Disneyland

As a present to my brother and his wife, they wanted all of us to go to Disneyland with them, and spend some good family fun together. It was a blast.......cold, lots of people.....but still lots of fun! How could you not have fun at Disneyland, especially during Christmas!.............Thanks Kuya and Ate for the great time.

Exciting!

My soon to be husbands DVD movie got re-released. Check it out!......
http://www.tower.com/details/details.cfm?wapi=111628249

Swimming

So today, I went to the gym with Steve and we swam for our workout. I swam about 500 meters, which equals to about 20 laps in the pool. What a great workout, need to work on my breathing patterns. Steve was very patient and encouraging. Can't wait for our next session :)

Christmas and Christmas Dinner

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hope everyone got what they wanted!
Maligayang Pasko!

Domesticated

Tried to make chocolate chip cookies today from scratch, first time. Steve and my sis says they are good, they kinda fall apart when you pick them up :). Well, i guess i'll have to keep practicing.

Dec. 22

Can't believe that we just got back on Thursday, and it's just a couple of days till Christmas! I love all the Christmas music, Christmas smell, decorations, etc. Too bad it's not snowing.

Back Home

Just got back home from Hawaii........really miss living there, I thought about missing our flight. But we got on, and we are back in the cold California. We accomplished all that we wanted to on this trip though, so that's a good thing. Lots of wedding planning, appointments, and decision making. It's a lot of fun though ( okay the financial part of it isn't). While doing the wedding stuff we were also able to see our friends, and hang out at old spots and reminisce. Had a blast!......now it's back to reality......and oh yeah.....Christmas is in a couple of days!

Bangkok/Hawaii

After losing in the quarterfinals, we decided that we didn't want to stay in Korat anymore, and have a day or two in Bangkok, and do some sightseeing. After our match, the next morning, we all took a 3 hour bus to Bangkok, checked into our hotel, slept, and the next day started our excursion day.
Our day started at our 6 am wake up call, breakfast, left the hotel by 7:15, and went into our hired van with a driver and drove out to the floating markets......Unbelievable experience! If you can see in the pics, we rode on boats, and went shopping on actual floating markets. Pretty unreal experience! After the floating markets we headed out to the Kings Palace, where if you were wearing a tank top or shorts, you had to rent out long skirts for the girls and pants for the boys. Palace was filled with lots of gold!......we also saw the emerald buddha. After the palace, we headed out to a market that was only open on the weekends, and did the rest of our shopping there. The day did not end there though, after the markets, went back to the hotel, had dinner, and tried to go out, but because it was election weekend, not a lot of "bar" type places were open. But we eventually found one, had a couple of drinks, talked, hung out, went back to the hotel at about 1:30pm, took a shower, packed, and headed straight to the airport. Our flight was at 6 am, with a 6 hour layover in Tokyo airport, and about a 6 and a half hour plane ride to Hawaii.
Yes.....we made it to Hawaii, we got in at about 8 am, had a cake tasting appointment at 12, and another one at 4 ( who never showed up), and now we are all in the hotel, and the gang is knocked out! I myself, am getting there. After this blog, gonna take a nap. Enjoy the pics!

NOT GOOD

Well, what can i say....We lost in three today against Indonesia. Not a good feeling at all. Indonesia played well though, and obviously we didn't play well enough. We lost in the quarterfinals which put us at 7th place.....Not exactly what we wanted to happen. I guess life goes on. What can i say, things happen for a reason i guess.
Thank you to everybody, for all the cheering and support you have given us this year!
It has definitely been a long season for us.....not exactly how we wanted to end the season, but regardless, it's time to take some time off, clear our minds, and get ready for the next year! Again.....Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat!

Vietnam

Played Vietnam today and won in two. Our Philippines 2 team had a great match against Malaysia, went three games and the final score was 13-15. They lost unfortunately but played really well!
After our matches we went to a friend of a friends house who lives here in Thailand, and she all has us over and had dinner there. Their house was pretty big and nice! Had some great food, and fun times on the piano with lots of singing.
We are now back in the Athletes Village.......tomorrow we play Indonesia 1 to get into the semi-finals.

