Previous posts:

• Looking Back, Moving Forward
• Live (Day 1)
• Love (Day 2)

Day 3: December 2, 2011

Last day of retreat, and last day to savor the cool weather + nice scenery in Caleruega.

My best friend, Christian, and I were walking around and we saw Father Ziggy again, and he offered to be our photographer for that morning. Hahaha!

Early morning in the Transfiguration Chapel :)

Thanks for everything, Father Z! :)

That was Vikki and I while practicing songs for the mass ;)

Behavioral Science majors are very proud to have these two professors. We will definitely miss them when we graduate! :’)

Ma’am Ellar, my professor for almost all of my major subjects for the past 3 years. She’s officially retiring next school year, and we are her last batch. :) Thank you Ma’am E! :)

Ma’am Myles! We will never forget her in Group Dynamics and Theories of Personality. She’s like our mother figure in school, thank you for everything Ma’am! :)

That’s it for my 3-day retreat experience in Caleruega. :) Thank you, UST! :)

Previous posts:

• Looking Back, Moving Forward
• Live (Day 1)

Day 2: December 1, 2011

I didn’t notice the date until night time, haha. What a way to start the last month for the year! :)

Some of us had a difficult time waking up, too tired I guess. And the session the night before drained our tear ducts. :| Haha. Anyway, after breakfast and while waiting for the second session, we took the chance to take pictures around Caleruega. ;)

This is father Ziggy (a.k.a. Father Gerard Zabala, O.P.), one of our retreat masters. He’s really a cool priest, parang kuya lang namin. ;)

During the session ;)

Merienda time ;)

Lunch time ;)

And siesta time starts here:

Note: Siesta time = picture taking all over the place :))

After our 1-hour siesta, we had a short session then confession afterwards. And the next few pictures were the post-confession photos ;)

After dinner, we had a bonfire for our evening session :)

I shall post the video of our batch presentations in a separate post ;)

Up next: Lore (Day 3)

Day 1: November 30, 2011

We arrived in Caleruega at around 12:30 pm; and upon arriving, we explored the place, unloaded our bags, assigned the rooms, and ate merienda. :)

After the orientation and snacks, we headed to the chapel on the hill to do our first activity. :)

We passed through a hanging bridge! Although it took me a while to walk through it because my blockmates knew I was afraid of heights that’s why they were teasing me by jumping and running. :|

My personal inbox, seal, six-word memoir, life graph. :)

Sunset! ♥

After dinner, we had our first session. We stayed up until almost midnight, sharing our life experiences with one another— very inspirational, indeed. :’)

Up next: Love (Day 2)

As mentioned in my previous posts, I had my retreat in Caleruega, Batangas. It was a really beautiful place, I fell in love with every part of it! 

From the lobby

To the chapel! It’s actually a replica of the Transfiguration Chapel in Caleruega, Spain. ;)

The weddings we’ve witnessed made me fall in love with place even more! In fact, we have seen almost 10 weddings during our 3-day stay, and that’s how famous Caleruega is. ;)

In my next three posts, I will share my experiences in my 3-day retreat. It’s more of photoblogging, though. Haha.

Day 1: Live

Day 2: Love

Day 3: Lore

Mom and her friends from UP High School (which is now known as UP Integrated School) made plans to go to their batchmate’s (which happens to be my godfather during my confirmation) new farm in Alfonso, Cavite. It was held last Saturday; and since I’m gonna be left alone in the house, mom tagged me along. 

The whole farm is 5 hectares, it’s really big! And this is only one out of a hundred properties they own (my godparents are filthy rich!). They only bought the land last year, so it’s not fully developed yet.

This is the main house in the farm. They call it their casita (which means cottage in Spanish). They plan to build 4 more of these in the farm (for their relatives and friends). 

My ninang is really hands on when it comes to this. She pays attention to every detail of the casita, and she told us that this is going to be her prototype for the future rest houses that they will build in the other lands they own.

All of their furniture sets are custom made!

Mom with her best guy friends/my ninongs! This is one proof that Mama is really one of the boys! LOL. The one wearing the Lakers’ 2001 championship shirt is the owner of the farm. My ninong is an engineer, which explains why they own lots of properties. He builds them! :))

We had lunch in their other cottage up front (which is mainly used for dining/entertainment).

Mom and her other friends/classmates. The one wearing a yellow top + blue vest is my ninang/the beauty and brains behind the design of their casita + everything else in the farm. :)

Their cottage for dining/entertainment has a second floor, and this is where I stayed most of the time :)

This bahay kubo lamp is very nice! It’s also custom made :)

Me and mom :)

Lunch time!

All native food :)

Me with my fresh buko juice! :D~

I’m the only “kid” :))

Me with mom and my ninongs! Yeah, my parents kinda told them way back that whoever attends my baptism are all godparents. So….. I have like 20-25 godparents and majority are UP people! :)) 

We also had dinner there (prawns + steak + sea bass + fruits + Adobo = food heaven!). I was too preoccupied with eating so I didn’t take pictures anymore, well except for the next photo. ;)

There, mom and her friends. They’re not even complete there :) And they’re going to have their golden reunion in two years! Would you believe that, 50 years of friendship! 

I hope me and my friends will also be like them 50 years from now :)

So much for my stress-free Saturday! :)

(Source: supergirltotherescue)

Honestly, I’m not even affected by the long weekend. *sarcastic

Why?

1. I have classes every Saturday.
2. I don’t have classes every Monday and Tuesday.

How’s that? :)) So technically I only had a 3-day weekend. On the brighter side though, we don’t need to catch up with the lectures in school; and I got the chance to have a stress-free weekend (finally!).

So last Sunday, my family and I traveled to Pangasinan to visit The Shrine of Our Lady of Manaoag.

It was my first time to visit the church, and Pangasinan was the second farthest place I’ve been to in the north (the farthest was Baguio).

Prior to the church visit, we ate at a famous restaurant in this area.

Matutina’s Seafoods is one of the best known restaurants in Pangasinan. It also has a branch in Tarlac. ;) 

(With my pretty niece, Belle)

(with Mama and Belle)

(my eldest sister, Ate Jen, and her daughter)

(Mama with Ate Jo and my brother-in-law, Kuya Francis)

I must say that the food is really good, especially their bangus. It’s very fresh, and it has a better taste than the ones sold in Manila. 

(Kare-Kare and Pinakbet)

(Crispy Pata)

(Grilled Bangus Belly and Sinigang na Bangus)

Talk about Filipino food! ♥

(Mother and daughters ♥)

On our way back to Manila, we had a stop over at Razon’s at some gasoline station along NLEX. Halo-halo and pansit palabok! ♥

It’s been a while since I had long travels on the road, that’s why I had stiff neck when we got back to Manila (my whole body hurts to begin with ‘cause of the team building last Friday, sad).

We were supposed to go to Tagaytay yesterday (Monday) but then plans got changed and we decided to go to SM Megamall instead for our usual mall family bonding. We also watched the movie adaptation of David Nicholls’ best-selling novel, One Day. Oh Jim Sturgess, you’re so handsome. :>

And I spent the whole day today (Tuesday) with my boyfriend. ♥

We watched Final Destination 5 in 3D. I FREAKED OUT, YO. Gross, scary, more gross.

That’s it for my not-so-long weekend. Tomorrow, back to reality!

Thesis, OSP, and Labor.

100-day photo challenge

Day 72 - A picture of you with unbelievable scenery

Grand Canyon National Park

It’s the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It’s just perfect.

(Williams, Arizona; April 2007)