#TiniWiniToInfinity (Tin and Choi's Wedding)

One of my very best friends got married two weeks ago!!! And I am one lucky, happy and sleepless friend!

I have known Bebz Tin (the bride) for almost two decades now. We practically grew up together, having been classmates from grade school 'til college. I don't know how we managed to put up with each other considering our totally different personalities but somehow, we haven't had any major fights ever since. I am so proud of this friendship! Haha. 

Tin and Choi has been a couple since 2007, back when Friendster was still a thing and front cam selfies were non-existent. It has been a 'rocky' past few years (to say the least) for them but the two got out of it stronger than ever.

Anyway, it was almost impossible for me to attend this wedding since days before the date, I had to move to Cebu for Mama's therapy. But I guess the universe conspired magically for me witness this moment and lo and behold, we had to go home for the weekend! That exact wedding weekend! 

Tin and I share the same sets of friends and I was smiling and laughing and overall having a lot of fun that entire day! It was a riot!

Warning: This post is photo heavy.

With Pearl and Arthsen. The most sarcastic b*tches I have ever known. 

 My Beeeeebz! Love this High School group to death!

Phoebe Jhen's 18th

This girl has been in a few of my previous blog posts (here and here) so there's no denying how precious she is. The little sister I never had and the little lady who's got everything: talent, looks and a topnotch brain to boot. Is there anything she's not good at? Well for one, she has a bad posture haha. 

Anyhoo, Inday Jhen (as we fondly call her) and her family came all the way from Saskatchewan to celebrate her 18th birthday. This was their first homecoming trip since moving to Canada three years ago so everybody was extremely excited. 

Phoebe Jhen in photo shoots.

 Phoebe Jhen in real life. Haha.

Invite cover created by my friend Gee-arr. (Thank you Gee! I still have to libre you ice cream hehe.) You may contact my hunk friend for layout designs, dessert buffets or if you just simply want a date because he's single too! Haha.

 

I don't have all the photos and  I failed to take some decent ones since I was hosting (with a bad croaky voice) so I'm leaving you with random shots and mostly group selfies my friends and I took. It was a night full of music, good food, laughter and a few happy tears. Happy Birthday Inday! You are blessed. 

Hijas' Beach Time

Feeling really sentimental that May is finally over! Uhm, the upside is that I can finally sleep straight and not worry about the kids' daily snacks! And I finally have time to workout in the afternoon (which I entirely skipped last month). But I am honestly missing all of it already - the kids, the noise, the songs, the people especially my girls! After a whole month of classes, meetings and a handful of culmination activities, we finally had a time off. So, to the beach we went! 

Yeheyyyy lagum na kaayo ko please! Hahah! 

Perfect way to cap off my summer! Now onwards to June... <3

Birthday 2016

 Birthday Salubong at our new favorite Ersh Cafe.

Night swimming at Water's Edge. My family and I went there early in the afternoon so my little nephews can enjoy the pool and go home earlier to rest. Too bad we didn't have photos together. We were so busy keeping up with the toddlers! To give you an idea, we would find ourselves screaming every 5 minutes every time my nephews attempt to jump into the pool, swim on their own, or run faster than usual. It was a riot and the little ones gave us approximately 20 panic attacks! lol 

My night swimming team! I am honestly embarrassed our table looked like all we had were drinks! I promise there were a lot of food too! Hahah.

#MichaelandhisArmie (Destination Wedding)

My high school friends and I have been so lucky to be invited in my friend's sister's wedding. I know right? That's a lot of association right there. While I've never really spent a decent amount of time with the bride, I've known her for a long time thanks to the maid of honor which happens to be my high school friend.

This was actually a destination wedding since none of the newlyweds are from Cebu. Ate Armie is from Negros and Kuya Michael is from Luzon. They've been both based in New Jersey for a while now and along with their family and friends, they travelled far and wide all the way to Cebu to celebrate the wedding.

