Celebrating Christmas 2008 (part 1)

Haven't been around lately...I'm sure some of you knew the reasons, and for those who were unaware, you will know as you read along! :).

Anyway, our christmas preparations was tough and both I and hubby were so much in pressure to beat the deadline for only 10 days to complete everything before Christmas day!

Honestly, we didn't have any rest coming home from our 8-day trip in California, Nevada and Arizona respectively. We arrived back home on Dec. 13, and completely settled down morning of Dec. 14, and catched up for church in the afternoon, still on our jet lags. We still didn't have any single christmas decor at home...not even the tree was up, not started our christmas shopping for gifts, etc...

Monday (December 15), I started to get panicky, hubby had to go work, (he had tough day there), and the house turned into a mess for all the preps I did, while we decided to shop nightime, and the weekend. (Thank God, all was done smoothly).

Our gift wrapping session was done separately. (I did mine upstairs, and hubby did his own down the basement). I couldn't join him since he said he'll be wrapping things for me :). Our wrappings were completely done exactly at Christmas eve! Yey! at least we beat the deadline! LOL!

The next day was exciting. I woke up 11:30am and hubby said it's time to open gifts! As usual, excitement comes with me at this time of the year :). We usually start it with a brief bible devotions and prayer before opening our gifts.

The Gifts:
I gave 12 gifts for hubby...(thank God, he loved all of them :)). And I had 13 gifts from him. Usually, the first part of the day is I and hubby taking turns in opening our gifts under our tree at home. The second part will be a traditional Christmas dinner at mom's house after which we take turns in opening our gifts as well. Both I and hubby gave 22 gifts for mom, George and Jesse. They are giving us many presents every Christmas as well which make most of our day exciting!

I received 12 gifts from mom, 8 gifts from George, 1 from Jesse plus gifts from hubby... It's more than 30 gifts!!!!Overwhelming, isn't it? That's how Christmas is in the family! The fact that shopping for clothes is getting expensive nowadays, it's as good as I had shopped for clothes for the whole year! ...all gifts! at no extra cost!

Thanks a lot mom and George!

Hope you had all the merriest Christmas ever! HAPPY NEW YEAR one and all!

"Christmas Rush"

It's already past 1 in the morning, still tired and exhausted from a non-stop work for our christmas preparations.
We only had 10 days to prepare everything before Christmas since we came back from our trip.
So, I had tough days, from setting up the christmas tree, getting the hanging ornaments back to their hanging spots, (I had 3 days digging the box for this), shopping for gifts, gift wrapping....more shopping, more gifts, and more wrapping until wee hours in the morning {{{yawn!!}}}! I also included some things for our next balikbayan box :). I want to get it completed before we go home to the Philippines on April and at the same time be able to be there when the box arrives!
Thank God, we had half of the gifts given away! It's nice to feel and know we are sharing our blessings...a great fulfillment :).

I am still less than halfway done.
Please help me pray for good health. It seems my body is reacting towards stress. I got this sore throat that becomes unbearable during the night that makes me cough...disturbing.

Hope you all have a blessed Christmas!

Glad to be Back Home!

Finally, we arrived back home safely last Saturday night at 9:30pm (Maryland time)...very tired and exhausted from a long trip. We had a connecting flight in Denver to Baltimore. It was quite a hassle tracking out the time since we left California. I only adjusted my watch when we reached Baltimore.

We thought we could get that sleep we were wanting when we reached home, but when hubby turned on the TV, Pacquiao-dela Hoya fight was on for a replay! Good thing was there was no commercial ads, so it was as good as watching the live fight! We went to bed around 3:30AM...and both dropped down like dead!!! LOL!

Well, there are so much things waiting to be done for christmas, which means I would be super, dooper busy for christmas. I still have to let the tree up and put up holiday decorations, wrap gifts, do laundry, etc...I still am having jet lags, but I need to start doing something and I am not sure when can I get back to my blogging job. I missed some blog opps since I was on trip, but that's okay, I enjoyed it and was worth it :).

More photos to  share as well, but I'll find time for that :).

Hope everybody is having a good time this Christmas!

God bless!

We're Back in Anaheim!

After spending 3 nights in Las Vegas, and a 1 day tour in Grand Canyon, Arizona, thank God, we arrived Anaheim safe and sound tonight. The trip is long (by bus), but we had fun the fact that all we did was eat, drink, watch movie, hop off at bus stops for quick stretches, and did some quick shoppings too! :).

