Ibyang
Ibyang

Snippets of a Hectic Sunday

Celebrated the feast of St. Joseph at St. Michael’s Parish in the morning. It was a big celebration as there was a Filipino Fiesta for the parishioners–free food served by the different Fillipino organizations in Blacktown.

Before we left, we had our new “baby” baptized.

Stopped by our Tita Ma’s place, hung out there for a bit, then went straight to Woodcroft to greet David a happy 1st birthday.

It was a costume party but Chris and I informed Pam that we will try our best to at least drop by. Just very busy with family affairs so we didn’t really have time to prepare costumes for the party.

Jon was there as a soldier.

Cowgirl Che and Cowboy Dom was there too!

Short chitchat with Helen and Pam.

We only stayed for 30 minutes, then sped off to Parklea where the rest of the clan was waiting for us.

After shopping at Parklea, we went back to Tita Bess’ place for dinner.

Hectic, hectic…but fun, fun, fun.

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They’re here!!!!

I just want to share how happy I am yesterday…my parents arrived here in Sydney!!!! Thank God, their flight went well and no dramas at the airport. 🙂

A family photo as soon as they arrived at the airport…

I cried when I saw and hugged them, hence, the red eyes hehe

In just a few minutes after our reunion with them, we were all laughing already (me, the husband, my Tita Bess and Tito Andy) because my Dad was already on a roll making funny remarks. Yup, my Dad’s definitely here because we’re getting louder by the minute. Funny that only now I realized that I got my sense of humor from Dad.

My Mom, yes, the white-haired mestiza woman you see there is not really that old, but just had it in her genes (she got it from my Grandpa) to have white hair earlier than most women her age, is just so happy to be back in the Land Down Under, surrounded by her side of the family.

When we arrived at my Tita’s place, where my Grandma also lives (Grandma as in the mother of my Mom), my Grandma said to me, “O ayan nakita mo na daddy mo”…to which I replied, “Oo nga eh, nandito na kakambal ko”. Hehe. I’m still my Dad’s little girl no matter what. 🙂

I spent the whole day with them at my Tita Bess’ place where the rest of our kapamilyas arrived for dinner.

Our angkan’s grand reunion has finally started! 🙂 We are just waiting for my Tita from America (she will arrive tomorrow) and then it will be some a happier, more beautiful chaos from there.

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Transformation of Our Guest Room

For months since we moved in to our unit, the guest room had been the storage area of our place. Come February this year, it was time to transform it to its real designation, a Guest Room.

We did a lot of work on the Guest Room (as compared to the work done on the Master’s Bedroom) as we didn’t avail of any bedroom packages. We bought a bed and painted it to have a more earthy-color. Bought two matching bedside tables that didn’t match the color of the bed (because we painted it) as we wanted a break from unified colors this time.

So this is how it looks now…not matching and yet there is harmony of colors.

Since in this room, we had a lighter shade of neutral colors, I decided to make the bedsheets red.

And since this is the guest room, we wanted our little furry friends from Australia to welcome our guests….

Our photographs in this room’s theme is Travel, which shows the places we’ve been to. In this photo, you’ll see (from top to bottom) Bohol (Chocolate Hills, Cebu (Magellan’s Cross), Dubai (Burj Al Arab), Hongkong (IFC Building), Singapore (The Merlion), Melbourne (Yarra River) and Canberra (Parliament).

The Guest Room doesn’t have a built-in closet but we didn’t have to buy a cabinet for clothes. It so happened that the Husband’s office moved to a new building so the company decided to give away some furnitures. So the Husband took home his big filing cabinet (which I transformed into a clothes cabinet) and mobile cabinet (which I transformed into a mini-bookshelf. Voila, instant home furnitures!

Since the cabinets are made of steel and gray in color, I bought some wooden placemats and used it as cover for the cabinets, to somehow in-synch them with the bed and bedside tables. I also used a Black vase and Brown-striped tealight candles as accents for the room.

I placed two more travel photos on top of the mini-bookshelf, this time, it’s a photo of us in La Perouse (one of our favorite places in Sydney) and a sunset photo of Boracay taken during our honeymoon in 2007.

Transforming the Guest Room took six weeks to complete–we just finished last Sunday. It’s all ready now.

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Our Zen-inspired Bedroom

17 March 2009 2 Comments Category: Domestic Bliss

When we moved in to our 2-bedroom unit, we didn’t have much of a bed…we only had a mattress. For nearly two months, we technically slept on the floor.

We have the simplest Master’s Bedroom there is. My idea of a bedroom is just a room with a bed, bedside tables and lampshades because the only thing I want to do inside our bedroom (other than dress up) is to read and sleep. I simply wanted a room where I can relax and lie down and think of nothing.

As simple as our room may be, it took us months to complete whatever is inside the room because it took us ages to find the perfect bedside lampshades (read: the lampshades that suited the room AND my preference). We actually bought a bedroom package because I particularly wanted unison. The last thing I want for our bedroom is the “sabog” look.

The idea/theme for the bedroom is Zen-inspired and a fusion of Leather and Wood. Our bed is made out of Leather. Since we’re surrounded by dark, hard wood, I wanted to soften things a bit, plus it makes a good cushion for my back when reading (I made sure that the headboard was cushioned). Our bed and furnitures are all in shades of chocolate brown. Since everything is in dark color, our bedsheets are of a lighter shade of brown which is Beige, to lighten up the room.

The only other furniture we have inside our bedroom (other than what you see on the photo above) is a Tallboy that comes with the bedside tables and that’s where we put additional clothes in. I don’t even have a small boudoir (a.k.a. make-up area or in the Phils, it is this Tokador where we put all our make-up, lotion, etc.) to do my girly stuff. We have a built-in closet with doors made of mirrors so that’s where I have a place for my girly stuff and I do all my getting-all-dolled-up standing up infront of the closet.

As of now, we don’t have any other electronic devices inside our room, except for the Alarm Clock with Radio features (which I never really turn on for listening music) on my side of the bed. I know the Husband would want that we someday have a TV inside the room but I’m prolonging the time not having it, providing lots and lots of reasons on why we don’t need it—I really don’t like a TV inside our room.

So there, a peek of our simple Zen-inspired bedroom.

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