Emy the maid of honor

Mia, the couple's daughter

Ate Armie with his dad and lola

Frustrations and Little Victories

My friends and I share the same frustration over singing, dancing, sports, cooking, gardening,  and practically everything! The Lord has been so good in giving us (ahem) good looks. Unfortunately, that's where the story all ended. That was all He gave us.  Hahahah. Not that I'm ungrateful or anything tho. 

Surprisingly, someone got a little luckier. Phoebe Jhen knows how to sing a chord, hits every note and does it effortlessly. She's a table tennis player who championed her Intramurals. She's a top honor student in a Regional Science High School. And as if that wasn't enough, she's one pretty girl too! Oh dear Lord, what kind of fairness and equality is this? Heheh.

Instead of grieving about all these unfulfilled dreams, we have subconsciously decided to channel our frustrations to this one special girl who has all the potential in the world. We're done venturing the beauty pageant world in a competition in her own school. She didn't win (since she was too young and it was her first time) but she did a great job nevertheless. Now, it was time to conquer yet another set of audience. The whole province! Yikes!

Not long ago, we signed her up for a singing teen idol competition in a local radio station. She passed her auditions a few weeks ago and braved her eliminations round this afternoon. Fortunately for this young lady, she made it to the top 2 and is now qualified  for the Semi-Finals two weeks from now! So happy I could die!!!!

Audition piece

Phoebe's Family

Singing Teen Idol Last Eliminations Round, Nov 11, 2012

      

 We are a bunch of ecstatic stage managers!!! Thank you Lord for this special little victory. 

No Other Concert: Annebisyosa in Cebu

I had one of the best surprises ever when I found out that I was going to Cebu to watch Anne Curtis-Smith live on stage! My initial reaction when Sinta broke the news at 2 in the morning? I literally went up-and-down-up-and-down-up-and-down-up-and-down jumping AND crying myself to death. I couldn't believe it was true so my excited mouth was all "Sure ni Ga? As in sure jud ka? Way joke? Asa ang ticket?" LOL

Sinta couldn't make it to the concert since he had some work-related things to do in Bayawan. However, Elvin (Sinta's brother) and Jo Ann (Elvin's wife) got themselves tickets too so I had companions! Plus most of Jo Ann's workmates were there too so it was really a riot!

I figured my readers wouldn't really care about other stuff in this post aside from the photos so here they are...

Elvin and Jo Ann at Mooon Cafe IT Park

All attorneys in the house!

With MHTG 

Ads before the show

Opening number

THE Mouth

Who Run the World

Katy Perry medley

Earthquake Hits Negros (020712)

One fine day downtown, I bumped into Pat (a high-school classmate) so we decided to catch up and sit down with some fries and coke floats at McDo. It was an easy and naturally long conversation that we didn't notice the time flying by. The only thing we noticed? ONLY THE TABLES AND CHAIRS SWINGING DOWN THE FLOOR TREMBLING for about 30 seconds which felt like forever! McDo is normally full during lunch time and yes, you could only imagine different types of people with all those types of reaction!

If I remember correctly, I was able to notice (in retrospect) three different kinds of people according to their reactions. 

• First one? We have the types of people who are exceptionally calm and quite all throughout the event. It's as if someone from up above sent them a txt message a day ahead and made them sure that everything's going to be okay so there's no reason not to finish their chicken sandwich. Yes, they were very cool people who only managed to pause for a moment while the earth was shaking and with considerable poise, grabbed back their sandwich and munched on them! 

• The second kind of people are the panicky ones. These are the guys and girls who shout all of their lungs out and run like hell! They make the exit gates more congested because of their useless aggression and more importantly their sweaty underarms, which in turn would piss all the others off.

• The last kind is more of my kindred. It's basically a mixture of the previous two. These are the people who take some time to digest what is going on and then later on decide what to do.  It took me around 20 seconds (which is almost the whole length of the first earthquake) to figure out that it was something odd and then Pat and I ran outside the building. We stayed at the street for a couple of minutes more just to wait for everyone else to calm down.

