Ibyang
Ibyang

The Married Life

Our 3rd Anniversary

20 January 2010. 🙂

For this year, we chose a more relaxed and spontaneous anniversary getaway.  

On the morning of our anniversary, we started a 3-day road trip to experience the Grand Pacific Drive, a drive from Sydney’s Royal National Park to the south coast area of New South Wales. I will tell you more about it soon (with more photos!! hehe). For now, let me share with you snippets of the things we saw and enjoyed on the day we celebrated our 3rd year together.

Not-so-early in the morning, we drove down to Royal National Park to see Garie Beach. 

Then we headed down to Bald Hill and had lunch inside the car. Had an ice cream for dessert as we are mesmerized by all the beautiful scenery below us. It was beautiful. 

Next stop was Sea Cliff Bridge, spend a few minutes there to take photographs. 

Then off we went to Wollongong, our home base for two nights.

After we checked-in at the hotel, we just rested a bit then went out to have afternoon tea. We walked along the streets of the CBD and found this pretty boutique cafe called Lee and Me. We had a cake and coffee. There was a kebab place beside it and since I was pretty hungry from the traveling and heat (one of those hottest days in NSW that time) I bought a chicken kebab (a.k.a Shawarma)

After our yummy afternoon tea, we walked around some more looking for a resto to have dinner at later. We didn’t have any reservations anywhere–no idea whatsoever on where to eat. We wanted to play it by ear and just follow our senses (the way we mostly did when we went to Melbourne for last year’s celebration). After an hour and a half of walking, we found nothing–nothing that we liked. We went to the hotel and decided it was time to look online.

We decided to have dinner at Harbourfront Restaurant. We came in with no reservations but thank God, we were accommodated and even got a table with a great view of the small lighthouse and sailboats. We loved it! 🙂 And the food was delicious. I would go back here just for their rib eye steak (will share in a separate post).

After dinner, we sat by the harbour and enjoyed the serenity around us and the cool breeze that night.  We went back to the hotel and since it was still pretty early, we sat by the bar and had wine and talked some more.

It was a great day for an anniversary celebration: the roadtrip, the sunny weather, the amazing sceneries we saw, the fun drive, the restaurants we discovered, the delicious food we ate and the time spent together. We are grateful not just on “our day” but everyday that we are experiencing this wonderful journey called Marriage. 🙂

For more photos of our 3rd anniversary celebration, please check them all here: Our 3rd Anniversary

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Don’t Panic

The first two words that my Husband said to me this morning was…

Woke up an hour late because I forgot to turn on the alarm of my mobile phone. For some reason, I somehow disabled the alarm yesterday instead of enabling it. I think I was too tired and sleepy last night I wasn’t thinking straight anymore.

When I opened my eyes, it was already 7am! So I sat up and nudged the Husband to tell him that we’ve slept in. All he said was, “Don’t panic” like there was an emergency or something. It amused me amidst the shock of waking up late.

Good thing I always get everything ready the night before I retire to bed: our clothes for work, bags and lunch boxes (they’re inside the fridge so we just have to take them out and put into our bags). I also get our breakfast ready on the table: bowls with spoons and cereal boxes so that all we have to do is bring out the milk, pour it in and eat. It takes awhile for me to rest after dinner because I get everything ready. Other than it has become a habit for me, it’s a good safety net for days when things are running late.

So there’s really nothing to panic about, and we really didn’t, but I appreciated my Husband’s first two words this morning. Maybe he was also shocked so his instinct was to say “Don’t panic” so both of us will come out of the shock as calmly as we could.

The truth of the matter is, there is no logical reason to panic. We love going to work early so we normally wake up before 6AM. However, our work actually lets us come in late (we can come in as late as 10:30AM) but we like being early at work so we can also come home early. And if we do get late for work, so what? It is not the end of the world and it is very seldom that we’re late for work anyway (in my case, never…yet), we’re pretty sure our respective offices will understand.

What also helped was the public transportation here in Sydney tries their best to be on time. It’s not perfect, anyone who lives here know that, but public transport here have a timetable they try to follow. Most of the time I’m grateful that they are efficient and I’m glad today nothing happened in order for the trains and buses to get delayed (at least in my area).

Running late can make us crazy in the morning. But what saved us this morning are two wonderful words spoken by my Husband, the practice of preparing for early morning rush and public transport that thankfully didn’t get delayed.

