Home for the holidays

As usual, Ben and I found our way to Baler for the holidays. We left Manila later than expected. My plan was to go home on the 21st, but we had problems getting someone to drive us so we had to wait until the 23rd. As with our trip back from Baler last November, we suffered another flat tire going home. Ben enjoyed the stop of course. He was running around while Andy, the driver, changed tires. As always, it was almost nonstop talkathon for Ben throughout the whole trip.

For Christmas Eve noche buena, it was just Papa, Ben, Albie, and me. Kaka was there but he decided to sleep in. We just had some pasta (stroganoff from a recipe I found online...not too good) and salad. Then it was off to bed. Christmas morning Ben and I attended mass and then we basically stayed at home, except for a visit to Auntie Anay and Auntie Iring and some picture taking with them and their friends.

While it was a relatively quiet Christmas for us, I still had a lot of fun, especially when Ben got his gift from Santa. He asked for a hammer, which he got with some more toy tools.

Things got more upbeat though when everyone else arrived for the New Year. Ben was much happier with his playmates around. As in the past couple of years, New Year's Eve we spent at Kuya Boy's house by the beach and there were fireworks and sparklers. At first Ben didn't want to hold the sparklers (I bought some big ones for him), but later on, he finally did on his own. The best was when the 16-hole fireworks were lit (there were two of them), and you'll find the video clip of one of them below. That's Ben you hear screaming loudly in the background.

New Year's Day we had merienda at Bay's Inn. But the rain came down and Ben didn't like that at all, so he was telling everyone that we had to go home. He even wanted his Kuya Miguel (who is a slow eater) to hurry up so we could leave.

The following day, it was travel back to Manila. We would've made good time, but we had to take a side trip to Bongabon to help out a friend of Kuya Boy. We ended up staying there for about 3 hours so that set us back. We didn't get to Manila until about 1 am.

Oh well, here are some of the pics. More can be seen at Christmas06/New Year07 in Baler.

Ben by the Christmas tree

Ben and chubby me

With his gift from Santa

With Lola Iring and Lola Anay and their friends, Lola Ben, Lola Banang and Lola Estela

Feeding his favorite fish, tilapia

With a new friend, Yvonne

Dancing with Yvonne

That's me, Fr Nilvon, Lola Iring, Yvonne, Ben, Lola Ben, Lola Banang, and Lola Anay

Taking a ride in Lolo Kaka's steamroller with Kuya Jovin, Kuya Daniel and Kuya Miguel

Me and Ben in the backyard of Kuya Boy's beach house

Ben and Ate Syobe (they share birthdays)

Kuya Miguel, Kuya Daniel, Ate Syobe, Kuya Jovin, and Ben

My budding Batista

The kids in the loft of the beach house

The kids on the concrete deck in the beach house's back yard

Ben and Kuya Miguel in a loving pose

Holding the flares

That's us after New Year struck

The boys by the beach

Merienda at Bay's Inn before the rain came

Uh...

Just outside the town hall of Bongabon

And here's a couple of video clips. First one is of Ben wrestling his Kuya Miguel and the other one is of the fireworks.

A Christmas Show

Last December 18, the Claret Child Study Center (where Ben is in nursery), had their Christmas program. His section danced to Winter Wonderland so they were dressed in sweaters and bonnets and gloves. Unfortunately for me, I sat in the wrong section with Ben being positioned on the other side of the stage from where I was sitting, not to mention being positioned in the back row. So the pictures, and the video aren't great. I was only able to take pictures of him after the dance number and not during it, and still they aren't too great. Nonetheless, here are a few shots. The rest can be seen at Ben's Christmas program.



Here too is a video clip I took with my cell phone. It's kind of difficult to spot him, but once in a while, you might get lucky. He's the second boy from the right, wearing red sweatshirt. He's right about behind the second girl from the right wearing red.

Oh well, he had fun anyway, so that was all that matters and it really was fun watching all the kids perform.

Two nights before the program, we ended up at SM's Mall of Asia in Pasay City (quite far from our house). Originally, we were going to take Ben to see the dinosaur exhibit at Baywalk, which is the stretch along Manila Bay from Ermita to Malate. However, Kuya Tony missed the entry to the parking lot and since there was a lot of traffic, we decided to just head on to the mall. It is quite a big mall, which is the largest mall in the Philippines and, according to Wikipedia, is the third largest in the world. Here are a couple of pics from there.

Ben and his Lola Iring with the skating rink in the background

Ben with Tigger :)