Jubilant January

They say that how you spend the first days of your year is very important because it determines how you might spend the remainder of your year. I don't know if that is true but I'd like to be believe it is. I went for a mini out of town trip hoping that this year, I will be spending more time out of my hometown. Hihi. Redundancy alert!

I love waiting for the sunrise. I love sunrises more than sunsets. I am rare, you know. :) When sunsets are said to be for hope, sunrises are for  new beginnings and there is something so fascinating about beginning again. 

My January in one word is FRIENDSHIPS. I am blessed with such loving, thoughtful and funny friends. How awesome it is to be reunited with wonderful friends from the best high school years. More than a decade! Just wow!

I think it is cool when a barkada has a name. Batang '90s we are! We are a generation of boy bands and girl groups so I think a barkada name is a must-have. I have a girl group called Healthy Babies and a "boy band" called Pugad Baboy. 

Lunch Date with HB

Our conversations have evolved from puberty concerns and broken hearts to mommyhood and fulfilled dreams.  I am inspired by the lives of these beautiful women. 

We also gave Rhea, the balik-bayan, a midnight harana for her 30th birthday. So glad it turned out to be successful after all the bloopers which even required a 2-minute rule to pacify us all. We are all turning 30 this year!!! Yay!

These old photos from Rhea's baul make my heart melt. I love old photos. These unfiltered treasure give me magical feelings. We love bihon and pandesal from Canteen A. We like having 2 meat breads in Kimball Plaza. We hang out at Home Radio. We go swimming at Lagare Spring Resort and Maharlika Extension. Good ol' days!

All Kinds of Trippin' with Pugad

We visited a relatively new place in Gensan, The Peak. Love their broiled chicken!

Our water tubing trip in Maitum started with an unplanned surprise visit at our City High beloved. So many changes in the school, including its name. From General Santos City High School, it is now General Santos City National High School. Kakaproud!

Photos by Bents and Edgar

We stop by anywhere we like stopping by or actually, anywhere our driver Borj commands. It was a martial law kind of roadtrip. Haha!

My dream shots in one frame! Oh, Maasim you've been so sweet! :)

Next stop is Kiamba. I have been to Kiamba several times. It is one of my favorite destinations on my city escapes. The place is so peaceful and clean. I will never get enough of it. 

It is my first time in Maitum. People are so warm. They make us feel like real tourists. :) We drop by a mini museum located in the Municipal Hall. I love museums! I hope to visit Gensan's. Does it have one?

We also went to a Pawikan Nesting Sanctuary but we were a month earlier from the release of the baby turtles to the sea.  We mingled with the locals instead. We got a little peek at making Maitum's famous dried bangsi (flying fish). It's one of my favorites!

The children got some lessons on posing wacky and using GoPro from Borj. This was fun!

Water tubing in Pangi River at Maitum, Sarangani Province was incredible! It didn't feel as life-threatening as the white water rafting in CDO so I enjoyed it a lot. Bitin! 15-20 minutes of this kind of fun isn't enough. For the first time ever, my kinda adventurous self was screaming for more. I will really be back, Maitum!

I was supposed to write that the highlight of that day was the water tubing but I was brought back to the non-activity moments. The singing and dancing was a blast with an impressive playlist of Bent's sister, amazing voices and energy of Luv and Borj, and a not so special participation of Bents and Guimo. Our favorites were All About That Bass, Fireball, MMMBop, Bring It All Back, Stop. The 5-word storytelling game, whatever category - love story, suspense or hardcore drama, always ended up a comedy. The countless crazy side-trips were exciting. We met 7am and reached our main destination at 2pm! Thanks to our tour guide, Edgar. The no-napping rule was memorable for me. Fifteen hours of roadtrip were all for belly laughs, songs, dances, stories, craziness. We lived by the words: It is not the destination but the journey.

New Hairstyle

Cut my hair really short and had it colored for the first time evah! Not so happy with it though so I am not posting a photo here. Hihi.

Now, on to the next chapter of this year. Hello Love month!

Oh High School Life

Best four years of my life! And I bet yours, too! :) I want to count the ways but I'll end up blabbing here which is the last thing I'd like to happen. Just imagine crazy nerds meeting the hard core crazies. Complete riot I tell you but that weirdo combination makes all the beautiful complications. Those days! 

I never saw it coming. I was caught unaware that those best four years were already a decade ago! Ooh lala! How time flies so fast... really fast this time. Every December since we graduated from high school, we tried to do a little gathering - be it all day and all night swimming, magdamagang videoke, or just chattering over eating and drinking... as simple as that, nothing biggy. But we decided to level up this year because it has already been a decade guys! That's a milestone! :)

We celebrated in a decent function room for the first time ever! It's just so awesome to think that the once gusgusin teens from the province have become valuable professionals of this country... and of the world. So we at least deserve that decent venue. Hehe. Thanks to Sun City Suites for upgrading us to a bigger, more bonggang room which was not really necessary because of our number.

