Snapshots of my Life

• A company that offers opportunity to learn
• A company that provides opportunity for its employees to excel and provide resources to achieve that goal
• A company that offers wider career path to its employees as employees have a chance to work on different brands, different places, and different global teams
• A company that uses only the best technology to create quality products
• A company that strives to establish good relationship with customers, dealers, communities, union partners and suppliers

This is the General Motors culture (gm culture).

This is one of my dream jobs, to be able to work in a company that can bring out the best in me and can offer me a greater opportunity to learn new things and to provide contribution for the success of the company.

I envy the employees of General Motors, as this is the kind of working environment that they experience everyday. No wonder they produce only excellent vehicles as they have excellent employees who are satisfied with their career, which can be seen in the dedication that they give to General Motors.

This yields good result as good and happy employees plays a big role to the success of a company.

Do you want to experience Antarctica? Then you should not miss the new exhibit in Manila Ocean Park, the Trails to Antarctica.

We were lucky as we were able to experience this new exhibit last Sunday as our birthday present for our daughter who celebrated her 6th birthday last November 16. The exhibit just opened last November 5 and we were lucky to be one of the first to experience this new exhibit.

The Trails to Antarctica cost P300 per person but we were able to avail of their promo package, which cost P600, and it includes the Oceanarium and the Trails to Antarctica.

The Trails to Antarctica has three features:

1. The Penguin Exhibit where you can see real and live penguins (the first and only in the Philippines). You can also get to feed the penguins and have a photo op with them for P250 which comes with one free print out of the picture or P400 for unlimited shots for 3 persons and all soft copies of the picture will be given in a CD.
2. The Slide of Fun which is like a giant slide and I was shocked that my daughter was so brave enough to try it.

3. Snow Village where you can get to play in the snow. They require pants and closed shoes when you enter the village but since we did not know of this, we were all in shorts and we were just wearing sandals or Crocs when we entered the village. They provided jackets and we just signed a waiver that it is not their responsibility if we get frostbites. LOL.

I am not sure if this will be a permanent exhibit or it will just be here during the holiday season so better check them out now.

I was browsing through my mom’s Facebook page and I saw this:

This picture was taken when we had a vacation in the US a couple of months backs. My husband will attend a training in South Carolina for a week and we find this as a great opportunity to go on vacation too since we will save big since hubby’s airfare is free and it is the perfect timing because it is our daughter’s vacation from school.

Since it the first time of my mom to go to the US, we want to maximize our time so she can visit a lot of places during our three-week vacation. We were able to accomplish it actually as we were able to visit New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Toronto and Washington DC.

We only were able to stay for a few days per destination so we can move to another city for my mom to see. Her favorite was our Las Vegas trip although we were only able to stay there for two days as we decided to use our third day to visit the Grand Canyon. It would have been nice if we were really able to check out each of the hotels along the Vegas strip so my mom can enjoy the shows being featured by each hotel, but we are really pressed for time. We were not even able to try our luck on the table. So we teasingly told our mom that she can try microgaming online casinos for the mean time and we will just spend more time in Las Vegas next time (that is if we will have the budget again for another US trip).

It was a very tiring trip as we were like in Amazing Race, as we have to move from one city to the next in just matter of days. The travel time and the jet lag really put a toll on our body but I know my mom had a good time, as this is one experience that she can never forget and I am glad that I was able to give that experience to her.

I think I need to look for weight loss pills that work as I am sure my husband and I will be addicted to this new place that we discovered, thanks to the recommendation of my good friend Peachy.


Casa Roces is a new restaurant inside the Malacanang grounds. It is the ancestral home of the Roces family, which they opened to the public as a restaurant. They just opened July of this year but you can see that their place is a popular spot already as the place was almost full when we went there to celebrate B’s birthday on a weekday.

The food was delish and the serving is big. Just look at the food that we ordered:


Upper Left: Lengua with Mushroom Sauce for hubby
Upper Right: Oven baked Salmon Wellington for me
Lower Left: Grilled Pork Ribs for my cousin
Lower Right: Bulalo Steak ala Pobre for nanny

They still have a lot on their menu so we will definitely come back to try it out (probably tomorrow. LOL).

It is indeed the Christmas season already as I already received 4 invitations for Christmas get together from friends for this week alone and I am sure more will be coming.

Two of those get togethers will be held at our new home as hubby is just so excited to host a party for our friends in our house. That is why I pressured him that he really should fix his schedule so he can finish everything that needs to be done for the house like he needs to order one of those address plaques so he can replace the one that we have now, buy curtains to change the old curtains that the previous owner left for us, fix the window in our room and the aircon and purchase the Corelle plates that I want so I have a nice dinnerware that I can use as I host those parties.

I am excited to host the parties at our new home and more importantly I am excited to see old friends again.

Yipee our new business is picking up and we are starting to get more inquiries and more bookings. Our last event was at Hospicio de San Jose for the 6th birthday party of B.