Thailand 2

Played Thailand 2 today, and unfortunately we lost. A great match though, long rallies, but in the end a few more errors than them.
We play Vietnam tomorrow, then we go into playoffs. Thanks for all the cheering!

4th day of competition

Played Laos today.....won in two. We play Thailand 2 tomorrow, one of our toughest competitions.
Unfortunately, both of our mens team lost their games today. It's still pool play for them, so they are continuing on tomorrow. And our 2nd womens team were off today, and play tomorrow as well.
Tomorrow is a bog match for us, so i must get some rest now.......Good Night.

3rd day of competition

Our day started out with breaky at the hotel where our families are staying (Diane and I stayed there last night), then we headed out to the beach courts for practice at about 9am. We then ate lunch at the Athletes Village cafeteria, then headed out to the beach courts again to try and catch the match the our 2nd Womens Philippine team, who were playing against the Thailand 1. Unfortunately they lost....but they did win their last 2 games prior to that game. Then it was our turn to play, and we played Indonesia 2, and won in 2. After our match we headed to the mall and had dinner with our families. Now.......back in the Athletes Village in our room, hoping that no frogs, or lizards will end up in our room.....:)

Excursion day!

So today we didn't have a game.....so we decided to have an excursion day. It started with us renting a van with a driver and a guide for the whole day, for about $6 per person. We drove out for about an hour and went to Khao Yai National Park, where we saw monkeys, one in particular just walked up to us while walking back to our car from taking pictures from a view point. Pretty cool! Then we went hiking down to a waterfall....not a very big hike, but definitely a cool site. After the waterfall, the guide took us to eat lunch a cute little restaurant, off the side of the rode, where we ate great food! After lunch, the best part of the day happened...we all went on an elephant ride!!! They are pretty humangous animals, and riding on top of one is such a spectacular experience. It was great, we went through water, through the jungle...it was awesome! To end the day we went to a big outside market, where we were all pretty pooped from the day, and just wandered for about an hour.
Tomorrow we play against Indonesia.....back to business.

My Father eating a worm

Other bugs that were there to buy and eat were cockraoches, caterpillars, crickets, grasshoppers and other types of worms. My father bought another type of worm and grasshopper to eat. Believe it or not, we did have some troopers in our group who participated in the feast.
On another note....we won our game against Malaysia in two. Our next match is on Sundy against Indonesia.

OPENING CEREMONIES

Korat, Thailand

After an 8 hour flight to Tokyo aiprort, and about a hour layover, and a 6 and a half plane ride to Bangkok, and a 3 hour shuttle ride to Korat, we made it safely.
We are on our second day here, we start playing tomorrow.
Korat so far is pretty interesting, it's not a very touristy area, so there are not a lot of English speaking people, and communication is very difficult. The facilities for the athletes are very similar to the Doha Asian Games, meaning that there is an Athletes Village, shuttles to take you everywhere, and the Beach volleyball courts are in the big stadium area a lot of the other events are being held.
Tomorrow we start pool play. We have Thailand 2, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in our pool. We are ranked 2nd in the pool and we play Malaysia tomorrow.
Diane and I both have our families here with us. I have my parents, my sister, Steve and our friend Wayne. Diane has her parents, her brother Drew, and her boyfriend Ryan. It's been great having them here, and kinda weird also. Diane and I are used to traveling and doing these tournaments alone, so it's nice to have them here.
Tonight are the opening ceremonies......post pictures later.

Hawaii, Thailand, Hawaii

We leave tomorrow for Hawaii, one day. Then we leave to Thailand on Monday. Stay there till the 15th, then leave the 16th, to Hawaii, and stay there till the 20th. Lots of traveling! Going to be fun though!!!