My Bestfriend's Wedding

So the final days to the wedding was truly hectic. On Thursday, after getting our eyebrows waxed Clarissa and I went to back to her place where I started printing out her table place cards. At first we had some printing problems but then once we figured it out, she left me to print them out while her and jordan ran more errands. I ended up going to the church rehearsal with her parents where I got motion sick at the backseat. By the time I got to the church I was ready to throw up but good thing it went away. The rehearsal itself was a bit chaotic and disorganized especially since the lady in charge didn't seem to know what was going on. The bride and groom were also late since the errands they took a little longer than they planned. After the church, we went to China Garden for the rehearsal dinner...open bar!!! Ate Aileen said we were going to be drinking partners so we sat in a table which we labelled as the drinking table. Ate Dang, her husband, Kuya Ian, Precious, Carlo, Kuya Reggie (bestman) and Kuya Jason sat with us. Ate Dang got so hammered with the long island iced tea. I tried to go down the cocktail list but they were too strong and at the end of the night I only managed 3 drinks. Still, I was pretty tipsy. We kept making fun of Kuya Ian coz he was the only one drinking plain non-alcoholic lemonade. After dinner, the boys ended up taking Jordan to Yankee Doodle's Bar while the rest of us went back home. I insisted we work on the place cards some more so Clarissa and I embossed them and I ended up crashing at their couch that night. Unfortunately, Kuya Reggie also ended up crashing in the living room (he was too drunk..and Jordan too since he was still yacking when he got home) and he snored so loudly. He was totally bringing down the house and by 4:30am I couldn't stand it anymore and decided to look for another place to sleep. I actually contemplated on sleeping in the washroom but that would be too uncomfortable so I tried to make a makishift couch off the chairs in the kitchen. That was way too awkward as well. Thank goodness he quieted down enough by 5am that I did go back to the couch and slept a good 3hrs before I had to wake up to go shop for flowers with Clarissa and Ate Dang.
Shopping for flowers was so much fun. We went to downtown LA where they have this huge flower place where local florists I guess by their things in wholesale prices. Clarissa went a little nuts buying things that our cart was practically over flowing and her and Ate Dang's arms were fully loaded too. We spent so much time there that it was noon by the time we finished all our shopping and picking up her bamboo centerpieces. Back home, Clarissa and Ate Dang started working on the bouquets while I finished off the table place cards. I got the kids, Bianca and Patty to also help organize them. After the bouquets were done and a sample of the corsage was made, Clarissa showed me how to arrange the centerpieces and then her and Ate Dang left for the church to arrange the flowers there. Ate Aileen and I worked on all the centerpieces and panicked a bit when we found that 4 of the bamboos were completely hollow through. With the help of water bottles, a stove and the great minds of Ate Aileen, Kuya Jason and me, we figured out how to fix the problem. It was soo funny. Gaylord, Clarissa's good friend who prefers to be called G also came with his sister. He printed out the CD covers for her give away and her sister helped him fix all the cds. Later on another of Cla's church friends came too and wrapped Jordan's presents for the groomsmen and make more of the corsages for the sponsors. Ate Aileen and I also wrapped the presents for the sponsors. It was hilarious since we both weren't very good gift wrappers but they turned out really nice and I learned how to make paper bags from her too. By the time I left for home to shower and pick up my clothes since I was sleeping at the hotel with Clarissa that night it was late and Clarissa still wasn't done at the church. Ate Aileen,Kuya Jason and Kuya Ian dropped me off and they went to Walmart. Which was a good thing since I realized that I've forgotten to buy a giftwrapper and card for the couple. Aaaah! I called Ian to get it for me. It was so funny when I got back to their place coz I had to quietly ask Kuya for the stuff and then had to wrap the presents in his room hoping that Clarissa (who was back and packing up for the hotel)would not enter the room. Kuya was so funny coz he even got a green bow for the presents to match Clarissa's green theme. hahahhaa. He was busy burning the CDs to give away. As usual, Clarissa was doing even those last minute and his comp kept making errors and he had to check if the CDs were alright. It was past 1am by the time Clarissa, Jordan and I left for the hotel since she still had to make her bouquets. After waiting for a while checking into our rooms, Cla and I finally hit the sack by 2am. Ofcourse, the phone rang 2 hrs later announcing that the makeup and hair people were on their way.
To make a long story short, the hotel room got packed with people, I helped Ate Aileen put makeup on the kids and try to fix their hair (which the hair person didn't like coz then he refixed the kids' hair too) and I panicked a bit since Precious was running late and I need my sister (who she was supposed to pick up) to fix my hair and makeup. By 8am the photographers came and I had to do a quick semi-makeup for some photos. Ate arrived about 10minutes before we had to head out and did a 5minute job on my hair and face since I still had to take more pics with the bride. It ended up great as usual. Beng (one of the other bridesmaids)gave us a ride to the church. The wedding ceremony itself was so beautiful and total tear jerker. The flowers were great. When Cla was about to be given away by her parents Jordan started singing a Filipino love song to her and I tried so hard not to cry. Since the priest both new them very well, the mass was very nice and personal. Then just after the final blessing, before kissing the bride, they sang a duet (MY PRAYER by Bocelli and Celine Dion). Everybody was bawling like crazy! After signing the marriage certificate (I felt so honored to do it) we took pics outside the church. The photographer was so funny and scary at the same time demanding us to do all sort of weird poses and one of Clarissa's friends called him the Chinese Hitler.


