So after almost 5 years we went back to Japan for our family vacation.  Some may say wow!  You must've earned a lot from your 2023.  

What they didn't know was that this is a much needed break after a heartbreaking 2023 for our family.  As you see, we're supposed to migrate but after all the family adjustments, unfortunately the stars didn't align and the plan didn't push through.

If it were just me, I could've easily move and pursue my next actions, however, since it was difficult for the kids and the rookie mom, we really have to take this break.

So we decided to go back to the land of the rising sun... Japan!

The dream travel was for the Rookie Mom's 40th birthday celebration.

We started with processing our Visa, book our flights and then the.attractions and accommodations.  Wow that seems to be simple as I was able to pack all of our preps in our sentence :)

The Pre Flight
Who would've have thought that aside from family funerals, we'll bump into our Tito Exie in the airport, an hour before our flight to Japan.  It's great.to see him and have our kids see at least their Lolo from my side of the family.


So here's our Day 1 in Japan

The Luxury Transport
We were lucky to get a free ride to the airport as a promo from booking.com.  And not only it was free, it was an Alphard!  Felt so.royalty seating on those captain chairs with a super spacious cabin.

Shinsaibashi
Our barangay for the 10-day trip.  It was just pure luck when we're trying to find our accommodation.  It was from booking.com and what we're looking for is an accommodation that can house 5 persons with comfortable sleeping beds.  Fortunately, we were able to book this great spacious apartment Stay & Go where we had 4 double sized beds with complete amenities like a hotel.

The Glico Man
It was awesome to be just walking distance to this tourist spot.  And since it was dinner time, we went to the vlog favorite street foods. The ten cent pancake which is 500 yen btw.  The overhype takuyaki... personally, the one in Tokyo is far better than these tourist takuyaki

It was just a relaxed day as we have a long day the next day going to Nagoya for Legoland, Takoyama and Shiragawa Go.

More stories on the next blog.

Happy 7th to our bunso Meia

Well it's a 2 months late before I had the time to post this in my blog.   But as they say, better late than never :)

They say that what's fun having a birthday during the Christmas Season is that everyone is in a festive move and just want to party party!  On the flipside though, people tend to forget it's your birthday.

So for our little Meia, we asked her if she wants to have a grand party.  But she opt for gifts and spending time with the family.

Since she loves dinosaurs, we went to Clark's Dinosaurs Island.  I think this park has been here for quite sometime but only knew about it 2023.  

Then on her actual birthday, we had her favorite salmon sashimi with the family.  And thanks to the Rookie Mom for the awesome balloon decors which she DIY.  Way better than getting a party supplier.

Three essential things I learned as I have our youngest turning 7:

One. Am I still a rookie dad?
Yes, even if I have three kids and the youngest is at seven, I am very much a rookie in terms of handling my daddy duties.  Learning a lot as each of my kids are different and as they grow, my parenting hat also changes and should adapt to their needs.

Two. Assertiveness.
Our youngest I think is the most assertive with my kids.  As a parent it's good as we don't second guess as to what she wants.  On the other hand, her persistence whenever she wants us to play with her is a challenge as she sometimes forces you :) in a cute way.  I do hope she's able to grow in this trait as this is a good life skill specially for us Filipinos who would rather endure the current state than voicing out what is needed to improve.

Three.  Love.
Having my youngest kid turn 7 makes me think of God's abundance and love.  As I reflect on my life 20 years ago when I struggle to make ends meet and survive, I now have these beautiful and loving family.  And now as we are on another phase of our life, I can only thank God for seeing me through all the challenges... all because of HIs amazing and great love.

Today I let go of my 757 days streak of doing Fitness Boxing. During the start of the pandemic, this was the most effective routine to get my daily dose of cardio. But it seems after more than 2 years, the law of diminishing returns came in. As I prep into my 21 day reset, I was able to find a more dynamic exercise that should complement my food intake. I will miss my virtual instructor Bernardo :) but I am sure he will support my quest for a better and fitter life.

Just this weekend, I got news that one of my colleague who happens to be a classmate in high school and elementary suddenly passed away.  Without warning, he had a heart attack and was unable to survive.

This had me reflect on how I'm living my life.  Am I making the right choices on the tasks I'm doing each day?  Am I really prioritizing the people that matters most?

Life is short.  But I don't want to make it shorter by ignoring what my body needs in order to spend more time with my wife and kids and hopefully my grandkids and great grandkids with a fully functioning and healthy body.

