These Days

Here's a rundown of our weekend. On Friday , we stayed at home in the morning then went to see Rich's mama in Eastwood. Saturday started early with a morning  Kids Yoga class in Pasig.  We changed time/place this week because we have a birthday party to go to in the afternoon.  I love this picture! We stopped at the Salcedo Market to buy food for lunch.  Best find of the day was Sea Salt Caramel ice cream from Merry Moo.  It was soo good!  We bought a cup and a pint to take home. In the afternoon, we headed to The Creamery at MOA for a birthday party. A game was going on and Neil decided to go behind this wall. This is a dancing game.  I did't realize Neil was airborne until I saw the picture. We took a ride on the MOA Eye after the party.  Then we rushed home for a badminton game with Erick/Joy and friends.  I played 4 games and was totally wiped out.  But it was good.=) On Sunday we went ...

We wanted to take Neil on the the Mall of Asia Eye last July for his birthday but we left Seriland pretty late so we did not have time to do it.  We rarely find ourselves in MOA but the opportunity presented last Saturday.  Richard's officemate had his son's birthday celebration at The Creamery in MOA.  Neil saw the ferris wheel and said he wanted to ride it so we did.  Fun family time.=) There was a queue but the wait wasn't long.  The ride costs P150 per person and it just goes for one round.  I did not time it but it probably took 10 minutes. Waiting in line. Gazing at the sunset. View from above.

Costume time!  While I do not subscribe to all the scary, gross and morbid things of Halloween, I do like the idea of costumes, especially for kids.  This year, Neil is a cowboy.  We already had most of what he needed -- plaid shirt, scarf, jeans.  We bought his belt and rope, and diy-ed his vest. The material for the vest was left over from his past Perseus costume .  The star on the vest was from an Intel teambuilding years ago.  A hat would have completed the look but we did not have time to buy or make one.  I still think it turned out ok.=) On October 25, Neil had their end-of-sem costume pageant at school. They played a few games in class.  This is the last school event before the semestral break. We used the same costume today for trick or treat at the condo.  I added a pocket on the vest last night.=)

Richard and I went to the HALIKA-Book Swap/Sale event yesterday morning to drop a few books, hoping to get rid of them.  We sold three books -- On Writing by Stephen King, Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and William Danko -- but we came home with 7!  Even though we failed on the original goal of purging, it was still great because books found new homes, we got great deals and met new people. Here's what we got: I got these 3 for Rich. HALIKA-Book was co-organized by our friend Edwin .  A second event has been scheduled for November 13 at Quantum Cafe, Bagtikan St., Makati City.

I missed Neil's school event for the first time ever :( on October 18 because I was at the SAS Analytics Forum.  His school has an annual grandparents' day program where the kids perform for the lolos and lolas.  Rich took a few photos and a video of his performance for me. Neil's group performed 'Jesus Loves the Little Children' and a Chinese song. Neil's class. I guess missing school events will happen eventually.  I'm just glad that at least Rich was able to attend.

October 18, 2012.  I attended the SAS Analytics Forum at the New World Hotel* in Makati.  It was a free forum so we took advantage and almost the whole team was there.  I always find conferences such as these very helpful, especially in getting oneself updated on new technology, software and developments in the industry.  Since it was sponsored by SAS, the morning sessions were focused on its newest offering, big data analytics.  We were shown a demo of the capability and it was really impressive.  Data processing was fast, everything was easy to manipulate and it had almost real-time connectivity to mobile devices such as iPads. Our company uses SAS in data pulls, analyses and reporting.  I have not used SAS before this job but I've had some programming background so I got the hang of it fairly easily.  What they have done for big data is to simplify (to me) the user processes and interactions but definitely added more power to the backend pro...

Pictures from the weekend!   Kids' Yoga Planking Germany Fair at the BGC Grounds.  Neil carried this flag around for a couple of days. German cars on display. Mura lang.     Our usual hangout - Fully Booked.  Share a seat! Hobbes and Landes Dinner. Who's missing utensils? Bagay? The end.

We had a packed weekend, Saturday in particular.  We had planned to go to Cartimar first thing in the morning but we left the house too late and would not make it to another appointment in time so we scrapped that and decided to go to S&R instead.  They played Christmas songs and had Christmas decors on sale.  We shopped only for necessities this time but I got some ideas about gifts for Christmas. S&R Then we drove to Ortigas to meet my good friends at El Pueblo .  ( If you're reading, hello Anne and Yan! )  Great conversation over delicious food.  Photos from Anne's IG. We drove to Tiendesitas after lunch for a quick errand and we were off to BGC for Kids' Yoga class.  Afterwards, we hung out at Bonifacio High Street and a customary stop at F ully Booked .  We had dinner at Bon Chon , then called it a day. Neil wanted to climb this tree. :) On Sunday, we were up early to attend the 8AM service at VCF . ...