mommy day: buffet lunch at anise & massage at spa intercontinental

After meeting with Caila’s teachers, we passed by the apartment to drop off all the things we received and headed to InterContinental Hotel in Dubai Festival City. I had received an invitation from one of our company’s suppliers to their Ladies’ Day which was a buffet lunch at Anise Restaurant, a skincare session, and massage at Spa InterContinental Festival City, and fortunately, they said I could bring my daughter along.

mommy day: nursery reports

On the 28th of June, more than a week after Caila’s performance at their annual concert, my daughter and I headed to the school to get her report. I was expecting an ordinary paper or card that had comments about her and her development, so I was surprised when Teacher Arsenia gave me a folder with several pages containing, not only the degrees of things she was capable of doing (I'm proud to say that most of them were Outstanding), but also pictures of Caila during the class activities. Naturally, I was really happy and proud that both Teacher Arsenia and Teacher Marien were all praises for my little girl. She was the only Filipino in her class, and although she was shy, she was able to make friends and get along with her classmates because she could communicate with them in English very well. And they kept telling me that she was one of the smartest and a fast-learner, particularly in maths and numbers, the different seasons, and colors.

stuck in the lift

For the first time in my life, I got stuck in an elevator. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. Last Saturday, Hubby, Caila, Ate Cel and I had just left the apartment and were heading out to shop for groceries. We stepped into the elevator, pressed the G button, and when we arrived at the ground floor, the doors remained closed. We tried pressing the button to open them, but nothing happened. We pressed the B button to see if it would open at another floor, but all it did was go to the basement and stay shut. We went to the ground floor again, then pressed the emergency button until we could hear the watchman’s voice. For almost a minute, Hubby shouted to him through the intercom, telling him to call the maintenance people or help us get out because the doors wouldn’t open.

pregnancy update

I am now on my 30th week of pregnancy, which means that I’m into my 7th month and have approximately 2 months left before Baby Tummy pops out. Beginning the 28th week, check-ups should be done every 2 weeks; and because scheduling appointments with my OB needs to be done 1 month in advance to be able to get a slot, I made sure to book all my appointments way in advance until my 35th week.

i have 2 holes, the left and the right

My residence visa is about to expire so I had to go with our PRO to Al Baraha Hospital this morning for my medical as part of the renewal requirements. After the usual payment and paper processing, the doctor who was doing the verifying put a stamp on my paper and told me to proceed to Room 5 where I just needed to have my blood drawn. At Room 5, the man at the Reception told me to go to the last room on the left where two ladies were drawing the blood from the female applicants, and fortunately I didn’t have to wait. Unfortunately though, when the lady stuck the needle in my left arm, something went wrong; she said either my vein was too small or the needle was too big (whaaaattttt?!?!?!?!) because she got just a few drops of blood. So she told me to give her my right arm (which I did), and fortunately, this time she easily located the vein and got the blood.

family weekend: back to the farm

The 17th of June was Father’s Day, and it also happened to be a national holiday here in the UAE. So prior to that day, our Unit Household decided to celebrate by having a long overdue fellowship. Since we had been telling them about what a nice place it was and they wanted to try something new, we all decided to go to The Farm.

where art thou, my childhood favorites?

My previous post of Tim Tam biscuits made me remember the goodies I loved during my younger years. Living in PNG, most of the stuff there were imported from Australia and New Zealand, so I was fortunate to taste lots of yummy stuff. Of course, when the time came for me to study high school in the Philippines, those things were no longer easily in my reach; which I guess was a good thing because I was practically addicted to them. Unlike Tim Tam’s, when I came to Dubai, I never saw a single pack of those at all in any of the shops here…and the reason was the manufacturers just don’t make them anymore…or if they do, they’re just not the same as the goodness I remember. Of course I’m glad that I can enjoy some of the ones I liked (like Flake, Twirl, Crunchie, and Bounty), but here are just a few of the goodies I loved and miss so much: