Beach, Please!

Summer is our favorite season here in Manila. It’s really hard not to fall in love with summer especially if you’re a sun, sand and sea kind of person. Despite the hot, humid weather summer brings, we like it because it always calls for a swim and if there’s an opportunity for us to go to the beach, we’ll go in a heartbeat.

Before summer bids us good bye, Mr. GJG surprised us with a quick getaway one weekend of May.

Me: In a few weeks time, it’s back to school for me and the kids. I need my dose of vitamin sea.

Mr. GJG: Okay.

Ummm, napaka-nonchalant ng sagot! I don’t know what okay really means. So this is how guys feel whenever us girls answer them with K, okay, keri. LOL.

So come Friday when Mr. GJG went to work, he texted me to remind me to get ready and pack our bags for the weekend. When I asked him where we were going, he just said “beach”. I kept on bugging him as to where this beach is located but until the last minute he didn’t give any details.

At first, I find it annoying because I want to knoooooow! But then I realized, it’s actually a surprise! Anuuuu ba, being a mother has lead me to become a rigid, type A person who wants to be in control of everything. So despite being clueless and yayaless that weekend– since yaya already asked for the weekend off, I excitedly packed our bags because we’re beaching over the weekend!

After about two hours on the road, the kids and I woke up and we’re surprised that Mr GJG took us to Montemar Beach Club in Bataan.

This is the view from our villa. Bonggang villa, bougainvillea. LOL

We were a bit bothered because there were isolated thunderstorms on our way to the beach. We assume it might rain which will lead the sun in hiding. Lucky for us, it was sunny! So we didn’t waste any time and headed over to the beach to get our sun, sand and sea fix.

Before I had to chase around my kids and play in the sand with them, I asked Mr. GJG if he can take my beach #OOTD. I posted a photo of it on my Instagram with a caption “Beach ready. There’s a funny story behind every #OOTD and this one’s no different. Yung tipong everyone’s looking at you.”

This incident is one of the many where BTS during OOTD shoots are funny.

From this photo, it looks like the beach is all to ourselves. From the photographer’s side, there’s a lot of people and these people were intently looking at me. Heeheehee. Deadmadela lang ako, obviously.

I have to say, this beach trip is the most relaxing and stress free trip I’ve had with kids and being yayaless. I guess they’re older now and more easier for us to manage. I didn’t have any deadlines to finish nor did I have to be too cautious watching my kids like hawk. The beach was very chill despite having a lot of people who also went for their last summer hurrah. There was even a company who facilitated their annual “outing” and another one had their team building along the beach shore. Still, it was a steady weekend.

The lil’ GJGs had so much fun swimming and playing in the sand. So much so that come dinner time, they ate more than what they usually eat.

I’m happy my kids love the sun, sea and sand as much as my husband and I do.

For them, the best part of being on a tropical vacation is playing on the sand and letting the waves sweep them away.

Not only do #OOTDs have funny BTS, even family photos. It’s really challenging to have everyone especially the small kids look at the camera for more than a few seconds and capture everyone smiling. Just look at exhibit A as seen below.

No extra set of hands to take our family photo nor a tripod or selfie-pod. As you can see, the struggle is really real. Bonus realness points as we were half-blind trying to fight the glare on the camera. Look at our kunooooot feeeez. Kalurks.

Can you spot the difference between these two photos? The left one’s picture perfect. All the elements cooperated in making it as serene looking as it is while the right photo shows a head of guy as he was swimming in the background. Heehee.

I can’t believe I’m posting my I-am-totally-not-prepared-to-take-a-shot photos.

#OOTD BTS realness revealed. Hahaha.

It’s really hard to take photos in public. Some people will find you annoying, give you that what-the-hell-are-you-doing and even classify you as MAPOTI (most annoying people on the Internet) as you take your #OOTD or stand up, bust out your camera or smart phone and start snapping away your food to get that top shot photo. My take? Kebs lang. If I don’t take shots like this, I won’t have anything to share nor I won’t have memories of the trips we’ve had bilang I self-diagnosed myself as Ms. Forgetful. 😀