ERICJAZ FOODIES: OUR YAPPY SUMMER 2019 (PART ONE)

My little guys' school is adjusting to start classes at August to follow the newly recommended regulations by CHED.

Wow! So that meant by boys will have a 3 month vacation??? YEHESSSS!!!

HOWEVER...

You'd think that 3 months is more than enough...
You'd think that 3 months will get us all so bored...
You'd think that we'll be raring to send the boys back to school...

BUT NOOOOH...

The three months school vacation was still "BITIN" with a capital B and WHYYYY Huhuhu!!! Why can't vacations last forever? I'll surely miss having them around, going on foodtrips, and doing stuff until the late nights. My little guys certainly feel the same.

Check out the long (but not so much) school vacation of the boys and how those 3 months just whizzed by like a shooting star defying the laws of gravity (thanks Queen).

And of course, I'll still say it (like I often do) to commemorate our love for summer:

No more classes! No more books!
No more teacher's dirty looks!

This was by far the boys' best summer vacation yet!!!

:)

April 17

YIHIII!!!

Master Mati was finally "free"!!! He woke up late and enjoyed his breakfast. Yep! Nobody was telling him to hurry up.

As for Andrei, he didn't have classes anymore but he still had to go to school to attend graduation practices, so, it's not fully vacation mode yet!

What I love most about summer vacation is that we could now go out on weekdays without having to worry about homework or waking up early the next day.

Yum!!!

THIS was how we celebrated Master Mati's start of summer vacation. Yep, with food!!!!!!

April 20

At the 3rd week of April we all went to Daddy's hometown in Cavite for our annual Holy Week tradition!

Yep! This is something that the family looks forward to because besides observing the Lenten season by participating in a procession, our Holy Week is like a mini-reunion for our usually busy family!

OUR HOLY WEEK 2019 (PART ONE)

OUR HOLY WEEK 2019 (PART TWO)

This may be one of the most unforgettable summers yet because this is where I got a lesson on how hot this month could really get. Imagine, the wax wouldn't set and remained sticky!!! It was so hard to peel it off.

I know it's too much information but still.... Sakiiiit!!!!!

April 25

And after a looooooooooooooooooong wait, AVENGERS ENDGAME IS FINALLY HERE!!!!

Yep! We all wore marvel shirts. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Also had a Japanese dinner in OOMA!

Yehesss!!! AVENGERS ENDGAME was awesome!!! It was the best ending for our whole Marvel ride. Galeng!!! Never thought that something could be better than INFINITY WAR, but something DID!

Check out our night HERE!!!!
OF AVENGERS AND OOMA

April 27

That Saturday, Master Mati finally returned to Kali!

And since we all had a hard time waiting (tee hee) we rewarded ourselves with dinner at Andrei's new favorite...

COCO ICHIBANYA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That Monday, the Yub and I met with Team Mina and let them have a taste of the very popular Mendokoro Ramenba!

Ooooh... Sooo thick and sooo good!!!!

BGP and the hub loved it!!!!! Syempre we cannot leave without having coffee.

The cafe next door served some mean java with their desserts!

April 30

It's still food trip galore for us as we had a family gimik at one of our favorites...

LE CHING!!!

Yep!

Others may be grossed out at Binondo-like set-up and the aluminum bowls they serve their rice meals in, but we still love it -- the whole set up actually adds up to its charm!

May 1

For THE YAPPY BUNCH, our summer trips started in May!

Going on out of town trips may be pricey so we just swim at our favorite Valle Verde Clubhouse.

Of course, after every swimming sesh, we're sooooo hungry!

The VALLE VERDE clubhouse restaurant always served delicious food.

Yehessss!!!!

CHECK OUT OUR BLOG HERE!

We love VALLE VERDE so much that we had another swimming and eating session again with Team Godoy THAT SATURDAY!

Every Saturdays was reserved to Mati's favorite KALI. Hopefully he could attend more sessions.

We also make his KALI lessons a family thing with our dinner afterwards.

And once again we are at COCO ICHIBANYA as per Andrei's request!!!

May 5

The next day, the Master Mati and I had a pre-mother's day date in Powerplant Mall.

For dinner, we went to GANSO SHABUWAY....

After dinner, the Master Mati and I had our second round of AVENGERS ENDGAME!

Yep! I had the whole theatre closed JUST FOR US!!!

Kidding! We were just there super early. Har de har har!

Finally, the day that Andrei has been waiting for arrived!

Andrei graduated from Grade School!!!!!

YAYYYY!!!!

This was a happy yet bittersweet moment for me because his graduation means that he's not a baby anymore. I swear, I got teary eyed when was walking down the aisle.

In the end, the Yub and I were SOOO proud that my baby bunsoy didn't give us any head-aches during his stint in Grade School. Add to that, he was given the St. Dominic Savio award pa!!! WOWERS!!!

The Yub and I treated the family in PEPPER LUNCH, Andrei's request for his graduation dinner.

Yay Andrei! Congratulations again! You deserve all the blessings that come your way! I promise you that more will come just be the same God-fearing and hardworking boy that you are.

We love you!!!!

And with Andrei's graduation, VACATION FINALLY STARTS!!!! WOHOOO!!!!!!

The little lords set their summer plans on by immediately having a sleepover with Johans. We had Team Virrey over and had a fun impromptu getogether.

Master Mati asked if he could also invite his best friends from school, Lance and Josh, for the day.

The boys went out for some Pepperlunch then coffee at Starbucks (aba pacoffee coffee na!!!).

Afterwards they went back home for some video games.

Master Mati specifically requested that it's just going to be an "all-boys" gimik (NO PARENTS!).

I said fine but as long as they take some pictures.

They agreed pero konti lang! Huhuhu!

OH WELL!!! Beggars can't be choosers.

