It was a beautiful day for a wedding. 🙂
Today we celebrated Bhenie’s union with Rey.
Those were just a few snippets of this afternoon’s LOVEly celebration filled with happiness for the newlywed couple as they were surrounded by loved ones who congratulated and wished the best for them in their journey as Husband and Wife.
To our friends Rey and Bhenie, we wish you blissful days ahead as you face each day hand-in-hand TWOgether. God bless you always.
This year’s Floriade’s theme was Mind, Body and Soul which aimed to rejuvenate visitors to Canberra’s flower festival. Some of the featured flower beds were Clouds, Water Drop, Music for the Soul, Family and Friends, Love, Yin and Yang and Sunlight.
Our experience this year was quite different compared to last year’s. This year, we had moments of hits and misses.
The Flower Beds…most of it a miss, some of it a hit.
The flower beds weren’t as spectacular compared to last year although for first timers, they would find the festival amazing nevertheless. For my friends and us (Husband and I) who had seen last year’s, we were quite disappointed that the flower beds weren’t as rich as before. One thing we noticed was that there weren’t that much tulips and most of the garden fillers were just green plants instead of small flowers.
However, there were some flower beds which were still abundant in flowers such as the Sunlight flower bed (see photo above) and they were still beautiful backdrops for photo ops.
Individual Flowers…a hit and a miss.
Due to the dust storm and heavy rains that’s been happening in NSW and Canberra, it damaged most of the flowers. Almost all the flowers had red stains due to the dust storm. Photographing individual flowers took a little more patience in finding the not-so-damaged ones.
The Canberra weather…a hit and a miss.
If you would notice, we were in jackets that day (we were in winter clothes!). Simply because it was between 5-10 degrees and really, really windy. It was rain and shine that day, meaning, one minute it would be raining and then it would be sunny the next. Para kaming nakikipag-hide and seek kay Haring Araw.
The Food…a hit!
The foodie that I am, trust me to find the yummiest food in any event and I will surely find it. Upon entrance to the Floriade, I smelled the fragrance of sweet donuts so I followed my senses and found this little amazing and cute Honey Donut Puffs.
I loved it! It was easy to eat and the sweetness was just right. Later in the morning, there was a horde of people waiting in line just to have a taste of these donuts. Good thing, we were there early.
The rides…a hit!
One of the things we weren’t able to do last year was to get on a ride. Since my godson Caleb is toddler now, Jackie and I bought tickets to the Tea Cup Ride so Caleb can experience it. The funny thing was Jackie was more scared of it than Caleb while I laughed all throughout the ride, just enjoying and having fun. In fairness to Jackie, the ride was kinda dizzy hehe.
The Lotus Lounge…a hit!
This place was our respite from all the wintry weather we experienced at the Floriade. The Lotus Lounge had this cozy ambience and thanks to the heaters they provided, this place turned out to be the best place to rest from all the walking we did in the morning. This was where we had hot chocolates while we gave our legs a rest.
Shopping…a hit!
A hit because I found this cool, innovative bags made by a Japanese designer based in Hobart. The brand is called Sashiko Design. I will share with you the designer’s details in another entry.
Lunch at the Park-ing Lot (hehe)…a hit!
We could have had lunch at the festival. We could have had lunch at the Canberra’s City Centre. But despite the crazy weather that day (we knew beforehand that we will be experiencing rains), we insisted on bring pot luck and eat at the park…in our case, at the parking lot hehe. We all shared a very yummy menu: Bopis, Menudo, Adobo and Itlog na Maalat (Salted Egg). And because it was raining during lunchtime, we had to improvise. Ginawa naming Jolly-jeep ang sasakyan nila Jackie hehe. It was one funny and memorable lunch.
Stopover at Bakery of Goulburn on the way home…a hit!
Our Floriade trip won’t be complete if we don’t have a taste of The Bakery of Goulburn’s delicious meat pies. This also became our stopover on our way back, but a long stopver as we took our time savoring our meat pies and coffees and talked some more.
This year’s Floriade may have had a couple of misses but we are grateful that we had the company of our friends who made our trip to Canberra worthwhile, memorable and enjoyable. And even if the festival wasn’t as spectacular as last year, this gave us the chance to enjoy other stuff at the festival other than just the flowers and flower beds. Yes, the flowers may be the main event of the festival, but there is more to the festival than that.
For more photographs, please check these links:
26 September 2009 – Floriade 2009
Some Tips:
1. Floriade is an event in Canberra, Australia every Spring that runs for 5 weekends (usually starts on the 2nd week of September). To know more about the Floriade before going there, check out its website: http://www.floriadeaustralia.com
2. Wear sunblock even if it’s cold and cloudy. Even if the sun isn’t shining, you must protect yourself from UV rays. And don’t forget to bring your sunglasses too!
3. Bring a jacket. Whenever you are going to Canberra, always bring a jacket with you. Weather can be unpredictable and when it’s cold in Canberra, it can really be cold.
4. Bring an umbrella. You’ll never know when it’s going to rain.
5. Be early so (1) you can get a parking spot and (2) you can enjoy the festival more when there’s not much people yet.
6. Check out Canberra’s weather forcast via http://www.weather.com.au/act/canberra
7. Check out the stalls that sell local produce–they sell at a lower price during the festival.
Last Saturday (19/9/09–love the date!), I organized a party for friends in celebration of the Husband’s 30th birthday. It was one of the happiest moments of our lives as our friends gathered around to wish him a very happy birthday.
It was our 3rd time to have a party at home and Chris and I are somehow getting better at hosting parties we think (haha!). Other than the fact that we love doing party preps, entertaining and having friends around (we love hearing laughters echoing inside the home), we enjoy organizing events TWOgether (I guess it’s because we’re used to working together at the office when we were still in Manila). Organizing parties is just one of the effects of our teamwork and we love successful parties!
We did a couple of new things for this party such as our table centrepiece. We usually put flowers but for the first time, I made this simple candle and fruit centrepiece. These are two things that I love seeing on our dining table on any normal day so why not use it for special occassions too.
Served Cabanossi Sausages as part of our Antipasto Platter to give that meaty flavor to wet the appetite before diving into the mains.
For our mains, I served Chicken Lollipops with homemade gravy and Pork Asado for the first time. I used to cook these before but always with the help of either my mom or my grandma. We also served Spring Rolls and Chicken Meatballs.
We were fortunate enough to have helpful friends who brought food so we had lots for everyone. They brought Spaghetti, Baked Macaroni, Veggies, Duck in Red Curry. They even brought dessert! Amazing.
It was also the first time that Chris baked for our friends!!! Yes, my Husband bakes now while I cook—we are really a team now even when it comes to the kitchen. He baked Friands in three flavors: Blueberry, Almond and Chocolate for dessert. Our friends loved it! I’m so proud of my Husband :).
The food was just the icing on the cake but the company, the laughter, great conversations and time spent with our friends are biggest bonus of the celebration. We are truly grateful for their presence.
For more of the happy photos on Chris’ birthday bash, please click HERE.
Happy happy birthday to my beloved Husbandski! 🙂
My beloved, the love of my life,
On your special day, I just want to thank you for being one of the greatest blessings in my life. Your presence has made me doubly happy and you have gifted me with so much peace in this lifetime. In our fun and sometimes crazy journey as partners in this thing called Marriage, you always bring out the best in me. Thank you! With you, I am never without love.
Happy birthday Husbandski. May all you wish for come true. Love love love YOU.
For the past years, gift giving between me and the Husband during special occassions usually occur before or after THE day. A simple reason is that on THE day, we’d like to focus on the celebration of the occassion. We’d like to focus on spending time with people that matter to us or find joy in the simple things that we’d like to do on special days—because that is what truly matters.
So today, we celebrated my Husband’s birthday by:
Thank you to all our family, relatives and friends who remembered. Chris sends his appreciation to all of you. We are truly touched by your good wishes.
Will upload photos soon.
In some areas of Australia, winter time is from June to August. And in those months, some parts of the country is blessed (to others it may seem as a curse hehe) with snow. So, it is only at this time of the year that people get to flock winter wonderlands to make snowmans, snow angels and ski to on snowy mountains. And when you say snowmans, it can only mean one thing–Christmas! Hence, some of us in the land down under greet each other “Merry Christmas in July!!” at this time of the year.
This winter season, instead of going to the Snowy Mountains like we did last year, the Husband and I decided to stay in snow-less Sydney and hibernate for most part of June–we just stayed home most weekends and rested after a hectic Autumn season.
This month, we finally went out and for the first time celebrated Christmas in July on 19 July 2009, a day before our 30th wedding monthsary.
We celebrated by having breakfast at the Aroma Festival at the Rocks…
and by watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at IMAX in Darling Harbour.
The Husband and I were very excited to watch this movie. We are a fan of this movie franchise!!! We’ve missed seeing an HP movie together coz when HP 4 and 5 came out in cinemas, he was still in Dubai then. So now that we are together, we decided to watch it in IMAX too because we both haven’t seen any films via IMAX here in Sydney.
We arrived in Darling Harbour at 11:15am and there was already a long queue towards the entrance of the cinema. When we bought the tickets a week prior to showing of the movie, the ticket person instructed us to be in IMAX at least an hour before show time in order to get good seats (no reserved seating kasi). Buti na lang din bumili na kami ng tickets beforehand because when we got there, sold out na lahat ng tickets for the whole day.
So we waited for like 40 minutes before we entered the cinema and true enough, it was jampacked.
Only the first 10 minutes of the film was in 3D, then the rest was in 2D. Nevertheless, we loved the film and to see it in a big screen was a bonus. It is the funniest and most romantic Harry Potter movie to-date. It made me look forward to the upcoming two HP movies.
After the film, we were both famished because we missed lunch (only had popcorn while we watched) so we decided to buy fish ‘n chips and hung out by the harbour while we ate our late lunch.
So there goes our Happy Christmas and pre-30th monthsary date this July.
In other news, feeling Christmas talaga ang aming July because of so many blessings this month:
(1) The 60th birthday of my dearest mommy which was celebrated with my in-laws and our friends.
(2) Birthday celebrations here in Aussieland: my aunt and cousin celebrated their special day.
(3) Parties with friends: Kolokoys Party on the first week of July and Wii Lunch Party with our other couple friends on the 2nd week where we discovered the amusing Wii Samba de Amigo game.
(4) Other than Harry Potter, we also watched Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen this month 🙂
(5) Christmas in July won’t be complete without gifts right? Here in also Australia, we have we what we call EOFYS or End of Financial Year Sale wherein stores nationwide mark down their prices in order to get rid of old/current stocks. Discount prices go up to 70%-80%. This is one of the best times to shop in Aussieland.
Two weeks ago, we found out that the Wii Fit is being sold for only AUD99.00. Since I’ve been wanting to own one for the longest time, but delaying it, hoping that maybe one day it will go on sale–well, it finally did 🙂 So voila, we now have our very own Wii Fit :).
We can always feel like Christmas in our hearts but setting a day or month to honor and celebrate Christmas in the middle of the year is such a wonderful experience too. Celebrating Christmas in July gave us that warm fuzzy feeling in the middle of winter season which surely gave us a lot of excitement even if we didn’t have to go somewhere far.
Now isn’t it wonderful to have two CHRIStmases in one year????