Our Grand Canyon tour was great! It was a 17 hours tour, but seeing one of God's masterpieces is all worth it! It was cold up there, but we were both well wrapped and warm. Can't wait to share lots of our photos, but I am still in the state of grogginess, quite tired and sleepy.

I missed my online neighborhood for a day and a half, LOL!

Anyway, hoping I can share the photos too soon. Time for me to take my beauty rest...hubby is already snoring!! :)).

See ya'll next time.

Our New York Trip - Nov.29,'08

We finally did our New York trip last Saturday. The cold was unbearable, almost close to freezing. Although, we were well-wrapped, the fact that we were in the outdoor for the whole day is still very cold.
We were able to visit ground zero (the twin towers/World Trade center), which is now a busy construction site, and the Statue of Liberty in Ellis Island. There are so much places to visit, but a one day visit isn't enough. We spent so much time waiting in long lines that took us more than an hour wait just to board the ferry going to Ellis Island where Statue of Liberty is. Perhaps, it was because it was on a weekend. Our wait was actually longer than our visit to the statue that only took us to 20 minutes to see it. Then, we had to hurry back to the bus stop on time, and getting a cab was a real challenge...heck! It was difficult to get one. We were at the middle of the street waving for a taxi, and we ended up chasing the empty cab just to get to our bus...
Anyway, that was fun and a good experience.
On to our next trip on December 6. CALIFORNIA-LAS VEGAS-ARIZONA. That would be another story folks! :)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Snow Flurries Today - Because It's My Birthday!! :).

I actually woke up super late today! I had to work  on the new church website with a new domain, so it is always challenging :)....as late as 3 AM!

Before I woke up, the first words that came out from my mouth..."thank you Lord" for giving me another bountiful year...it's my birthday, and it's snowing!"

My husband greeted me early in the morning with a birthday song (with his own tune..LOL!) and a cake on bed! I guess I was blowing the candles in a wrong direction, because I was really super sleepy!...so we decided to have another second candle blowing tonight, with photos :)).

Thank you Lord!

Another Early, Surprise Birthday Gift!

Yesterday, I received this at our doorsteps...it's the key lighting piano that I once saw in Skymall magazine couple of months ago. Of course, somebody took note about it (again) and sent it to me :). I told hubby how I wish I can play the piano well as I love to listen to music. Thank you again beloved...:)).
Now, I still don't know how to play it, but I am working on it. I still have to refresh my mind on the basics as I had some piano lessons before wayback 2 decades ago...hahahaha!!! Good thing is that it can teach you the proper fingerings, plus it has a song book with musical sheets, just in case you want to play some songs there. I always love listening to people who know how to play the piano...still wishing I can play that well.
Now, I have to find time to work and practice on some songs. Another leisure time added for me which isn't bad...I won't get bored! :).
See ya later folks...I can't wait to press the DO, RE, MI...:)).

Your Friend's List As Per Friendster's Customer Support

Recently, I contacted friendster's online support center. Below is my letter that I sent. of course, who doesn't get pissed off? I closely track all of my friends' updates, and just imagine if things are suddenly messed up without even having a piece of information and explanations being given!

My Letter:

Hey Friendster team,
What's up...it's been 3 days since your site is unstable, inaccessible, temporary maintenance, whatever!!!
DON'T LEAVE YOUR SUBSCRIBERS HANGING OUT HERE! WE DESERVE TO BE INFORM WHAT'S HAPPENING AND WHY OUR PROFILES ARE MESSED UP! IF THIS IS SOMEWHAT LIKE A CRAP, FIX IT. BUT BFORE YOU DO IT, GET SOME PEN AND WRITE A LETTER OF NOTICE TO YOUR SUBSCRIBERS SO WE KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT!

Friendster Customer Support's Response:

Hello ,

Thank you for contacting Friendster Customer Support.

Over the past several days we’ve been upgrading our service and you may have experienced site issues, discrepancies in counts or even friends missing from your friends list.

If friends on your friend's list are missing, please be patient; they are not permanently deleted and are still in our database (we're just having problems displaying them). We are working on restoring your entire friend's list and should have the complete list back within the next several days.

Thank you again for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Regards,

Madison
Customer Support

My suggestion is that, don't add your friends again. Your friends are all intact. Just that the displayed numbers on your friend's list is not working well. If you try clicking the VIEW ALL on your friend's list, you'll notice that they are all there.

Thanks for the support team for that information. Now, at least we know what's happening. The only thing that wasn't done properly is that there was no information dessiminated to all subscribers regarding this, which can make things more worst! Some became panicky, irritated, (name it)...myself included.

