Later today, we just found out that our 3-day Canada tour (June 1-3, 2012) with Rill's Bus Service has been cancelled because there were only few people who signed up! They (Rill's) were supposed to fill up the bus, but it didn't reach the certain amount of people for the tour. How sad as it was when we received the news on the mail, with our check returned and the letter explaining why. {sigh!}
So, with hubby's "go signal" to let me find a new option for the trip is yet another task to handle...well, it would be worth looking forward just in case I'll find one.
hhhhmmmm!!! I'm thinking of a cruise. Gotta search, search and search!
See ya later folks!
When we start talking about beauty, each has their own of what, how, who, which and where they would admire. For many, admiring famous celebrities on what they wear, what they do and their physical appearance is truly beauty appreciated! Admiring the latest fashions, along with the latest make ups and lipsticks are beauty incomparable! Some people are big on admiring physical beauty, - so much so that these become part of their lives. Of course, I am not saying that admiring beauty such as those are real bad! But these can be distractions as well which can often lead to unhealthy obsessions which in turn can give beauty a bad image!
It's surely a fact that often times, we spend little time appreciating the forms of beauty from nature. - I mean, how many people in this world would be "head over heels" feeling so crazy about visiting gardens and admire the natural beauty of their own? How much percentage of the human population love to connect with nature and at the same time be thankful enough of what the nature is giving them?
A bed of roses is a typical form of a nature's beauty, so much so with various beds of tulips set in kaleidoscopic colors!
It was a one-day visiting experience at Longwood Gardens once again, and I embraced this visit as colorfully awesome!
Thank you Lord for the beauty!
March 10-24, 2012
Family Dinner - Plazuela de Iloilo
Garin Farm - San Joaquin, Iloilo
Graduation 2012 - Centerphil Montessori
A Cousin's Wedding
Boracay 2012
Our weekender trip was a lunch at PF Chang's in Baltimore and then just across the street is the Inner Harbor where we took a visit to the National Aquarium. We then went to the mall for a little shopping. I was surprised that there was not much of stores in the mall anymore :(. It was no longer the usual full and busy mall the last time we visited last summer of 2010.
The weather was sunny but was windy and sooo cold! I had to bundle up (I was wearing 3 layers) and of course topped with my duck coat that always keeps me warm. :)
The Wonderful and Colorful World of Jellyfishes!
Milton Hershey School Tour (Founder's Hall)
Hershey Hotel Guided Property Tour & Lunch
Hershey's Antique Auto Museum
A journey of discovery and enjoyment as we visited the museum's highly detailed dioramas presenting original and restored vintage vehicles in elaborate scenes that bring the history of the automobile to life. The museum also houses the largest collection of historic buses under roof in the U.S. and an ever changing variety of vehicles that are too interesting or unique to be kept in collection storage.
Hershey Sweet Lights
This is the highlight of our tour. Hershey Sweet Lights is a holiday drive-thru spectacular, where it displays nearly 600 illuminated and animated displays from the comfort of your own car as you drive through 2 miles of wooded trails! The animated lights are also accompanied with Christmas songs where you can sing with them all along ;).
Have you been to a dinner show called "Cowboy Christmas"? If you did, I bet you probably had so much fun like I did! As a pre-birthday treat surprise for my birthday, courtesy of my husband, I enjoyed every minute of it. It was also a good memory for me worth cherishing because they acknowledged me as a birthday celebrant that night, although my birthday was yet 2 days early ;).
At seat #228, I saw this sweet note on the table where I will be sitting. It was so nice of them to arrange this simple note on the table. I also am so thankful for the Rill's Bus Service for the coordination and effort they made especially "Lauren" our tour bus leader :). Thank you guys! By the way, they also sang their birthday song for me and Anna (another birthday celebrant) while we were on the bus ;).
Our dinner was served at exactly 7pm...perfectly just in time after we were done with a little shopping from the gift shop downstairs.
The show started at 7:45pm with a very good intermission song of a Christmas song by a 9-year old girl, "Hannah".
