My niece and goddaughter Ycha Shanti celebrated her 16th birthday on National Heroes’ Day, August 30th. It was a simple celebration, but she had a LOT of guests! I’m sure she will remember this for a long time.

She’ll be graduating from high school in a few months, and then she’ll be starting a brand new adventure: college/university life! Earlier this month, she took the UPCAT (University of the Philippines College Admission Test). Soon, she’ll be taking entrance exams to other universities in the metro. I have no doubt that she will find a good school. She has the head and heart for school, but she also doesn’t forget to enjoy and just be a kid.

I heard that she’s also interested in learning photography. Maybe my gift to her would be to help her develop that (since I don’t have the dough to get her her camera, haha).

Mana sa Ninang

Ate, with Da Boys

Me, Papa (our grandfather), and Shanti

with her girlfriends (since they were younger kids)

with her schoolmates, the other boys in her class didn't join the shoot. but there's probably as many boys as there were girls.

All photos were captured by the boyfriend, which explains the abundance of my face in these stills. Haha

<<Imagine smiling photo of Ma in this space>>

Ma turns a year older today, but she still doesn’t look her true age. She’s one of those women who can proudly say that age is just a number. I so want to show you a nice photo of her, one where she might actually be smiling. The ones I took from our Causeway lunch weren’t very flattering. I promise to take a nice one and update this post with it. The birthday girl deserves to have her photo splashed onto these pages. haha

Ahhh for the meantime, let’s use a photo from last year:

In her FB status, Ma mentioned that she’s starting to feel her age, but seriously she doesn’t look it (oh, I’ve said that already?). She can star in her own wrinkle cream commercial and people will buy the product. She doesn’t have much wrinkles. Truth be told, she’s often mistaken to be my sister!  :)

Ma is addicted to Facebook like I am. She probably even updates her status message more than I do. We often Co-op in Farmville, and she watches over the dishes cooking in my Cafe World when I can’t.

They say (I don’t know who they are though) that as we grow older, we become like our parents. Some people don’t like the thought of that. As for me, I really wouldn’t mind if I became just like her.

I don’t say this often enough, I love you Mommy!

The kids in this compound don’t need reasons to spend time outdoors. Recently though, they installed a basketball ring in the driveway and the boys have played ball at all hours of the day (and night). Sadly though, it broke off on Saturday. For us adults (their Moms and Aunts), Ton’s garage sale and the arrival of Edward were good enough reasons. Edward was an old neighbor of ours, and also my cousin’s brother-in-law. He also does hair. So he’s here from the province, and on this particular visit he had the tools of his trade. So while others lined up to get a haircut and color, I stayed there to just hang. Thankfully, mahangin kahapon so it wasn’t too hot out. Sunday afternoon was pretty much the same. I had a shift from 2am until noon, and then Alfred and I went to Trinoma right after. Still, I felt good and okay to sit with my cousins exactly where we were the day before.

What do we do in such occasions? Nothing. Mostly, we just chat. There are no restrictions too on what we talk about. It’s a good opportunity to catch up on everyone, and to find out what’s been happening to everyone else. You know, stuff you won’t read in the news. hehe. We used to do that a lot, there was a time when we’d be outside every afternoon or even in the evenings seated in the mismatch pieces of log furniture (benches/tables made of hardwood) outside. An iteration of this gathering would be when we would actually be doing something apart from just chatting: making cards (my uncle used to be in the card export business), playing Bingo, or even tong-its.

I realize that I can’t hangout that way with everybody else. I mean, with some people it just isn’t enough, we have to be doing something. You know what I mean? Others don’t like spending their time doing, as they say, nothing. Take the boyfriend for example. Simply hanging out isn’t his thing, unless there are bottles of ice-cold beer involved.

We didn’t necessarily leave the place as a family though.

For Ma, and this will show her age (sorry!), her voting experience was expedited. Let’s just say that she qualified for special treatment. She stayed in line with us for almost an hour though before she was able to get on to the express lane. Hehe. My big brother was a few people away from us to the back of the line. He was there for over an hour before he decided to join mom and dad for lunch at KFC a few steps away from the precinct, after that, he decided to go home and bring lunch to Diane. He was supposed to go back but we were waiting in line for five hours, and the line behind us was growing longer. He had work that night so he had to go to bed…

So I spent the most time with Dad, and my cousins Nikki and Che. We ate kwek-kwek, KFC fries, drank KFC Krushers, cold water, and Coke, in those five hours. It was soooo hot that day, but being under the tent, and there being chairs, helped to keep our heads cool. Cool lang kahit na there were people who cut into the line. Friends who were supposed to be about four or five people down the line from us got pushed farther back. Tsk.

