The Road to 40 Day 107/365: Family Time Sunday

We had a full day together before Che flies off again to the PH for the last time in this stint, so we made the most out of it.

We meant to get up early, but the call of the bed was too much for Che to resist. I did get up though, as I had my fantasy football draft with Imon and his friends and family in the US.

I’m not as knowledgeable in the NFL as I am in the NBA, but a stroke of luck had me winning the league last season. Ironically, all my NBA fantasy teams failed to make the playoffs.

Naturally, I need to be a part of the NFL fantasy draft as the defending champ.

Following the draft, Imon gave me a draft analysis for my team, which shows me finishing outside the playoffs this year. Last year, I was projected to finish third, which was just about right, as I finished second with minimal moves from the draft.

Vino and I played a bit in the morning after breakfast as we prepared to go to a planned lunch.

We saw Steph, James, their sister-in-law Gem, Issa, JR, and Pablo for a very late birthday celebration for Che.

James found this spot near our place, La Torre at 1-Alfaro. It had an awesome view of the bay, and great food at that.

Unfortunately, there were quite a number of items on the menu that were not available. What came out were great, though. It helped that the company was fun as well.

We usually celebrate milestone events with our Singapore family. Issa and Steph are Che’s first roommates in Singapore and we actually lived together when I first moved here in SG. They were also Che’s constants when I was working at Iskina and she was pregnant.

Of course, Steph is our aforementioned practice baby, but only from the teenage years.

So we do try to meet whenever we can, especially important events such as birthdays and whatnot.

Before we finished lunch, they surprised Che with a birthday cake – her and Vino’s favorite strawberry shortcake.

The place wasn’t far from our house, but taking the bus would circle around the whole block of houses. We decided to walk home instead.

Vino had to do his homework first before we were off to our tick our next check box for the day.

I’m not sure when I was away, but during that time, Che and Vino went to a pottery place where they made their own bowl and cup, respectively. It took about three months before they could get the dried clay so they could paint it and it was ready while we were in the PH.
This window of the weekend allowed them to come back and paint. Vino wanted to do one with me, but they had to paint first, so I opted to just have my haircut first.

When I came back, Vino was already doing his vase. They were lucky that the shop had a slot for them so Vino could do his thing.

Che left early for another appointment while I waited for Vino to finish. At some point during his session, I almost got frustrated with Vino because he kept looking at the spinning thing instead of listening to the guy giving him instructions.

I’m trying to remember if I had that short attention span when I was that young, but I feel like most of the kids these days are very easily distracted. With everything happening so fast and information right at our fingertips, it feels like we are more impatient now than ever before, especially the kids.

I kept to myself and let the guy teach Vino what he needed to teach and just let him fail if he missed anything.

Once we were done, we were told that we had to wait again for it to be dry before Vino gets to paint it again.

We followed Che to Paragon, where she reserved seats for a Japanese restaurant. But first, Vino and I went around the ground floor to appreciate some art pieces.

And of course, by appreciate, I meant acting silly around it.

There was a nice Korean restaurant before where the Japanese restaurant is now located. It was a kind of premium K-BBQ grill before, and now it was a Jap grill and shabu-shabu.

We had no expectations, only hunger. Vino got excited just from the smell of the place once we entered.

The food we ordered was nice. We had a plate of different cuts of meat, and we all agreed that the prime karubi was the best one – soft, flavorful, with a good mix of fat and meat. It melted in our mouths.

We had to walk around after that, and Vino asked to go to Toys R’ Us. As a boy, I also appreciate walking around toy stores because I get to see what things I could have had if I were Vino’s age.

You could say I live vicariously through Vino, so I’m easily swayed if he picks up a cool toy.

We got a puzzle toy again, at least it’s thought-provoking.

We headed home and aimed to sleep as early as we could, as Vino had school again and Che was set to fly out.

This is going to be the last weekend where Che has to fly to the PH for another week, so next week will be more of a normal weekend for us. Gotta do groceries this week so that she can stay at home and eat some home-cooked meals again.

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