New Year 2018

 

My sister,  Ate Tess with her husband Papa Tomu,  as we used to call him, came last Dec 31 to spend their first new Year here in our resort.  My brother Abner with his family and our mother came too.  Josa, my daughter, and Coco with their kids joined us. Hikaru, Dieter and I,   met them in Tabangao aplaya and we all went to the market to buy food for our new year's eve.  I even bought firecrackers for New Year Eve celebrations.   When we reached our resort, they met the family of their  guest from Japan, Kawahada san with his family who will also spend  New Year with us.  While they having chit chat, I started to cook for our lunch.   When they finished their lunch they  took a rest for a while, and Papa started  trimming down the trees around the resort grounds. 

Japanese people believe  that you need to clean all the surrounding to welcome the New Year.

Since everyone was busy helping Papa in cutting the branches of trees, I started cooking for our new year's eve meal. We call it  media  noche, where we gather together to have a meal at midnight.

When clock struck at 12 midnight, we started lightning  our fireworks.   Guests and my family started to play horns while watching fireworks to welcome  the year of the dog,  2018.  After the fireworks, Niña performed his fire dancing, which Papa and our guests enjoyed and they clapped their hands when he blew fire from his mouth.

When the fire dancing was over, we started calling our guests to join us with our meal.

The kids enjoyed the barbecues and hotdogs most, while the adults had their spaghetti and menudo and barbecue as well. Some had their drinks before we all went to bed.

On New years day when they finished their breakfast, our guests left to go to Mahabang Buhangin for swimming.   Their  kids brought some floats for swimming.  Papa, Hikaru and Dieter went trekking to Mt. Dagit dagit.  Papa wanted to try trekking to understand what guests had written in their experiences of going up to Mt. Dagit dagit.

They returned at lunch time and we all had lunch together.  After Lunch, everybody had their siesta, then when Papa woke up he finished his trimming his trees and other plants.   Now, the resort looks brighter in daytime and Tess Cafe can been seen from the shore clearly.

January 2nd was my mom's 90th birthday and we brought her here to enjoy it at our resort.  .  My sister and I hired a photographer to take pictures of our family.

 After the photographers finished taking the family photos, they went with Jayson's group on their boat tour around the island where they went to different places in isla and did photo shoots.  They got back at noontime, took lunch and prepared themselves for another photo shooting of our family.

As the photo taking was finishing, and  mom blew out the candles on her cake and we celebrated her birthday.  It was a simple celebration with just our close family

As this is their last day,  everyone spent most of their time together, sharing laughter.  At night Papa and my sister had a few drinks while watching the sea.

We all went to bed early as we all leaving for mom's house in Cavite.

We do hope that this will happen again next Yuletide season.