personality of Aira that touched his heart. Niña began sensing some problem so she decided to announce their engagement in a big party but before that could happen; she realized she can never be happy if she knows Macky’s big love is Aira and not her.

The movie was cute and heart-warming. The only problem was the prosthetics used on Sam Milby to make him look fat. The color blend on his face was very obvious. You can see his forehead having a different color from the skin tone in his lower eyes. When he turns his back, you can also see the mold of the suit, which could have been easily hidden by making him wear dark colored loose clothing. I also noticed the suit was only up to his thigh, which was really very visible in his pants. Filipino movie makers still really have much to learn when it comes to this stuff.

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