Hope everything will get to be done sooner! :).

Where did all my friends go???

Since last night I had a hard time accessing my friendster page. It appeared later that it was of "temporary maintenance."

However, when I tried accessing it again today, I noticed that almost all of my friends on my list were gone. Am I the only one having this glitch? It's ridiculous! For 200+ friends, gone???

I wonder what's the friendster team has been doing lately. I hope it's only a glitch. I can't just afford to lose another vital links (friendster has already lost my 200+ some links on my blogs.

5WITS - Boston's Most Interactive Entertainment Experience

If you find yourself roaming around Boston, - and you love to take a mind-bending adventure of sights, sound and action, visit 5WITS - located at Brookline Ave.

The 5WITS premier show called "TOMB" is just like stepping into a simulated Indiana Jones movie setting wherein you find yourself solving puzzles and mind boggling games inside a 3,000 year-old tomb using your wits.

This is a 45-minute adventure, but might take longer depending on how fast you are in solving a given task.

In the setting, you'll find yourself trapped by the spirit of an ancient pharaoh, facing ingenious challenges that must be completed. The bigger your group, the better teamwork!

Our experience:

It was a little bit more tough for us since there were only 2 of us (me and hubby) plus our guide.

Take note: - a guide will always be with you just to be sure you won't be trapped there forever!

We were taken to 5 chambers (I hope I counted correctly) one at a time as we solve mind boggling games. I will tell you the details later once I've already posted this on my travel blog.

So far, I tried counting the tasks and we had 9 tasks as much as my mind can recall all of them. It seems when you fail in a certain task, there's an option (simpler one) given just for the sake of completing it, so you can move on to the next. Without completeing any task given in a certain chamber, you can't move on and thus, you will be trapped.

If you want to know more, you can find them online as well. www.5-wits.com

From there, you know more what to expect, including the ticket prices and driving directions.

Try it!...it's one of a kind.

Stepping Into The Prime of Life

Two weeks more, and I will be into what they call the prime of life.

As much as I am getting old(er), it seems I'm already starting to feel some annoying symptoms. I know I have a lot, but I continue to pray and lift my hands all up to Him above. I continue to be a Christian soldier who fights for anything worth fighting for including health problems and sickness.

It's now a week since I started to have this vertigo that annoys me. I got it when we were in Boston. Everytime I lie down and get up from bed...everything spins like crazy!

I hope we can get a doctor's appointment sooner. Please help me pray for a complete healing and fast recovery.

Attempted Hacks on Our Credit!

Last Saturday, immediately after we arrived home from Boston, there were pending voice mail messages on our phone. Hubby checked on them and 2 messages came from one of our credit card provider telling us that there has been some suspicious activity that had occured same day (Saturday) on one of hubby's credit card accounts. He immediately called the number and we discovered, somebody had ordered items from eluxury.com and another from snapfish. The credit card representative told us the transactions happened at 1:00AM of Saturday. Hubby asked me if I ordered those, I told him not at all, because I never used his credit card in ordering things.

The total amount of the transactions was more than $1,000!!!

Thank God!...our credit card anti-fraud protector works! My husband said to me: "Looks like we have to eat our own words". I readily agreed because last time, hubby had a bad argument with the same credit card provider because they withheld our purchases, thinking that it was a fraudulent activity. Hubby warned them of cancelling his account with them. Now, we know they are just doing their job, for our own good and security.

For those who have credit cards, better get an anti-fraud detector service with just a minimal fee. Our accounts has it, and just for a minimal fee, it is all worth it to protect you from any attempted hacking.

Be safe and advanced Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Currently Roaming Boston :)

Thank God, we arrived Boston safely and without any hassles this morning. It was surprising to know that when we arrived it was actually warmer than Maryland, considering that Massachusetts is more on the northern part.

When I say "warm" it is still cool for me, LOL! I was just comparing the temperature. But not bad, it is not sharply chilly.

For those who are planning to visit Boston someday...watch out! It's pretty much expensive here! We are just lucky enough to be enjoying the government employee rate of our hotel room right now. The regular price per room (Hilton) is a whooping $599 a night!!!!...unbelievable, but true!

The city is small, but it is more like New York where roads are crowded and always bustling. Taxi cabs honk and drivers drive like the way they are in the Philippines :)). I love the gothic styles of their historical buildings, but I haven't taken any shot yet. I find it just a bit difficult to do the walking tour and take some photos because of the weather. We figured out we have to walk at least more than a mile to visit historical sites and buildings, and with the cold weather, I don't want to risk, not unless we can go on a hop on-hop-off tour perhaps. Hubby must have been tired doing those kind of tour either because everytime we sign up for such tours, he would be snoring inside the trolley :).

I wonder if we have a random visit tomorrow...I heard some shopping on the other corner of the room...{{{my eyes wide opened}}}... well??

I'm thinking of Quincy Market. Let's see :))

Have a good blessed day, everyone.

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Sigh of Relief!

Thank God! My internet is back. The technician came in today to check everything and it was all completely good and running fast.

I couldn't just imagine the things that I missed on the net for 3 days....A LOT!! I had many pending posts for paid ads (thank God, I still am getting an income) and managed to catch up and update my blogs.

Happy Friday :).

Internet Down For 3 Days Now...

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you all know that my internet was down since Tuesday afternoon. Our internet provider detected interruptions on some of the roads being constructed close to us, so technician will be coming over to adjust the signal suppose to be this afternoon. Am hoping and praying it will get back sooner.

Currently, I tapped my wireless networking to a network close to my neighbor. I don't know if this is illegal, but it was one of the available networks. I just don't want to be using it for so long.

Thank God, my Broadcom worked. It's an adapter that I installed in my PC for many years...I was thinking it is useless and almost deleted it, but now I know this is the real purpose of it. It can detect many wireless network that is available, so here I am...

It is a horrible feeling to be away from the internet for 3 days...it's just like I am thrown in a desert! :(. Perhaps, it's because I got used to be working daily online. It's my source of income.

Anyway, help me pray our internet connection will be done ASAP. It's one of my lifeline! :((.

Stay safe and God bless!

Friendster's Teasing Me With Glitches!

Early this afternoon, I wanted to update my blog and so I tried to go to my dashboard...took me to wait forever to show up on my screen but never did and instead showed me "cannot display page".

After 15 minutes, I tried to go back, and instead "temporary maintenance" was displayed.

After 20 minutes, I went back again to check it and presto!...my dashboard showed up! Then, I thought of seeing new photos of one of my friends, and when I clicked my friend's profile, it says "private profile" and "messaging off"...you must be friends with .......in order to see these photos! Well, she is on my friends list!

So, I got confused and wondered why.

Damn it! I don't wanna get a headache with that, so I just logged out and went to get my snacks..Now, that should be better :). I enjoyed my munchings and now I feel so sleepy, hehehe!

Then, I opened my friendster page again and logged back in, and all is well that ends well.

Oh boy,...those glitches are just around the corner at times, but who cares? It goes on and off...I don't mind.

Now, I'm back to my packing mania...I am at a challenge how to fit those thick clothes in 2 luggages! But on top of it, I'm getting excited for our Boston trip next week..yey! I still am taking in charge of our trip itineraries as usual as to where to go visit. I already ordered 2 tickets for our whale watching on October 31.  Hubby was speechless!!! HAHAHAHA!

BOSTON...see you next week.

I'm back!

There have been some good news I wanted to share you all.  First, I am now starting my first post for my new friendster blog. After I deleted my blog last week, I had to wait for another week before Friendster finally allowed me to create a new one :).

Second, the geek squad successfully managed to fix our 3 PCs at home (2 laptops) and a desktop today. The three computers had some spywares and bad elements but they were manageable and easily fixed, except for my other laptop (I named it "Paul Charles) which according to the geek guy (Double Agent Gregory) was very severely sick and was about to crash! Thank God, it was really a smart idea to seek the help of the Geek Squad...it was saved! The bad spyware that Paul Charles caught has a Trojan virus in it and its registry is already badly messed up and corrupted! I had been relying on the anti-spyware that was installed, but it didn't help!

Our Norton Security were all uninstalled and was changed with Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, much more better than Norton, Mcafee, etc.  It critically identifies all spams in the mail from our Outlook Express, and as you browse online, it tells you everything about what's happening, such as it tells you if the site is good, a spam, a phishing site, or tells beforehand what to do before you open a dangerous site....I find it cool! Although I haven't heard about Kaspersky yet, not until they installed it on our PCs.

Thank you Geek Squad for saving our PCs...and saving our identities from a possible theft!

On the other hand, I can't import my old blog that I saved because it exceeds the limit of the download. Now, that's the bad news! I really have to start from the scratch, but I don't mind. At least, now my mind is at peace.

Happy weekend everyone!