Category: Love & Relationships

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 that 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!

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Why Do We Need To Adopt Our Own Biological Child and How? An Ongoing Story of a Not-So-Common Adoption Case in the Philippines

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Why do we need to adopt our own biological child?

That was actually our question when it was first brought to our attention that fateful day in February 2016 when I first met up with my then annulment lawyer to file for the nullity of my first marriage. He’s a bright, hardworking, albeit 90-year old family lawyer at that time who mentioned it in passing as he was selling us his services because at that time, if I get annulled, and if we want to legitimize Tuz’s succession, we need to undergo the process of our own child’s adoption. So right then and there, adoption has already been on our mind.

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La Vie Parisienne… A Little Slice of Paris in Cebu City 

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In case you’re already looking for a place to have your perfect Valentine’s Date with your significant other, I thought of sharing here with you this instagrammable food place we’ve already visited twice in the past few months. It’s one of the top restaurants in Cebu City which will give you that Parisian vibe. Aptly called La Vie Parisienne along 371 Gorordo Ave., we indeed felt transported back in time to the famous French city. And since we can’t yet go visit Paris right now, we figured, going somewhere that would make us feel we’re in my dream city is the next best thing to do. 

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Gratitude Shoutout to the Universe

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I’ve always been the grateful kind of person. It’s that one consistent attitude I have in life that has helped me a lot in combating my depressive moods, hormonal imbalances, and mood swings growing up. And I’m happy to say that these extremely negative emotions haven’t been cropping up that much in the last few years of my life; and whenever they do pop up, I still do feel the sadness, yes, because I am still human after all, but I think I’ve already mastered the art of not dwelling on the negativity anymore and I immediately get to change the channels I am tuning into, and of course, that one constant channel I go to is gratitude.

Just lately, after Mahal and I did our not-so-secret civil wedding and we’re finally and legally husband and wife, a barrage of grateful emotions have been and are constantly filling my heart. Who would have thought that I will be one of the lucky not-so-many who can get annulled and be married again when so many broken married couples haven’t been granted the same? Who would have thought that I will have another chance at a love like ours? The love, commitment, and loyalty we have for each other cannot even compare to the previous kinds of love I’ve felt in my life! Ours just constantly keeps getting better and better, and with a child like our son who is so good, so smart, so mature for his age, we feel so overwhelmingly blessed beyond words! I really cannot capture the right words for it, I end up just crying for joy! Thank you, God, for blessing us with more than we deserve!

I remember during those dark moments in my life when I kneeled on my bed, and cried my heart out to God with both my arms raised in heaven asking God for help… to help me get through that turbulent time in my life and help me find happiness again. What God has given us now is way beyond my expectations and I am eternally grateful! Thank you! Thank you!

You can read about my other gratitude posts here:

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Secret Civil Wedding: Becoming Mrs. Villanueva Part 1

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It was supposed to be a “secret wedding”… We wanted our partnership to be legal and official even before we lay out all the plans for 2023, one of which is being able to do our dream beach wedding. Blame it to my “segurista” and OC personality, I just want everything ironed out on the legal front before the year ends. And I’m very grateful for the fact that Mahal has always wanted to marry me and supports me all the way, til forever and beyond… ❤

Actually, if we didn’t have the funds to do a beach wedding next year, a simple, “secret”, intimate civil wedding one is what we’ll really do. We are both introverts after all. I was even content to just have a piece of thread tied to my finger as a promise of his love. But thank you, God, for blessing us with a beautiful engagement, complete with an engagement photoshoot and engagement video shoot, and even an engagement honeymoon in Camotes Island which I’ll share here soon. We really feel so grateful plus I feel like such a celebrity (lol!) doing 2 kinds of weddings. Actually, even before J.Lo and Ben Affleck did their two weddings, doing the same had always been my plan… the two stars just beat us to it! Lol!

Didn’t JLo say

“Life is an art… and we are the artists… make it as beautiful as you want and create exactly what you want it to be…”

So that’s what we did!

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BEHIND THE SCENES – The Making of Our Engagement Photoshoot and Teaser Video

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This is the making of our engagement teaser video. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can check my previous blog post here: Our Engagement Teaser Video

Or head straight to my vlog. It’s a beautifully done romantic and fun video, and Mahal and I never get tired of watching it. This is connected to my Shangri-la Mactan 5-star vacation post.

Before, I used to envy couples who get engaged and share their pre-nup videos and I kept wondering if something like that could ever happen for me. I wondered how they had done it? What preparations, sacrifices, situations did they face to reach that blissful phase in their life? Now that we’re doing it, and we’re doing it just the way we want the whole engagement and marriage done, I couldn’t be any happier! My time has finally come! Hihihi!

Actually, I had no intention of sharing the raw videos of our photo and video shoot but when I watched them, I realized how “bungisngis” we were, meaning, we were really just laughing all the time, enjoying each moment of the shoot, and just appreciating this wonderful time in our relationship.

Anyway, you’ll know what I mean when you see the video. So without further a do, here it is:

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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 to Communicate Better With Your Significant Other? [Real Talk with My Then Live-In Partner]

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The recording of this video happened 13 months ago, Nov. 17, 2021, at Crimson Resort in Mactan as we were celebrating Tuz’s 6th birthday. I’ve always wanted to share this here in the hopes that it may give some helpful insights for other couples, particularly those living together for several years now, who are trying to be better partners and lovers and trying to find certainty about where their relationship is really going.

I mentioned it here on my previous blog post that Mahal and I have had our share of tough times in our relationship prior to getting engaged last April 25, 2022. There have been so many fights and we almost broke up for good. I believe that one of the major reasons why we were able to work things out, stay together, and continue to love one another was because of our willingness to be better communicators. We already know we love each other so, so much. That’s already a given. But if we don’t know how to properly communicate our wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings, we will continue to crumble as a couple.

So I’m very thankful for talks like this because it made loving each other much easier. Plus, looking back, it just makes me all the more proud of how far we’ve come in our relationship, how deeper our understanding of each other is now, and how much more we’ve grown to love each other, more than we ever did before…

So, here it is… bring some popcorn with you because this is quite long… ❤

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