Wordless Wednesday: Vibrant mascots

My daughter with the vibrant Chinese opera mascots!

Ain't they the liveliest and the friendliest!

   

The panoramic ocean

Bored one summer and just wonna relax in the seaside, hubby planned a backpacking trip for us. The next daybreak, we traveled for 6 hours towards the beach capital of Taiwan~ Kenting, where we stayed for three adventure-filled days. The first day, we  rented a scooter and traveled around the place for scenic views.

We stopped by Jialeshuei on our way to the surfing area. This was on top of a summit overlooking the Pacific ocean.

Hail the Pacific view! Clear blue ocean and clear white clouds. What a perfect day to get out!

Daughter and hubby enjoying the panoramic view.

Isn't this breath-taking!!!

Such a glorious day! We thanked God for such simple miracles of nature!

This was last year and Joey was still so small, now she's almost as tall as me. Again, time flew by fast. 

The top of the world. The Rock.

Trying to feel how it feels to be on top of the world. So windy! This was taken after we took a dip in the ocean and on our way back to our rented place. 

Linking for Our World Tuesday,  Wednesday Whites, Watery Wednesday, Skywatch Friday 

Meet Me on Monday

A great way to know each other. Come, link up and join the fun with our beautiful host Java.

Questions:

1.  Tomorrow I'm going to _________?
Attend two classes from 8-10, then from 10-12. Good thing quizzes are so college that I don't have to fret being unprepared lol. In the afternoon till 5, I need to work in the library for my part-time job. And from 5 to 6 pm, I would have to treat my infected chicks with certain drugs as part of my experiment. My, and I almost forgot I need to pick my daughter from her school at 5:30. Ahhh, just realized how busy I would be tomorrow, omg!

2.  Pudding or Jello?
Pudding! I love the feel as it slowly melts into my sweet loving mouth.

3.  What book are you currently reading? 
I just bought Jane Austen's "Emma" the other day along with "How to kill a mocking bird" and I'm quite excited to start reading them. But then I'm just really too busy to even open a page. Nevertheless I promised to start reading as soon as winter vacation strikes.

4.  What is the first concert you went to see?
A concert from our local artist, an alternative rock band called "Color it Red". Seen them in the early 90s and was so amazed to hear the beautiful raspy voice coming from a petite lady. I so love their first album.

5.  What is your current weather?
63°F with 72-88% humidity. Hope it  doesn't go lower and the humidity doesn't go higher. And hopefully no rains especially on my birthday this coming Friday and the birthday trip the next day! Yay! Pretty excited!!!

Thanks for dropping by! Have a great week and enjoy the holidays!

Yellow ballerina

Since my daughter joined us in Taiwan, she studied and danced ballet. The last time they had a presentation in their school, she was a rainbow fish. At first she was sad she was not wearing a tutu unlike last year's. But then of course it would be weird for a fish to wear a tutu, she was convinced. While attending to her make-up backstage, I became an instant make up artist for almost all of her classmates too lol. I guess their number is too much to handle by the volunteer moms and an extra hand was very much appreciated. The  ballet dances, the cute and talented kids, the proud parents, the entertained spectators, overall it was a fun night!

Cute rainbow fishes!

The proud mommy, daddy and little sister!

Baloons for our little star!

With the full support of aunts and uncles!

The Tent

Summer excursion at Kenting, Taiwan. The sun was so glaringly hot that I and my daughter desperately tried to hide from its anger lol. Hubby made us a cute shabby tent made out of sarong for temporary protection. Don't worry, we didn't hide forever and we had so much fun surfing the waves. :)

So funny! The tent barely covered us from the sun.

The tent's shadow was so cute as if trying to tease us that we needed to curl to stay within its coverage lol.

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!

Christmas Cottage

Kalibo, Aklan - Philippines. Five years ago, while still working as a mentor on one of the state universities in Panay Island (yes, where Boracay is), I grabbed the opportunity to travel around the huge island. After attending the province's festive Atiatihan Festival, I and my colleagues then proceeded to Aklan's renowned Christmas complex, yes and it's not even Christmas yet. Ain't this colorful Christmas cottage looked so majestic! I just can't get enough of it.  Inside is full of festive Christmas goodies, ornaments, dolls of different kinds, angels,  Santas, snows, toys, sweets and other collectible items ~ name it. Yes, Christmas in this part of the world is all year-round. Fancy a Christmas cottage of your own too? I do.

Me with the lovely Christmas cottage. 

The following photos (as sent to me by my hubby 3 nights ago) were taken (from his mobile phone, I'm afraid not of good quality) from the festive streets of my country showing that this early, people are already celebrating Christmas everywhere! Love it and missed it all!

The Manger: Baby Jesus with Mary & Joseph and the three kings. 

Christmas booths and sparkling/bright cottages and trees are sprouting everywhere.

Verena's Wordless/Wordful Wednesday

Rolled Up Pretty

Just Another Mom of Twins

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!