Like a Mexican Jumping Bean

What Athena likes to do these days is jump. She's forever hopping around, whether on the floor, on the bed, or even from table to sofa, as she does here on the beach last New Year's Eve.

New Year in Bora

We welcomed 2008 in Boracay. New Year's in Bora is something we've never done before. In April 2007, I was able to book two rooms at newly opened Discovery Shores, thanks to C, the wife of the owner and also an old friend from high school. With that we decided that we would, for the first time in a decade, not spend New Year's Eve in Tagaytay.

We flew down a few days after Christmas and were greeted by perfect sunny weather. The sand in Boracay is perfect for sculpting. This little mermaid is something I've been carving from Boracay sands since the early 80's when I first visited the island. Annika was happy to be my little helper.

Tyrone's own sand castle had all the anime effects imaginable, as well as some perfectly formed sand cannonballs. All the kids loved the water and even Athena had her first chance to go wading at night.

This was also Athena's first trip to Boracay and she really enjoyed just swimming in the beach and in the pool, and also jumping around the resort - this video from when we were waiting for the New Year's Eve fireworks. That was a fantastic sight, as all the resorts along the 7-km. long beach put up their separate displays. The result was a barrage worthy of a war zone.

Among the hordes of people on the island, we somehow managed to meet other Prietos. So a dinner was planned and it turned out that each of the six branches of children of Lolo Bibilo and Lola Chucha Prieto were represented:

Bianca and Karla (2nd from R), representing Tita Peachie; Tessa, representing Poplex; Nanette, representing Tita Bettina; Jane, representing Tito Raffy; Anito, representing Tito Mauro; and Martin, representing Tito Jaime.

Now that's serendipity!

Bora Sunset from Jonah's Fruit Shakes

I took this shot with my Nokia E90 while waiting for my Jonah's fruit shake. I'm going to try and cross-post from Multiply to Blogger and see how the two blog services compare.

So far, I like the ability to insert a Poll into my Multiply blog. On the downside, Multiply doesn't seem to have a good preview system.

Or maybe I just haven't figured it out.