Project 365 - Day 1

I have decided to jump in and do my own Project 365: A Photo for Each Day. Who knows, this might even spark 365 layouts for this year. Or not. :)

Here's my first photo, taken January 1st:

Those are hoops that are part of a set, the missing part is the pole. It's a toy that teaches kids to aim accurately. These hoops gave us hours of fun during our Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations. We made a contest out of how many hoops we can successfully land on the pole. I think that the most one person got that night was five out of eight. Everyone enjoyed playing - the kids did well, and the adults had fun too!

Because I was game master at Christmas, I didn't really get to try this out. Come New Year's Day, I seized the chance to try my hand at it. I didn't do to well, haha! Just one out of eight!

That's what really makes our Christmases and New Years fun, just hanging out with each other and playing all sorts of games for the kids. I don't remember when this started; we used to just eat, open gifts, and do our own thing. But this new tradition is way more fun of course. 

I heard that they played a new game on New Year's Eve. It was something that 8 year-old Adam came up with, using something that he got for Christmas. I don't know what it was, I'll ask around and find pictures.

Happy New Year!

Sadly, New Year's in the office was just like any other work day. My agents and I looked out the window at the stroke of midnight, watching all the fireworks light up the sky. I looked at the direction of our home, and picked the fireworks that I thought were the ones they had lit up - my Dad SMSd me to say that they were firing them already.

I had planned to leave the office by 7am on the dot. No go. I left about an hour and a half later. I found my cousins Freedah and Candy still up and singing. They've always been my buddies for all nighters. So I didn't totally miss out on videoke - I had breakfast, changed clothes, and ran down to sing with the rest of them until an hour or so ago. :)

Alfred's still in Bicol, probably flat out from drinking too much. Last night he mentioned trying to hitch a ride with his cousins who'll be heading home today. If he doesn't fit in their car/s, he'll ride with his brothers tomorrow. I really do miss him. 

I disabled my blog's redirect earlier, just to check if it was finally working. Just in case, I thought. But no. Everyone at the web host are really on holidays, such lousy customer service. I wonder if I'm the only Philhosting client whose having these problems? The thing is, I can access my Cpanel, but nothing for my Wordpress is accessible.

As a result, I've had to contact Entrecard support and they'll be disabling my EC. I had advertisers lined for the next couple of days, EC will manually return the credits they've paid to me. :(

Oh well, I am falling asleep on the keyboards already, better get on and have some sleep. 

Happy New Year everyone! Be safe and be blessed!

You're not lost...

Well hello there! I had my http://verabear.net redirect to this blog for the time being. My Wordpress site is down due to a database error on the server side. And since I found out that my hosting service is on holidays until the 5th, I figured I'd post here or at Bravejournal, and redirect my site's hits here too.

I don't want this post to be about how I hate Philhosting right now, that's what I already did in this post.

So what's up for the last day of the year 2008? Not much for me. I'd probably sit in front of my PC until it's time to sleep again. I had one day off (last night) and I'm due back at work tonight. Uhm-hmm, just when everyone would be enveloped in smoke, watching all the fireworks, and singing the Auld Lang Syne come midnight tonight, I'll be at the office. The next off I'm getting, isn't until Saturday. Argh.

But spending New Year's Eve in the office shouldn't be all that bad right? I mean, we'd be on the 6th floor and that should be a good vantage point to see fireworks from different parts of the city. We could probably even try and get to the rooftop, for an even better view.

I guess the only negative thing about having to be at work tonight is that this will be the first time ever that I wouldn't be spending New Year's at home, with all of my family around me. I did request to have tonight off (and originally, my offs are supposed to be tue-wed nights) but they decided to have half of us off on Christmas and I got that. Christmases are fun of course, but welcoming the New Year has just been more fun, you know? 

I wonder how the kids are going to be celebrating tonight? Ton's around to facilitate the games anyway. Hay, no more all night videoke singing from me. At least they'll be relieved I'm not around to hog the mics all night long. Haha :)

Alfred's 29th Birthday - June 8

This is Alfred's Photo Mosaic. He gave me his answers to the questions and I ran the search and picked the photos from Flickr.

He turned 29 yesterday - Happy Birthday babe! :)

We spent the entire day with his family yesterday, something that we've never done before ever. So his birthday was also the day I got to meet his entire family (including cousins and nephews and nieces).

On my way to their home in Pasay, I bought a cake (ube, by their request) and my dad was kind enough to drive me to the store and then to the train station. Alfred was supposed to pick me up at the Taft station and we would walk to their house but he wasn't there yet when I arrived. I called him and I got the feeling there was going to be an entourage coming to pick me up. I wasn't wrong.

His two nieces, Ena and Pauline were there, plus his nephew Lance whom I've met and spent some time with before. So I met the two giggly girls and they were really nice sweet ones. At their home, I met his two older brothers and the girls' mom. They were all really warm and welcoming.

So we had lunch (his mom cooked Bulalo, Dinuguan, Hamonado and Pancit - all were very very yummy, no wonder he has a tummy like that). The plan was to have lunch there, and then go our own way after. But since I felt like they went out of their way to spend time with their Uncle Dodong and to meet me, why not spend more time with the kids? I asked if they wanted to come with us and see a movie - they did! We went to SM Mall of Asia and saw Kung Fu Panda. It's a hilarious movie, comparable to Shrek! Haha :)

After the movie, we headed back to their house because a cousin was there waiting. I met him before but that was the first time I met his girlfriend. Later on, this cousin's older sister, her husband and two teenage kids (boys) came along too. It was a full house, literally.

There were lots of laughter and cases of beer. I drank with them too though I'm not a real beer drinker. There were lots of stories to share and to catch up on. We ended up staying until midnight.

I know he's very happy, and I'm happy that he is.


Credits for the Mosaic photos:
1. King Alfred's Tower, 2. Chicken Adobo Bento, 3. My Old School, 4. one headlight, 5. Kianna Dior @ AVN Expo 2006, Las Vegas, 6. beer belly, 7. Paradise, 8. Leche Flan, 9. flambé, 10. "Norouz" is coming!..., 11. These little piggies, 12. Blue Devil