Anyway speaking of family, I’ll try to include a photo of Dad showing how much stomach fat loss he’s had. Yep, he’s lost a lot of inches and he’s been very proud of that. Other photos of the family on election day will be added to this post in a few…

It would be best if you viewed the videos prepared by its members, because they own this story, and they are sharing it with everyone. Once upon a time, we were part of this congregation too, since we attended Church there while we lived in Fairview. My parents still sometimes go out there.

I share this with you today too because they’re story is so inspiring. It is a story of how a Church is a community of people. And how no Church can stand without the support of its people. That seems to be the story of our Church, The Episcopal Church in the Philippines.

Many of the faces you see in the videos are our friends and relatives. A lot of them I grew up playing with, or calling auntie or uncle.

Where am I in all these?

I still don’t know.

On the way to the grocery, I saw that the House of Praise was already open. Though I was across the street from the open doorway, I saw the rack of Kids Praise and I was drawn to it.

We went in, then out five minutes later with this:

As a kid, I grew up listening to and singing along with Psalty. How many albums were there? I forgot. But we must have had all of them! Everyone at Sunday School knew the songs and we’d often perform them in the annual shows we’d mount.

I must admit, I still could not help but remember my Aunt when I started listening to this album, but that need not mean sad thoughts.

One of the dreams I’ve had, or one of the things I listed as stuff I’d rather do, may soon start to happen.

I intend to start teaching my nieces and nephews the songs in this album, and if they want to, we’ll mount a mini performance for friends and family. What a wonderful way to learn about Jesus, and cultivate their talents right?  Today our kids, tomorrow Sunday School. Haha.

And what a coincidence too. While I was baking cookies today, I heard the kids singing outside. And they weren’t singing their usual picks – Love Story, Jai Ho, etc – they were singing tunes they learned from Vacation Bible School. Yay!

So I can’t wait til we can start doing this, but I’ve got to map it out first, have some sort of schedule. I hope they’d buy into this, the big girls too.

]]> http://verabear.net/2009/06/kids-praise-and-cookies/feed/ 3 http://verabear.net/2009/06/help-send-me-to-photography-class/ http://verabear.net/2009/06/help-send-me-to-photography-class/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:19:29 +0000 verabear http://verabear.net/?p=2046 I am doing something I don’t think I’ve ever done anything before. I am asking for donations.

But it isn’t for any cause or charity. It is something that will benefit me, and well, you too. Wouldn’t you like to see me post even better photos?

Well the gang at JessicaSprague.Com is celebrating their second anniversary in DigiLand.  And one of the surprises announced today is a special summer offering of one of their online classes that I’d been anticipating:Candice Stringham’s Oh Shoot! Beginning Digital SLR Photography class.  I’ve wanted to sign up for this class since I saw it on their store, but I just couldn’t justify the costs. But now… I really really want this.  There are other classes available here that I can physically attend, and would cost a little less (though with transpo and food expense, maybe it will cost more after all). But if you read her class description, you’d understand why I want to sign up.

The thing is, the registration will open in a few days and I only have about 70 USD in my Paypal account, and the class costs 126 USD. So what I’m asking is — could you help me make up the difference? Please? I don’t know if anyone will actually donate, but it wouldn’t hurt me to try would it? Click on the button to donate! And don’t forget to leave a note so I can thank you properly

*The Paypal website seems to be having problems. If so and the button above doesn’t work, please try to send your donations to verabear (at) msn.com. Thanks again!

Ohhh… I almost forgot about posting pictures! I decided to join in for a picture meme called You Capture:

This week’s theme is SUMMER.

It’s my favorite time of year.

First off – our beach side photo from Baler. My niece Hannah snapped this for us at around 8 in the morning.

Later that morning, we hopped on a tricycle, just the boyfriend and I and we were taken to this wonderful place. The water was so cold! A welcome respite to the heat of summer.  This is about 45 minutes away from the beach.

This boy was with us in the trip. He’s the son of one of my childhood friends! Isn’t he cute? He loved swimming in the kiddie pool at the resort!

Summers are the perfect reason for team outings. And what are summers if not for goofing around?

The boyfriend and my nephew Esban are perfect companions for outings like this!

Every summer we realize how fearless E becomes when in the water. Because he knows how to swim now, he wasn’t afraid of tackling the slide! Alfred was waiting to catch him of course. Hehe

And here’s one more photo from Summer of 2009:

Happy birthday Ma! (today’s her birthday!)

Go visit the other participants to You Capture:  Summer