Where to Stay in Hong Kong: Le Prabelle

Stayed at this hotel in our recent trip to Hong Kong with the whole family. And I fell in love with this hotel. The room was big and big windows unlike other HK hotels. Our toiletries and complimentary water were replenished everyday. We were very near the Prince Edward MTR station, there's a 7-11 downstairs and a Watsons around the corner. You can choose from a line of restaurants just across the other streeet. Super duper convenient for our big group. I booked our room via Agoda. Our room had two king sized beds and we paid for an extra bed for my brother. The room has 1.5 baths - one full bath and a powder room with a toilet which worked well with us.

Sorry all my photos have my family lying or lounging in the room because we were all tired from the transfer of trains from airport to hotel haha!

King sized bed for my parents and the single bed for my brother

At the other side of the room is another king sized bed. There's also a TV but the kids were complaining that they can't watch anything hahaha! But that's okay since we didn't really have time to watch anything. 

You can see all three beds in this photo. Beside the bed where my husband is seated is a wardrobe cabinet (not seen in photo).

This is the full bath complete with toiletries

The shower area - I love that the water gets hot immediately. My little boy doesn't like taking a bath with cold water so I really appreciated the warm water immediately dispensed plus the shower head spews small and gentle water stream. My little boy enjoyed taking a bath here hehe. 

The toilet in the powder room (with its own lavatory) AKA my husband's throne hahaha

Iska

I got the call yesterday. Miya passed the UPKAT but her scored tied with 12 other kids and there were only 6 slots left. As approved by UP's Board of Regents, the tie will be broken by drawing lots. The lady on the other end of the line told me to send a representative. Akala ko naman all the while parang raffle like the one they did sa UP-FLCD, may tambyolo. When we got there it was a different story. But let's backtrack a little bit, when I got the call I was at the pedia's clinic with Nina (she's been sick for a week! ugh!) so I immediately called Joma to tell him about the good news and to tell him as well that he needs to go at 9am the following day (today) to UP for the raffle. I also text brigaded our family and friends to continue praying for Miya for the raffle. When we got home, he told me that I better go with him. May paniniwala syang mas maswerte ako sa raffle and he's not that lucky hehe. He has never won anything in his life. Samantalang ako I win once in a while especially giveaways online hehehe. Also last night, I told Miya to pray the she gets in to UP. She said ayaw daw nya, she likes the other school that she was supposed to transfer to. I asked her why, sabi nya "because it's English there" hahahaha! My gosh 'tong batang to.

We were at UP by 8am, one hour early. When we got inside the room where the raffle will be held, the assistant principal told us how we will go about the raffle. So instead of doing it tambyolo style, there will be 13 papers for each of the candidates with 6 "Congratulation"s and 7 "Sorry"s. We will pick our papers all at the same time as the probability of getting a "congratulations" diminishes when we do it one after the other. Hay naku! Before I continue my story on the raffle, hindi pa tapos yung kwento ni Miya and the other school. Moments before we picked the papers, she whispered to me that she likes the other school better and she was a bit whining why she had to be there. Hay naku! I told her if she's going to be negative about it then it's better if she goes out of the room because I don't want her nagative vibe. I told her that UP will prepare her better to be an astronaut. I told her that this was the best school in the Philippines and she will be one of the best students in the Philippines if she gets in. I told her that she will have boy classmates there, but she told me she likes girl classmates better (haha buti naman). The clincher I think is when I told her that she will have two extra months vacation when she gets in to UP hahaha! I don't know how I convinced her basta before the actual bunutan she was finally okay. I was actually surprised that I was calm while talking to her about it. I just didn't want any negative vibes before the draw-lots. To continue with the story of the draw-lots, there was a small rectangular desk where they put the papers around, and each representative for the child went around the desk to pick.  Buti na lang the kid beside me got the paper I was supposed to get, so I picked another one near us rin. Then I turned and walked towards Joma and Miya, and opened the paper and gave a small shriek and small hop when I read "Congratulations". Eeek! We got in!