Downtown Dumaguete Photo by Pipoy Equipado

Okay. This isn't exactly where we were located during that time but we were very close. Apparently, not a single one knew yet that a magnitude 7 hit the area. 

Downtown Dumaguete Photo by Pipoy Equipado

Turns out that I, together will all the others, didn't do it the right way. I later found out that the most dangerous places are the exterior walls of buildings, near sinkholes and electrical posts! Experts say that if you are inside, stay inside and if you're outside then yes, stay outside too! So I could've really died right then and there either of an electric shock or a stab from a broken glass! Or a heart attack! But that's just too morbid. (Just so you know, I didn't do any earthquake drill back in grade or high school. I think i may have skipped class or something. I only remember fire drills for some reason.)

Minutes later, news from Guihulngan (thru Sinta) came. I have a handful of family members from the town and we later found out that my Aunt's place has been wrecked, among others. Was browsing through some Facebook pics and to my horror, this is what I saw...

Exhibit for a Cause

It's one of those days when you just want to lay on your bed and sleep the whole day. Ugh. Weekend hangover!!! I'm all sniffing and cursing at the weather today so when Sinta asked to go out on a Monday night, I was anything but excited. But since today is an important day for him and the rest of his photographer friends, I half-willingly agreed to go. Plus the Giga Fries BBQ flavor (which is my favorite btw) was a good bribe too! Hahah.

Anyway, it's 1 in the morning and I should be sleeping right now. However, I feel like I had to write something today. So many things happened and all I have is a bunch of mixed emotions. First  of, I mentioned about cursing at the terrible weather. The sun was excruciatingly painful today. Second, we received a sad news in the neighborhood. Our neighbor's newborn baby just passed away. He was only four days old. :-( (I think I will write about it in a different post) But my day wasn't all negative vibes of course. 

I also had my simple joys today. For the first time, Sinta's group One Photo organized a fund-raising event for the Sendong victims. They are selling their photos at a certain price to collect a considerable amount of money to donate to all the victims of the typhoon. 

 Sinta submitted some of his works so I went there to see them all. 

Sinulog 2012

If you've read my previous post, you've probably figured out that this year was less grand, less noisy and less festive. And yes, while they're basically all true, my Sinulog was still a great and fun day.

Attended mass and danced to the Sinulog beat afterwards...

Baptism of baby Yve Antoine Marcelino. Sinta was one of her godfathers. Since he spent Sinulog in Kabankalan City, I had to take over as his proxy (for photo-op's sake. :p). 

 Had videoke at the Marcelino's place. We (the Hijas de Maria group) also had our prayer meeting at their humble abode. More videoke right after!!!

And oh, we also had the chance to visit the Sto Niño chapel in Barangay Maslog. The place was overflowing with people! 

Eventually, my feet just gave up on me and I felt super exhausted that I had no choice but to go home and rest. So it was really a simple day for me. But it was filled with lots of dancing, singing, eating, and pictures of course! And now that I think of it, it actually doesn't matter where you spend Sinulog or any other occasion on the calendar. Sinulog is all about thanksgiving. And I (together with all the others) celebrated it that day. 

My Sinulog 2011

It is Sinulog weekend once again and it sucks big time to be me right now because I won't be able to go to Cebu. The moment I found out that I can't go was the moment I had my first  tears this year. (Second time was when I thought I lost Sinta's receipts yesterday. Phew!)


Anyway, I decided to do a self-torture today by reminding myself of how great I spent my Sinulog last year. I was in Cebu the whole time (because I was working) and I had  Mama and Sinta come over to celebrate with me. And since almost all of my college friends (Ka-gangs) were in Cebu, we unanimously agreed to celebrate it altogether.    

Dinner at my place!

Cebu Capitol with Sinta

Sto Niño booths at the Fuente Osmeña cirle 

Sto Niño booths at the Fuente Osmeña cirle

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