This is my reason for deciding to invest in my health now.  They say that you can get to your goals easier by making them public so you'll feel the accountability.  So this week I'm committing to do my 21-day reset challenge by Nitro Nutrition.  I'll be posting more information on my daily progress and hopefully it translates to a better me.  

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.  It's been a long time since my last post.  I'm hoping that this post could give me some momentum that I need to sustain blogging again and sharing my fatherhood stories now that my kids are much older.

I felt so blessed today with these presents I got from my wife and kids.  Just knowing how much effort they put into these makes my heart so full.

Here's a video that Amanda made as she took time to collate my funny photos.

Here's Cassandra's home made Father's Day card.  She even greeted me in Ukranian since she's been studying this language in duo lingo.

...and from Camilia and Cali, I got this utility knife

Such an eye opener when I started reading this book:  The Learning Habit.  We got it during the Big Bad Wolf Sale before the pandemic hit.

Here are some of the wisdom I got from this book so far:

1. Teach Them How to FIsh - The early portion of the book sets the ground on establishing Empowerment Parenting.  This means laying the foundation for our kids to be independent learners.  With the pandemic on going, and the need to switch to online school, Empowerment Parenting is much more challenging.  After all, isn't it easier to just make all the corrections in your child's essay and hit submit, rather than explaining to her a better way to construct the sentence and teach her to articulate her feelings through words?
2. Set Aside Insecurity - It may not be intentional for us parents but we often feel bad when our kids receive low grades or is not included in the honor roll.  We seem to think that it equates to our parenting or even go to the extremes of measuring our love for them.  Low grades equals bad or unloving parents.  NOT TRUE.  But this feeling often unintentionlly forces parents to make our kids' assignments as perfect as possible... to the point that we're the one doing it for them.  Bottomline, a passing grade out of our child's own labor is way better than a perfect score where a mom or dad made the answer.
3. Character Over Talent - the book teaches instilling discipline in a modern world where gadgets sucks out all of our kids' focus and attention.  Having a regular assignment routine with a fixed schedule and duration would really help even if we're living during this pandemic.  If there's no assignment, our child still needs to do the routine and read some books.  Discipline is a byproduct of the routines we're able to establish.  In life, in order to win, you can get away with some things if you're super bright.  But in the end, those people whose characters were molded by discipline, end up resilient against the challenges in life.

There's a lot more to learn from this book which not only applies on parenting but on leadership as well.  Will post more nuggets of wisdom once I finish it.

As a parent, I think I won't get tired of saying, time flies whenever my kids reach milestones in their lives.

Last October 15, Aubrey celebrated her seventh birthday. As much as she wished to have her seventh in a party venue with all of her friends and family, we had an intimate party at home due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, it was more fun than what we've expected.

My top 3 realizations now that my second is seven.

1. There is truth in the saying: the days are long and the years are short - I remember the movie Click by Adam Sandler.  Sometimes you wish to fast forward everything when you have a baby because of the endless sleepless nights.  But when your child hits seven, suddenly you want everything to slow down and enjoy this cute stage in their lives.
2. Empathy is key - Aubrey has the highest empathy among the siblings.  She has a great sense of how the people around her feels.  Sometimes, it becomes too good for her such that she cries when she knows someone in the family is hurt.
3. True Joy - Aubrey is such a simple person.  And I think much more than the gifts, her greatest wish was for her family to be super happy on her birthday.  That everyone maintains a cool and calm aura.

To our dear Aubrey, we love you so much little Peppa. 

While driving:

Out of nowhere
Cassandra: Daddy you're so pogi.
Me: (blushing) wow, thank you.😊
Cassandra: You look like a frog.

​Apparently, my daughter's standards for pogi is Kermit 😕

So this was last August 19 when Ate Amanda suggested she wanted to have another ate yaya friend. Her idea was to post this in our neighborhood so we can get someone to apply.

I know it's extra hard to hire an employee that can help us out at the house and be best friends with the kids. I know someday we may be able to find the right person but we're maximizing the learnings we had with just us doing everything. Heee are some of them:

• ​Discipline - we need to ensure we do our hoisehold chores otherwise our house would be a total mess. And with kids around this would pose health risks.
• Kids Training - some tasks are delegated to them such as fixing the bed and returning things to their proper places.
• Focus - we need more focus in our daily tasks as we would run out of time if we are not efficient
• Patience - it's a lot of work and to keep our sanities intact we need a lot of patience to endure missed tasks and opportunities even on business.