Category: Beach Life

prewedding_pictorial

Hanz & Jen Pre-Wedding Film Shot in Southern Cebu (Oslob Cuartel, Boljoon, Alcoy, Tumalog Falls)

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April and May up to a week after our dream beach wedding celebrations and tours have been such an exciting roller coaster ride! I wanted to share so much about our wedding — the pre, during and post events but I am still a little bit overwhelmed until now with everything that has happened that I think I need to organize them all here on my blog to satisfy my OC tendencies. Teehee. (^_^)

You can also go back to my engagement posts for more background about us in case this is your first time to visit my blog and you’re curious about us:

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ENGAGEMENT

OUR BESPOKE ENGAGEMENT RINGS

ROMANTIC ENGAGEMENT AND FINE-DINING BY THE SEA AT SHANGRI-LA MACTAN

OF WEDDINGS AND BREAKUPS [A RAW CONVERSATION WITH A 6 YEAR OLD]

HOW TO COMMUNICATE BETTER WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER? [REAL TALK WITH MY THEN LIVE-IN PARTNER]

OUR ENGAGEMENT TEASER VIDEO

BEHIND THE SCENES – THE MAKING OF OUR ENGAGEMENT PHOTOSHOOT AND TEASER VIDEO

SHANGRI-LA MACTAN 5-STAR VACATION

And of course, we already got legalized last Nov. 21, 2022 through a “secret” civil wedding: SECRET CIVIL WEDDING: BECOMING MRS. VILLANUEVA PART 1

And this wouldn’t be possible of course if I had not gotten annulled from my previous marriage. So you can understand how everything feels so miraculous for me. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I’ll be so much blessed with Mahal and the life we live now. Thank you, God, for all your graces and blessings!

Both our engagement, the civil wedding, and everything in between are all  parts of the journey leading to the realization of my ultimate dream beach wedding with Mahal. 

But before we head there, let me share with you first our prenup / pre-wedding photo and video shoot done by Lumad Creatives. The succeeding photos are by Marion Dhen of D’PIX Photography.

Here’s the video:

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Shangri-La Mactan 5-Star Vacation

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It was a dream of mine 20 years ago to stay in Shangri-la Mactan. Back in 2005, I experienced having dinner there and it was not just relatively expensive for me since I’ve been so used to just doing budget trips (from what I remember, it cost P15,000 for a group of people at that time) but it was all worth it because the food was really scrumptious!!! I’ve been wanting to go back, maybe have lunch or breakfast. We attempted to try the breakfast day tour at Shangri-la Boracay instead before the pandemic  during our Boracay summer vacation in 2019 but the cost of P3,000 per person was still too expensive for us at that time considering that we were on a one week or so budget Boracay vacation. Then the pandemic hit so all travel plans stopped. 

Recently, we were in Boracay for 15 days and we did want to try the breakfast day tour again in Shangri-la Boracay but they weren’t offering it anymore. Our budget for hotel stay was only about P40,000, perfect for our 2-week stay in Paradise Garden and Resort Hotel, a nice enough 5-star-looking resort on the famous island. I’ll be blogging and vlogging about PARADISE GARDEN too. At least we were able to do Crimson Boracay during my birthday! Plus, splurge at OM BAR! Maybe, on our next Boracay trip, we will be able to check-in at Shangri-la. Still, I’m grateful we were able to stay at Shangri-la Mactan! 

Come to think of it, I noticed that ever since I’ve been with Mahal, a lot of my wishes have started coming true — having a baby, having a family to call my own, having my very first Apple Macbook (it was Mahal’s first grand gift to me back in 2016!), my beautiful cloffice (which I still need to blog/vlog about), my dream beach wedding proposal, my upcoming dream beach wedding, having our own mini resort and restobar, being together 24/7, traveling to exotic places, checking in at 5-star resorts… And my Shangri-la wish did finally happen! So I want to share a vlog I made about our 5-star Shangri-la Mactan vacation including the prices and what-not. Check it out below. Enjoy!

