Saturday, November 18, 2006

waiting to exhale

stage decor for the party

is it just me or am i suddenly drowning?

hm, let's see...gelli's party is just two weeks away. as the self-proclaimed party planner, i've been keeping a mental checklist of the stuff to do. that is, until my brain practically imploded. so i actually printed out a list of all the tasks that each member of our family had to do for the party. it's been tedious and i could feel the tension start to build up. just this week, a few members of our family had a fight three days in a row (and papa was in all of them.) truthfully, i'm just waiting for the whole event to just pass us by and then i can breathe.

but of course, there's still the December Vineyard issue, which will be our biggest release this year. only less than a month til our deadline and i'm already losing my mind over it! thank God our staff and the SOLV Anniversary team are supportive.

and then, there's my first FPC blog assignment. i'm doing an interview on the first featured photographer for December. i'm too tired to talk about it so i'll just post the update when it's all done

so, till all the hullabaloo
has been ticked off in my mental and hardcopy checklist, i'll be useless in the blogging world.

whew. oh, i just exhaled.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

a life less ordinary

i live a charmed life.

no, i'm not a millionaire nor do i wish to be one. i don't have vacation homes in the Bahamas, a Phantom Rolls Royce, a private jet, or a gazillion-dollar yacht in the Riviera. heck, i don't even have a personal assistant. but i love my life.

lately, i've been bombarded with surprise after surprise. of course, they're the good kind so i'm not complaining. :D

Ka-Blog!

i've been blogged!

after shocking me with news about my fireworks photo shoot win, robert does it again. right after claiming my Ceragem GC, i got the surprise of my life when he told me that FPC decided to feature me in their blog. who, me?? :O i'm not even a professional photographer! he looked serious so i took his word for it.

true enough, i got an e-mail from pat about the interview. a few days after answering the questions and sending it back thru e-mail, i found myself in a crowded McDonalds branch, being interviewed. and i haven't even recovered from the past events yet! it all seemed surreal and if i hadn't seen the blog post, i would've thought i was imagining things.

FPC has so many extremely talented people and to be recognized is such an honor!

the interview was very candid. well, i'm not a complicated and technical person so my answers were pretty straightforward and honest (check out the question about the BOYFRIEND. haha). robert was quick to take down notes and he did a great job writing what transpired that afternoon. i enjoyed the introduction, particularly the part where he described my outfit. yes, i did go to the gym that afternoon. :D

check out the interview here. :)

Our Hyatt Experience, Part 2

we were able to use the remaining GC for our overnight stay @ The Hyatt Regency Hotel.

the first time we were there, i was practically a couch potato and spent my stay either sleeping o eating while watching cable TV (save for our morning swim.) last week was a different story.

since the whole family (except for tonet, who was still in pampanga that time) checked in the hotel in the afternoon, i had more time to traipse around with gelli. after our early (and extremely cheap) dinner at a nearby hospital, we went back to the hotel room to rest. mama brought her work (we're a family of workaholics, i tell you!) and it kept her awake till the middle of the night. papa, on the other hand, decided to relish the opportunity for some R&R and didn't let go of the remote for hours (how typically male of him.)

what did i do?

i dragged gelli to be my photo shoot model, of course! hahaha!

jumping for joy

i joined in the fun, too.


gelli, stop picking your nose! :p

pa-cute

glamour shot (kuno)

dorky duo

we spent more than an hour in the mezzanine of the hotel, which was blissfully free of people, clicking and posing away like a couple of idiots. a few hotel staff members actually checked on us just to make sure we weren't doing anything illegal (hello!)

finally, tonet arrived. after another round of photos,

ang bigat ni tonet!


we called it a night and marched back into our rooms.


we woke up early the next day for our breakfast buffet @ Cafe Al Fresco. i missed the lunch buffet we were treated to last time since it had more courses and choices. breakfast was excellent, nonetheless. i had so much food! :O

it was a good thing that we swam after to burn those unwanted calories (yeah right!)

tonet brought her new underwater camera case and we took a few shots. it was great...

testing the camera (oops, it should be underwater. hahaha!)

there you go
...for the first few minutes.

getting blurry

self-portrait :D

i don't know what happened but somehow the casing got a little foggy and moist. we were afraid the water would seep into the camera so we stopped the shooting and focused on the actual swimming (which should have been our primary purpose for being there in the first place)

of course, i came prepared. i brought my camera, too! :D

my crazy sisters

anyways, after swimming and a refreshing bath, we checked out at the hotel and headed for Mall of Asia (what a shocker! :D)

mama and i accompanied gelli as she looked her birthday party dress and a gift for her best friend. i had fun window shopping, as usual. haay, i miss actually buying stuff at Bayo, Maldita, Kamiseta, and Celine.

we wrapped up our Hyatt weekend with the fireworks show @ MoA. i think papa was expecting great photos after my FPC fireworks shoot. unfortunately, my camera's batteries died out. ah well, there's always next time! :)

to TJ, thanks for those Hyatt GCs! sa uulitin! ;)