January 29, 2007

The Couple, The Husband, and The Mother

Filed under: Birthday, Books, Flashback, Get-togethers, Movies — joven @ 4:16 pm

The Couple

It has been more than a year (and 20+ pounds re-gained) since the train incident


Still wow.

The Husband

Last Saturday, January 27, Dionne and I met with OJ, Bon, N93 (with Allan), Dhang and Irish. In that order. Hehe.

OJ was the early bird. According to Bon, he was already at Gateway at around 11AM, while everybody else came after 12PM. Meeting was set between 11 and 12… Nuninu.

When we got to the food court, OJ was munching on delectable french fries from NYFD. Then he left us to meet Bon downstairs. He was kind enough to offer us the half-full regular-sized bucket of fries. We were quite hungry by then that we couldn’t resist eating them… Nakakahiya naman kay OJ kaya we decided to buy large fries! Good thing too, since we still had to wait for the others.

Allan and his wonderful N93 arrived next. Seeing the N93 made me want to hide my N90 in shame…

We then decided to check out the movie schedules. Babel was it.

A few minutes later, Irish and Dhang joined us. Unfortunately, Dhang won’t be joining us for the movie because of more important people (drama, hehe). So it’s just 6 tickets for us at the center of row K, which I will later realize is a little too far. Row G would’ve been “optimal”. At least according to Richie’s theory that the best seats are those that are as far to the screen as the screen is tall. Whatever. Hehe.

Lunch was at Bellini’s. YEAH!

Dionne and Bon

OJ, Irish and Dhang

*Pics courtesy of N93 and Allan

Allan, at first, because he thought we were going to Marikina (Shoe Expo), then Gateway. He preferred the latter. OK… After a little explaining by the girls, he was in.

Before 3PM, we were on our way back to Gateway for the movie. I got 2 vanilla lattes for us from our favorite coffee shop, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

On to the movie!

The movie was interesting. I got a bit disoriented at first, regarding the sequence of the events. But eventually got it. I must admit that I was more attentive with the parts with the Japanese girl… Haha!

After the movie, we went to Dionne’s new favorite clothes shop, F&H. She got a new office jacket at 50% off.

We also went to Bayo and Kamiseta and then Rustan’s, to look at wish bracelets, crocs sandals, and the new Wade. *drools*

Before going home, we dropped by Fully Booked to check out the expensive books… We went home with Orson Scott Card’s Shadow Puppets, a book on Spanish verbs for Dionne, and Dean Koontz’s The Husband.

The Mother

January 29 was Nanay’s 52nd birthday. We had lunch at Aristocrat’s at SM San Lazaro to celebrate this wonderful occasion. Mommie came with us. Jonjon, unfortunately, was not able to make it from Laguna. He better make up for it next time. Hehe. Meanwhile, Jayson came just before we left. He came from work and looked exhausted. He ate the supposed takeout chicken barbeque right there and then. I’ll be awaiting his libre from his sweldo. Nuninu.

Dionne, Mommie, Jeff, Nanay and Mae

Nananaba. Nuninu.

To Nanay, may you have good health and many more years to come! Happy birthday! We love you!

January 21, 2007

5 Things You Don’t Know About Us

Filed under: Tag — Dionne @ 12:07 am

Thanks for an interesting revelation Fol. =) Now, it’s our turn. We added a twist in this and made it 5 things a lot of people don’t know about us. So, here it goes…

  1. Buzz me. Joven and I talk online even if we’re both at home. It’s not like we live in a huge house. Weird huh? We just like to maximize our resources. Before dinner time (or even after), we are immersed in our own computer/web life. I use the desktop in the living room, he uses his laptop in the bedroom. We end up sending messages and love notes online.
  2. How sweet it is. We do not only love to eat, we both have a penchant for the sweet stuff. We have a Lock and Lock full of chocolates. When in the grocery we will never forget to pass by the candies and chocolate area. That accounts for our beautiful bodies. Hehe.
  3. Lights out? Light on. For the two nights he was alone, Joven slept with the lights on. He has these crazy thoughts of Sadako (with much help from me of course). Scaredy cat!
  4. Round and round. I love carnival rides even if I scream my heart out. Hehe! Joven, in turn, hates them. It’ll take forever to convince him to get on a ride. Peer pressure pa kailangan. Hehe! Kaya hindi kami matuloy tuloy sa EK eh. Haay.
  5. Bear Hugs. We always start our day with a hug. Every morning when we wake up, Joven waits at the foot of the bed, pulls me up and gives me a great big hug.

