All about our Princess

Peak A Boo!

December 10, 2013

My dearest blog,

How are you? I miss you so! Please don't feel bad, I didn't abandon you. It's just that I am "keeping a balance" between family and work, and, okay add to that some social responsibilities.

Meanwhile, let me share you what I had -- some peak-a-boo time with my Baby Boss:



And more breakfasts with the Big Boy at the desert:


And more desert jumps for me too:


See you again in awhile dear blog :-)



Thinking Out Loud

Toastmasters and my Project 1 Speech

November 02, 2013

Working moms probably can relate with me when I say that having a baby is like stepping on a brake, but as soon as the little child is bit ready, the mother goes back working to realize there's much to catch up on. This happened to me, and to say, personal development was one I wanted to work on.

 So I joined a speech club here in the desert, and gave my project one speech. My tone was a bit serious, and I guess it was affected by the speech projects I read online prior to doing it. Speak about tone imitation ! :-)

 It would have been great if I had a video of myself to look back to later to check my progress. Writing the text here is a lot different than when spoken in front of people. There's the butterflies, stammering, tension showing.

 In this speech, I guess I was fine with my voice modulation for a start, a bit on use of stage, and I managed eye contact. My downs though were I glanced on my notes once in a while for my sequence, and that I started with, "I'm sorry I am nervous!". Stating that one is nervous is a big NO :-) 

For my record, TM Petrous evaluated me.

... and here goes, Competent Communication Project 1, August 2013:



"Good evening fellow Toastmasters, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I one of the more than 700,000 Filipinos currently in the UAE  today. Four days ago, I marked my ninth year since I first stepped on Terminal 1 of Dubai International Airport.

You see, earlier, admitting how long I had been here in the UAE was something I always avoided because it always triggers the next question “What had I achieved so far?” 

I was then 24 years old when I told my parents I’m leaving home for the UAE. In my heart, it was because I wanted to make a difference for my family, and if I can do more, also to my community. I wanted to treat and bring my parents to as many places around the world because all their lives, they just work and spend for us their seven children.  And if I still have some money to spare, I dreamt  of giving pencils and schoolbags to the less privileged kids in our community.

 The next years after that, these goals became only secondary when I married my loving husband and we had our adorable kids.  Our kids had since then topped our list of priorities and goals.

 Hugging and playing with two beautiful children strongly makes me want for them to lead beautiful lives. So I asked my self  “Is there more that I can do?” I looked back on my everyday life and saw that I could have done better, if only I have hurdled through my weaknesses early enough.

I work with passion and with high self-motivation, but I partly fail when work entails courage and talking in front of people. Two of my past managers from two separate companies wrote this in my performance review:  Beverly excels in her work but she is shy. She has a lot of knowledge but she seems afraid to share it. Leadership is the next objective she has to work on.

 I had been shy since I was a kid. I was then seven years old when I had to take medications because I had persistent nasal discharges. Since then I cannot survive a day without a tissue or hanky to wipe my nose. It seems like it was more of an allergy from the cold weather, because I grew up in the mountains of northern Philippines where it is cold all year round and it rains half of the year. Since then I would isolate myself from my classmates and I had a few playmates because some of them made fun of my situation. In effect, I avoided being in a crowd and I lost chance to develop my self-confidence before people.

This dragged on until I finished university.

 When I started looking for work, being shy and soft-spoken was at times to my advantage. I was seen as a team player. But later in my career, it was a disadvantage. I had lost chances of promotions because I have yet to learn how to properly handle situations outside of my comfort zone and deliver results.

 Now I am determined to boost my self-confidence around my personal environment and maximize my potential. I am now interested about using makeups, proper dressing, proper manners and now public speaking, among others.  It’s a long way for me, but I should start if I want to achieve even my simple goals for my parents, my kids and even for my community.

 In this journey, I am now meeting and recognizing people who, for their achievements I can relate to, are inspiring me to achieve the same. I look forward to that day when I can send them a message to let them know their influence and to thank them.

In summary, I am working to become a better person so I could make a difference in the lives of others. Ultimately, I hope one day I too would be an inspiration."

Desert Drives

Desert Car Breakdown Recovery

October 28, 2013

Until a year ago, a real dune bashing experience was something we just wished that we could do with our own car. But of course the fear of getting stuck in the desert held us back until we met our desert family.

As my colleague had put it, never drive alone to the desert. There's always a way out of course, but how expensive could it be, especially when your car unfortunately breaks down and would not start. 

Here's a video I took. Watch how the Durango (machine off), has to be pulled out by two mates. In these instances, I coined my own partial description of desert driving -- it is the art and science of gracefully driving through the dunes. Especially during car recovery, an understanding of the sand state, dune form, car position and recovery strategy are all essential

I have yet to read a book on how to create sand splashes and the essentials of desert car recovery, but I am seeing a lot already from our desert friends. 

Video below is on car recovery, dune bashing on a separate post.

Summer Night Camping at Dibba Fujairah

August 10, 2013

We survived it! Camping out with a toddler on a humid summer night, I mean.

With the uncomfortable temperature here in the sand pit, the Gremlins were confined at home, and even the Husband missed to join the desert drives (because I was stopping him to -- my bad!). However, I've extremely bored Kuya already (who's just excited to go back to school rather than be home watching Dragon Ball Z marathon) so we joined friends over the weekend on a drive to Dibba Fujairah. They are our friends from our offroad driving group.

Friends brought raw fish, chicken and hotdogs for the barbeque that we shared over dinner. Some also went fishing, and the guys cooked their catch for 'pulutan' as they shared stories late through the night.



Hello Little Girl, curious on the kettle?

Our camping site at Dibba Fujairah was at an enclosed area at the back of a residential vicinity near the port. As with the Eid celebration with a traffic at Khorfakkan and Bidya Mosque, it was great to have the beach by ourselves.


The night was comfortably warm and a bit windy at the open air, however, getting inside the tent was unpleasant - hot and humid. We ended up sleeping inside the car with the airconditioner switched on and the windows partially open. As always, Little Girls and I are at the back, Kuya at the middle and their dad in front.

At 5:45 am, I woke the kids up and we headed a few steps to the waters. The shore was covered with small corals and shells, and the waterbed was more rocky than sandy. There were sea urchins too that both Kuya and his Dad had to pluck out spines out of their feet.


This is Little Girls's second beach camping (first was near Jebel Ali Resort and Spa last winter), however it's her first beach bath. She enjoyed it of course.

Another fun part of this experience was how we reached Dibba. Husband planned on the route to include an offroad drive, so that instead of following the highway that's made long by going through the oblong map route, we cut through by passing the rocky mountains, and even passing through Oman's inclave exiting at Madha then to Khorfakkan. We've already taken part of this route two years back, and while we know our expectations, what made us glad was getting our mates happy (two cars) as this was their first time over the mountains. Road trips become more exciting when shared, indeed.




Getting back home, the group took on highway E89. It's a new road but I thought it's boring (unless one is rushing to reach Dubai) compared to the route (red line, map below) we took two years back:


For more photos of our drive, do click HERE

So that was how we spent our long weekend {"-"}...

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