I made this goodies corner as the first part of bringing all those good old days back. The milk powder with the tiniest straw. The Bobot candy which has lost its free gold bendable ring. The Dragon Sid which made snacking exciting. My all time favorite Hebi which I thought was spelled as Hibi all those years because we all pronounced it as that and a lot more! Don't you just feel so young all over again just seeing these!

I also created this Whose Baby Is This game. Some of our classmates already got married, had a child or children so this was a way of getting updates. We also had souvenirs and game and raffle prizes which made the night more exciting. Prizes were from sponges, fans, mugs and more sponges. Hihi. So household!

Other classmates could not come because of a handful of reasons which made me wonder - Meron ba talagang reunion na kumpleto? We were twelve classmates with two spouses and a child plus a surprise guest - Sir Gani, our oh so thoughtful adviser! He never missed a reunion. We were deeply touched.

Sir Gani is the neatest and calmest math teacher I've ever known. I actually try to imitate his style but I just cannot focus on my writing on the board when I have the solutions fast running in my head. I bet my students sometimes wish I'm as nice as I look. Looks can sometimes be deceiving, you know. Hehe.

Anyway, Sir Gani had a reenactment of our most memorable moment of him. He caught us cheating on his math subject. I'd like to believe that it was our first time we cheated and not just the first time he caught us. Haha! He then let us pass all our papers and tore the 41 sheets all together. That was the first and the last time he got angry but he was still the calmest man on earth when he was angry. Slow claps for you, Sir! Thank you for being so inspiring and I'm so proud of how far you have gone in your career. Keep it up! :)

A lot has happened in that few hours. Let these photos speak.

Delete the fact that we've become professionals because when we get together, we can get a whole room rocking. We miss everyone who missed this event! Until next December pipol!

As the head of this get together, I'd like to extend my super heartfelt thanks to the following people:

To Rain, Clintford, Mark Anthony, Borj, and Harvey for sponsoring this super bonggang reunion. We literally did not bring anything but ourselves because you had it all paid for us. It was unfortunate that you could not come but your thoughtfulness pushed this event to the next level. We would have been happy just eating pansit canton and pandesal and halo-halo in Maharlika but you wanted so much more for us. Indeed, it felt better drinking water and soda from a wine glass. Haha! Thank you so much!

To Lourdes for being the host, the game master, the photographer and the talented momma of a more talented Everest. I just feel that she will be more talented than you. :) Thanks Everest for dancing "Tiny Bubbles". You are the cutest!

To Reicel for the playlist of our not-so-old songs and the collection of our not-so-old photos. I miss hearing Eminem, Britney Spears, the Hansons, M2M, etc. and I love looking at our then innocent faces.

To Luv for preparing and wrapping the souvenirs and prizes before taking an unexpected vacation. I love my yellow SB mug but I have not won anything from the raffle, as usual.

To Sahara for our registration forms which I totally forgot when the gang started coming. Hehe.

To Nenia for the most awaited prize of the evening and for the untimely exercise just to get what I left from my house. I really appreciate your extra efforts and support Nenskie. :)

To Rex for the super fun-looking tarpaulin. I like the layout.

To Champoy, Jayr, Michael (and wife), Aileen, Joev, Jervin for coming. It was a great time guys.

To Harvey, Borj, Raya, Melai for skyping. Next time, be sure to come, it was hard laughing aloud  and updating lovelives through skype with a loud sound system in the background. Haha!

Thank you all very much for the wonderful years of friendship! 

Beautiful Cakes

I wanted to give the cake for my niece's first birthday. I was in the middle of searching the web for ideas when I stumbled upon the FB account of a highschool friend, Jennie Mae. Her creations were so beautiful and I knew right there and then that I had to get her to make Caela's cake.

My sister and I decided to have a garden theme so I'd like the cake to have beautiful flowers and butterflies in bright pink and sunny yellow. 

Look at this! Just the way I wanted it and even more! :)

Cupcakes and a fondant cake. This was the star of the event (like a cake should be).

So if you're looking for a maker of beautiful cakes in Gensan, click here.

Friends For Nearly A Lifetime

People amazingly bonded by differences remained to be friends for nearly a lifetime.

Yup... I'm just really so amazed how we stayed to be so strong amidst time and distance. Meet my lifetime friends!

(Lolo Bents, Harvey, Guimo, Me, and Borj.. minus Kuya Edgar and Luvvy)

This is my Pugadbaboy Family. The group was formed during highschool. Can't remember how. Can't remember why. You know highschool years. Teens always desire to belong. And we always go with people who somehow tell so much of who we also are. Our class then was divided into groups. Everyone belonged to a particular group. I was so blessed to be in uhmmm... 3 groups! :) Ahhh... I feel so loved...

I had a girl group called CREAM which was an acronym for our names - Cham, Rizza, Ems(that's me), Aprilyn, and Melody. (So smart of us to have thought about that huh.) This was actually my first group ever in highschool. But we haven't really sustained the bond because some went to other sections already. :( But of course, our hearts remain loyal to each other. I miss you girls!

