Happy Boozemas!

Sister Isa, her Jayson, and their Marley-dogg came up for the holidays and celebrated xmas holiday traditions with the family in Elk Grove. Traditions that include piling presents under Tita Yeyet's xmas tree, sleepovers at cousin Erica's-and-her-Chris, and imbibing ungodly amounts of wine, beer, cabo wabo tequila, and wailing drunken karaoke at the top of our lungs. My aunt & uncle are saints for putting up with us.
After a post-xmas brunch at Sacramento's Tower Cafe with old high school girlfriends, we all went back to party it up in SF. While Corser was at home... um... "entertaining" Marley, we took Isa & Jay to Shabu House, then out for a bottomless champagne mimosas & bloody marys at Paul K brunch, then some wobbly-legged ice skating at the Embarcadero (click link for the video). We later met up with Joey and his Liz at Poleng Lounge and tried to chase away the daytime-drinking-hangovers with more booze & dancing.
Good times (with pictures to prove it here)

The House of Mouse

Shoulda gotten these from Paxton Gate for our caketoppers:

Would've totally complimented the white chocolate skulls on our cake.

I frickin LOVE this store.

Corser's Annual Ornament Party 2008

We had some friends over for the annual ornament-making party, which is part elementary-school-craft-activity, part drunken-mess. Which usually makes for some interesting ornaments, as you'll see below.
The loose "theme" for the night's buffet spread was "comfort food" (as in, food that's really really bad for you). We had hamburger helper cheeseburger macaroni, vegetable thins with a chedddar-port wine cheeseball, chickin-in-a-biskit crackers with spray cheese, mini pigs-in-a-blanket, spaghetti with hot dogs, thomas english muffin pizzas, and white castle burgers (which went SO well with the bartles & jaymes wine coolers). We also had pumpkin pie and DIY cupcake-decorating afterwards.
But the real attraction was the tree, which now is a true reflection of what kinds of people we consider to be our "friends". Behold:

WTF was that?!?




And last but not least, the piece de resistance: our Treetop Angel, courtesy of Rachel:

I like that she's pregnant... wearing a bikini... and has a pouting devil at or around the general crotchular area.
Thanks a lot, guys. Y'all are the greatest.

Final days in Manila & Quezon City

The last 5 days was spent with family in Quezon City & Manila. We visited family & friends, and was taken sightseeing and shopping all over the place. We ate, drank, shopped, and sweated through many shirts.

We checked out Binondo, which is Manila's old Chinatown, as well as Intramuros, the old "walled city" of Manila during the Spanish era. Did some shopping at Greenhills, the Galleria, and Mall of Asia. Ate "balut" and "taho", crickets at Fely J's, and drank "lambanog" palm liquor. Endured death metal during Goth Night at Magnet night club on Halloween.

Pictures of this part of our trip can be found here: Manila

I have to give my family (especially my mom!) a HUGE thank you for making this amazing trip possible! It was so very cool to show Russell the country/city/house where I was sprouted, and my family made it all possible!

4 days in Bohol

On Oct 24, the day after returning from Boracay, we jetted off to Bohol with my parents. We stayed at the gorgeous Amarela Resort, which was originally built by the Nunag family as their vacation home until they decided to "share" it with the public as an exclusive resort. My parents know the Nunag family, and the staff (especially Ida, who was the family's long-time nanny and now oversees the hotel in their absence) were just amazingly gracious.

In Bohol, we saw tarsiers, caught a cockfight ("sabong"), and tried some "tuba" palm toddy wine. Here are the pictures of our trip to Bohol

And here's the video link to Bohol Trip Part 1 (Part 2 to follow)

4 days in Boracay

Early morning on Monday Oct 20, we took off for Boracay Island, where we spent the next 4 glorious days doing nothing but float in the water as much as possible.

We stayed at the Pearl of the Pacific hotel, down at the quiet end of White Beach.

To see more of all of the nothing that we did, click here to see our Pictures of Boracay

Russell put this together to make y'all jealous: Link to Video

Our arrival in the Philippines

We visited the Philippines and arrived on Saturday October 18. The very next day, a family party was held at my paternal Grandma's house. As to be expected, there was a TON of food and relatives, many of whose names have totally escaped us (I can only imagine how overwhelming it was for Russell!). My mom got a caterer who made Puto Bungbong & Bibinka cake the traditional way - steamed & baked over charcoal clay-ovens. And we had a lechon!

It was such a great experience showing Russell around the place. The house I lived in as a child is actually on the same property, adjoining my grandparent's house. My grandma, "Mama Lin", still has all the same old-school stereo equipment, furniture, and decor from the 50s/60s (how delightfully retro!).

Pictures are posted here: Arrival in Quezon City