Sabi ni Joma, all the stars were aligning in our favor kasi out of all the 6 congratulations, I was the only one on our side of the room. Halos lahat ng nakuha nasa kabilang side. And no one reached out to the other end of the desk to get a paper, talagang almost everyone reached for the paper nearest us. Hay naku talaga! Thank you, Lord! We really asked for prayers from our family and friends. We stormed the heavens with prayers for Miya. Thank you, thank you! I'm still on a high from this morning's events. Imagine, out of hundreds of kids (maybe even thousands?) they only got 100 students, 60 of that are UP dependents while 40 are non-UP dependents. We belong to the 40. Waaaahhh!!!! Thank you, Lord, talaga!

Miya's Interest in Theater

One of the last activities in Miya's school is the pre-school play. And this past year, she was really interested in being the "bida" in their class's portion of the play. Their part is Little Red Riding Hood, by the way. She said that their teacher asked them to audition for the part of Little Red Riding Hood but she didn't get the part. I told her it was okay since she will be the one to introduce their portion, so she had a solo speaking part.

Their part was really fun and upbeat. Bagay na bagay yung dance moves nila sa kanya because she moves like that, all jumping and full of energy haha. Here's an excerpt of their play.

She had amazing fun doing their play and was really interested in doing more. So for summer I was really in the look out for theater workshop for her. Unfortunately, Trumpets schedule will not coincide with our own schedule so we had to let it go. She's doing her swimming lessons at the moment instead.

Over the weekend, we went to Kidzania (thanks to a twitter giveaway of SkyCable hehe). They have a theater there where the kids can act in a play. My officemate told me beforehand that her daughter was able to be the bida in the Kidzania play because naswertehan na she was the only kid (or with only a handful of kids) who lined up for the part. So that was my goal for the weekend hahaha. I asked Miya if she wants to get the role of Little Mermaid and she immediately said yes. I asked around where do we go to get the "actress job". We were directed to go to Star Magic. When we got there their auditions was for the Street Dance and not Little Mermaid. When I inquired they told me to come back around 4:15pm. So we went around (will blog about Kidzania on a separate post) and came back. Tamang tama no one was lining up! I don't think anyone knew but us haha! They even had to ask kids passing by if they want to participate in the play, in other words kami lang talaga sumadya don hahaha! To cut the long story short, Miya got the part - she volunteered when they asked for volunteers. After 45 minutes, it was show time! The other parents and guardians went into the theater and other people were coming in to watch as well. I got nervous for her because she might get stage fright when she sees the full theater. But lo and behold, she did great! I was super proud of her.

Here are some excerpts of her speaking parts. Theater crews are behind the kids to whisper their lines because of course you can't expect them to learn their lines in less than an hour.

Now, I'm again on the lookout for summer theater workshops for her. I don't want to let go of this season in her life where she's willing to go on stage and perform. I'm not one to be a stage mother for her to be an artista but I think theater is so much different than our local show business.  So I'm all for supporting her on this.

************

Dearest Miya,

Oh I'm so proud of you, anak! I know that it's not easy to go on stage in front of a lot of people. I know that you sometimes get shy and you need a little push so I know this is so out of your comfort zone and you just really love performing that you are able to do this. I love that you are able to do that. I love that you conquer your fear and do something about it. Thank you for sharing your talents. Continue to share your God-given talent with others. Love you!

Love,
Mommy

Where to Stay in Singapore: Marina Mandarin

Last September, I went on an overnight business trip to Singapore. We were there the weekend before the F1 grand prix. Okay, I knew all along that our trip was very near the race but I totally forgot when we got there. As in nawala sa isip ko na the next weekend na yung race and naka-setup na pala yung roads as early as that week. Freaking excited!!! I was so kilig when I started seeing grandstands and barriers for the race along the roads. Much more our hotel was right along the race track!!! Waaaah!!!! Hay naku should have taken advantage of the business trip and went on the race weekend itself hahaha. Just kidding! Was actually the one who told my colleague not to on the race weekend itself as hotel rates and plane fare are surely to be higher than usual. So anyway, here are photos of my room from Marina Mandarin.

My room's view was not ideal if you're there to watch the grand prix as it was facing the pool and not the race track. But I was able to do a walk-about on the parts of the race track around the hotel.

This was the view form the hallway outside my room looking down on the hotel lobby

But first this is me freaking out on the cab on the way to our hotel hahaha!

So here's the route that I took when I walked, from our hotel I went to the Stamford grandstand and walked going towards Esplanade and then Marina Square and the back of Mandarin Oriental and then walked along Marina Bay and then crossed Esplanade to go back to Marina Square and that's where I crossed going back to Marina Mandarin.

