Eventful Birthday~

Another milestone of my life. Ever thankful to God for giving me another gift of life. Another age. Another year full of blessings and adventures.

Since hubby and youngest baby (they're back home to our country) are not here with us, I celebrated my big day with my eldest daughter and bestfriend. Other great friends joined us for a birthday trip the next day. Simply Awesome! My daughter had a sportfest/Christmas party at their school that day and we were there to cheer her up and just enjoyed the program.

There was a bazaar at their school too and I bought a lot of stuff at very good prices. I had so much fun rummaging through their treasures.

After a hearty lunch, I bought a birthday cake from 85 degrees and again celebrated my birthday in the lab with my labmates (and bestfriend).

I and best friend then went shopping and this was what we found.

A humongous Christmas tree! Merry Christmas!!!!

In the late afternoon we decided to pamper ourselves in the hair saloon. Bestfriend convinced me to cut my hair short for a change. Heck why not! But throughout the cutting session, I freaked out lol. It's my first time to cut my hair this short from a long beautiful one (wink*), and not even sure if I can pull it through. Anyway, that experience was exciting, thanks to this crazy adorable friend! 

Then I ran for a Christmas dinner that night with the MECO staff (mini Philippine embassy here) and other Filipino students. The dinner was sumptuous! 

Me with my new hair (2nd from right) with other Pinoys, after a hearty dinner!

Delicious hotpot and other  scrumptious Chinese dishes for dinner!

The following early morning as what I mentioned in my earlier post, my friends who organized a surprise birthday trip brought me to a very beautiful mountain in Nantou, about two-hour drive from our place. It is called Aowanda National Park. The view is spectacular. We had a picnic and a long trek in a breathtakingly panoramic mountain. Here are some of the photos... 

Overall, I had a very memorable birthday! Though my family is away, I got a family here by my side in the person of my friends.

Have a great week to you all and advance Merry Christmas!

I'm linking for:

Birthday flowers

My ever sweet hubby never failed to surprise me even if we're different countries away. Celebrating my birthday last Friday, a Filipina friend gave me a boquet of pink flowers supposedly from no other than my hubby. I was extremely touched.

a boquet of sweet smelling fresh pink roses! 

The funny thing was, I have to pay for the flowers! Hahahaha! What is this, a collect call/flower service? lol. I know, my hubby is the sweetest right? Nevertheless, his thoughtfulness made my day!

Friday Fragments

 Another fun with Mrs. 4-4-4-4 and other fragmenters for the juicy bits and pieces of our week.

***So funny, the more I was stressed preparing for my big seminar, the more I procrastinated. Imagine, I ended up blogging last weekend lol. Who can blame me, I love blogging more than burying my head to boring papers. The mass of comments I received made my day! I love the thoughtful ones where we know they really read our post, ahhh the more I spent my time blog hopping and commenting back lol. I enjoyed it better! Much much better!

***My daughter caught colds due to sudden change to freezing temperature so both of us ended up skipping our classes for the day. I dosed her with vitamin C, fruit juices and warm soup. Glad she recovered fast, in two days she's back to normal!

***I lost my house keys and the key/lock man sent to open our door just couldn't open it for an hour. So sad. So I have no choice but to agree with his decision to finally break our door lock open and replace with new one. Ouch! another 27usd wasted down the drain and a moral lesson hardly learned.

***Finally had my seminar presentation yayyy! Two weeks or more of stressful sleepless nights were worth my effort. Professors and colleagues were awed with my presentation lol. At least that's what they told me. The topic I discussed was taken from Nature, one of the highest impact-factored scientific journal, entitled "Adaptive prediction of environmental changes by microorganisms". It's quite interesting actually. Bacteria just like us learn how to cope up with their environment and thus survive the harsh environment. This is kind of scary especially for bacteria that cause deadly diseases, right?

***Again for this week, we infected another sets of chicks with pathogenic E. coli and will treat them on Monday with specified antibiotics. Hope I will get good results.

