Frannywanny

This week started at a very sad note. As I opened my cellphone yesterday morning, I was greeted with posts after posts of the passing of NBA Star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. While I'm no basketball fan, my heart sank as I thought about his wife, his 2 other kids and that final moment when Kobe knew that was the end of him and his daughter. As a parent, I'm pretty sure he would have wanted to do anything to save Gigi. Well, I definitely would. If I have to push my kids out of the crashing helicopter with hopefully a safety parachute, I would. Anything just to keep them alive. Apart from that, there's the growing concern on the rapidly spreading Coronavirus. Really, a number of sad, scary moments as we welcome the Year of the Rat. I do hope things will get better in the coming weeks.  When faced with stress or disappointing situations, I turn to food to cheer me up. *sigh* #thisiswhyImfat Seriously though, I have my set of comfort food that never fails to tur

I got to admit that if there's anything that I can't live without.. then it would have to be my air condition. I can't really have a restful sleep if I'm not in a cool, well-ventilated room and somehow the low humming sound of the air con easily lulls me to sleep. I remembered when I was much younger, my family took a trip to Tagaytay, which, as we all know, is known for having a cooler climate as compared to Metro Manila. It was around the -ber months so the temparature would really drop especially at night. Given that, my parents decided not to open the AC in our hotel room and instead "enjoy the cool breeze of the place." Oh my! I couldn't sleep well that night and I just had to ask my parents if we can open the aircon or I'd end up looking like a zombie the next day. It's amazing to see how technology and even our basic home appliances have evolved through time. Back then, aircon units tends to be really noisy and they would have this manual

For our first night in Taipei, Paul and I set a meet up with our friends Floyd and Nicey and their cutie son Matteo who coincidentally were also having a vacation in Taiwan. They're one of our closest friends in Singapore and M is actually just a few months older than the twins. Such an amazing long distance friendship these little toddlers have! I hope that we'll get to see them more often as they grow up. Anyway, it was super sweet of the de Santoses to travel all the way to Luzhou to meet up with us. If I'm not mistaken, they're staying somewhere in the city so we truly appreciated that they went totally out of their way to have dinner with us. By the way, my friend Floyd is an amazing vlogger so do check out his YouTube site and please subscribe and follow him too . He vlogs about his extensive rubber shoes collection, tech and their family trips too. Sadly, he wasn't vlogging yet when we had our Taipei meet up so no surprise appearance from the twins in his

Yesterday, I shared about our hotel during our trip to Taiwan back in 2018. It was at Park City Hotel in the Luzhou district which was strategically located on top of the St. Ignatius MRT station and has a 7-11 shop right at the ground floor. I have this habit of stocking up with snacks on the first day of my trip. It's this habit that I've had since I was a kid. You see, my parents would always make it a point to look for the nearest grocery to our hotel whenever we travel and they would buy bottles of mineral water, bread and banana. Aside from that, they will allow Pan and I to choose a bag of snack each. I would always go for the most unique looking bag that's only locally available that way I get to try something really new. Thus, Paul knows that I just have to make a trip to the grocery to at least to the convenience store to by my snacks. Here's what I found on my first visit to the 7-11 store in Taiwan. I found bottles of these famous milk tea that

Before anything else, I'd like to wish all of you HAPPY 2020!!! My New Year's resolutions include -- BETTER HEALTH (losing the weight and keeping it off forever, good blood tests and avoiding the flu and other illnesses this year), GOING BACK TO MY PASSION (keeping this blog alive and kicking, writing more often) , SPENDING MORE TIME WITH FAMILY  (time is flying so fast that I don't want to miss out on any moment with my twins, Paul, my parents/his parents and our siblings). It's all about keeping things simple and going back to the basic. I got to admit that with everyday's busy schedule, we have the tendency to complicate things, to lose sight on the main reason why we're doing it in the first place. I want to pull myself a step back and to see the bigger picture, to take more deep breathes and to just take each day at a time. My kids are at this stage where they're becoming their own individual selves. They're funnier, more talkative, more playful