HELP FOR TYPHOON ONDOY VICTIMS

my friend pia from the united nations world food programme is calling for donations for the victims of typhoon ondoy. please visit www.wfp.org/donate/ondoy for more details.

double yey!

the husband called last night with good news: they're releasing him earlier than expected from training and could be home in texas by today. my flight is not scheduled until saturday though so i told gary we'll have to wait til then. rebooking costs an arm and a leg, especially if you do it the last minute. i called southwest airlines just the same to check their fares, and for the record, southwest is now officially my favorite airline everrrr. thanks to their military dependent fares, i just added $10 to my ticket. where else can you find that? so the husband has no idea i'll be home in el paso tomorrow lunch time. haylavet! :P

yey!!!

only one more week to go and i'm going home to el paso. this morning i made my usual pre-departure trip to the filipino store to get all the products we can't find in texas. can't wait til saturday... :D

more pictures

kakagigiiiiiiiiilllllll!!!!!!!!

it's amazing how i've never seen my brother's youngest child jepoy, but i love him sooooooo much. it's breaking my heart how much i've missed--he's so big already! i can only watch him grow from afar, through photos and videos online. tell me, is he adorable or what?

luv sic

the husband has been training for more than half a month now, and it's starting to be pretty difficult. he's at the national training center in the middle of nowhere (the closest landmark is nevada, but even that is about 3hours away), and he's not allowed to use his phone. we're paying for 700 unused minutes this month.

this is supposed to be training for both soldiers and their families. ntc is pretty much a replica of a village in the middle east, and the conditions there are as close as they can get to iraq or afghanistan. as for us family members, this could be how seldom we hear from our soldiers. it's hard.

it wasn't long ago when gary asked me to go with him to fort bliss. i knew it wasn't a happy bring-your-wife-to-work kind of invite, but the dreaded pre-deployment briefing. it was something both of us would rather not hear, but we needed to. while at the auditorium along with hundreds of soldiers with their wives and other family members, i couldn't help but look around and hope that everyone will make it back safely after 12months. it's too stressful just to sit there and listen.

gary's tentative deployment date is nov.17 this year. we wouldn't be spending christmas, our first anniversary, his birthday, my birthday, and all other important events together. but more than this sad truth, i'm worried about him being out there. just yesterday, when he was able to sneak a call using his troopmate's phone, he told me he hasn't been sleeping well, hasn't been able to shower, and hasn't been eating enough because they were in some desert, firing. it really is heartbreaking being apart, and i have to convince myself to be strong for him when he can't. we both have our work cut out for us.

                one afternoon after work, he was running late. turned out he got me a little something :D

i love this picture. disneyland, july 3, 2009

this was taken during one of our movie dates. the story goes that before going to the movies, we checked the lotto ticket we bought a few days back, and realized we won. $5. haha we got two of the numbers, and were among the hundreds of thousands who won five bucks that draw. then we went on to watch the time traveler's wife, where the lead male, who can time travel, bought a lotto ticket with the winning numbers. gary tells me he should have stayed long enough in the future to get all the numbers right. corny, but we had a good laugh :)

my boobtube hunks :D

there are very few people on TV that you can go on watching over and over and over without getting tired of their faces. well these two guys make my couch potato days bearable.

I have a schoolgirl crush on Anthony Bourdain, who could very well pass for my father thank you very much, except he's caucasian. haha he's smart. and funny. and he cooks.

I start my day watching Emeril Live. I love Chef Emeril Lagasse so much in fact that i buy Emeril tomatoes at Albertsons even when i don't need them :P he's smart. and he's funny. and he cooks.

i <3 kids

here with jude (6), kiana (4) and amber (2). i miss my jelo (7) chay (6) and jepoy (0) back home... :(

pictures!!!

gary's baby sister debra only had a few days left before going back to school in california. so we decided, along with gary's elder sister loulou whose family is now based in texas too, that we were gonna get debra down to texas for a vacation. so deb arrived in el paso and the three of us drove 16 hours (we made too many stops) to houston. because gary had to work the next monday, he and i had to travel ahead back to el paso. ate loulou, her husband kuya don and debra followed a few days later. debra, of course, flew out of el paso back to santa clara. here are just some photos we took along the way.