Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sabang Trip na Trip!!!

I’m Jun2 . . . and I’m Anjun.We are the twins. Most people would always mistake us as twin brothers -- but not really, we are 11 months apart. Please join us as we travel to our farmhouse at Sabang, Sta. Cruz, Zambales.

During long weekends, school break, Holy Week and/or summer vacations – our biyaheng trip na trip is our Sabang farmhouse. But Daddy would always call it as “Sabang Bahay Ang Aming Bati”.

Our Sabang farmhouse was built in April 2007. According to Dad, it is a replica of their old house – a wooden house with a balcony and big windows adored with capiz shells. It is a studio type house without any room except for a bathroom which also serves as our dressing room. Since it is located in the middle of a farmland, we can sleep sans any aircon or electric fan – we simply open the capiz windows. Adjacent to the farmhouse is a dining room and kitchen. Daddy bought a swimming pool where we refresh the usual summer heat. Our humble abode withstood the wrath of typhoon Cosme in May 2008 – our grateful thanks to the Almighty God!

When Daddy is at Sabang, his former classmates and friends would visit him.It served as the headquarters of SCABEST when they conducted relief operations to help the victims of typhoon Cosme. When Lolo Pitong & Lola Pining arrived from the US, they fell in love with the farmhouse and stayed there everyday. In fact Lolo Pitong, a farmer at heart, planted several vegetables around the farmhouse such as pechay, okra, ampalaya, camote, eggplant including patola. Also, Tito Bingboy, Tita Ely and Mariel stayed at the farmhouse when they had a short vacation last March. Our cousins from Naga City, Ate Owz and Ate Geelyn together with Tito Boyet and Tita Lynette stayed at the farmhouse when they spent their Holy Week at Sta Cruz.
At Sabang farmhouse, we get to harness our baseball skills. Daddy bought us baseball gloves, bat and balls. From 4 PM until sundown, Tito Henry would serve as our pitcher while Daddy as the outfielder to catch our flying balls or watch helplessly our homerun hits.

After baseball, Daddy brought out his old “tirador”. He taught us how to “aim-and-shot” milk cans using tirador. As an expert during his boyhood years, Daddy would teach us the right positioning of our feet and hands and his secret “tirador” techniques for a better aim.
We do not run out of activities at the farmhouse. There are times when we go to the seashore early morning to savor sea breeze, and then play catch ball with our Wilson football ball. We also have our bikes and play in the dirt road; or catch “tutubing kalabaw” and “tutubing karayom” which Daddy termed as “mangalintuturay”. Tito Henry would walk us inside his piggery and tell us some fascinating and interesting stuff about pigs – and it feels like we are inside the Discovery Channel. We also go to the Guinipang Park at the town and have merienda at Welieden’s Bakery with its Spanish bread, famous pan de coco and ice cold Coke.
Nothing beats the real thing!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Christmas 2008 @ The US

Hi! I'm Patrese (13 yrs old), the eldest among the kids of Jun and Pia.

We spent our Christmas 2008 in the US. Although this was my second trip to US, there were a lot of "firsts" in this trip. It was the first US trip of the 3 boys -- Jun2 (8 yrs old), Anjun (7 yrs old) & Bonjun (4 yrs old). They were not able to join us and experience the "trick or treat" during the Halloween in 2006. This was also our first foreign trip as a whole family -- and our US-based cousins were excited to see us. Lastly, it was our first time to experience "white Christmas".

We stayed at Tito Bingboy & Tita Ely's house in San Jose.
San Jose is located at the southern end of the Bay Area, a region commonly referred to as Silicon Valley, and is now the largest city in Northern California.

All our bags are packed and ready to go. We left Manila on 12 December 2008, a Friday.

Mica took care of Jun2 and Anjun inside the plane.

At the San Francisco Airport, we were met by Lolo Pitong & Lola Pining.

Tito Bingboy, Tito Jojo & Tito Guy (the cameraman) were also there to welcome us.

The first order of the day -- the 7th birthday of Ma-an. We went to Tito Romie's house at Vallejo, a 45-minute drive from San Jose.

We went out for dinner and played at Dave & Buster together with Mariel, Abigail & MJ.






Then Disneyland. Its a 400-mile drive from San Jose to Los Angeles.



We witnessed the famous Disney Parade!






























From Disneyland, we went to Universal Studios the following day.


At the Universal Studios, we got to meet several cartoon characters.










Christmas Day was celebrated at Tita Gail’s vacation house at Rocklin. It was a family reunion of sort as my titos and titas and their respective families came in full force to the delight and joy of Lolo Pitong and Lola Pining.

Our family Christmas Day picture.

With Lolo Pitong & Lola Pining.

Tito Bingboy, Tita Ely & Mariel.

Tito Jojo, Tita Gigi & Abigail.

Tito Guy, Tita Gladys & MJ.

Tito Condring, Tita Gail & Kuya Conrad.

Tito Romie, Tita Marivic, Ate Myra, Ate Len-len, RJ, Ma-an & Mirabelle.

It's a fun-filled Christmas Day! Santa dropped by and distributed gifts and toys to kids.

Karaoke sessions starring my incorigible Daddy started various song and dance numbers.






At the end of the day, we exchanged gifts.

Food was abundant . . .

. . . more food rest.

After Christmas, Tito Jojo took us to the Tech Museum at downtown San Jose on 27 December. At the museum, we saw the different works of Leonardo Da Vinci.













We were at Tito Bingboy & Tita Ely's house during the New Year's eve! We did not have any firecrackers and fireworks, but we had so much fun with torotot and party poopers.














Our Christmas 2008 was quite memorable and filled with lots of fun in the company of our US-based cousins.