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| Petting one of the house cats |
It was a not-so-last minute decision to spend this year's holiday break over at Yeyo's
papos (grannies) in Zambales. We first thought that it would've been nice to spend Christmas in our very own home as it should supposedly be our first time to celebrate it here (we moved in last January). But our experience during the All Saints' Day long weekend gave us a glimpse of how gloomy our Christmas would be, since we were the only inhabited unit in our wing back then. So, na-ah. We had to head on out of town!
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Kinikilig at the feel of the
'anok's feathers |
It was a wise decision after all, as the little girl had the time of her life in her papos' household. Her eyes glowed the moment we stepped out of the car upon arriving as she immediately beamed, "'Anok (manok = chicken; referring to Papa's cocks) ni Papo Joe!", "Ducklings! (which we corrected as geese)", "Cat mingming!", "Dog aso!" and "Piglets! (which we also differentiated to her the pig from its piglets)" in her excitement over the animals surrounding the house. The cats and the chickens were among her favorites, though -- especially the cats! We had to hold her up everytime she plays with them as she would pull its tails or sometimes poke its
faces (educating herself where the eyes, nose or ears are, as she would usually do this with Mingming, our stuffed toy cat) or worse, wringing its necks in her panggigigil! Goodness, the panic at the thought of these cats getting back at her with a good scratch would almost always get to us!
Here's the little girl giggling over Papo Joe's breed of "'anok"
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She hugs every kid that comes
to the house |
On Christmas day, we had some visitors coming over for their traditional tidings and of course, the holiday salu-salo. Yeyo couldn't contain her excitement at the sight of the kids! She would hug them as they come and they would later become her captive audience as she chats with them in her broken toddler language. The kids would just nod and pretend that they get what she's saying. So cute! :-)
There was not much left for us to do after Christmas until the New Year's eve and so we hatched the idea of taking short (well, not really if you think about it) road trips in the nearby towns of Iba. Day 1 after Christmas, we headed for two towns southwards, while on day 2, we headed on to two towns north. Day 3 was reserved for errands (the papos took turns at sitting for Yeyo), but on Day 4, Papa and Mama went with us as we headed further up north -- 3 towns to be exact, which taxed us about 2.5 hours of travel time from the house and back! It sure was an exhausting drive, but witnessing the sunset from Masinloc's baywalk was not at all bad :-)
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| At Masinloc's baywalk |
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| At Masinloc's baywalk |
This in-between free time also gave us the chance to finally let Yeyo see her Papos' bukid. We longed for this moment, actually -- for her to experience riding the elf truck going to the rice fields, swing in the duyan and relax in the bahay kubo. Now that she's 2 years old and an infant no more, we knew that she will surely enjoy all this. And yes, indeed! Next in our list is for her to wade in the river and catch frogs (hoping that she's not going to develop a phobia on amphibians and reptiles like her mother).
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| Riding the elf truck with Tatay and Tito Ryan |
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| Duyan with Tatay |
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| Enjoying the bahay kubo |
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| NLEX na! |
Finally, after the New Year celebrations, we were homeward bound again (sniffs). The temporary short term memory loss, when we go, "Ano'ng araw na nga ba ngayon? Ano'ng date na ba?", has become a thing that we've come to love more about these long seasonal breaks. We can't wait for our next family holiday! Yeyo had a blast as much as we did. She will surely talk about the 'anok, baby mingmings (kittens), piglets and more until our next visit :-)