***I'm back to watching Desperate Housewives. Still on the 3rd episode of Season 8. Love it!

***My birthday is coming!!! It's next week Friday! Told my friends I will not celebrate such old age but they took it as nonsense! They're planning a surprise trip for me on my birthday! They wont divulge where.  Hmm, okay can't wait!

***Another big experiment is scheduled on my birthday but I managed to convince my professors to move it one day ahead lol. Nobody messes with my day! Bahahaha!!!

***No, unfortunately  somebody managed to mess up with my big day. My daughter won. They have a Christmas party at her school exactly on my birthday and she don't wonna miss it. So my birthday party/trip organizers moved the trip one day later, where we really need to wake up really early to avoid traffic jams. Hmmm, now I'm really very curious where in the world they're taking me.

That's it for now. Thanks for dropping by and commenting. Have a great weekend!!!

Birthday Pink

For my nth birthday last year, my friends gave me this beautiful bouquet of fragrant lovely flowers. Ain't they beautiful!

A group of pink roses accompanied by a white stargazer lily and greenies, all wrapped in pink!

Ain't they very pretty and sweet!!!

Friends who invaded me that fun night!

Celebrating with my dear family and friends last year!  

For my oncoming birthday this year (yes, on my fave holiday-filled December, and it's next week!), indeed I have a lot of blessings to be thankful for! My deteriorating physical and mental health (due to stress) improved a lot. I was able to take care of my body of my family's health properly. I was able to reunite my youngest daughter (then 4-year old) with us from across another country. I was beyond blissful to have my whole family together, even for at least 7 months. We bonded together as an expat family, travelling, celebrating all birthdays, going to foreign schools, hanging out with friends and simply enjoying another country's culture together. We passed a lot of trials and so blessed and thankful to God we survived them. Having a handful of genuine friends around helped a lot too. Overall, though as my birthday is coming, age is undeniably increasing, wrinkles start appearing but I don't care, I enjoyed my 2011 a lot and looking forward for a more glamorous blissful 2012. Cheers!

Birthday whites

Oh December, my birth month, here you are again and it means I'm turning thirty plus something again this year! Wow, time indeed ran so fast! Cliche it may sound but truly it seemed just yesterday I turned 22 lolz! Though I hate to think I'm getting older but I can't deny I'm getting wiser! Cheers! So much things happened to me this past year and I thank God I pretty survived them. Indeed, life is worth celebrating for. For my birthday wish~ wishing for a better 2012 for me and my loved ones, and of course world peace. Now I'm blowing the candle! Gan bei! 

This was my pretty white birthday cake two years ago where I shared its sweetness with my labmates at school.  

See, two years ago, I've already been hiding my age LOL!

With my labmates (and Professor, far right).

My bday gift, no, my labmate's baby~ our constant guest in the lab.

Have a great day! Thanks for dropping by!

Pink birthday

Oh pink. I never thought I would love pink until I got two pink-lover daughters of my own. I remember I'm not so crazy about pink when I was a child. I preferred all the bright rainbow colors more. Past forward to motherhood stage, pink is now becoming one of my favorites. Thanks to my girls who always screamed for anything pink.

Pink was all around my daughter when she celebrated her 8th birthday. It was her first time to celebrate with her parents for a long time. It was her first time to celebrate away from her cousins, playmates and grandparents. Hence, I exerted a bit of effort to make her day an extra special one. With all our friends gathered together, we surprised her with a birthday party! Then I showered her party with pinks. Our friends played funny kids for her that night too. Yah they're the best I know! 


Here's what transpired that fun night:

Pinky stuff scattered on the table.

Some of the pinky gifts.

Our simple birthday surprise for her!

the crowning of our surprised princess!

Most of her gifts were pink. If they only have pink sponge bob lol.

Our pinky birthday princess!

All her guests were adults, it's fine with her lol.

She's very happy and indeed surprised!!

Her dad played along with the fun!

our funny friends!

Yes they were kids!

and more kids!

and more!

Some friends kissed her with cake icings!

Our birthday princess with her guests.

Indeed, such was a fun-filled night, and my baby was truly surprised and happy (by the way, she just love surprises). And it wouldn't be that fun without the support of our friends. Have a great weekend to ya all!!! :)