The reception was really fun too. They had a live band who played good music. I had to do toast to the newlyweds which many people liked coz it was funny. I also caught the bouquet (yeah baby!!!) but Beng's boyfriend caught the garter and I gave her the bouquet instead so that he will put the garter on her. It was great coz they are getting married next year. She returned the bouquet to me too for souvenir. Then they had a money dance were I danced with Clarissa and Jordan for a dollar each. I also gave Kuya Ian a dollar to dance with his sister. It was sooo funny. Even though many people left early, we still had a lot of fun dancin to live music. We left the hall around 4pm and I drove Clarissa's car home (since I'll be using it while she's gone). We almost got lost since I got directions from Kuya which was a mistake since he's known in the family to always get lost. doh!
We were so tired by the time I got home. Ate and I tried to sleep and I did for a couple of hours but then I guess I was too tired and the excitement of the day was still with me so I ended up waking up and heading to Clarissa's house where they were having a family gathering to pick up their house keys in Vegas where mom, ate and I are planning to stay. I ended up staying the night since I drank a little and after hours of talking and laughing our heads off I was also too tired to go home.
Today, I woke up early to pick up Mama and Ate and go to church. We got lost going there coz the name of the street Tita Flor gave to us was messed up. After church and showering I headed back to Clarissa's place and I got to ride in Kuya Ian's Audi TT to Zen Buffet where the family was celebrating Tita Nene's (Clarissa's mom)60th Birthday. Then after saying goodbye to everyone and getting the seat for the Rav4, I finally said bye to Kuya Ian and Jason and now I'm here at Tita Venus's place for our family gathering.


I'm excited for the coming week since i'll finally be able to travel a bit more but I will also miss hanging out with Clarissa and her family since in the short time I've spent with them getting ready for the wedding, we've gotten really close.
I still can't believe she's finally married and when I stop to think about it I can't help but cry...out of happiness and also out of a sad feeling that I can't help but feel since it seems like youth is truly fading away and another chapter of my life is slowly coming to an end.

Bowling Queen

So apparently, i missed the best spa day ever. The upside of it all is that I did spend the day with my cuzins and aunt and went shopping at an outlet mall. So now am a proud owner of 2 shoes, 3 tops and a watch. yay!!! The bachelorette party was nothing so wild but tons of fun anyway. We ended up at a karaoke bar and having a blast laughing at these bunch of boys wearing hard hats dancing and playing air guitar. You have to be there to see how funny it was. But yeah, i've come to the conclusion that wherever u go...engineers are the same (at least I think they were a bunch of engineering students). I slept over Clarissa's house that night and talked her ear off till we forced ourselves to go to sleep since we had to wake up for Easter mass the next day.

