paraiso

november 2, 2008

relatives from my mother side had decided to visit lolo's grave a day after all soul's day to avoid traffic & the thick crowd at the cemetery.

i even had time to meet up with ryan earlier in the morning to check out the 'sunday market' at the lung center hospital near qc circle. we parted ways before noon, i slept briefly & woke up early afternoon to drive my mom & relatives to the paraiso cemetery by 3pm. i brought along my daughter who kept herself busy running & frolicking on the green grass while her yaya followed her around & i made sure they didn't get too far.

after prayers for lolo, we all had a simple merienda of pansit, biko & kutsinta which i bought from the sunday market.

my daughter begged that i get her the pink chick, so i did hehe

i drove them all home to cubao by 6pm, drove another 30 mins to my home & finally got my much needed rest.

sweet preparations!

it's the part of the year where i get the busiest. for one, i've been very busy on preparing for my daughter's 3rd bday! the date is just a few weeks away & it's the year where the date falls exactly on a weekend so we'll celebrate her birthday exactly when she was born, on november 23rd.

items i've accomplished so far are:

1. rented a barney mascot (yes, she's having a barney & friends party & she's going to wear a barney costume!)

- i specifically requested that barney sings the 'i love you' song during the party. my daughter's gonna be so thrilled!

2. ordered cakes & cupcakes from ana baluyut. she's famous for the cakes she makes & i loved the cake she made for rayna's 2nd birthday. a little expensive but cheaper than the basic photo character cakes from red ribbon which ranges from 2500-3k. no regrets ever getting cakes from this gal.

3. closed half of shakey's tomas morato branch. closed the deal w/ a petty 1k dp.

4. shopped at divi for toys for the give aways, name tags, party hats, loot bags.

5. did some grocery for snacks to add weight on the loot bags.

6. burned a barney sing-along cd to be played during her party.

7. finalized the guest list. this time it's gonna be family. 80 max plus kids, and yes, that's just family.

8. sent the invitations.

still on my to-do list:

1. ryan to complete the tarp & ty card layouts & have them printed asap.

2. go to divi for more give aways. we thought what we bought was enough due to the bulk of the shopping bags we were carrying around. i still lack 46 toys to give away.

3. finalize the packaging of the loot bags.

i'm so getting used to this stuff that i think i'll pass as a party coordinator for children's parties! hehe

another that i'm working on is supplying 'entertainment' to our upcoming office xmas party at the blue leaf in taguig. months ago i suggested the vintage theme & it turns out everybody loved the idea. so i thought of pulling in the band 'juan pablo dream', who fits just perfectly with our theme. i'm in charge of settling contracts, finding sound system suppliers etc etc.

good thing jpd's manager is a fraternity brother so there's zero trouble in booking his band. wonderful ei?

i bet both parties are gonna be swell. (cross fingers ehehe)

eat & sing all we can

october 20, 2008

still crisp from our 12hr draining shift (crisp but draining???), i finally was able to take the team out, everyone present, for a 2nd installment.

we tried to schedule last september & twice early october but we just couldn't synch each others' attendance when one was absent or on vacation, or another needed to go straight home to tend to his kids.

the girls wanted to go to either comedy bars klownz or zirkoh at timog. couldn't complain even if comedy bars is not a popular choice for me if you'll ask where i want to spend my night outs. fair enough that we'll spend it in quezon city! my house is just a few mins drive away from there...so that ought to do it!

clocked out past 7pm, we went to west avenue first for an 'eat-all-you-can' dinner at the dad's/saisaki resto. price per plate/individual is P580 each & was actually too much for the small budget we allotted for the evening plus there were 8 of us. a budget of 5k for a team dinner-out per quarter was just recently approved by management (which we only later on realized was not enough).

we couldn't contain our hunger & agreed to spend most of the money on food instead of drinks at a bar where we'd proceed to after, so we settled in & pigged out to our hearts desire.

the resto was almost closing so there weren't really much food left so we instead ate most of the sashimis & maki from saisaki & made multiple visits to the dessert buffet table. the tiny cream puffs were so yummy!

after paying & having just a few pennies left from the budget, we discarded the comedy bar itinerary (it'll incur us entrance fees aside from the beverages) & went for videoke!!!

settling for music 21 videoke resto was just an impromptu decision. my passengers obviously wanted to show off their talents in singing!

2 pitchers of margarita & 2 pitchers of rhum coke

lahat kumanta, walanghiya hiya talaga! hahaha
we had to share the bills this time.
3 hours spent at music 21 - priceless. *:)