Ohhhh, Oh, Oklahoma

I was laughing when I found out we were going to Oklahoma this time around. "What in the hay are we gonna do with all the cows in one of the Whitest town in America?" I asked my Dad. He just laughed, said it would be fun cause we were going to be staying with the Blasquez family, and plus my Mom would be needing that time to charge up and recuperate. "Whatever," I said, and went back to my room. It's not like I didn't want to go, I just thought it would be awkward staying with a family I wasn't really close to.

Let's just say I thought wrong.

Right when we arrived after a crappy American Airline flight and picking Michelle up from school, I nearly passed out at the couch in their living room while Tito Willy made steak.They have such a lovely house and immediately, I felt like I was back home in the Philippines. The game room was all of a sudden metamorphosed to the kids room where everyone slept in, hung out in, got in trouble in... To be honest, the reason why I thought it would be awkward staying with them was because the last time they stayed with us, I wasn't exactly...hmmm...how should I put it, a good host. I was rarely home because of school and I was busy entertaining someone else who ended up screwing me over; so basically, I didn't really concern myself any further with their presence. We took them to the beach, but again, I confined myself in my room and studied. SO, I imagined that this trip would be similar of some sorts -- kids doing their own thing while the parents LOL-ed. However, immediately after settling in the room, everything kinda just fell into place. It felt like we've known each other all our lives...well to some extent, there is some truth to that, because the eldest child, Al, and I attended the same grade school and after grade 3, they migrated. Since the third grade, I guess our parents kept in touch because I randomly hear stories about that family. Anyway! So yeah, the next day after the kids came home from school, we drove downtown and met up with Al who came back from uni just to be with us :)...it was a fairly long drive and after munchingthese sleeping beauties recharged their batts, as usual...So this was us, at down town Oklahoma, just roaming...enjoying the wind...and that's really all about it, heheand Mark really had to do this...crazyassAnd the next day, we went to Tatanka Ranch and had a blast! Of course, it took us like an hour before we actually got to leave the house and drive there, which was hella funny too...imagine the scene from the film Home Alone where everyone was just running and walking around the house, playing basketball, eating...After that drive and holdin ounces of pee in my small bladder, we just hung out at the playground, played competitive pingpong, battled it out on MadGab, wii and PS3.The next day, we walked to the lakeWe climbed up the Elvis Presley Tower. Was pretty tiring and my thighs totally got a workout climbing up approximately 14 narrow flights of stairs. Ugh. Hate exercise. So this is us, atop that tower.We went kayaking and it worked my arms out but it was super fun especially when we managed to park our kayaks and get off on the island. Which is tougher than it looks, believe me.Then we swam in the jacuzzi and this really cold pool where Belle and Mark tried to outdo each other and stay the longest in the freezin pool. Kids. LOL.After coming back home, we watched a movie that wasn't really for kids especially after the hella random dingdong flashes. As usual, before we actually went to the theatre, it took a while as Al tried to figure out the times as we sat around.We had too much fun in Oklahoma and didn't want to leave so we cried a river after we left :( I miss it, too much.

Photo Update

Wokeydokey, here's a quick update with pictures...
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Santa Monica Beach and Promenade

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What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...except nothing juicy happened when we were in Vegas LOL. Great city though! With excellent shows and hotels :) too bad all gadgets died and we (with the loving Blasquez couple) didn't go back to hotel room until the wee hours of the morning.

California, right back where we started from....

I'm very uncreative and cannot really think at 4AM for a better title to keep this blog alive. My brain is highly scrambled because unexpectedly, my iMovie decided to do this error bullshit and it's really driving me insane since I've searched up all forums and they all resort to freaking reinstalling and troubleshooting via original CDs. But, Problem No. 1: I'm in LA and the rest of my mac stuff is in the RP, scattered somewhere since our house is being renovated. Problem No. 2: I am operating on my macbook pro with no optic drive since it broke and was removed about 2weeks before I left the Philippines. SOOOOOOO... to all my readers, can you just imagine the steam coming through my pores as I type hardly on this stupid keyboard, and the amount of botox I will soon need in three years as the lines on my skin collect downwards on my forehead. BUT.
This is indeed a vacation.
So as I'm downloading all sorts of editing software demos, I decided to blog and post pictures to keep myself calm.
I'm rarely on the net now since we're driving around so as far as I remember, I think my last entry ended with posts from San Diego and our first day at Disney. Taking it from there, we woke up early the next day for 5AM mass, and had breakfast at IHOP...mmmm :)After breakfast, I spent the next day filming stories that you should soon be able to watch on INQUIRER.net. To give sort of a sneak peek to what type of clips I've shot...just think of Life of the Filipinos in California...excited? Keep yourself posted. :)
I drove around Orange County and Cerritos and driving isn't that bad with the help of our GPS we named Linda, after our amazing Shanghainese tour guide. So digital Linda took me to one of the most touching stories I've done...I visited a home for the aged, or a caring facility for the elderly.After a long day of hard work and spending quality time with Tita Susan and Tito Jean, we had dinner at their place, which was absolutely beautiful. They are such wonderful and sweet people whom my sisters and I have grown to love as foster parents in such a short span of time.The next day, I went to CalState Uni to trail a visually impaired Filipino freshman through a normal day in college. Again, another story you should be looking out for at INQUIRER.net.
After which, we briefly went to the theme park only to get wet by these crazy dudes in costumes. Freakin insane! We had like Buzz Lightyear hose us with icy cold water, random guns aimed at us shooting us with water, but it was so fun just spending it with my sister since my parents and Ella were in the other theme park.
Since it was our last night at the OC, our long lost relatives took us out for supper after the Disney fireworks...which ended up being canceled due to strong winds. Boo. So we had dinner at this Chinese restaurant with my fair-skinned lola, fun Tita Elvie (whom we have grown to love and see as our Lola as well), the crazy Tita Grace and Tito Danny and his architect friend who designed some buildings at CalState. Dinner was a blast and I'm really going to miss everyone at the OC...It really saddened us that we were leavin So Cal so the next day we still drove around and visited the Angels stadiumate at this fabulous Italian resto called Buca di Beppoand went shopping at Cabazon, CA (Palm Springs area).Boy, I have never been so sick of shopping in my life!!! It's NUTZ! Then we had dinner at this hotel at Palm Springs and we managed to take pics at the casino. Lol. This is all for now since the dmg's are now making it's way into my hard drive. Will post more pictures tomorrow and will tell you about LA.