There!

Now, I’m interested to know what are the unique things these couples do:

  1. Beej and Benj
  2. Mimi and Karl
  3. Aggie and Edil
  4. Glo and Jun
  5. If you’re interested, consider yourself tagged!

I hope they’ll find time to answer this meme. I am quite interested with their answers. =)

January 13, 2007

Eggs n Diamonds

Filed under: Date, Get-togethers, Movies — joven @ 5:33 am

You had me at scrolling

iPhone. iWantOne.

No touch

Jason of 37signals says:

How can you dial the iPhone without looking at it? How can you reach in your pocket and press “1” for voicemail? How can you orient yourself with the interface without seeing it? With a traditional phone or device with buttons you can feel your way around it. You can find the bumps, the humps, the cut lines, the shapes, the sizes. You can find your way around in the dark. Not with the iPhone.

With this phone, it is no longer possible to text without looking at the keypad, as there is no more keypad. Instead, the user is given with a full QWERTY keyboard. A fair exchange for the flexibility it offers? Maybe. Whatever the case, I’m still excited about this phone.


SAL Mini-reunion

We were just supposed to meet Brian for dinner. He went to France last December and was kind enough to bring home a pair of Eiffel tower key chains for us. Dionne won’t be able to join us as she now has Spanish class every Thursday. I suggested that we invite our SAL friends to join us since it has been a long time since the group met.

Last Thursday, January 11, the mini-reunion pushed through, thanks to Brian’s persistence. Unfortunately, he was unable to join us for dinner as he had to attend to some office matters. He joined us at Starbucks later that night though.

Besides Brian and me, the others who were there, according to time of arrival: Chris J, Brymac, Bob (with Shine), Tseri, Lino, Benj (with Beej), Kat, and Richie.

Pics courtesy of Brymac:

The Reason
The Group (Bry took the pic)

Blood Diamond

Friday, January 12, was reserved for our date.

Before lunch, I got a text from Dionne, a message from Mimi, that one of the photos from our prenup was printed as part of a feature on prenups on Wedding Essentials:


Nice.

Dinner was at Heaven n Eggs. The food was OK, but a bit expensive. The hot chocolate was good though.

We watched Blood Diamond at Glorietta 4 with tickets we bought via Sureseats. Only 4 months left on Dionne’s M-Pass load… We initially wanted to watch Night at the Museum, but would have to wait another week for that one.

Blood Diamond… Another very good movie for Leonardo DiCaprio!

It’s fun to go out with Dionne again. We must do this more often. Yihee!

January 10, 2007

Delinquent Bloggers

Filed under: Books, Get-togethers, Greetings, Movies, Shopping, Winners, Work — Dionne @ 7:08 pm

We are.

Since January kicked in, we’ve both been busy. Well, Joven’s mostly busy with work stuff while I am busy with mundane stuff.

So, here’s a short recap of the things that happened in the past few days…

Saturday, January 6

Since I’ve been busy the past week, I decided to pick up my free spa gift certificate from Manila Bulletin Saturday morning. The contact person, Sarah, was nice enough to wait for us since it was already nearing lunch time. We almost got lost, thanks to the taxi driver who brought us to the Manila Times. Haha! Fortunately, Intramuros is small enough for us to find our way.

After, Joven and I plus my mom went to SM San Lazaro to watch Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo. The movie won over Shake Rattle and Roll 8. The movie was surprisingly funny although by the title alone, you’d expect it as mushy. All in all, I enjoyed the film because of Gina Pareño. Hehe.

Sunday, January 7

With nothing better to do, Joven and I went to Tutuban Mall and 168 in Divisoria to shop. I was able to buy 2 blouses and a pair of pants in less than 30 minutes. Since we have time to kill, we went to 168 to see if there are anything we can get our hands on. After going around for almost an hour, we decided to buy DVDs. I bought an 8 animated movies in one CD and 8 action movies in one CD. I got lucky with the first one. The second one was a different story. Audio was terrible! Oh well, that’s what we got because we only paid P75 for it. =P

Ang saya mag-Divisoria two weeks after the holidays. Konti lang tao! Hihi!

Monday, January 8

I was running like crazy in the office. I had four meetings with different groups. Kapagod! I missed one meeting because the previous meeting extended for over an hour. Haay. I had to have my boss attend on my behalf. He was nice enough to make notes. Hihi!