Stamford Grandstand

The back of the Bay Grandstand looking over Marina Bay Sands

Bay Grandstand with Mandarin Oriental, Pan Pacific at the back

Turn 17 going to turn 18

Sayang the stores were still closed. Wasn't able to buy any merchandise!

Miya's Swimming Class - Day 1

We enrolled Miya in swimming classes this summer. I wanted to enroll her in Trumpets Playhouse workshop as well but they can't give me definite date on their culminating activity, which might coincide with our family trip so we won't push for her enrollment there. I want to enroll her in as much activities this summer to take advantage of the time that she wants to do things. Last summer when we asked her what she wanted to do, she said she just wanted to relax hahaha! So that's what she did.

Yesterday was her first day in class. We enrolled her in Aqualogics because I liked the feedback I got from a friend and the teacher:student ratio was 1:4. I wanted to share a few first impressions on the program. First off, there wasn't any orientation when we got there. Someone took the hard copies of the form from me and gave me some things to sign and then that was it. The teachers didn't even double check if the kids that went to the pool are indeed enrolled (because another staff took care of the forms). Maybe they did check but I did not see, we had to ask how we'll know which group to go to. Their head teacher, I think, just told us we can join that group. In Miya's group, they were 3 girls with 2 teachers which was great because she was almost practicing the whole 1 hour they were there. She didn't have too much idle time waiting for her turn. I'm not sure how they assessed Miya's swimming ability but the first thing they did was for her to float on her back, which Miya can already do and the two other girls with her. I don't know how they would have taught the kids if they were in different skill levels. As I've already mentioned the class is for 1 hour, and I'm happy that the lesson was really for an hour. The kids just have enough time to rest in between their turns, there were some "play" time but it didn't feel like they lost time just playing in the water. And then after the class, Miya was able to linger in the other pool and swim on her own. All in all, I'm excited for her to finish her lessons. We plan to extend her lessons if she wants to later on.

Here are some photos and videos from yesterday.

Miya's Moving Up Day

We attended Miya's Thanksgiving Mass and Moving Up Day ceremony last Saturday (18 March). I think I was emotional the whole time I was there. Haaay! Let me share the photos before my emotions get me.

They had a processional inside the chapel before the mass began.

Was very lucky with where we sat because we were very close to where she was seated. Good thing nakinig ako kay Sister Lui when she asked us to move forward.

Our little graduate

After the thanksgiving mass, we proceeded to their convention hall for the Moving Up ceremony. They also had a processional there which we didn't expect so our seats were not ideal. Good thing, we were allowed to stand up and take videos.

It's so cute that she was all smiles during this time. I couldn't help but feel so proud of her (sans the tears)

That's her our little graduate!

After the ceremony, we picked her up from the Grade 1 classroom. She asked for a picture with her Kinder teacher.

Photo-op before leaving school with Daddy and Mommy.

We then had lunch and watched Beauty and the Beast.

My dearest Miya,

Just this morning, I felt an overwhelming sadness because it dawned on me that you're already 6 years old. Where have all those 6 years gone by? We are so proud of you anak! The priest in your Thanksgiving Mass said that Kinder graduation is more important than college graduation because you transitioned from being innocent to knowing so much. From letters, you can now read. From those numbers, you can now count. And I so agree with him. I look at your photos from last year and I can't help but sigh and realize how much you've grown. That's just in one year. I hope you take with you what we always teach you. And I hope you keep in your memory all the good times that we had in your childhood. In the welcome remarks of your schoolmate she said, "We are not afraid of grade 1, we are not afraid of grade 2, we are not afraid of highschool or even college." Naku anak, Mommy and Daddy are the ones who are afraid. We're mostly afraid that you are leaving us behind but I know that it is our roles as parents to prepare you and guide you to the time that you will be on your own. Sister Dedicacion mentioned in her remarks that each of you has a beauty, faith and strength in you that we are helping you see. May you always find your inner beauty, faith and strength, anak! Know that we are always here behind you to support you in whatever you want to be. Remember what Daddy tells you, you can be whoever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do. We love you so much, Miya! You make us so proud!

Love,
Mommy

Little Miss Sunshine Is One

I can't believe Nina is now a year old! I took a day off from work yesterday to celebrate with our (now officially a) toddler.

