Ibyang
Ibyang

Wall-E!!!!!

Husband and I never usually go to the shops early. But this morning, as soon as I woke up, I just dressed up–no, breakfast even!–and went out coz Husband wanted to take me shopping for a toy that I’ve been wanting to own for soooo long.

Yesterday, we saw in a shop’s catalogue that the toy that I want will be on sale starting 13 April (which is today). Here in Australia, when something is advertised and you really want it, it is advisable that you arrive early at the shops to buy it or else, later in the day, it will be sold out.
So at 9:30am, we were at the shops already…went straight to where we could find “my” toy…and there it was…my big Wall-E!!!!

The box says “InterAction Wall-E”.

It talks, moves its head and hands, lights its eyes up and wheels around.

The amusing thing is it responds to your voice. When I call out “Wall-E!!!”…it replies back to me and says, “Eee–vaah!” Aliw!!!

Eyeloveit! 🙂

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Happy Easter!!!!

May the celebration of Easter bring brighter and happier beginnings for you!

Cheers to renewed

FAITH

HOPE and LOVE.

-o0o-

This is my happiest Easter in Australia as this year I have my Husband and Parents to celebrate this season with. I’m glad that with the three days, I was able to spend time with God, some time with family and some time for reflection.

Snippets of our Easter 2009:

Thursday night (10 April 2009). Dinner with our relatives and then together with family friends, we all went out to five churches to do the Bisita Iglesia. In each church we visited, we said about 2-3 Stations of the Cross.

Friday (10 April 2009). Attended the Stations of Cross at St. Patrick’s Church. It was re-enacted so it was more touching and meaningful.

Saturday (11 April 2009). Road trip to Canberra. Whole day spent with my parents as we took them to the Canberra, the capital of Australia.

Explored miniature gardens in Cockington Green
At the peak of Canberra…at the Telstra Tower

Visit to Australia’s Parliament House…

…and the Royal Australian Mint (where Australian Money is made!).

Sunday (12 April 2009). Easter!!!!!!! We attended mass in the morning then spent the whole afternoon at the Mendoza’s place where we held our annual Easter Egg Hunting.
Which resulted to lots and lots of chocolate Easter bunnies and eggs.
Happy Easter!!!! Hope everyone had a lovely time!
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Organic Choices For The Home (Part 2)

My new organic finds for the home: Quick Oats and Yogurt.

Quick Oats can be cooked the normal way (with boiled water) or with use of a microwave.

I love yogurt!!!—especially now that it’s organic.

Some things I need to clarify:

I’m sharing my organic finds for the home for the simple reason that I want people to be aware that organic choices are easily available to everyone nowadays. The key word here is AWARENESS.

In my first entry about Organic Choices for the Home, I veered away from the word “healthy” as I didn’t want readers to have the notion that the only way to be healthy is to use organic products. If you read my entry again, I didn’t refer organic food to “being solely healthy” but instead regard it as one of the several healthy options.

May I quote again the second to the last sentence that I wrote: “People are lucky nowadays to find several healthy options (one of which is organic) available to them in the market.”

Thank you!

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A Concert and A Reunion

It was an eventful weekend for us as we watched the Jon Santos Live & In Persons show on Saturday (4 April 2009) at Burwood RSL.

Hilda joined us so she can hang out with us and my parents.

The greatest surprise was seeing a fellow East West Banker in Sydney, Anna!! According to her, she saw Chris first and thought “Asawa ‘to ni Ivy ah!” She immediately looked for me. Then she saw me just a meter away from Chris and screamed, “Ivy!!!” She just recently arrived in Australia and is visiting Sydney for a few days. Ayan, nadagdagan na kami uli ng isang taga-East West Bank dito. 🙂

It was such an entertaining show—the crowd loved Jon Santos!!! He’s such a great impersonator/actor/comedian. Ang galing galing niya. We were truly entertained.

My favorite was his impersonation of Ate Vi.

We didn’t bring our DSLR with us but will share some photos soon from our friend’s camera.

The show was Jim Paredes’ (in collaboration with Mega-Rhythm productions) first time to produce a show in Australia and it was a successful run, the place was jampacked.

After seeing Jon Santos performed live, I recommend that should you ever get a chance to watch his show, please do so. He is really good and he’s an actor/comedian all Filipinos can be proud of.

Sunday was spent with some friends from the Philippines who are visiting Sydney for a few days.

We picked up Vince (our Kumpare), Irene and Nap in the City on Sunday morning and went straight to Featherdale Wildlife Park to meet up with the other half of the group.

We took them to Featherdale so they can experience touching a Koala and feeding Kangaroos.

From there, we went to up to Blue Mountains where we were greeted with the bluest landscape one can ever see.

Thank God for a very nice weather.

The happy crew: John, Shawie, Louie, Teena, Irene, Vince, Nap, Ibyang, Chris.

Our last stop was at Max Brenner, Westpoint Blacktown where we enjoyed lots and lots of chocolate goodies–from drinks to Belgian waffles dipped in melted chocolate. Yummmmy.

It was long day for us but we all enjoyed it. It was nice showing our friends around Sydney and to hear about updates about the Philippines and simply catch up.

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Goodbyes Are Always A Sad Thing

…even if we’re so used to it.

On Friday (3 April 2009), our 2-week family reunion ended as Tita Cyn left for America.

We “celebrated” her last day in Sydney (Thursday, 2 April) by having Yum Cha for lunch.

Then we had a dinner despedida for her at The Balilo’s place…

where we all gathered around for the last time.

The following morning, it was time to go :(.

‘Til we see each other again Tita Cyn. We love you and we miss you. Mwah!

-o0o-

I had a chance to take photos when we were all saying our goodbyes at the airport, but I didn’t want to take photos of family goodbyes. I don’t need photographs to remember the pain of being apart from family.

Since I was a kid, I have fully understood what it means to love from afar. My mother’s clan are scattered in three continents of the world: America, Asia, Australia. Our hearts have always been battered by unhappy departures at the airport. We always knew that every happy reunion will always come to an end but still it hurts just the same.

To everyone who patiently read about my clan’s 2-week reunion in Sydney, thank you! I apologize if I bombarded you with endless photographs of our adventure.

Starting next week, I will resume writing about my Wifey adventures.

For more photographs, kindly check (and bookmark) http://ibyangbabe.multiply.com/. All photos will be uploaded there soon.

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