Rest of the Holiday

The not-so-little girl made herself busy with her scrapbook for the remaining weeks of school vacation. She was decorating and organizing pictures of her school activities, events and celebrations and picking art materials to put on every page. This is a nice way of letting her develop her artistic skills. We've been doing this every year since her LEAP school days in Philippines so she will have something to remember, the experience of going to school and how fun it is making a scrapbook.

Dubai Fountain

Dubai Mall's fountain show. Seven different shows accompanied by different music that lasted for about 3 minutes each and with an interval of 20 minutes per show. We were able to watch two shows that night.

Show No. 7: Shik Shak Shok by Hassan Abou El Seoud

The Climb

Vivian sings "The Climb" by Miley Syrus featured in Hannah Montana The Movie. When I got the movie soundtrack, she loved to listen to this song and asked me to get the lyrics. After a few days of learning the lyrics and the song, here she is singing it everytime.. everywhere...

Now, I'm thinking of enrolling her for voice lessons.

Al Nahda Resort and Spa

Suffice to say - this was a great idea.

We'd been hearing of this place since the first summer we've been here. The place is about half an hour or so from Muscat (around 50kms away I guess) so we'd put off going there until now.

We unceremoniously decided to check-in early and was expecting them to ferry us off to the pool until the proper check-in time but... pleasantly surprised... they gave us our room that early in the morning. From the fist buggy drive to the room, we were simply amazed at the size of the grounds - the front gate was indeed deceiving. The resort has a good-sized pool with a kid's area. The little girl couldn't wait to get to it and make the most out of the day. Bikes made available for families roaming around the grounds. Play areas with swing and the like for kids.

After setting up camp by the pool, the wife quickly made her way to the Spa reception (and good thing too!) to arrange for our Spa schedules for that afternoon. Apparently, a big group had also checked-in and we were competing for the slots with them. Fortunately, she met a kabayan who was the supervisor there and arranged for extra schedules just for us. Note to self, lesson learned - arrange for Spa schedules well in advance. I can't say enough good things for that massage - that alone is enticing enough to go back with the family for another round.

Good thing we got our massages at the right time of the day - it made our evening just perfect. Our dinner at Al Khalab Restaurant was the perfect way to the end the evening. It was a glorious (!!) seafood buffet with lobsters, crabs, prawns and a bunch of other delicious... stuff with an equally amazing desert collection - we shamelessly took out half of the crème brulée tray.

As with all things, it came to an end but it was a sign of things to come... we now have a place to run to now for a quick weekend getaway.

Charity Work

The little girl (and mum) spent a few days to clean up her room and along the way sorted out several stuff including her toys. Since toy storage boxes were already bulging at the lids with too many toys, the little girl (with some coaxing) agreed to donate some of her less-played-with toys to charity. They'd already done this exercise once back in Manila (thru CRIBS) and with so much charity-stuff going on at school the concept isn't new to her. The little girl dropped off her big bag of toys in the big donation box and wished whoever got it had as much fun as she had (yeah, seriously, she said that).

Our Angel in Heaven

There's a reason behind it. They say.

I love my wife. For her inner strength. For mourning the way she does. For finding shards of light as easily as she does clouds of grey. Ability to push past her fears... and the tears For being every bit beautiful through all of it. Keeping faith in God and his plan. Keeping sane throughout. Trying to move on.

Trying to be strong for my family but really, I get my strength from them. My wife and I count ourselves lucky we have our not-so-little girl around to cheer us up - more so, at the most inappropriate moments - which just makes it the more hilarious and we love her dearly for that.

Our family has grown. We are now blessed with our own beloved little angel, tuldok. We love you baby.

My 1st Week of Vacation by Vivian Undag

Even if it's holiday we had an agreement to practice and continue all the lessons taught in school. Today is cursive writing and I instructed her to compose about the things we did last week.

"My First Week of Vacation"
When me and my mum were making puppets we had so much fun
and I liked my horse puppets. My mum helped me to sort my clothes
some didn't fit and some did fit. Next I sorted my toys and gave some
to charity. Then when mummy went to the shoe cabinet she cleaned up
my shoes and I helped her. My first week of vacation is tiring.

Note: Please click picture to enlarge

3rd milk tooth

Another temporary lower tooth fell today. Good news is the permanent tooth is coming out.

Movie time: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and others

The latest movie we watched last thursday was Ice Age 3, I asked my daughter to write something about it...

"When me and my mum and dad went to watch Ice Age
it was so funny and there's dinosaurs under the ice.
Then a big T-rex saved them from a big dinosaur. I wanted to
watch it again the end."

Some more movies we watched that were truly entertaining.....
June 24, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
June 11, Up
May 30, Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Now, we are excited for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!

Mufti Day - End of Year 1

The little girl is moving up. Wednesday (July 1) was BSM's last day of school and its summer vacation out here. Some families I hear are going out to cooler climates. A lot are sticking around Muscat also...much like us. We'll probably travel a little bit but nothing definite yet...taking it easy for tuldok.

So ends Year 1...Year 2 starts in a couple of months. Said the usual farewells and thank-you(s) to her Class 1-EB (Teacher Ellman-Brown) classmates and teachers. The school year really zinged by so fast. Some of her friends have left (moved to other countries and not coming back next school year), some have moved to neighboring schools (moved to ABA). This time last year she was sad school was over. This year she's happily looking forward to summer break. No more waking up early for school...and that goes great for the dad too!! :D

That night we had dinner out at Trader Vic's to celebrate. According to Mrs. EB's reviews throughout, she had a wonderful year and really has been doing well in her school work. She's been more focused (but still has some room for improvement - hehe), her reading (and comprehension) have developed a lot more, plus her math and spelling quizes are almost always perfect. The little girl had her favorite Ebi Tempura and the highlight of the evening was 'burning banana' - flambe. Congratulations Vivian!


sidenote: Several of her classmates have been moving out of BSM into ABA since last year...all boys. I got to chat with one of the parent's recently and he was moving his boy bcoz BSM wasn't working out for his kid. That ABA (American-British-Academy) was more adaptive in its teaching approach to kids who had a different learning pace from the rest. Not the first time we've heard this but the little girl seems to be doing ok so no fret, at least for her. ABA is actually cheaper (I hear) but its darn hard to get in.