She had a Pirate themed party after the Disney Junior show “Jake and the Neverland Pirate.” All the kids had fun playing and viewing the Jake and the Neverland themed backdrop designed by our resident artist, Gege. When everything else was set up, we gave out the paper bags to all the kids and they went crazy picking the candies that they want from the buffet.

We are so excited for our next event which is this coming Sunday. It will be a Hanna Montana party and I can’t wait how our resident artist will turn to life the theme.

Our first event for December is on the 18th with a Jungle Safari theme.

So if you want to have a unique dessert table for any of your events, be it a birthday, wedding, baptism, corporate events, bridal showers and more, contact Sweet Royals for a one of a kind Candy / Dessert Station.

Contact Us: sweetroyals@yahoo.com

Like us on facebook: SweetRoyals.

I will surely see a lot of hands raised if I ask who is in the same boat as me who just hates house cleaning. House cleaning may seem to be a very easy task but it is the most complicated household chores that I can imagine as even the smallest details, like the dust under the cabinets and the like, should be given proper attention.

But there are individuals who just loves doing this kinds of household chores and they are the House cleaning service Fairfax VA, like Maid to Please.

Maid to Please offers professional house cleaning services for every homes and here are some reasons why it is beneficial for homeowners to get their service:

• Professional house cleaners like Maid To Please only has employees who have been well trained to do these kinds of chores so they are the best person to do the job. They have the resources and the tools to ensure that every corner of the house will be left clean and allergen free, as they know the best possible way to do the job efficiently and quickly.

• Hiring a professional cleaner to do the task for you will give you more time to do more important things like attend to the needs of your kids, spend some quality with your family or pursue other activities like attend a cooking class that you long wanted to try and more.

• Signing up for a weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly service of professional house cleaners will ensure that your house will always be clean and inviting no matter how busy you are.

• All the cleaners of Maid to Please are insured and bonded which is very important to ensure that you can trust their employees to enter your home to do the cleaning as well as it will save you the hassle in case accidents happen in the property.

Because we live in a very busy world, hiring a professional house cleaner is no longer a luxury. Firstly, they are actually not that expensive and will give you more savings in the long run as they offer nothing but quality house cleaning service for your home. And more importantly, hiring professional cleaners will get rid of one thing that you have to stress over, which gives you the opportunity to do more quality things for your precious time.

My husband is back to covering birthdays and other events again. He used to do a lot of events like he covers at least two events per month which is a big help for our financial needs. But ever since he got promoted from work, he got really busy which prevented him from accepting photo coverage.

But since we will need the extra money from these shoots to add to the monthly amortization for our house, hubby started accepting events again. Here are some of the events that he recently covered:

He already has a number of upcoming events for December and January already and we are really thankful for these blessings. But I know also that hubby is not getting any younger and so he definitely needs vitamins to increase his energy so he can do more without abusing his body.

So I did a lot of research and that is how I discovered about Acai Berry being sold by healthychoicenaturals.com.

Healthychoicenaturals.com is an online site where you can get vitamins and supplements like Krill Oil, Moringa, Acai Berry and more. They also sell supplements that can help lower cholesterol, address Hot Flashes, Low Thyroid and more.

I read about one of their featured product, the Acai Berry and I believe that this is the perfect supplement for hubby because:

• it increase energy and stamina levels
• prevents heart diseases
• improves immune system
• antioxidant

With Acai Berry, I can help hubby maintain his health as he do extra work to provide for the needs of our family.

My husband is doing photography as his sideline work. It just started as a hobby but as soon as he had his hand on his first SLR camera, he fell in love with it that he started to get bookings for event coverage.

One of his friends invited him for a formal class held in a studio with a model as their subject. Hubby got amazed at how the hair and makeup artist transformed the model using black hair extensions which changed the model’s hair from super short hair to long and silky black hair. These clip on hair extensions are so easy to use that the hair and make up artist were done with the model in less than 1 hour that they were able to start with the shoot right away to hubby’s delight.

Lace front wigs and hair extensions are really an in thing now that I heard even famous celebrities like Jennifer Lopez is using them. I might give it a try before I finally say yes to hubby’s request that I and our kids will be his next subject so we will have nice pictures for the Christmas cards that we will be sending out soon.

Blast from the Past. This was the topic of conversation amongst my group of online friends the other week. We went back in time on how we met our partners and how our life was when we were still in college. All of us had a good laugh when we remembered how we use dial up connection so we can go online and join different chat groups famous then, like mIRC so we can find new friends (and probably a new partner). Those were the days.

The internet has undergone a big change since then as we say goodbye to dial up connection and we are now connecting via faster modes of connection like broadband and DSL. If we want to meet new friends and find life long relationships, we don’t need to spend countless hours in chat rooms as there are online dating sites available now which offer services like dating advice, match making, in-depth personality reports and more.