Tuesday, January 9

First day of my Spanish class. The teacher was early and the classroom was still half full when my friends and I got in. I kindda enjoyed it… sort of washed the anxieties away. It’s actually easier to understand because of my background in French. I just hope it wouldn’t be so difficult towards the end and the teacher would remain as nice as he is.

Wednesday, January 10

Big shout out to my sister: Happy Birthday Tita Dap! Hope you had a good one. See you on Saturday!

After work, Joven and I met at the MRT station to have dinner at Kalye Juan @ Tomas Morato. We’re to meet SML sans Ryan (Cors, Benj, Beej & Richie) because he has a Baguio thingy. Richie will be leaving for the US next week and it won’t be until summer of 2008 we’ll get to see him again.

The night ended at Baang coffee (which we were not initially sure if it’s Baang or BangBang. Haha!). According to Richie, the coffee’s not “Wow!” but it’s not bad also. I ordered a Chai Latte which for me was a bit sweet.

Conversation was from “What’s new with you?” to “What’s new with blah-blah?”

We had to end early because of work the following day.

Ingat Richie! See you soon!

Pics here.

Current

I’m busy reading Gap Creek by Robert Morgan. I got it in Booksale at a very reasonable price. I usually look for books that has the Oprah’s Book Club seal because I usually end up liking the book – The Pilot’s Wife, What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True – to name a few. This one, I can’t put it down. I’m not finished though but I’m really enjoying every minute of it. Another great find for me. I have yet to devour Icy Sparks, House of Sand and Fog and The Poisonwood Bible. =)

January 3, 2007

Bonne Année!

Filed under: Games, Get-togethers, Greetings, New Year, Party — Dionne @ 2:52 am

Happy New Year Everyone!


Last two holiday events to blog about…

Last Dec 29-30 we checked-in at The Pearl Manila Hotel for an overnighter with my college barkada. It was unfortunate that preggy Mem and hubby were not able to join us. Masama daw ang pakiramdam ni buntis.

So far, this has been the “most attended” of the past get-togethers. Since Andrew has been seriously studying Medicine (Hehe!), he didn’t have much time to go out and socialize. =P Now that he is a full-fledged doctor, he only has the USMLE in mind. Plus, Lalaine’s been in town so this is really something we’re looking forward to.

The day started with a serious Risk match between Benj, Beej, Andrew and moi. Andrew won on the merit that he is very serious in destroying my empire. He hates me because luck was on my side. =P I hope that somebody will study the manual and teach us how to play the Star Wars mode. Hehe!

Cri-c arrived and was giving us hell because she was not included in the game. At least she acquired a new best friend in Benj. Hehe!

Anne arrived a few minutes after with boyfriend, Joseph. *Kilig!*

Soon after, Cri-c and Anne were updating each other with what’s happening in their lives.

We got tired with Risk and switched to Guesstures. We were odd-numbered so we decided that Andrew should act out all the words. And boy, can he act! Wow! Most of us were in awe watching him, we forget to guess the word. Andrew acted the words until Lalaine got to the hotel. He was acting for more than two hours, dinner lang pahinga. Hihi!

Manuel joined us close to midnight. Being the booze carrier, he was worth the wait. But, it seems that age are getting to us because soon after, people were switching to Pepsi and water.

To ward off sleepiness, we decided to switch to the classic Pinoy Henyo. (BTW, did you know that there is an online Pinoy Henyo??? Haha! Weird!) We finally gave up fighting sleep after 2AM.

Later morning, we still didn’t have enough of Guesstures and played some more. After we got tired, we moved to videoke singing. Cri-c belted her college winning piece. Walang kupas!

We decided to part ways at 12 noon – check out time na kasi. Hehe!

*Sigh* I miss college, where life was less complicated and when we say overnighter – nobody really sleeps. =P

Pics here.


New Year Party

We have an annual tradition to invite relatives and friends to join us for a simple get-together at home. My mom turns into a kitchen whiz and prepares delicious food for everyone.

Thanks for those who came: Con (with Arjahn & Luiz), Mavis (with pretty Angel), Beej & Benj, Lalaine (with Ninang, Ate, Kuya & Kulit), Allan, Bon, OJ, Ate Malou, Nanay (with kids), Kuya Mel (with Tisha and kids), Annie & Tony… at marami pang iba. Hope to see you again next year, same venue, same time. =)

Pics here.


How come the clock spins fast every time one is on vacation?

I’m already anticipating the next long one. Kelan kaya yung susunod? Nuninu.