It was then followed by a brief movie clip on the screen about the beginning of the drama. There is a playing of that movie clip in between the drama that was being acted on stage by their award winning actors ad actresses, vocalists and dancers. The scenes were reenacted reliving the spirit of the West...like the wild, wild west movies on the big screen...the world where cowboys live. It was actually a good drama because it carries the true message of Christmas! It was presented in a way where you can clearly track what the story is all about with a spill of a little comedy in between ;).
There are many highlights that were in between the drama as well with thrilling actions of cowboy Andy Rotz, a Guinness World record holder as he amazed as with his rope-twirling, knife-throwing and gunspinning techniques on stage!
He had a horse named "Idja" who also showed his antics tricks live on stage. That was amusing! There is a video clip of "Idja" doing his tricks, and if you want to see it, just check the video clip below :).
Below were some captured photos that I took during the show. I am sorry, but I am not good in taking shots of shows such as this, lol! By the way, the show was held at Antietam Recreation in Hagerstown, MD. The place is located 2 miles south of Hagerstown, close to Interstates 70 & 81, and is accessible by alternate 40 and the Sharpsburg Pike.
There were pre show activities that made the kids so excited while they were there such as wagonrides, there was a petting zoo, horse rides, marshmallow roasting, line dancing and old-time photos where you can get to choose your own cowboy costumes and then pose ;). We had this photo. (below) We call it "cowboy match", lol! We didn't mind paying 10 bucks for this. It was worth the fun!
The background is in front of the stage that was fully decorated with bright Christmas trees and bows. The photo was a bit dark, but it was still good.
The show is worth recommending. If you love cowboy action techniques, tricks and actions, you will be mesmerized!...what an awesome memory!  The Cowboy Match! :)
Trip Date: October 22 - November 4, 2011
In October 28, we finally had our house blessing and house warming party for our home. As usual we asked the help of our beloved pastor (Renato Fetalsana) from Calvario Evangelical Church in Janiuay to grace the event which he happily obliged. Although we know we are now far from Janiuay and now consider ourselves residents of Pavia, that still didn't hinder us from being with them :).
The occasion went smoothly as planned. I was able to meet most of my co workers when I invited them to come and join us. Thank you guys! We had a laugh reminiscing all the days way back before. How I wish the day could be longer.
Many came including relatives, friends, bretherens and some neighbors. We also would like to thank the generosity of the PARC residences for the cake and pansit donation ;). Thank you! We love the idea of the fact that they give cakes to all residences who usually have their house blessings! That's cool!
Damires Hills, Janiuay, Iloilo - November 1.
Anhawan Beach Resort
_We began our day around 5:00 am with Ging awaking at 5:30. this is difficult for her but as usual she had us completely prepared with everything. so with our map quest in hand and GPS suction cupped to the dashboard, We were off and arrived early to our pick up point. Many were already there because senior citizens arrive early. Ging would again be the baby of the trip although Lauren our hostess was young and looked a lot like Nicole. (daughter)
This was our first time using Rill's bus service and they were excellent; on time, nice and ready for us. Many of the folks had been with them and been together before because it felt like a family reunion. At exactly 7;45 am, we went to the second stop in Taylorsville to pick up a couple. After that we stopped in Middletown and had breakfast at McDonalds.
We left McDonalds and 2 hours later we arrived at the Raystown Lake Resort & Lodge. There we found the "Proud Mary", a paddlewheel criuse vessel waiting for us. We had a very traditional style buffet lunch which was really dinner served at lunch time, very delicious!
After the buffet we went on the top deck of the vessel and enjoyed a beautiful view of the lake and the beginning colors of fall. The weather was beautiful and a real highlight of the trip. The passengers were very pleasant and we enjoyed good conversation as well.
We both enjoy the fall foliage so we wanted to see a little of it before we leave for the Philippines.
Our next stop was to the special Railroad museum in Altoona. We watched a very interesting film and learned that Altoona was once the steam engine rail road capital of the world!
We had a chance to go back in time as we explored the museum and discovered what life was like during the hey day of the steam locomotive.
We learned that one of the challenges of expanding the rail road to the west, were the mountains. the answer to some of this challenge was the creation of the "Horseshoe Curve". This special curving rail gave height the rail and allows the locomotive to navigate the mountain. This was very impressive to watch since there are four parallel rails and we watched several long trains going on the curve in opposite directions.