Hope everyone’s having a great Thursday…TGIT!!!

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Don’t Forget the Honeymoon

15 February 2010 3 Comments Category: The Married Life, Tips

It doesn’t matter where or how you spend your honeymoon, what matters is that you have a break after your wedding.

Preparing the wedding and being the star on your wedding day can be stressful times for you and your future better half–and I mean, stressful in a good way. Whenever soon-to-be married couples ask me advices on how to plan a wedding, one of the things I tell them is “Don’t forget to plan your honeymoon“. I truly believe that is part of planning a wedding. If you look at certain wedding checklists, there’s a part there where it says “Honeymoon”.

Why is it important?
Because it could be one of the things you look forward to on your last leg of preparations. I remember on the last week before my Husband and I were to wed, all we could think about was ‘soon after the wedding, we will be on our honeymoon’. Don’t get us wrong. We loved preparing for our wedding, but there came a point when we got tired especially on the last few days prior to the big day. So during those times, the thought of the honeymoon was of great comfort to us. Not only did we worked hard to have a wedding, but we worked hard to have a honeymoon as well. It became some sort of reward for us.

You need time to relax and breathe. No matter how high with happiness the two of you may be from the celebration of your marriage, sooner or later it will take a toll on you: your body, mind and emotions. The honeymoon gives the couple some breathing space before they face the world as newlyweds. Some couples who never had a honeymoon experienced anxiety attacks a few days after the wedding or have difficulty adjusting to their new role. On the second and third leg of my honeymoon (the first part of our honeymoon we were with relatives), we tuned out from the rest of the world: no internet or phone calls and not much tv. We only texted our parents to let them know that we have arrived safely at our destination. The whole time we just made the most of our time being together. After the honeymoon, we found ourselves with clear minds, relaxed bodies and adjusted to the idea that we are indeed married.

Not enough budget?
A honeymoon doesn’t have to be lavish. It doesn’t have to happen overseas or in a place where all honeymooners go to. You can be creative when it comes to planning your honeymoon. You might have friends who has houses/apartments in the countryside that you can rent for a few days, that’ll be heaps cheaper than staying at a hotel. If you don’t have enough time off work, you can stay in the city at an apartment or hotel and just spend a weekend together.

Some couples delay their honeymoon and just have a mini-honeymoon right after the wedding. That works too because they get to rest for a few days.

So if you ask me if it’s worth planning a honeymoon, I would highly recommend it. The honeymoon will do your relationship good and at the same time help you a lot in transitioning to married life easier.

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Vday Weekend

As always, the Husband and I never celebrate Valentine’s Day by our lonesome. This weekend, we celebrated Vday by spending time with family and friends.

On Saturday, we prepared for two parties.

First stop was our barkada’s Vday Salubong Party. Lots of food and booze. Upon entrance to our friends’ place, we were greeted by roses (for the ladies of course) and B-52 shots.

The shots were drank by the ladies (except for one) because the husbands needed to drive :P. Good thing we all have husbands who never seem to mind their wifeys having a drink during parties and just enjoyed seeing us have a great time. 



After our party with friends, Chris and I went straight to our relatives’ place. My auntie and her family hosted dinner for her brother-in-law’s family from Vietnam. So nice to be able to catch up with them. Again, lots of food. Chris and I were so full from all the food we ate.


Today, we just did the normal Sunday activities that we usually do. Nothing special, just attended mass and ate lunch at home. We never really treat this day any special. What’s special though was that I got myself lots of keys—heart-shaped keys on a bracelet that the Husband gave me.



So how was Valentine’s Day for you? Hope you had a good one.



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Say “I love you” All The Time

2 February 2010 9 Comments Category: The Married Life, Tips

Say “I love you” daily, many times.

Especially when you wake up and before you go to sleep.
Say it before you say goodbye on the phone.
Say “Thanks honey, I love you” when you want to express your appreciation to your partner.
Say it even if there’s no special reason, even if there’s no occasion. 
Say it during your most trying times.
Say it in the most unexpected times.
Say it for the rest of your lives together.

Never ever, take love for granted.



Express it verbally as well as in action. We all need to hear that magical phrase–it can heal, soothe, comfort. It reaffirms how we feel at any given moment. So, fill your lives with millions of moments of love by saying: “I love you.”

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