SSS #41: The Holiday That Was

Pardon me if it took ages for me to get to the blogging groove again. Ever since my last post, things have been really hectic that I literally felt my head spinning! In fact, I even went to the extent of consulting a neurologist a few days before we left for the Kingdom since I felt pain on the right side of my head and some numbness on the right side of my face. The verdict: Stress Headache – I wasn’t imagining the pain after all…

Believe it or not, towards the tail-end of our Manila holiday, it felt as if I already needed a “vacation from our vacation”! Nevertheless, despite the stress of it all, Keith and I were glad that we were able to do most of the things we set out to do – the most notable among these would be:

1. Being able to celebrate (never mind if it was 2 months late!) Marga’s 1^st birthday at the Palms last 05 Aug 07 – thank you to all our family and friends who made time to be with us during this special day! Special thanks go out to Ninang Rina for the lovely party invites, name tags, loot bag tags and directional signage as well as to Uncle Jamie, Ninong Manny, Ninong Mark and Tito Benj for rendering their “professional photo services” free of charge! Thank you too to Ninang Millie who braved Divi with me just so we could complete the party stuff. I’ll always be grateful to Wowo, Wiwa and Tito Pippo who accompanied me to Palms for the pre-birthday arrangements. Love you guys!
2. Celebrating Mommy Dollie’s 60^th surprise birthday party (please check out Keith’s post on this -A Totally Retro Night – for more details)
3. Having a “Grandparents’ Day-Out” Down Under as we celebrated Rafa’s 7^th birthday in Australia from 07-18 Aug 2007 (I promise to post pictures soon!) together with Wowo, Wiwa and Grammy.
4. Touching base with our MWG and HSBC friends. We miss you guys! Tess and Boboy, the La Pampanguena stuff were just heavenly! Taps and Karen, thanks so much for hosting us at the very posh Vivere executive lounge… May and Derek, Allan and Peachy, thanks for squeezing us into your ever-busy schedules! Marge, Anna, Val, Trina, Gigi, Charles and Anna Chinj – it was great to see you guys again! Mina and Tessa – setting-up the Masas lunch was much appreciated… so happy to swap stories with you, Karen, Jeff, Anj and Anna GDL after such a loong time…
5. Luigi and Rafa receiving the sacraments of reconciliation and holy communion for the first time . Since freedom of religion is not something we enjoy here in the kingdom, the first holy communion we so took for granted as 7-year olds has become something quite difficult to arrange from this part of the world. Thus, after personally supervising catechism lessons for the two boys (Auntie Barty would be so proud of me! ), good ol’ Lolo Kit was able to arrange for the boys to have their first confession and communion with him at the Salesian parish churches of Don Bosco Makati and San Ildefonso, respectively. Thank God for uncle priests! Kudos too to the Salesian community for supporting this endeavor .

Now that I am back to my “diva-ness” here in the Kingdom, I can say that, stressful as it was, it was definitely great to be home again and that we all look forward to our next Manila holiday in December!

Ciao! The dreaded Cs await…