Took her photo for her monthly milestone pic

Ate Miya and Kuya Javi sang "Happy Birthday" while the birthday girl clapped along

Then the whole #BrgyAlano trooped to a nearby Chinese restaurant to have noodles for long life.

We were all pooped when we got back home so everyone had a nap. In the afternoon, the kids played in the garden.

The celebration is not yet over as we're going to Tagaytay tomorrow with my side of the family and next week will be a small party with her Ninongs and Ninangs.

******** 

My dearest Nina,

I really can't believe that you're already one year old. It's as if time wheezed by. You are God's gift to our family. When you were in Mommy's tummy, Daddy and I wanted your gender to be a surprise so we didn't see the scan of your gender during my pregnancy. We prepared two names for Baby Bashful, a boy's name and a girl's name. But I was secretly praying and hoping for a baby girl. I wanted your Ate to have a baby sister because I know how special it would be to have a sister and best friend rolled into one perso. I also wanted your Kuya to have a baby sister because I was afraid he'll have the middle child syndrome if we have another boy. Oh anak, like your Ate and Kuya I've prayed for you since you were in my tummy. I thank God for you everyday. Know that you are loved by all of us. I was a bit surprised when you came but God's purpose for you is greater than our plans. Little did I know that it was the perfect time for you to arrive. You complete our family, Nina. As your name suggests, you bring sunshine to our lives. We love you so much!!!!

Love,

Mommy

My 2016 (Part 2)

Happy new year! Here's the second part of my monthly summary of 2016.

July

We discovered Snapchat filters hehe

Nina found her chubby feet

Epoy came back from SG

Miya's nutrition month program in school

August

Dinner with My and Joel

Haircut for the kids one Saturday morning

After the haircut and lunch, we went to Cribs to drop off the kids' old toys. Unfortunately, they weren't able to go around since the babies and kids were sleeping by the time we got there. Next time!

Here's Ate with her new haircut and a "Thank you" card from Cribs

Nina started crawling

First time for the kids na maligo sa ulan!

Celebrated Kyla and Miguel's birthdays

Miya's Buwan ng Wika program

I got sick and then Nina got sick... And this was the start of our monthly illness huhu

September

Miya had viral rashes the week after Nina got sick

My roommates threw a despedida for me. I was so surprised! This was so sweet of them.

I went to my last mission to Singapore.

SQ flight

This was a week before the SG grandprix...it took me by surprise that the tracks were almost set up already.

Nina ate her first sold food - lugaw. She was super excited to finally eat!

And drank her first water intake.

Her first tooth also showed up

For Miya's career day in school, she wanted come in as a chef

Miya's career day fell on the 23rd which was also Mama's birthday, Javi's birthday and Nina's monthsary!

The following weekend, we celebrated Javi and Mama's birthday by checking in to a hotel in Alabang. We all had a blast.

October

We celebrated Javi's birthday together with his godbrother at Ninong Epoy's place.

Then Javi got sick around the middle of the month. I had fever first then he had it then it took him a couple of days to get better. We had to bring him the pedia and then rush him to the ER. It was a rough month for our birthday boy.

Miya watched her first play - Hansel and Gretel - when we went to her school field trip. We also went to Museo Pambata.

On the 30th, we went to the province. It was the first time for Nina and Javi to see their great grandparents. The kids enjoyed our visit because they have their cousins there as playmates.

November

Celebrated our 8th year anniversary

Met up with the Flyfish gang to have our annual Trick or Treat. And also had a baby shower for Janice and celebrated Stefan's birthday as well.

Ate Miya's Family Day in school

Celebrated Epoy's birthday

Had a wonderful time with the Mommies and Kids from our Expression Room

Got a passport for Nina

While waiting for our turn to get her photo taken

Christ the King celebration at Miya's school. She was a "flower girl".

Attended the team building with my new division

December

Spent a day with the balikbayan, Gary, together with Joel and My's family.

Christmas breakfast with my former division

Ate Miya's Christmas school program

As early as the 15th I was already on leave but brought the kids to the office on the 16th to get our crinkles hehe.

Migs Christmas party

Nina's 10th monthsary and first Christmas

Christmas with the family

Quality time with my girls

New Year's Eve celebration

Was so happy Nina was awake almost until the midnight of 31 December