Mel and the New Normal

I really wish I had taken more room shots of Hotel Elizabeth. It was a really pretty place, and worth it's price. Back story here is, we were supposed to stay at our house in Baguio. My cousin, who was an hour ahead of us on the road, saw that the road leading to the house was being renovated. Since it was a narrow and winding road, we decided not to stay in the house instead, especially since it was late at night already. We didn't want to have to deal with figuring out if the electricity and running water had any kinks. I had read about Hotel Elizabeth in a magazine, where they featured the owner. I saw online that they had a 50% percent sale on the prices! It came out about P2,500/night. Ordinarily J and I would stay at a lower priced place, but when we're the kids we're concerned about safety and cleanliness. We were relieved that they had available rooms. At 11PM, we were tired and ready to just pass out on a clean place. Luckily, Hotel Elizabeth was beaut...

It's been years since we visited Camp John Hay. We were surprised to see a part of it was developed into an Ayala Land mini-hub kind of thing, with a call center and all. And around the call center? Restaurants galore! There was Fruits In Cream, Yellow Cab, Starbucks, etc! We had eaten dinner already though, so we decided to try a place that had desserts, called "Everything Nice." Well-lit entrance Menu of Beverages J and Josh lining up, checking out desserts. Clean interiors. Waiting for our hot chocolate and cakes Chocolate Mousse Their version of Hot Chocolate J said he was pleasantly surprised by how good the desserts were! Pasalubong shelf All in all, I think we were happy with the desserts! We had their chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, and hot choco, and all were good. Reasonably priced (think Starbucks rates) and a lot of people were going in and out. It's definitely worth checking out, instead of going to the o...

Before trekking home, I insisted on having some Starbucks. We were leaving Subic at 5:30PM, and had to stay awake to make sure we were heading the right direction. The kids bought some cream-based choco frappes and goodies as well. 

The next day, after arriving home from Subic, I immediately had meetings in Fort area. After several attempts to visit the place, we finally got to see SM Aura! Previously we were caught in the traffic going there, so we never got the chance. On a weekday, parking was effortless. The food court - not much to see here yet. 

As this was an impromptu roadtrip, with no specific days on a particular location, we had to play everything by ear. So.... we didn't have a place to stay in Subic when we got there. This is unusual for us, since we usually book our places wayyyyy in advance because I want to find dirt-cheap places that are clean.  When we got to Subic, while eating our late lunch, I used my Samsung S4 to find nearby hotels with high ratings in Agoda. Unfortunately, it seems that the expensive resorts were the ones with high ratings! The rest had low ratings! I was ready to check in a hotel (sorry forgot the name) that was P3,000 a night, but on the way there, almost across the street, we saw this building -- Mango Valley. J said it looks nice, maybe they have rooms. The place across was their's as well. We left the kids in the car in front, and went in to check out the place. The lobby had cold aircon and had a welcoming air to it. We asked the rate per night -- P1,600! They sai...

To an amazing dad, thank you for taking on the on the challenge of being a wonderful provider and father, even if we were just kids ourselves when we became parents. I'm sure our kids could not ask for a cooler techie dad/punching/pinching bag/Mr. Clean lookalike/driver. Happy Father's Day!!

While I was pregnant, I made a list of things that I missed doing. I missed doing them because I was stuck in bed, and physically limited. This included eating at my favorite restaurants (the smells made me sick), doing things with my kids outdoors (well, this was rare to begin with, we were more of aircon people), and jogging (insert FEELING here bwahahahah). I think I just missed the freedom of movement. This gave rise to another list eventually, the things I WOULD do and I have NEVER DONE BEFORE if I made it thru without physical problems. There's a separate mental list of things Kat and I would do if she made it thru, but I never had the heart to write it down. Anyways, the list of things I WOULD do included: 1. Surfing at Baler. (I know, I'm so FEELING talaga. Whales don't surf! But I tried it once and I liked it. By once, I mean, a surfboard hit me on the head once in Punta Fuego. It was love at first hit.) 2. Learn how to DJ. (This is a long story in itself.) 3....