One of those online dating sites is Parship. If you sign up as a member of Parship, you will be asked to take a scientific personality test so they can create a profile for you that will aid them in finding a compatible partner that matches your personality. Because of this test, 35% of their members reported that they have found true love and life-long partner through Parship.

I am glad that I found my perfect partner in life and I really could not ask for more. But if you are still searching for that one true love, then try out the dating services being offered by Parship. Who knows, you might find your lifelong partner through them.

Do you ever sometimes feel that you just want to pack your bags and leave? Well that is what I am feeling now. I just want to pack our northface backpacks, board a plane and run away from everything and just enjoy my time with hubby and my kids.

I told hubby that it is actually my Christmas and birthday wish but looks like it is not possible because:

1. I don’t have enough vacation leaves left
2. Hubby wants to go out with his siblings and their family which makes this trip even impossible as I don’t think we will have enough time to save for us and for hubby’s family

My life has been really stressful this past few days but I am glad that hubby and my kids are here to cheer me up. Just like today, I was so not in the mood and hubby treated me for dinner out. Simple joys.

So I guess no vacation for us anytime soon but hubby promised a major trip again hopefully by 2013 after B’s big 7th birthday party.

For Day 14 of my 30-Day photo challenge, I was asked to post a picture of someone I can’t imagine my life without and this is my entry:

My husband and my two kids.

I feel so blessed and thankful that God gave me a very loving and responsible husband who loves me for who I am, no questions asked. He has made all our family’s dreams into reality and that is through his handwork. He always makes the impossible , possible and he always make a very negative situation into a positive one. He thought me how to be carefree and how to enjoy life. He thought me that happiness is a choice and that it is something that we can easily achieve with God’s guidance and with the help of each other.

My kids on the other hand have been our constant source of joy and happiness. They sometimes make me pull my hair out but they are the best things that happened to my life.

I am excited for December as I am so looking forward to watch Disney on Ice with B and Jacobo.

Just look at some of the pictures that hubby took when we watched Disney on Ice two years ago.

We watched the show with two of my friends, Peachy and Jacqui, together with their kids and the kids really had a blast. That is why when we found out that Disney on Ice is coming this December, we all got excited and we all agreed that we would be watching again.

This will be B’s second time if ever to watch a Disney on Ice show and it will be Jacobo’s first and I am sure he will really enjoy this show as he just loves Mickey and his gang.

Guest I better start looking on where to buy digital cameras and I heard Deals Direct has a wide range of camera brands that I can choose from. And I better start monitoring the site of Ticketnet so I will know if they will already start selling tickets for this show.

I am one excited mom.

I booked the magician, the game booths, the food carts, and balloon artist from my all time favorite party planner Angelette of Jelly Bellies. We thought everything was all set for the party but then we got surprised when our party planner informed us that our magician, Amazing Arnold, backed out to attend to some emergency out of town.

Luckily, with Angelette’s help, we were able to book Alexa Lagula for our magician and we were happy with his service because everybody enjoyed the party because he really brought life and entertainment to the event. But there are a lot of questions that crossed our mind after the incident like:
• What are our rights to file for damages against the magician?
• Can a professional magician just ignore the contract that he signed for the services that he will render to us?
• What are the consequences that the magician should face for failing to honor the contract?

On August 2012, my other niece will be celebrating her 1st birthday and the parents would still want to try Amazing Arnold. If I were to ask, I would rather get another magician but it is not for me to decide.

But they should at least know their right so they will know how to assert themselves if ever the same thing happen so I told them to visit www.Lawqa.com first before they book Amazing Arnold again.

LawQA.com is a site where they can ask any legal questions and a local attorney will give them answers to their question without any fee. All information sent to the site is kept anonymous so my sister-in-law doesn’t have to worry about their privacy. At least they have the legal information that they need to protect their right in case the same thing will happen again.

I’ve been noticing that there are so many milk tea bars popping out all over the city. I’m not a very big fan of milk teas, as I prefer coffee though I know that teas are healthier.

My sister is actually a milk tea addict and I always hear familiar tea bars from her and two of which that I can remember are Serenitea and Happy Lemon. I really don’ have any idea about what their products and honestly, I don’t even know how milk tea tastes like.

I tried to search for more reviews about these two milk tea bars because I’ve been wanting to try it but I’m a bit hesitant and somehow afraid that I won’t like it. And so when I did some research, I found out that Happy Lemon serves more unique drinks just like Cocoa with Rock Salt and Cheese. For me, it’s really a bit weird and I can’t imagine that cocoa will blend well with cheese but according to my sister, it’s really a good drink and it’s one of the best sellers.

This coming weekend, I’m actually planning to invite hubby to go to Rockwell so we can try this mysterious Rock Salt and Cheese while shopping for Christmas gifts. I’m really excited and I hope that hubby is available this weekend.