twenty-six candles

december 10

eric woke me up singing happy birthday past 8am. i immediately went to the bathroom to take a shower and had eric iron my skirt which i'll be wearing for that day. i have no idea what he has planned for that day. we heard mass at the parish in waitara were we normally would hear mass during sundays. after that, it's off to jamaica blue in westfield where we had our usual chicken salad on toast with side salad. since it was the second to the last saturday before christmas, it took us around 20 mintues before we were able to park our car and it was just 10am.

family and friends have started calling and texting as soon as i woke up that morning.

while waiting for our order (it took a while before they were able to serve our order because there were so many people in the coffee shop), i saw a shop on sale and i couldn't resist the bargain and found myself buying six tops. :-P

while having our brunch, eric gave me a clue for what he has planned for that day by telling me that i need to pack my bags for an overnight trip! the funny thing was while walking back to our car, mommy (MIL) called me to greet me and asked if we were able to check-in the hotel already! BUSTED! hehehehehehehehe :-)

eric wanted me to open his presents (yes, there were more than one) before we left our unit. first present i opened was a heartwood creek "bountiful angel" (one of the heartwood creek's four seasons angels) angel of fall (eric had the store write autumn instead of fall in the sticker attached at the bottom) figurine .


we recently learned of heartwood creek by jim shore when we saw this magnificent nativity set that i so wanted (i wanted our home to have a nativity set, i'll definitely look for the precious moments nativity set when we're in the phils since precious moments isn't available here). we decided that we'll be collecting that in addition to our vast array of collections which already includes: snow globes, spoons, magnets and precious moments.


anyway, after opening my first present, eric got his suitcase out for me to open. and there it was, four more heartwood creek boxes: holy family - "joy to the world, the lord has come", shepherd with sheep and donkey - "let earth receive her king", wisemen - "let every heart prepare him room" and stable creche. i immediately knew that it was the nativity set that i wanted to have!

while packing our stuff for our overnight trip, my family called to greet me a happy birthday. after that, off we go to wherever it is we'll be spending the night in. since we were heading to the city, i got an idea where we'll be going...and i was right! we checked-in shangri-la sydney (*we stayed in makati shangri-la before, during and after our wedding last year!) with the harbour and the sydney opera house as our view! eric then let me in on what's in store for me that night when he told me that he booked us tickets to watch showstoppers broadway's biggest hits with the sydney symphony orchestra at the concert hall of the sydney opera house! i was so excited as i've always wanted to watch a play/concert in the opera house.

we first got our tickets from the box office of the sydney opera house and then decided to have late lunch since show will be starting at 8pm. we were in the mood to go german and ate schweinshax'n (oven roasted pork knuckle with sauerkraut, beer sauce & mashed potato) and nürnberger (nurnberger sausages with sauerkraut & mashed potato) in löwenbräu keller located at the rocks.

since it was still a couple of hours before showtime, we headed back to our hotel to rest and enjoy our room. we both fell asleep and woke up an hour before the show. the concert hall of the sydney opera house was packed. the seats we got was pretty good since it was right smack in the middle. they opened the concert with a song from chicago. they played and sung songs which i recognized from phantom of the opera (my absolute favorite!), les miserables, beauty and the beast (i swear, i couldn't help but be moved by their rendition of this disney classic!), singin' in the rain, boy from oz and diamonds are a girl's best friend to name a few. too bad they didn't play anything from miss saigon.

we were thinking of ordering room service when we got back to our hotel room but the pork knuckle and sausages have yet to be digested so we just tucked ourselves in bed.

i really enjoyed my birthday. what made it more special was the fact that this was actually my first birthday as a mrs.. i know eric prepared and made sure that i enjoy every minute of my special day...and i did (even if he told me that he'll be financially drained EVERY december since it's the month of my birthday, our wedding anniversary and christmas! hehehehehehehehe :-> three in one gift just wouldn't do :-P).

*more pics of my 26th birthday celebration here.