I don't remember ever picking strawberries in Baguio. Perhaps when I was a kid. Or maybe I just forgot. Anyways, we promised the kids that we would take them strawberry picking. So even if it was raining a bit, and it was traffic getting there, we still persevered. Since it was our first time to travel to the fields by ourselves, we had to use Google Maps on my S4. We were able to find the correct spot, though we mistakenly took the longer, off-road route (my bad.)

This is such a late follow-up to my 30th birthday celebration, but anyways I just had to continue it because I haven't written about the best part! After Gourmet's, we went to our massage appointment at Sonya's Garden. Since everyone's been there,  I'm not posting any shots anymore. Also, coincidentally, our room that day wasn't that great. =p There was a plumbing problem so we were put in a room on the lower floor, which was facing the property beside it and had.. outside people, if you know what I mean. Nevertheless, we had a great massage. Please note that the massages there are A LOT more expensive than Metro Manila massages, roughly P1,300 each. We went straight to Antonio's after, where J made reservations for dinner. We were there super early, around 5:30 or 6PM. Antonio's is our favorite celebration place! We usually go there for his or my birthday, or... when there's a DealGrocer deal available, haha! For us, it's the best...

As I mentioned in a previous post, we decided to have family shots done by one of my good friends in the industry, Michelle Morelos. Coincidentally, Michelle was moving for good to Vancouver, where a lot of my family is based! At P2,500, we grabbed the chance to have our first-ever family portrait done. Though missing one member, we knew she was with us in spirit. =D Sharing some of the fabulous shots. There are a lot more, and a lot of cheesy ones, but I can't post 200+ photos here anyways even if I tried! Here are my favorite ones! We love almost everything though, we got the CD in a week and everything was gorgeous. I look thin in a lot of them! Hahaha! 

One of the things we prayed for while expecting Kat was that she would make it long enough to be baptized. With these things, you don't know, sometimes it's just a few minutes, and they're gone. Thanks to our amazing doctors, she made it 1 day. During this time, Makati Med assisted us in our emergency baptism. We also got her Baptismal Certificate, eventually (you don't really need this, but anything that would remind me of her, I treasure.) J hunted down the priest of MMC though because he was busy making the rounds, praying with patients. But when he found the priest, they were able to do the baptism right away. I would suggest that you have this done, even if you're not super religious (points to self.) It gave me peace of mind that we were able to do that for her.

I often get asked the following questions. For anyone who needs to know the basics of CDH, or a little about my medical history, here are some questions and answers: 1. Is the cause of CDH known yet? Unfortunately, no. Some studies are leaning towards a lack of Vitamin A in the diet as a possible cause of CDH.. in rats. I could tell you straight out though that the food I ate while I was pregnant has a LOT of Vitamin A. Other studies show that it could be the combination of the parents that cause it, triggered by something else (age?). Maaaannnnnn, I mean, talk about match incompatibility right? We probably won't know in this lifetime. If your baby has CDH, it would be a great help though, to contribute your blood samples and family history to a CDH study, like J and I did. We sent blood samples to New York, and we are part of the study being done there. Who knows, maybe someday, they'll know how to prevent it from happening. If you are in the US, please research on how yo...

I promise, I have happier posts lined up soon! We went on a great mini road-trip, and I have several pictures for sharing. Will be posting them over the next few days!  Just wanted to share some sad news that I've known for a couple of weeks. Often, since Kat died, we get told, "don't worry, you're still young, you'll have another chance!" FYI, this does not hurt our feelings, it's not like people are intentionally telling us that another baby will replace Kat --- we know what they mean that, at least, we still have another chance. Though we are young (question mark here, we might actually be old!), and we would love nothing more than to have another baby to hold (I think this comes with the territory of giving birth but not coming home with your baby), I fear it won't be possible.