Til my next post!

Our OM BAR Experience in Boracay

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Whenever we’d go to Boracay, we always pass by this fun and happening place called OM Bar. A few years ago, before the pandemic, when we toured Visayas with Mahal’s elder sister from Belgium, we were able to experience it. Mahal’s sister took care of the expenses so we were lucky. We went in and just had a cocktail.

Then just recently, as we were doing our 2-week Boracay vacation (where we celebrated Valentine’s Day, my 45th Birthday, and parts of our honeymoon), we noticed that OM Bar looks bigger now and more exciting. So we decided to experience it once again, but this time, we’ll order a lot of food, try some of their cocktails, and shisha too! They usually require an entrance fee of about P500 or so I think from 7 pm onwards so we decided to come in early just before sunset so we can parteyyyyy to the maxxx!!!!

Here’s the vlog I made about our OM Bar Boracay experience. Enjoy!

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Crimson Resort and Spa Boracay – My 45th Birthday

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It’s been a whirlwind of a ride since we got married in a civil ceremony… one celebration after another and constant traveling. We’re actually in the middle of our month-long (or so…) honeymoon trip in the Visayas, part of which is my 45th birthday celebration in Crimson Resort and Spa here in Boracay. I just want to share the vlog I managed to create while vacationing. I’ll try to come up with more posts once this busyness is over. But I think with our beach wedding looming in the horizon, it will really be a challenge to keep you updated here as much as I want to. Anyway, you can always check my Facebook and Instagram for more current updates. For now, here’s my birthday vlog I wanted to share here:

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Our Engagement Teaser Video

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Mahal and I have been best friends since 2012, have been life partners since 2014, and have been formally engaged since April 24, 2022. Our lives have changed since then and with the hustle and bustle of running our businesses, homeschooling Tuz, and enjoying our lives to the fullest, it’s just now that I’ve had the time to share this beautiful engagement teaser video with you. Between the two of us, I am the more open one… like my life has always been an open book to the public. But because I want to also respect Mahal’s more introverted and private nature, I’ve slowly adopted this demeanor of his. I don’t immediately share now some stuff going on in our lives. But eventually, I do find a way to make them come out to the public… lol!

We’ve already watched this video a gazillion times and now we’re ready to share it with you guys. After all, our beach wedding is in 5 months and we really need to get things going.

By the way, this is just our post engagement video. It is not a pre-nup shoot yet so to speak. We just wanted to have a remembrance of how we got engaged at Shangri-la Mactan and how lucky we are that two of the best photographers and videographers in Cebu City (in my opinion + they were featured at Sugbo.ph) were the ones who did this for us. They will also be the ones to do our Pre-Nup shoot this coming summer and we are so excited about it!

For now, enjoy our engagement teaser video.

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How We Celebrated Valentine’s Day Throughout These Years

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I was planning to have a repeat of how we celebrated Valentine’s Day last year because I really liked it so much. But because we are in Cebu City today (we’ve been here since Feb. 11 doing a different kind of shopping spree and running some important errands), and we won’t be traveling back home until probably evening of Valentine’s Day itself, I just thought of sharing with you here some of the things we did to celebrate the love occasion throughout these years. 

This post is actually a long dedication to my Mahal, who stuck with me throughout all these many years (we’ll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of our best friendship this March and we are now on our 90th month of being together as life partners); who loved me and continue to love me through thick and thin; who, despite all my flaws and craziness, continue to show his patience, dedication, and commitment to me and our little family. I just want to declare to the whole world how much I appreciate everything he does for me and our son, and I thank God every day for him coming into my life…

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2021 Highlights: a Gratitude Post for the Year That Was

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I saw this image quote on my social media feeds and it struck a chord in me. It says:

“This January, start the year with an empty jar. Each week, add a note with a good thing that happened. 