Easter Sunday was nice. I helped Cla set up an easter egg hunt for her nieces then stuffed myself at my cuzins house during easter dinner. Tonight, my cuzins Omar, VP, MM and I went bowling. I was actually kicked ass at the beginning (which was surprising seein that I suck at bowling) but ended up placing second. Then, we wasted our money trying to get random toys from those arcade machine thingies. MM actually got 2 fake bling bling necklaces....after wastin like 5 bucks. hahahhaha.

Overall, it's been fun weekend and day. Tomorrow I'm gonna try buying some clothes since this packing light isn't working out very well...I'm totally runnin out of stuff to wear! It's colder here in Cali than i expected! aaaahhh!

Bored in California???

So what have I done so far?? Eat eat eat. Oh and sleep and be bored then eat again. I've hung out with Clarissa several times which was good, helping her shop for some stuff that she needs for a wedding. Unfortunately, she's as picky and as undecisive as I can be when it comes to shopping for stuff. Last saturday was her sister's Precious' bday and I had dinner at her house and met most of her family. I also tried on my dress and yikes....it didn't fit! aaaargh! But no worries since I'm actually getting it altered now. The other day I spent the day with her sisters and nieces and we did the tourist thing in LA. It was fun. We stuffed ourselves with really yummy sushi then checked out the Disney Concert Hall, the original Los Angeles where they had a mexican bazaar and Hollywood where I took pics of the stars' footprints and such...my favs included Donald Duck's footprints and Kermit the Frog's star of fame. hehe. Aside from that I've been chilling a lot with my cuzins Omar, VP and MM. Eating out, watching movies (we watched Take the Lead which was enjoyable and made me want to go ballroom dancing) and playing games while getting tipsy.

Today I was supposed to go to a spa with my friends but for reasons I will not mention here I couldn't go so I'm going shopping with la familia instead. Tonite we might do a bachelorette thingy for Clarissa. So yeah...I haven't been that bored...really I've only been bored before 3pm most days coz then I get to stay home and watch tv and wait for people to get off work to pick me up. But I've got a bus schedule now so maybe things will look up next week =)

Arrived Alive!

So after doing some last minute packing I flew out from Gloomy Toronto to Sunny California last night. The plane ride, though long was quite uneventful. I ended up sitting beside a nice chinese lady who was visiting relatives in Toronto. It was great coz there was nobody between us and I had more leg room...the plane was pretty packed. There were loud drunken people behind me but I had airplane classical music blasting in my ears which tuned them out. The curtesy movie played was JUST FRIENDS which was actually pretty funny. Made me wonder if I've ever had guy friends whom I put in the "friend zone" but wished they weren't categorized so. We landed in Vegas a bit early and I was quite tempted to put some money in the slots (yup they even had slot machines at the terminals!) Thank goodness the chinese lady (whose name I never got) was waiting for the same plane to LA as me and we just chatted it up. The flight to LA was quite short. At first I thought it was gonnna be torture coz the baby infront of me was screaming its lungs out but it quieted down once we were on air. Another mother with a baby sat beside me but the baby was so cute (despite its unibrow) and kept smiling at me. There was a kinda cute black dude sitting across the aisle beside me but he was too serious looking. Never had an expression on his face from the time he got in the plane till he came out. I finally arrived in LA around 1am in the morning. My poor aunt and cuzin was waiting for me...I felt so bad they had to pick me up at such an inconvenient time.

Today, surprisingly enough, I woke up pretty early. Must've been excited to be in the states. Unfortunately, everyone at my aunt's place had work and I ended up spending the morning watching TV. Woohoo!!! Just when I was about to go out of my mind, Aunt Kathleen (the same aunt who picked me up from the airport but not the same one I was staying with) called to have lunch. We went to City Wok, good chinese food place. Now, I'm chilling with my cuzins and my uncle came over too and is now enjoying singing karaoke by himself. so funny. so far, california has been quite pleasant but uneventful so far. But then again, it's only the first day after all!