Holy Week

Nothing beats taking some time off and spending every second of it with family. Like every holy week, we drove off to Tagaytay. Instead of going in the morning, we left Manila at lunch time to avoid the traffic due to fellow vacationers going out of town. It was a smooth ride along the highway and thought we made a smart decision of leaving late. But as soon as we were close to Tagaytay, we inched our way to our destination, which normally would have taken half an hour, took 2 hours! I didn't enjoy that.

 Outings with the family are always something to look forward to, especially for the kids. I wish there were more kids in our family but Matt only has one first cousin, in law's side, and also one from our side.

Crissy with the kids

Camping in the garden

Nevertheless, the two have such a great time. Their imaginations and energy keeps them going the entire day, skipping naps and sleeping late. They played and played, munching on junk food and hydrating on bottomless juice to recharge. Ahh! To be a kid again.To be carefree and only worry about being able to dodge parents during bath and bed times.

busy painting!

There was really no need to find ways of keeping the kids busy, they can do that on their own. But since it is the Easter break, what's Easter without Easter eggs, right? So, we boiled some eggs and let them paint it. After putting them to dry, Dennis hid them in obvious places. No challenge so I decided to move the eggs around. Bad idea. Matt and Tracy had such a hard time egg hunting and I wished I just left them where they were. With our coaching and pointing, they were able to find all the eggs. An experience the kids will surely remember.

Matt's thought, "Not bad."

TADAH!

Growing up, we spent holy week at home. No loud and happy music. No watching funny "video tapes" and too much laughing. We had to be solemn in our thoughts and actions. Before I started working, I would attend the retreats in Sto. Domingo facilitated by Fr. Sonny Ramirez.

It's a little different now. We were not able to go to confessions and we badly needed to with all the eating we were doing! Although, the check list remains - Visita Iglesia, station of the cross, confession, listen to the 7 last words and Easter morning mass. 

The only thing we were able to accomplish in Tagaytay was the station of the cross. Luckily, we were able to find this small chapel that was about to close. Traffic was horrible so we were stuck in the house the entire time. We'll do better, next year.