The Plastic Banoms: Rainy holi-days, sunny Christmas, fiery New Year

As expected, the trip home was difficult. I woke up early because I thought we were going to be able to leave before sunrise. I was wrong. We left around 7am. The weather was nice and sunny all the way to Rizal, Nueva Ecija, then turned cloudy as we approached Pantabangan, and was pretty much pouring by the time we entered Aurora. Ben was worried we were going to get stuck again in the muddy road (which is what happened when we went home to Baler last August), so he was suggesting we take another road. Unfortunately, there was no other road, so the next 3 hours were spent traversing up and down the steep up/down and quite slippery roads of the Sierra Madre. Surprisingly, the trip only lasted 8 hours, although at the time it felt much longer.
While in Baler, we were pretty much treated to daily rains, the sun only coming out during Christmas Eve and Day and New Year's Eve. The rest were rainy, and from the 27th-30th, it just rained on and on and on and on and on almost nonstop, so that some of the areas in Aurora got flooded again. There was even news that Baler has gone under, but while it was true that some areas did get flooded horribly, fortunately, the town proper was pretty much spared.
But, lest you think that I didn't have a good time and regretted going home for the Christmas holidays, I must say that I still had a good time. Not as great a time as I would like, but nevertheless it was good time. I felt at home, as usual, which for some reason I never really feel in the Manila. And Ben of course was a handful, but a joy. Christmas Eve, we (Papa, Kaka, me, Wena; I allowed Ben to sleep in) just had spaghetti and salad. I kind of miss the old days when there were more of us for the Noche Buena, but...
Christmas Day, Ben and I went to church in the morning. He was dressed up (see the picture below), proudly wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine tie. He was happy with some small toys from Santa, and had a fun time opening the presents. We visited Auntie Anay and Auntie Iring, but for the most part we just spent the day with Papa at home. The afternoon, we slept.
New Year's Eve we spent at Kuya Boy's beach house. It was much more fun than Christmas Eve because there were more of us, and there were other kids for Ben to play with. We had fireworks and sparklers, although Ben was a bit afraid of holding onto sparklers now (probably because he got scared last year when his Kuya Jovin got scared of them). We were there when the new year rolled in, and just had a blast.
So now we're back in Manila. I must say the trip back was even worse than the trip going home, but like I said, the trip home, no matter how bad the roads get, is always worth it.
Here are some photos (I've got some other ones taken with the still camera, but I haven't gotten them processed yet; will post some later if there are good ones.):