And then MOTHER'S DAY arrives!!!!

The bunsoy Andrei and I were supposed to have a lunch date at NIU (his request). While I was making the reservations, I remembered how much Master Mati would like to eat there too and asked Andrei if it's okay to invite him to join us. My bunsoy agreed (with a sigh) but later on he understood what I meant.

Master Mati was so sweet too because when I asked if he wanted to come with us I saw how much he tried to hide his excitement when he asked "Okay lang po ba?" (since he knew it was my Mother's Day date with Andrei).

OF COURSE!!!!

My normally picky eater boy had a super great lunch as he filled his plate with Salmon (his favorite).

YAYYY! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ME!

If you're looking for the Yub HAY, he didn't plan any sort of celebration for me, at "hindi naman daw niya ako nanay." Galeng no? Yeah, he was SOOOO LOVED siguro as a child. Tsk tsk tsk.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

If you're my friend you'd know how much of a GAME OF THRONES fan I am. As in I THINK IT'S THE BEST SERIES EVER. That's why when season 8 was coming I was giddy with excitement and would post a lot of theories.

Yun lang the last season WAS THE WORST TV ENDING EVER. I can't imagine how HBO could betray us loyal fans with such trash!!!! Afterwards I swear I unfollowed all my GOT groups and stars' accounts that I joined before. I don't know if I'm over acting or not but now I'm really disgusted with GAME OF THRONES. It was like climbing the top of Mount Everest but when you get there you discover that it's just an inflatable castle -- all fake.

I was BETRAYED I tells yah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GRRRRRRRRRR.....

If you liked the series ending of GAME OF THRONES, good for you. At least you were able to enjoy it. As for me, I'll never speak of it again and I will bury all my GOT dvds and usbs far, far away.

May 16

We're going to KOREA!!! WOHOOO! And when the Yub fetched me from work the night before our trip, we decided to have some burgers because we know it'll take some time before we get a taste of it again.

May 16

The next day we're finally in KOREA!!!!!

This trip was my treat for the family as my gift to Andrei for his graduation. We didn't really plan on joining a travel group but we thought if we're going to try one it's best to be in the company of friends.

Though there were some snafus because of our travel agent, we still had a great trip!

We're happy that even if we heard some horror stories about food offered by travel tours, we still enjoyed all of the restaurants that we ate in!

We really L-O-V-E KOREA and we're so thankful for this trip!!!!

This was all for you dearest Andrei! Congratulations on your graduation. You're another step closer to being a pilot!!!!!!

Check out our SO EXCITED KOREA TRIP!!!!

When we got back to Manila, the Yub and I treated the family to our favorite GRID FOOD MARKET in Powerplant Mall.

May 23

Upon our return we immediately met up with the BGP Mariane and Manong Fred at our usual CHILI'S!!!!

There, we gave our simple pasalubong to the BGP and Panget Fred.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

(Let's see if they read my blog).

While we were in Korea however, the love of God and my Dad became evident via an accidental fire.

FIRE? You might say. How could that show God's love???

Let's just say that after everything's that happened, we still felt cared for by God, Padre Pio, and my Dad.

While we were in Korea, the hardware store beside our property started a strong fire. I was hundreds of miles away FB chatting my sister and we were all worried because our office and house were just beside it. The fire was getting high by the minute. I don’t want to go into details but we were so grateful for the prompt service of the Plainview fire department along with the other barangays. One of the problems encountered by the firemen was that there was no water at that hour (yep thank you Manila Waters) so they relied on their portable tanks. We all prayed hard to God then lo and behold, we got rain!! It really helped in cooling off the firemen and wetting the surroundings.

The fire was still ongoing at 2:30am and I decided to pray the novena of Padre Pio. Then a few minutes later my sister messaged saying the fire was finally contained! Fire out was declared at 430am. When my Mom went back to the house to return the things that was misplaced, she suddenly found the portrait of Padre Pio that was missing for many months. (Goosebombs right??? Hehehe)

As for my Dad, in the 80’s we were already living for years in our house when he got word that a hardware store will set up shop beside us. With that, he thought it was best to construct a big firewall because hardware shops most probably have storage and supplies that are “takaw apoy” And he was SO right. He’s been in heaven for 2 years now and he’s still taking care of us (if you’ll look closely on the last picture, you’ll see an image all in white. Yes, I believe it’s him guarding the office). Yep. His “advanced firewall” saved our office and house that night.

Don’t be worried and we don’t need any sort of pity. Believe me, we still feel so blessed over what happened where we saw the selflessness of the firemen, our staff (thank God for the security guards), and our family. We also saw the power of prayer and the strength of God, and Padre Pio’s intercession. Lastly, we felt once more my Daddy’s love and reminded of how “he’ll always be there for us.”

I don't know if that's our imagination or what but if you look closely at one of the pictures, you'll see a figure wearing what seems to be a beige vest standing at our office steps. I really think that's my Daddy because that's his favorite outfit. I strongly believe he came down to help us and check if everything's alright.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaay....

Thank God, Padre Pio (Happy Birthday), and Daddy for everything!

May 24

Towards the end of May, we were experiencing many rainshowers that our visits to our favorite NORTH PARK became more frequent.

Yep! These are our staples!!!! Sooo good grabe and perfect during rainy nights!

That weekend we treated our handsome panganay to dinner and a movie!

We decided to try out UMA UMA for their soupless ramen. We enjoyed our meal but we all decided that we liked our ramen with rich tonkotsu broth better. He he he he he!!!

Afterwards, it's JOHN WICK 3 for us!!!! We made the mistake of buying tickets for the director's club (P455.00 per ticket EEEP!!!). Oh well.... It was a sosy wosy experience though that we were happy to have that night. I sure wish to treat Andrei here sometime too!

Check out the blog HERE!!!