busy, busy, busy

... today (or yesterday, to be exact since its already 2am) has been such a full-on day! Even though school has officially ended the day before... here I am still rushing around. Hay buhay! Raelene and her friends are performing their Maria Clara dance "Habanera de Jovencita" at the Phil Independence Day at Joan Sutherland, they and a lot of other Filos are presenting anything and everything about our motherland, The Philippines... how I would've loved to watch the whole show... makes me reminisce of the place where I grew up... was able to watch a bit of the show (backstage) while the girls and I were waiting for their performance... I heard a choir singing "Ang bayan kong Pilipinas" (not sure if that was the title though hehehe) made me teary-eyed as I suddenly missed Manila! Even though I have lived here for almost half of my life, I still call Manila home... what a funny thing to say! I'm pretty sure most of the Filos who have moved here have forgotten where they have come from but I absolutely cannot forget! I am still proud to call myself Filipino and my kids are proud of their heritage as well! Just thinking about this brings to mind a lot of funny stories of Filos living here (with matching exaggerated aussie accents) but I won't go thru that anymore, a lot would probably feel offended, so I just leave it at that...

Back to the show, the girls did me proud with their beautiful dance... even the audience loved it! They were the very essence of what a Filipina looks like and how graceful they were while dancing... I tried to get a video of their dance but I only had my iphone and having limited capacity, could only video halfway before the iphone told me I didn't have enough space to keep on going... so this will have to stay in my memory till the end of my days (hopefully!)... at the end of their performance, we didn't stay long as we had a party to go to... it was my father-in-law's 60th birthday party, so off we went home to get ready. I had a son who had a basketball game so we had to wait for him before we could go to the party and by then we were an hour and a half late! hahaha! Talk about pilipino time, this was absolutely the latest we've been late to a party... my sister-in-law kept on ringing us to ask what time we were going... in the end we had to take 2 cars... but anyway, it was a good party because my hubby got to meet up with his relatives whom he hasn't seen in like ages... the next big event will be his cousin's wedding in October, I hear it will be the biggest reunion of their clan as people from Canada, US and Phils will be coming here to celebrate the wedding... can't wait!

... So now I come to a close, am starting to feel sleepy now... need to get my beauty sleep as we still have to go to Mass tomorrow and start the big clean-up which has been long overdue...

...it's been awhile since I last blogged, have been so busy it's not funny... a couple of weeks ago the vomiting bug visited our home, all my kids got it... I felt sick as well but really didn't get to the vomiting stage (which is good!), moms aren't allowed to get sick hehehe...

... then there was Harmony Day, an annual event at my daughter's school which allowed us to showcase our heritage... being proud to be Filipino, I helped with organizing the stall and helped my daughter and her friends dance a Maria Clara dance called "Habanera de Jovencita"... that took us weeks of practice and I felt that it still wasn't perfect (being the perfectionist that I am) but what the heck, everyone loved it! So now, they will perform in the Phil Independence Day tomorrow and we have named their group "Ninas de Filipinas"... just love these girls =D

... a week after I was given the chance to spend time with my oldest daughter in her Mother-Daugther camp. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it since it was so cold (who would even think to book a camp in the dead of winter?), but apparently that weekend was the only booking the school could get, so there you go... but strangely enough, I had a blast! It was such a beautiful place, so serene and peaceful and the moms and daughters that came where such a delight to be with! And the activities were definitely much better than the first camp we went on 2 years ago...

... anyway, today is the last day of school and am looking forward to 3 weeks of bonding with my kids, more cake experiments and just sleeping in and lazing around... can't wait!