My second girl group (actually semi-girl group because we had one boy), was the Healthy Babies. Our then DJ friend, Kuya Chester of 98.3 Home Radio (still my fave station!), gave that name to us because almost everyone was healthy/chubby except ME :) (By the way, Kuya Chester is now a policeman. Isn't that amazing?!?) These girls are my other lifetime friends. We've been through a lot together. Can't imagine my life without them. Though each one's busy building their families, their careers, we still see each other, especially during the important events of our lives. I never would have survived highschool without you my dear friends. I love you all!

(Just some of the HB. We're actually 11. Haven't scanned the pic where we're complete.)

And the third was the Pugadbaboy. This really is a unique group. The extremes, I guess :) The upper extremes I must say. :)

We had "The Valedictorian" with us. Oops.. That would not be me (sadly). That's Guimo. The most intelligent and humble creature on earth. He's so blessed with lots of talent. An awesome writer and "drawer". Hehe.. (Kinuha mo na lahat Guims.)

We had "The Talkative." Well, I'd rather say, the most vibrant, the most outgoing, and the most "happy" man on earth. That would be Borj. He's a singer, a dancer, a photographer, a director, choreographer, dubber, best actor (He can make a comedy script so dramatic and the other way around. Could you imagine how brilliant that is?!) And wait, before I forget, the sought-after prince. :P

We also had the "The President". The grand slam president, Harvey. Everyone loved his leadership. We couldn't let him go even if he ousted himself from office. Haha! That was a very memorable moment. The most responsible and organized person! So admiring! And hey, he's a walking bookstore. You need stapler? scotchtape? extra ballpen? My gosh! He had it all!

We had "The Quiet Artist" but charming Kuya Edgar, my most gentleman bestfriend. Everyone loved him. He was the mabait type. He sings, plays the guitar, draws well, and a mathematician! What more can you ask for?

We also had "The Singer". That would be my other bestfriend (girl version:) Desiree. But I call her Luvvy. She's also a dancer, an actress, and a beauty queen!

We had "The Scientist", Bents. I call him Lolo Bents. (Because again it was a family. We had our own roles :P). He just soooooo loved science. It's as if he knows every scientific phenomenon on earth! Whew!! You need not to read a book. Ask Lolo Bents and he has the answer. Hehe.. And he was the grandslam Most Punctual!

And we also had the Uhhummm... Me... Omg! Who was I again? I wasn't the singer nor the dancer nor the artist. How come I wasn't the upper extreme?! Oh! I remember! I was "The Contact Person". Haha! What a role!

What I love about being in a dominant guy group is that, a girl feels so taken cared of. I feel protected and secured and so loved :) Luvvy and I are sooooooo blessed! :)

The family had a reunion because Lolo Bents came home from Mindoro(his workplace). We always do that. We see each other when he comes home...To catch up on things. Just minus Luvvy and Kuya this time. (work related excuse). But we had Sahara with us. :) Papa Guims' "love interest". Hehe.. Sometimes, she plays to be the cousin.


(with Sahara)


So fun to be with you everytime guys! Ours is a living proof that friendships grow amidst time and distance! Love you all! Huggggggggggssss!!! :)

A Noble Act of Service

Our highschool batch holds reunion every December. We don't want to miss each other so much so we make it sure to see each other at least once a year. :) And we don't want to be surprised of each other's life's events so we catch up often. :)

Last December, we decided to do a noble act for our alma mater, the General Santos City High School. And via suggestion of our dearly loved adviser, we agreed to join the brigada eskwela this year.

"Brigada Eskwela is a schools maintenance program nationwide that engages all education stakeholders to contribute their time, effort, and resources in ensuring that all public schools are ready in time for school opening. It is a week-long event where communities, parents, alumni, civic groups, local businesses, non-government organizations, and private individuals including teacher and student volunteers devote their time and skills to do repairs and maintenance work in public schools."

We called for pledges and had raised a generous amount. (I love you Einstein pips for having a kind and gratitude-filled heart!)

Harvey, Guimo and I had an ocular survey weeks before the Brigada to coordinate with the school officials for the needed service.



We also met our teachers and had a visit to our classrooms. :) Super fun! :)





Our Science Curriculum Coordinator, Ma'am Almasin emphasized the need for the repainting of ceilings of the 8 sci-curr rooms. And so it was. We were to paint the ceilings!!! :) We canvassed for paints and painting materials and our pledges were good enough to supply the 32 liters of paint. Yey! We got excited! :)

And then the day came! It wasJune 1, 2010. The day when Einstein '02 got back to GSCHS to show gratitude to our teachers and our school. After 8 years, we were back! All the good memories flashed back. We were not only there to visit but more than our presence, we brought something else. Something to share to our beloved school and to the present city highians. 

(The gang with our adviser Sir Gani and Sci-curr coordinator, Ma'am Almasin.)

(My first time to paint. :) I had fun!)