Weekend #9: Terra 28th and Mango Tree

I confessed in a couple of posts in the past to being a homebody. I stay true to that claim to this day. But once in a while, I do welcome spending our weekends outside of our home. I feel we need do that to instill some sense of "social life balance" (okay, i invented that) on our kid. 

Being out and experiencing "life" outside of our home is important to a school kid like my daughter (in my opinion, that is). Trying out new restaurants gives her palate some sense of adventure (the foodie kind of way) and interacting with kids other than classmates and our neighbors affords her the experience to socialize with kids that are not categorized as friends or acquaintances. Strangers, if you want to really label it. 

Despite being very outspoken and talkative, I grew up a very shy kid. I attribute that to my lack of 'experience'. I wasn't very sociable as kid. I chose to confine myself in the comforts of our home and devour books and watch TV then. The only kids I knew were the kids on my block and right across the street. I remain friends with them till now though. Yes, I can probably say wherever life took us, our childhood memories somehow stuck with us. And thank God for the rise of social media, we still get to correspond and update one another with what's going on in our lives every so often. BUT I digress yet again.

My point is, yes you build solid friendships even if you don't go out often. But it also relegates you to thinking it's okay to choose mediocrity just because you're too scared to take risks. My mommy friend Maggie has this wonderful post on spontaneity and in my case, I was admittedly a late bloomer in that department. Honestly, I love this new version of me more (the spontaneous one). I would wish for my daughter to nurture the same spirit as I have now. Life is for the living as they say. And to me, part of living is being out there experiencing LIFE. 

i made this thinking it's a week's worth of words but by Sunday she'll learned to read all of it. atat. kanino pa kaya nagmana?

So anyways, before I blabber some more, let me just share with you how we spent last weekend. Again it was a good mix of lazy and busy. We spent the entire Saturday at home. We painted new words to learn in the morning and napped mostly in the afternoon. Sunday was the busy one. But it was the good kind because I finally got to connect with my college buddy M who is also my daughter's ninang (well, we both are godparents to our kids as we're not really superstitious like that). 

life sized playmobil figures at one of our fave stops in BHS - Hobbes and Landes

M and I decided to meet up at Bonifacio Global City since we both have not been there for quite a long time (like several months) now. I used to work in the Fort area and admittedly, I love spending time there. It's just the perfect place to spend family day outs. Plenty of space for the kids to run around and restos all over for the adults to do catch up chatter. 

This weekend, the hubs and I decided to bring the kid to Terra 28th. It's pretty rundown now. The seesaw in particular was already broken but it was still a nice place to hang out with your hyperactive kid. We taught Maia how to play piko and patintero and she had fun learning it. She also invented her own game and christened it: ZIGZAG STONES because yes the mechanics is to run in ZIGZAG without stepping on any of the stones that were scattered on the grass.

Let's play ZIGZAG STONES, Mommy! LEZGOW!

It was a very humid day last Sunday but we still managed to spend a good one hour in that playground. After that it started drizzling so we headed to nearby BHS for cover just in time as well to meet M. We unanimously agreed it was a good day to feast on Thai food so we headed to the recently opened BHS Central where a cluster of new restaurants (well at least for me) are located (this is where Slice is located too, we wanted to dine there but the place was packed and we all have a common allergic to crowds hahaha). We shared a sumptuous lunch of red chicken curry, sauteed crabs, veggies and tom yum at Mango Tree. Everything we ordered was a winner. Sorry no photos to show as we were all so hungry, we didn't bother to take photos anymore but Maia really enjoyed the Tom Yum soup (but she got full instantly because she would sip at her Mango shake every time she takes a bit of the fish from the soup. should remember to order the milder version next time). If you are a fan of Thai food, I would suggest you try this resto. The ambiance is just perfect for family gatherings. No loud music. And the dining area is very cozy. We were tempted to take power naps after our filling lunch. 

PHOTO SOURCE. I would come back for this every weekend, if I can.

After lunch, the daddy and the baby little miss headed to Fully Booked to bond while M and I window shopped. When we got tired we decided to grab coffee and dessert at The Cake Club (also in BHS Central). We shared a slice of Guia (which was just so heavenly, if you are a cheesecake person I highly recommend you try it). We called it a day at around 5pm because the kid looked pretty wiped out. True enough, she was snoring on our commute home. Tired to the nth level.

I can do this maybe at least once a month. Since I'm making lists of things to do already I'm sure there's bound to be several repeats of weekends like this. It was just the perfect kid kind. Not rushed. Just well-spent one.

How's your week been so far? If you're the kind who likes to join blog contests, please hop on over to my mommy friend Aimee's blog and join her blog anniversary giveaway. Amazing prizes, I'm tellin' ya.

And if you like handmade stuff, I encourage you to visit Pepper's The Wagon Shop as well. Or if you're a dessert monster like me, you would love Sha's cupcakes and Maggie's cakepops. 

I hope what's left of the work week is going to be kind to you because I wish the same for me. :)