While in Manila, I got the chance to meet up with our friends from high school. The first one was also to meet up with N (who is also based here in Sydney) and her hubby and daughter J at Fely J’s in greenbelt 5.

With kiddos.

All girls!! I didn’t bring E with me during this meet up.

With my god-daughter T, this one was at the chinese resto we had dinner at on our way home. The pose was her idea, such a sweetie!

And the other one, which was not really planned at Cafe Breton in Tomas Morato just a couple days before we were scheduled to leave.

E with A, who doesn’t know her ninang mich

See the gallery for more pics.

G’day from Sydney! Here for about 3 weeks now and slowly getting familiar with the place. Almost done with the unpacking of our shipped items from SG, just need to figure out where it will all go. Mum is also here helping us ease in to our routines, she’ll be flying back to Manila next month. One drawback to our place now is that there are no malls nearby, the nearest mall is three stations away by train but we do get most of our food and supplies in the neighborhood stores.

Some of the stuff in out things to do list:

• buy a dresser, tv stand, altar stand, book case, shoe racks
• finalise preschool for E, check into the other preschool which is a bit further away
• research car options

Some of our pics:

Braving the cold while waiting for the train. Di naman halatang nilalamig na kami di ba?!	market day
Still a train station shot, this one on our way home from Ikea. Parang naglalayas si E.	@ North Sydney, waiting for Ichi to finish work
Posing muna kahit hirap na sa maraming dala!
Train station pa din, this time with mumsy.

E likes to help us “clean” around the house. These pics were taken during a break from sorting our things for packing. Some times it’s funny to see him do these things but other times it’s a test of your patience especially when you’re trying to finish all the chores and he ends up making you do more cleaning. I just hope that when it’s time for him to do chores around the house he would be just as eager.

Disclaimer: No child was harmed in the making of this blog entry.

Last month we went to the inaugural Singapore Airshow at the Changi Exhibition Centre. The first four days were for trade visitors only which left the public just the weekend to see the exhibits. All the tickets were presold online and as expected a lot of people came. We chose to go on a Saturday and when we arrived at pasir ris mrt to get on the free shuttle to the event site we were told by the people manning the area that we came at the right time because earlier in the day people had to wait in line for two hours just for the shuttle. It was also a long wait from the entrance to the changi exhibition centre up to the actual entrance for the airshow, I think we waited on the bus for more than 30mins. As we were entering the area we saw tons of people who were leaving the area queuing either for the taxi (even for the premium taxis there was a looooong line) or for the shuttle buses. There was also an aerobatic flying displays by the Black Knights of the Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Roulettes of the Royal Australian Air Force which we didn’t get to see since we went in the afternoon. E enjoyed looking at all the displays and had a fun time collecting pins from some of the exhibits. By the time we were leaving the venue there was still a queue (although shorter) so we decided to hop on the paid shuttle to changi expo instead.

To our extended family that is. Our new baby niece - Mika.

Congratulations Ival & Cathy.  Welcome to the world baby Mika.

We celebrated E’s birthday last January in Manila. At first we thought of planning a big party (this would be the first time we would celebrate his birthday in Manila with our families) but we opted to just throw him a simple birthday dinner. Good thing my BIL’s wife has a restaurant (Tony’s Bar & Grill along Mindanao Avenue) so we just reserved the function room and ordered a buffet dinner.

One thing we had to take care of before going home to the province for the new year was to order E’s birthday cake. So off we went to Goldilocks at Trinoma. After going through the cakes album, we decided on getting him a Cars-themed cake and had E choose which design he wanted.

On the day of his birthday he was so excited to get his cake that when we loaded the cake in the car he kept peeking around the tissue cover. He had lots of fun at the party running around with his cousins and playing with his uncles. I think the most fun was when blowing out the birthday candles. He had so much fun hearing everyone sing him the birthday song and knowing that once the song was finished he would get to blow out the candles that we did it five times.

Here are some of the pics:

with ichi’s fam	with my fam
with my cute goddaughter A	e with his godsister T
singing happy birthday	blowing his cake
E was super happy with the birthday song and blowing of the candles that we did it 5 times
birthday boy	family pic
family friends	with hs friends
lim cousins
getting the cars	E with his uncles, cousins and godsister

more pics here.

E was playing with my camera phone the other day and these are some of the shots. Not bad no?

*payram = pahiram (borrow)

Here are some photos from last month’s Christmas get-togethers.

Lunch with Marlon, Mike & Eden at Vila’ge, Heeren.

Christmas eve dinner at home with relatives and friends.

Dinner at Sushi Tei, Vivo City with seagull chums.

E and I celebrated our birthdays last week. Since my birthday fell on a holiday here, we decided to spend the day at the Jurong Bird Park. E surely had a grand time checking out all the birds. He especially had fun at the all-star bird show enjoying all the birds that were being showcased but really clapped and shouted when he saw the mascots. It was also a treat because I got selected as one of the volunteers to hold the ring where the bird will pass through. I think E wondered why I left my seat and them and what I was doing that Ichi was able to take a few pics.

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