We went to Sunrise Hills

January 27, Sunday at around 11am we packed our things to go to Ate Maricel’s new house at Sunrise Hills here in Dasmariñas Cavite. My husband has a scheduled work that day, so I together with Adrian and Claire had to commute from our house. Well it is not that far, in fact it is also in Barangay Sabang, my estimate will not be more than two kilometers away. Adrian was excited to see Charlie, they always play whenever they meet, during some occasions or family gatherings, I guess it is because they almost have the same age; Charlie is only 2 months older than my son. We rode a jeepney to the place and had to walk from the entrance gate to the house of Ate Maricel; it is not that far, actually it is a walking distance only. We have been a lot of times there, because whenever Ate Maricel visits us, we usually take some time to look in the progress of her house. Their house is a triplex type house, not too big, or spacious but it is better than renting a house. When we arrived there, Kuya Jimmy is busy doing some minor things. We talked about their experience in moving in to their new house, while the two kids were playing and Claire is watching over them. JC is not there, he will stay at our parents at Malabon until the end of the school year. It is only Ate Maricel that was able to get an approved vacation leave, so she asks Ate Maricris to help her out; Ronnie, husband of Lala also helped her. Ate Maricris and Kyla arrived at around 2pm. Ate Maricel has no one to baby sit her son because the younger sister of Kuya Jimmy did not want to move to Cavite. She asked Ate if she can look after Charlie until she finds someone.

The white envelope

January 22, I received the much awaited white envelope from our boss; if you are not one of us, you might ask what it is. Actually other department started giving it to their group last Friday; unfortunately our manager was not around last Friday. Our boss was only able to get with our manager yesterday; some of it he was able to distribute on that same day. This envelope contains the result last November performance review; it states the percentage increase that was given to you, stock option grants in accordance to your contribution for the last year and promotion from one level to the other. I was happy to know that I was promoted from associate equipment engineer to equipment engineer 1; being promoted means, another expectation and a lot of new responsibilities from the higher management for this new job function. I was not the only one that was promoted; in fact my husband was also promoted from equipment maintenance technician 3 to equipment maintenance technician 4.

Ate Maricel will move to their new home

January 21, Monday, Ate Maricel sent an e-mail to me that they will move to their new home on Tuesday night. I am happy to hear that news; it was almost two years now since they start to pay monthly amortization for that house. It is located here in Dasmariñas Cavite, about one kilometer away from our home and from Ate Maricris. I asked her if she requested to be transferred here in our Cavite plant. She told me that she asked it to the HR personnel and told her that the policy of transferring employees from Parañaque to Cavite was already revised. An employee must apply for a job opening in Cavite to be able to be transferred or that there will be somebody in the same position and job function that is willing to exchange with her. In her current position, Ate Maricel will find difficulty in finding a counterpart in Cavite who is willing to be transferred to Parañaque, so she has to apply; but unfortunately at this time there were no job openings here in Cavite. She has to commute to the nearest shuttle bus pick-up point which is the coastal road for the while. I think she will have to wake up as the same time as she was when she was still in Malabon. I will visit her this coming Sunday. Can’t wait for that day!

New Years Day

January 1, 2008 first day of the year; for many of us this is the start of new life and new hopes. I hope we can start it over again because we woke up late that morning. We woke up at 10am that morning and had our breakfast at 11am. Well that was an excuse, we stayed late last night watching my son’s favorite DVD (the cars) and afterwards the fire works. We were not able to buy even a fountain this year, for the previous years I have a co-employee who is distributing fireworks before December ends. This year he was already resigned and my husband also decided not to have fireworks and that is not a big deal. Later that day, Ate Maricris together with Kyla visited us. Adrian already missed his “Mama” (he used to call her Mama when Ate is taking care of him and until today) and Kyla. They played the whole afternoon, while me and Ate, cooked and ate.

December 31

December 31, Monday, My parents with my sisters Matet, Adis, brother - JR, my niece and nephews: Ellah Mae, JC and Charlie visited us. Ate maricel had to go to work today, we just called her to inform that her two sons were with us today. I cooked menudo (one of the favorite main dish of our family) for our lunch.

The kids are dancing in the tune of “papaya”, I recorded few video clips of their dance.At around 3:00 pm we decided to go to Tagaytay and ate at Yellow Cab. We ordered 18" pizza and their Charlie chan chicken pasta and the chili wings.

They are not going to celebrate the new year with us, so at around 6 pm they already went to Malabon.

December 30

December 30, Sunday, after attending the mass at the clubhouse; we went to the nearby mall to shop for the New Years Eve. As usual, the mall is full of shoppers. We first check the kids section, because my inaanak will celebrate his first birthday this coming January 7. I usually give educational toys or dress to my inaanaks so there will be a lot of choices, after having made my decision, we then move to national bookstore to buy some gift wrappers and gift tag. I love wrapping gifts, so even though the mall offer free gift wrapping for items bought with a required minimum amount, I still wanted to wrapped it on my own.

We are looking for a new coloring book for Adrian, when he saw a toy that he wanted to buy. He saw that on TV, and I remember him asking me if we can buy him that – it is the magnetic toy. My husband and I argued for a while if we are going to buy that, because he already had a lot of toy; but at the end we did bought the toy for him.

After having lunch at Max’s, we then go to the supermarket.

AT the parking lot, we met our friend Joel and his wife and son .

December 29

December 29, Friday, my in laws were bound to Quezon Province that morning.
As we expected, Adrian notices the traveling bag that is now at the living room. He asked his Lola, “Lola uwi ka na sa Quezon? His Lola answered, “Oo Apo”. Adrian, with teary eyes told her, “Sama si Kuya”. My mother in law told him that there will be no one there to look after him, because Lola and Lolo still have to work at school. I comforted him and tell him that we will all go there this coming summer. And then he stops crying.

Before going to the company we dropped them off at the terminal. That terminal is a big ease for commuters, three years ago, we still have to go to Alabang to ride a bus going to south.

December 26 - Back to Work

December 26, Wednesday, start up day for our company. Adrian woke up early that morning. On his way down the stairs, he saw me preparing to go to work. He ask me, “ Mommy sa work ka?”, I answered, Yes and kissed him in his forehead. He then told me, “Ingat ka sa work ha”.

It is only 7:00 am when we got to our company. There is still few motorists in the road, that is why we came early. First thing I did was to clean my inbox. Being away from work for four days, my inbox is already full of messages (work related and some greetings from my friends). I carefully check the mail one by one, making sure that I will not overlook some mail which contains important issues.

Our boss, instructed us to provide assistance in the production, especially those set-ups with problems during the shutdown.

At lunch time there were some that brought left over to share with during the lunch. We usually consume only 30 minutes of the one hour lunch break, so that there will be enough time to go to the garden for our coffee break.

It was a busy day for all of us.