Finally, with a very full day, it was dinner time and so we headed back with a final food stop at Gateway to alleviate our hunger. This took a lot longer that we planned since another bus had arrived there right before us. However, we were rounded up by Lauren & Joe (our driver) promptly and got on our way on time.
On the way home Rose (who was our informal leader) sent around an envelope for tips. I presented the envelope to Lauren & Joe as thanks for the great job they did. I called us the "Silver Fox" traveling group and made Rose our President.
We then arrived safely at our pick up point, drove home and reflected on a great day! Thanks to Ging!
On Board The Proud Mary - (luncheon cruise)
We were on the upper deck, right after our lunch! This was one of the highlights on this part of our tour and it was starting to get pretty out there seeing the beginning colors of fall. It should be much prettier during the peak fall.
Our Funicular Ride Going Up To Horseshoe Curve Nat'l Historic Landmark
We were at the right timing to actually witness 2 trains running in the opposite directions at the curve. If you are wondering why you are viewing passing trains upside down, that's NOT real! lol. It so happened that I recorded that from my phone in a horizontal position, and it doesn't support vertical rotation...{ugh!}
Lackawanna & Scranton, PA
The Anthracite Heritage Museum is located uphill from the Coal Mine. We paid $12 for the museum entrance ($6 per head). The museum reflects a lot of gallery displays regarding anthracite mining and textile industries including those tools (many were real antique displays) used during their time, as well as photos of them reflecting the tough, harsh working conditions that they had been through.
The museum is really an ideal learning place for students and for those who love history. Very informative!
As usual, we don't get to go out from the museum without buying a fridge magnet, LOL! I also bought a set of jewelry with stones made from coal which I thought would carry a sentimental value for me. - a piece of a necklace with a cross pendant and a set of earrings with the coal stones on them!
We then thought of visiting Steamtown National Historic Site not far away from the museum, but our GPS led us to the Mall @ Steamtown. Well, I love malls anyway, so we just decided to go in the mall and had our lunch at the food court :).
After our lunch, we noticed that the food court has a walkway outside where below it were some old trains, so we thought of following the walkway all the way to the end and surprisingly, at the end of it was a road going to the Steamtown National Historic Site, where few meters away were the site. We missed the last steam train ride for the day and was already 3:45pm. They close at 5pm, so we still had a little more than an hour to go and see what's inside.
It was a perfect timing to see a train going around its turntable, so we were able to get a short video clip on that! I didn't realize that I probably got too close to the scene so that the clip was too noisy! Sorry, just an amateur videographer here. I really need a lot to learn on this, lol!
We had seen some more galleries in there including trains that are converted into train museums. We didn't miss the theater as usual, but as we were getting both sleepy inside, we just decided to leave and go back to our hotel.
Our day ended up with a yummy dinner at T.G.I.F'riday's.
It's a beautiful sunny day, but it was cold when we reached the place of Lackawanna. The trip going there was 30 minutes away from where our hotel was. We got to the place 5 minutes early. We thought their ticketing office opens at 9AM, but they are opening at 10AM.
Anyway, the lady let us in and she told us that the next tour schedule would be at 11:10AM because the first batch today was a group student tour. The ticket costs $10 per person...not bad for an educational experience :).
We had an hour wait so after getting our tickets we thought of going to the theater to watch about the history of coal mining in Lackawanna, but we got bored about the movie later, so we just decided to go out and went around the store shop quick, then got a quick snack at the canteen adjacent to the store.
Then, on to our tour!...it lasted an hour, and it was a fun and an informative experience to descend 300 feet underground which was a half-mile walking tour.
Our expert guide did a wonderful job explaining the life of coal miners and the jobs they do inside the coal mine tunnels as early as the 18th century.
It was also cold down there with a constant temperature of 53 degrees Fahrenheit all year round! It was a smart idea that I brought a jacket with me.
After the tour, we got a "souvenir", - a Miner's Certificate"! yay! Of course, this is not official, and is available at the exit area. LOL!
_I recorded a short video clip on our descending trip going down as we were entering the old Slope #190. Let's go down, down, down!!!
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