christmas in the air

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas. it's cold out there, i started playing christmas songs, and to our surprise we found christmas trees and decors in stores! i am so happy, we will be able to set christmas-in-the-air mood, more importantly for vivian even just here...in our home.

I remember, my father used to play ray conniff we wish you a merry christmas album (my favorite!). he will put the long playing album (no cd yet) to his turn table and we could hear it all over the house. i tried looking for that here and of course.. found it! vivian enjoys every song, just like me and tatay back then (with my siblings and nanay).

vivian putting the star on top of the tree

National Day in BSM

november 19, vivian was wearing an omani national dress as the school celebrated the 37th (oman) national day. the picnic was held in the playground and there were lots of food from all over the world, the school asked the students to provide one from their country of origin. mommy also volunteered to help on the day itself, arranged the food and assisted the kids (also managed to take lots of pics). it was a fun one hour celebration, the kids went back to get food..twice..thrice..more.

in her omani dress

our puto and pansit
vivian and friends

jolly phonics

She started jolly phonics by singing with movements and sounds of animals and objects (like the video of "ants and snakes"). she can read simple two to four letter words and gets excited seeing familiar words in billboards, restaurants and malls. wonder what will be her first own reading book

if video is not working please go this site
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt3BV8fE89A

happy bday song

"happy birthday mommy
happy birthday
happy birthday
happy birthday mommy"

if video is not working, pls go to this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL7aM6be1ro

My Bday

November 21, 2007 was not an ordinary wednesday for me. a year older and a lot wiser (more white hairs). how did i celebrate?

after we dropped vivian to school, bong and i headed to an appliance store and got my first present, the black and decker white oven toaster. no more toasting in the stove oven or teflon pan.

next stop, Sunglass Hut. i chose a Ray Ban with light shade. it's hard to find that fits on my face, this one is almost perfect.

lunch time,we picked up vivian first from school then ate at Silk Route, a thai and chinese restaurant. we mostly ordered thai dishes and decided to visit again to taste chinese.next, we went to a nail salon. we relaxed while having our mani-pedi spa. daddy also had one. he was in a different room , was not able to take pic.

more presents....flowers and purple balloon (vivian's idea)

dinner at turkish house....

the best calamares

grilled fresh fish

and our favorite hammos

last stop...vivian had one scoop of baskin and robbin and i had my favorite toffee nut latte from starbucks.

thanks to my husband, who took a week off from work and for driving the entire day. to vivian, thanks for singing the best "happy birthday" song.

the tale of the 'Great Effort'

Vivian caught the eye of her swimming teachers, Ms. Van and Ms. Smith, today. For the very first time in her life, she was able to float on the water all on her own... albeit with the aid of the noodle (an elongated floatation device), it was still on her own. Even in our previous swimming ventures, she would always be wary of being on her own in the pool and not daring to be left alone while she would try to float. You can imagine our joy upon hearing the story...of her Great Effort paying off.

deverry series

we all have these small things that (for one reason or another) we never really got to follow through on. one of my somewhat silly perennial to-dos has been with me for over a decade now...and it was not until last month that I have finally drawn it to a close.

some time after college, somewhere between plowing through the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, I bought a Katharine Kerr book... her first Deverry book entitled Daggerspell. I finished it and was so hungry for more, started looking for book two: Darkspell. I couldn't find it. I found book three: Dawnspell instead. I decided to put aside reading it until I found and read Darkspell. I even put in an order with National at that time but nothing came of it.

Fastforward five years or so, still didn't find it... actually didn't really put in enough effort to go and find it anymore. I decided to move forward and read Darkspell... but since I had forgotten a lot of the details already, I re-read Daggerspell before reading Darkspell. A very bad decision...left me utterly frustrated and hating myself for not looking hard enough for the books.
Fastforward some more to Muscat 2007, over a decade since it started... during my first visit to Borders out here. Not only do I find all four Deverry books neatly lined up... but also the other four Westlands books. I bought all four Deverry books. Re-read from Daggerspell and finished-up book 4: Dragonspell. So now...finally, I have closure.

Am now on Kerr's Act Two: Westlands... book one: Time of Exile. And am still hooked...geez, three Acts...twelve books in all.

Nizwa, the fort within, and the climb up...

last weekend, we took a drive...a very very long drive. our good friend Ayie and his family invited us to a weekend trip. The ultimate destination was Nizwa...about 150kms away from Muscat. However, we passed by a couple of other destinations before getting to the Nizwa souq (which means a group of shops with varied wares).

Al-Akdhar : We took our 4WDs up a very very steep mountain, great thing was that the roads were all paved and concrete. for about 30 minutes, we kept our gears low and our 4WDs engaged. at the top of the final rise, we stopped for about half an hour and just took in the nice cool breeze (it was about 11am that time) and the grand mountain views. for the downward trip...I went manual and it was such a luxury to have that feature.

we got down and went straight to Ruwi. after a not so quick lunch, we took some time going around the Ruwi area - going inside an abandoned military fort which was quite cool - and visited one of the local parks with several playgrounds which Vivian (and mom) enjoyed much.

Fancy Dress Party

that day we had received a letter about the fancy dress party, we were mulling over what that really meant. finally, the date gave it away...it was Halloween!!

So, in the great tradition of past Halloweens for our family....

we present to you....

the Rockstar!!!

and some of her friends....and her teacher...






The party was in one of the school playgrounds and spread around said playground were different stalls where kids could play different games and subsequently rewarded with candies and toys. Although Viv didn't seem too intent on hoarding it all out from the games, she was content with just doing a couple (gaining some candies and much appreciated marbles) of the games and just mostly playing with her friends around said playground. :0)

Eid Break

Around middle of October we had a pretty long official break, the Eid Al Fitr holidays, which was from the 11th to the 19th inclusive of the weekends. While I had to do some work at the start (somewhat in the middle and end as well), we had a pretty restful break away from the day to day hustle.

There were several vacation/leisure options such as dune bashing, sea-oriented tourist travels, visiting Dubai (which is what most expats do around here which decidedly makes Dubai crowded and jammed, more than usual that is). While we had wanted intended to go out of Muscat for a more traditional definition of a vacation, certain limitations (including funds hehe) inspired us to look for different alternatives. I booked a room at the local InterCon (thanks to Priority Club, I didnt spend a Baizal*) and just basically enjoyed the facilities particualarly the Pools and the tub.




Since Vivian had recently started their swimming lessons in school, she was a bit braver to venture into the water. She was also fortunate to see several of her class(&school)mates in the pool. so for some time, she had been just playing with her friends while we were watching from afar.



*Baizal is the local counterpart of centavos(cents) and it is used with three decimal places instead of the usual two. So, tag price for a shirt for example is 0.500 Rials or 500 Baizals equivalent to roughly about 55 Pesos.