Fathers' Day at the Shang

Today is Fathers' Day and I spent most of it in a business lunch with some foreign visitors. Ironically enough, just outside the Shang's Inagiku restaurant was a small exhibit celebrating the day. The sign says,

"A Tribute to Fathers"
Captured moments of distinguished men in the role they play best ... fathers.
June 13 - July 6, 2008
Makati Shangri-La

The exhibit featured a framed photo of a bunch of different fathers, all from pictures taken by their kids. Thanks to T and her good friend, J, who works with the hotel, my photo was deemed fit to join the exhibit.

We decided to submit a photo taken by Tyrone when we stayed at the Sangat Island Reserve in April this year. Funny but I just realized that I never blogged about that trip. All I did was post our pictures in Multiply. The caption under my photo says,

"a photo taken by Tyrone on a scuba diving trip in Coron, Palawan"

That was a fun trip, a continuation of the annual Father-Son Trips that Bryan and I used to do when he was younger. Sangat isn't a plush place; in fact, it's quite basic in amenities (although they did have wireless connectivity at the resort's bar). For me, its key attribute is its proximity to the ten or so Japanese World War II wrecks in Coron Bay and Busuanga Island.

Ty and I got to dive six of the wrecks: Tangat, Kogyo maru, Irako, Taiei maru, Akitsushima and Olympia maru. Actually Tyrone skipped the Irako as that was a deep dive, and the dive guide and I penetrated into the ship's kitchen at 113 feet. The wrecks and Coron Bay have lately been getting a lot of good press. Hopefully that will improve the tourism numbers of the area.

As can be seen from this photo alone though, it was a good bonding trip for both of us. And Ty is clearly learning to frame his photo subjects properly. Some good thoughts to take away from the exhibit ... when I should be home with the kids and not negotiating contracts.

You Can HAVitALL!

It's not often that T's "SE" (social events) stuff can actually be fun, but it was when HAVitALL multivitamins paid for us plus six friends to have a scuba weekend at Dive Solana.

We ended up inviting u/w hockey players aka the Solana Six (although the rest of the group who didn't get to sign up called us the Solana Seniors). All our pix are on our Multiply sites, so you need to click here to see them.

Here's what Tessa had to say about the weekend in her Inquirer.net column:

New challenges

The newest multivitamin in the market, HAVitALL, has been actively promoting their product by inviting friends to take on new challenges. The invitation was a marvel of cute packaging, encouraging me to take up a new activity, like surfing, karting or even pottery making. Although I already scuba dive, I chose this activity so that I could bring along my husband, Dennis, and several of his friends from underwater hockey.

Dive Solana was our chosen resort, because of their friendly service and homey accommodations. In between the dives, we visited with agency bigwig Ichay Bulaong, who was spending her weekend on a personal social responsibility project with her family and friends—to help paint an underwater mural on the fence of the San Teodoro Elementary School in Barangay Mabini. The project organizer, Sandy Hammet, noted that the mural painting was part of Project Utay Utay, the barangay’s environmental initiative.

It’s great to see how many Pinoys find different ways of helping their communities. For me and the underwater hockey group, it was a great way to spend our HAVitALL weekend. Indeed, good deeds are cleansing for the soul!

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!