On New Year’s Eve, empty the jar and read about the amazing year you had.” 

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Typhoon Rai (Odette): Nightmare Before Christmas 

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Just when you had everything planned out for the remainder of the year — your tasks, projects, finances, celebrations… the biggest typhoon of your life hit you — metaphorically and literally. 

We were minding our usual business… I was working and finishing my deadlines for the week and getting ready for client meetings. Mahal was busy with the resort. Everyone was working. Though we were getting news reports about an impending typhoon, upon checking, the eye of Typhoon Rai or locally known as Typhoon Odette won’t be hitting us but instead, it will head straight to Cebu City which is 3-4 hours away from where we are. We had plans of doing our Christmas shopping there that weekend so we figured that we just had to reschedule. Plus, we’ve already experienced so many kinds of weather conditions here that we became complacent. We felt confident that it’s just another one of those storms. There could possibly be a brownout (electricity getting cut off) that will last for an hour or two, or at the most overnight, but that was it. We didn’t do any kind of preparation at all — we didn’t save water; we didn’t charge our phones and electrical devices; we didn’t check if we still have enough gas; we didn’t buy supplies… nothing. It was as if it was just another day in our beach kind of life. 

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5 Things You Can Do Instead of Social Media (Facebook Disabled My Account and I’m Thankful!)

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Oh my goodness! 

It’s going to be Christmas soon, then New Year, and I still haven’t blogged about the things I’ve always wanted to blog about (like the happiest Halloween we’ve ever had)! As usual, so many joyful and exciting things have happened and continue to happen in my life for which I am very much thankful! I’m living my dream beach life and each and every day I try my best to spend it as if it were my last but without sacrificing my health too much this time around (hence, I’m not forcing myself to stay awake and do more than what my 16 waking hours would permit) coz health is one thing that we really treasure the most these days plus, at this day and age, it could really be our last with Covid around and this endless pandemic!

Anyway, it’s a blessing in disguise that Facebook disabled my account last Friday night just because I was posting photos of Mahal and Tuz in a five-star resort bathtub! They weren’t fully naked and I didn’t know bathtub photos were not allowed so I immediately deleted the post only to be disabled afterward. I can’t post, I can’t comment, I can’t react… and it’s going to be for a week! Argh! Has this happened to you before? What did you do? 

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reduce stress

3 Simple Ways to Reduce Stress During These Hard Times

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How are you? We are on the 18th month of this pandemic and so many things have already happened… deaths left and right… Covid getting closer and closer to home (if it hasn’t hit yours already… it surely did mine. 5 of our family members caught Covid and thankfully survived it despite not getting vaccinated)… businesses shutting down… people suffering…. freedom getting suppressed in many places around the world…. and all this is starting to get on my nerves. Do you feel the same? Am I alone in feeling this way? If you’re on the same boat as I am, don’t fret. There are ways we can do to try to ride these waves. And we must. I just read an article on Bloomberg that this pandemic can last for a really long time. We can’t just give up, can we?

So what can we do to help reduce our stress during these hard times? Let me share with you some ways we try to do at home to help cope with this depressing worldwide situation:

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ON SURVIVING THE 7-YEAR ITCH ON OUR 7TH ANNIVERSARY AND STRIVING TO LIVE A BEACH KIND OF LIFE DESPITE THE PANDEMIC

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As our 7th anniversary was fast approaching, I was tapped by Mommy Ruby of CDO Bloggers Group to participate in a campaign by a certain insurance company. It was about being stronger now despite whatever it is that we are struggling with. What came to  mind was about being stronger than my demons because as I’ve mentioned before, my emotional and mental health haven’t been that well lately. 

Below, I am sharing with you the original draft of what I wrote in that campaign which in a way helped me recognize my power, my strength, and sense of resilience.  

And further down below, You can watch the entire video on how we spent our 7th anniversary despite the lockdown here in Oslob. ❤❤❤

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