I'M SO TIRED

Hello all! I'm here in Martinez, CA at my Tita Mayette and Tito Paul's house. Work has sent me up here for the week to help out at our Concord office. It's my 4th airplane trip since we went to Hawaii in June. Anyhow, Tita Mayette works at our office up here so she volunteered to take me in so we can carpool. I landed at Oakland airport at 8:15 pm and I'm just beat! This weekend has been nonstop for me...then again, so has this whole summer!

On Friday night we had dinner at Mi Piace in Burbank to celebrate Matt's 26th birthday. After a trip to the grocery store for some drinks, we headed out to the Otani Hotel in downtown where my ninong who works there (Matt's dad) got a room for the night. We played mahjong, watched "Only You," hand some snacks, drank, played with the kimonos hanging in the closet, played with the bidet in the bathroom (ha ha ha) and just had a grand ole' time in each other's company.

The following morning, Iya, Rachele and I headed out of the hotel early because I had a bunch of errands to run before that evening. That night, my parents, Tin and I drove to Palos Verdes to my cousin, Ate Pam's newly remodeled house (oh man is this house beautiful! It's seriously Cribs-worthy) because we had a surprise party for her mom's 70th birthday. Oh my gosh, Tita Chi was soooooooo surprised and so touched. She seriously couldn't stop crying. Even I got all teary-eyed cuz she was so emotional. We had relatives fly in from Chicago, Rhode Island, Charlotte and Washington state, and lots more who drove from aways to join in the festivities in Tita Chi's honor. We got home at 11:45 pm. I drove, of course, so my dad could drink to his heart's content. My dad has his little "crew" with some guys from my mom's side of the family. Everytime dad's around Uncle Eric especially, he acts like a freakin' teenager! It's so hilarious to watch!

And then today, we had a luau at my Kuya Michael's house. He's the youngest of Tita Chi's kids, and a twin to Kuya Lancel. He and his wife, Kathy, who got married last August, have a really nice home in Burbank with a huge yard which they LITERALLY turned into paradise. They collected sand from the beach, hauled it over to their house to be the floor of the hut my cousins built from scratch out of pvc pipes and dried palm tree leaves. When these cousins of mine party THEY GO ALL OUT!

Anyhow, Tita Chi and her family were some of the first people I met when I got here from the Philippines and all my cousins, even though they were older, were some of the best playmates I've ever had. I've seen them all get married, have children, buy homes and become some of the most wonderful people I know in this life. I look up to all of them so much. All my nieces and nephews are just the greatest kids!

And now here I am. I have to go iron my clothes for tomorrow so I'm gonna end this here. Hope you all had an awesome weekend too!!!