a dose from the Corteses

After eight months of being a soft skills trainer, Allison now holds the position of language trainer. She gets to teach more of the English stuff to those aspiring call center agents. She tells me how Americanized she can get, with her learning the culture of the U.S., the different states and their capitals, the time zones and holidays and all of the related matter. She is a natural in training the English language.

“Let me see,” “remember,” “see I told you,” “do you have something for me?” – These words are just some of those that Zai Angelo, our little boy uses to converse with us and with other people. And he gets to learn new words as each day passes. He knows all the names of his toys and he never gets tired of watching Buzz Lightyear flying to “infinity and beyond.” He is just amazing for a two year old. One time, we had him attend a birthday party for a little girl about his age and we never imagined how sociable he can be and how he can quickly follow instructions.

Three days before Halloween, the three of us left for Manila, sort of a short family vacation. Thanks to my mom who shouldered most of the expenses for the whole trip. We got to spend a day in Baguio, three days in Pangasinan and two days in Manila. It was the first time for us to be in Urdaneta for All Souls and All Saints days. Angelo’s first trip to Baguio was short-lived though, because of the bad weather. By the third of November, Alli and I went to Manila and left Angelo with his grandmother. They followed us to Manila on the next day. Save for the tiring train rides, Allison and I had a pretty fun experience with our day in our nation’s capital – we toured the UP-Diliman campus, we went as far as San Juan just to buy my second FrancisM shirt, a cup of coffee and some cupcakes at Sonja’s at The Fort, a soothing shower at One McKinley Place (thanks Jackie), a sumptuous dinner at Texas Roadhouse with Jackie, Mari, Bunny and Jerome. Then we capped the night with some booze at MetroWalk in Ortigas (thanks Doris).

By November four, it was our first time to step into the gigantic SM Mall of Asia. Noticeably, it was a different style of architecture among all the SM malls. I was kind of impressed by how the mall tycoon considered more about the aesthetic aspect with emphasis on the green rather than retail space. A lunch at Italiani’s was delightfully fulfilling. Then we headed to Manila’s Ocean Park where we met up with Angelo, Mommy, Wanda and her boyfriend Edwin. Once we got inside, there’s no stopping the clicking of the cameras for pictures. You can just see how our little boy was in awe of the pools and huge aquariums of different species of fish right before his very eyes.

That was one sweet November indeed.

A couple of recent celebrations we attended were the second Cebu guitar festival, the lighting of the Christmas tree at the Fuente Osmeña rotunda, the CIC annual grand homecoming, where Angelo got to play the part of an angel and I got to play the shepherd in a nativity scene. Then the birthday party for our good friend and Angelo’s godmother – Maica and recently my colleague Marvin, who just tied the knot.

Then it has been quite routine ever since. We go to work on a weekly basis and we always look forward to our free time on weekends, where we get to enjoy the company of each other.

So for the past six months that this blog has not seen any updates at all, here’s hoping that this post could pretty much sum up how we were for the second half of the year 2008. And while the whole nation celebrates the victory of the Pacman over the Golden Boy, we celebrate the “rebirth” of our blogsite. And as we continue to expect more parties to attend on this merry month of December, we, The Corteses, also hope to continue posting more updates soon.