sunday morning clubhouse.

sometimes, all it takes for a sunday morning win is a dip in good ol' clubhouse swimming pool.

sundays in tagaytay are always do-whatever-you-want-to-do-with-your-free-time days. we practically have the whole day to ourselves. there's not that much to do in tagaytay so you're bound to either squeeze out some creative juices out of your spontaneous brain or just do some lazy club housing. that one sunday morning, we opted for the latter. and by we, i mean we and gabbie.

i was actually more like a chaperone than a swimming buddy that morning. which worked out perfectly fine for me. i got to take pictures. if not for the scorching heat, it would've been a perfect day.

heat or no-heat, i think gabbie though it still was. a perfect day, that is.

 

gab-and-sab mornings.

sunday morning is just about the laziest i can ever get. and no other place right now makes this all the more conducive than tagaytay! my room there isn't facing the morning sun so my face doesn't get raped by early morning sunlight. and no one is obliged to wake up early. amazing. best deal in the world, if you ask me.

one morning, i woke up to a ruckus outside the house. and apparently, everyone was up and about. meandering in the street. just your everyday morning-family-noise-not-minding-the-neighbors. so i got up, took cy, and meandered away. haha.

gab and sab are just unendingly fascinating. i don't know if that's a normal term of description for children. haha.

gab. she minds the camera. despite being fifteen meters away.

sab's little fingers. amazing.

happy mommy.

happy lala.

happy lolo.

sab looked like she completely didn't mind being bamboozled with hugs and kisses. and being tossed around from one person to another. and yes, i'm not being literal when i said tossing.

the ceremonial sunday-morning taho.

manong taho obliging with our sunday morning ceremonies.

she's in that phase. that i'll-try-my-hand-in-biking phase.

and she's also in that phase. that i'll-suck-my-fingers-for-all-their-worth phase.

*smirk*

quintessential sab look.

i think it goes without saying that i'm not into children. but some are exceptionally exceptions.

baguio spells food tripping too!

the family recently went up to baguio. the plan was to have no plans. literally. plans like that always work out quite perfectly. no hassle or pressure. just plain i'll-drive-up-to-baguio-and-do-nothing. welcome to our family. we like burning up gasoline that way. but then again, manila heat is just plain unbearable these days that random trips to relatively cooler places, despite being 400kms away, are always worth it. i got wasted the previous night so i hardly felt the trip up. but that's another story.

since we didn't have any plans at all, and since we stayed in the country club, we had ourselves a weekend full of food tripping. in all fairness to their dining place, everything tasted really good! i'm not gonna go all food connoisseur on you about their gastronomic goodies 'cos i'm not. i have a relatively simple palette. simple enough that baguio country club food made me happy. either that or i was really just in the mood for some good ol' pigging out.

cy ended up being tucked in his bag almost the entire time actually. i only got to pull him out during our last lunch. these were all i got.

they plated heart attack cubes. kick-ass ones, at that.

kalderetang beef had olives. they glam food up that way.

pakbet with pieces of fried liempo and an entire half of bangus. the vegetables hardly stood out.

kare kare. nothing special there.

for some strange reason, we were all hungry the entire time we were there. all that tv-ing and malling probably starved us. it makes sense right?

this baguio trip was epic. the food was epic.

tagaytay finally happens. (04172010)

repost from nini.

...

after a looooong while, my family finally gets to get a house somewhere relaxing. it's always been a dream for us to get some sort of a rest house some where. of course the perfect scenario would be to get a place along the beach. but that would be a financial nightmare (for me, that is). so some time january, we finally agreed to buy the tagaytay house that's being sold to us for the longest time. my sister and my joint investment. which translates to instantaneous poverty by the way. but then looking at how kick ass the house turned out, i'm thinking, this is most definitely worth it!

easter sunday marked the day. we were to spend the holy week over in tagaytay and fix everything else that needed fixing. that sunday would then be blessing-day.

this could've been three separate pictures. and each would've had their own story.

it's hard when everyone's a boss. i pity he who was being commandeered here.

kuya ben, our family handy-man.

peace out.

my sister was in the mood to go a-cooking that day. prolly cos the kitchen was soooo convenient and enticing to cook in. so she went all martha-stewart on us (a normal thing, by the way). which is perfectly fine by me. it saves me from having to get involved in the kitchen. hahaha. come to think of it, it's been a while since i cooked. i'm sort of not missing it though. haha.

proud cook-er of her roast.

the rest of the day was spent outside, gardening. i'll never get to say that i have a green-thumb. cos god knows every single green living thing i touch will die. i tried, you know. and i proved my theory right. poor plants at our cainta-house. so i didn't even give it a try in this one. and well, they didn't let me anyway. they prolly know the consequence already. soooo, i settled with taking pictures instead. which worked perfect for me!

plants doing some yoga-twisting-shiznit.

then went around inside the house. and tried being all house-photographer.

this carpet was my suggestion! and damn proud of it. shaggy and all asthma-inducing. but i love it nonetheless.

the dining set was fo-sho.

lance found his new home!! my contribution to the house (aside from the big one). he was literally just gathering dust back in cainta. i haven't been to any house parties that much so he hasn't seen that much action. but ever since being brought to tagaytay, he's never rested. i love lance!

this.is.my.bean.bag.

the next day started insanely early. the priest was supposed to come pretty early to start the blessing off. he was after all the show-starter. and well, there were a few other things we had to pick up from the grocery. i, of course, was sleeping. i'm a very useful son that way.

we decided to invite only relatives to the blessing. because everyone else outside that circle would require polite pleasantries. and i think we were all not in the mood for social formalities that weekend. we just wanted to put our slippers on, lay flat on the sofa, and stuff ourselves with non-effort home food.

applying lotion is an event in my family, apparently. it must be done next to each other.

yes, our priest was very priestly-looking. he makes you want to fall on your knees and repent. otherwise, it's a stab in the neck for you. or the heavenly punishments. whichever he's in the mood for.

and yes, he has a following. them boys-in-white.

gabbie wanted her own route.

and here i thought the coin-tossing thing ended with the 90s. i thought wrong. it was fun though. i should've hoarded those lucky coins.

 

there had to be hands behind the clean floors and peeled onions and watered plants (insert other chores).

breakfast was a riot.

and lunch happened a couple of hours later. yes, we're food mongrels that way.

some enchilada.

some beef-thing.

some bulalo-poser.

and so i thought i wouldn't be involved in the kitchen. but then i was tasked for that afternoon's food. i had to come up with some no-brainer. so baked mac it was!

...

tagaytay is love. :)