shrimp omelette for the hungry little breakfast monster

it was a rainy sunday here on the island on august 25th. everyone was still peacefully tucked under their fluffy blankets and there i was dying of envy. our little girl wakes up at 5:30 every morning and there hasn’t been a morning in the last two years of my life when i didn’t wish she would wake up a bit later. 

wish never granted.

i must admit though that a lot of good things happen when you wake up early. one of them is getting fresh seafood from the vendor who carries two or three different kinds of fish everyday. but shrimps are always a blessing because i won’t have to wait for my husband to clean them. it’s something that i can’t (and am not willing to) do. 

our little monster is not only the very early bird that mercilessly drags me out of bed every morning, she’s also the monster bird who loves to eat a huge breakfast. none of us are crazy about early morning meals, but like they say, there’s always a cute and unique little monster among the monsters. 

there are about a hundred recipes for shrimp omelette. i wanted to make mine simple though because one, i was only half awake and half willing to cook, and two, i did not think our little monster required a palate adventure as early as six in the morning.

if you want to whip out a yummy breakfast in five minutes, here’s something that you might want to try.

shrimp omelette for the hungry little breakfast monster

ingredients

• 10 shrimps, peeled and cut in halves
• 2 eggs
• salt,  less than a pinch if it’s for your little ones at home
• butter
• pepper

directions     

• beat two eggs in a  bowl, add a little salt and pepper. set aside
• in a non-stick skillet, sauté shrimps in a little oil until they turn pink then add a small cube of butter
• add the eggs, wait till one side cooks then fold

ta-dah! there you go. the kind of breakfast your little one will say “yuuummmy!” to. mine hugged me and told me sweetly, “thank you mommy. egg is yummy! i love you!”

 

that was a mouthful for a two-year old girl, and if cooking breakfast will give me that every morning, i’d be more than glad to drag myself out of bed on my own.

boracay bed and breakfast

 

this was where the four of us said “i do”

the question simply was, “do we want a home here?”

the four of us were enjoying a long walk towards the south tip of the long beach in boracay a few days before our flight back to manila when our 11-year old son popped the question: “how can we bring back all the shells and pebbles we collected in the last two weeks?”

i wasn’t sure if he was worried if we’d be allowed to take them out of the island or if we’d be charged extra for “excess baggage” which of course i knew would oddly be the case. my husband’s answer was brief, simple and exhilarating for the three of us who stood under the drizzle.

“then we don’t leave,” he said smiling.

days and weeks passed and friends and family began asking if we were staying for good. my only answer was “we’re here and we’re there. we can’t bring the beach to manila and we can’t bring manila to the beach.”

you see, we believe that life is a journey and home for us is anywhere as long as we’re together.  and so, we made the decision to make boracay our home, too.

we would love to share our home with those who will be making their own journeys to this side of the philippines, whether it's a long one or a very short getaway. read and share about our bed and breakfast here:

cole & attika boracay bed and breakfast

cole & attika boracay bed and breakfast

new banner for rirs

don't you think this new banner is pretty? i just love its sleek design. i'm going to miss the old one for about...five minutes, then i'm going to be loving this new baby for a long, long time.

shout-out to one of my favorite artists, bj erasga, for this new look. 

now it's time to celebrate with a monster pizza. since you're a plane-ride away, bj, i shall have all your slices kept safe inside this famished tummy of mine. 

coco huts boracay

we recently flew to boracay, a first of what we hope will be a series of journeys beginning this year. it was a birthday gift from mr young and the kids, an upgrade from last year’s awesome ultimate spa experience. since it’s been a while since our last trip as a family (and the first for our little one), we were all extremely hyped up about it. somebody even created a playlist for the escape to the island, which of course, included all my favorite dance and chillout music. 

 

a couple of months before the trip, we spent a considerable amount of time trying to find the perfect accommodation for us. “perfect” means different things for different people but part of our definition was an affordable beachfront hotel, a clean and safe place.

we found our place at the southern end of station 1 at the white beach sitting atop army navy. it’s close to good restaurants so finding a place to dine in was no trouble. well, there’s army navy right under your room so there was always delish taco to begin your afternoon with. you get a 10% discount at army navy if you're a guest at coco huts, by the way. 

that’s what mr young and i did exactly when the little one went for a nap and our eleven-year old decided to hit the water one afternoon under the sweltering heat. we had to be where we could easily run up to the room to check on attika and watch cole while he’s swimming -— and that meant sitting at the beachfront with tacos and a couple of beers for company. not bad for a couple who just wanted to sit together, hold hands between sips and suck the good life in as long as we could.

and oh, if coffee from starbucks is part of your early morning fancies, it’s only a few steps away from coco huts. there are also 24-hour convenience stores next to the hotel (both sides actually) so you have everything that you need within your reach -- from sachets of instant coffee to spirits. 

i’ve noticed that one of the biggest considerations made by people when booking hotels in boracay is its distance from d’mall. coco huts is within comfortable distance from d’mall. by comfortable, i mean you can just go anytime if you needed (surely it’s mostly 'wanted') anything from there, come back and not feel like you just came from the marathon. there, the good news is out.

the family room

the place that we got was not really what you would call a room since it had three floors and a loft. until now we still have no name for it but one of the things that helped mr young decide instantly was the impressive architecture and the brilliant use of space in the hotel. some beach hotels would squeeze in beds in small spaces, throw in tacky wall decors that would make the already limited spaces more suffocating. coco huts was the exact opposite of that with a minimalist approach to design that made the spaces inside look and feel a lot bigger and cleaner. as a matter of fact, for a beachfront unit, it was huge and could comfortably (and hypothetically) accommodate around 13 people, but the management of course will allow a maximum of eight guests in the family room. in our case, there were four of us adults, an eleven-year old and two little people.

the first room 
photo courtesy of coco huts

view of the room from the opposite side.
that's our niece running away from me

the second floor. otherwise known as my mother's
favorite place in the world for a few days 
photo courtesy of coco huts

the third floor. we put the beds together
so it was comfortable for mr young, me
and our little one between us
photo courtesy of coco huts 

cole's loft

photo courtesy of coco huts

one of the best things about the coco huts experience was having a spacious balcony overlooking the blue waters of the white beach. i never had idle moments in boracay but parenting does change some of your beach routines. you can’t go party at night because you don’t want to leave the kids “at home”. so what we did was we brought the party home. no, it wasn’t the crazy partying like what we all did when we were younger. we had friends over, a couple who own a business in boracay, and whom we haven’t seen for ages. we bought drinks from the convenience store and enjoyed (and sometimes abhorred) the music from the party at the beachfront. free music, cheap drinks and a very long night playing catch-up. sweet.

the balcony overlooking our piece of heaven
photo courtesy of coco huts

the cousin getting a tan

we won't be needing this huge, beautiful space when we go back in june since it will only be the four of us. but if we ever come around with a couple of guests with us, you will surely find us here again. we went to boracay during the "high season", so the daily rate was a reasonable PhP 6,300.00 (USD 154) per day. 

i sure hope you all have a great summer! you might also want to read middle march. 

here are the numbers to call if you want to book: +63 36 288 2301 (landline), +63 932 885 0959 (mobile). you may also e-mail them at boracaycocohuts@yahoo.com

boracay, coco huts, army navy, cheap boracay accommodation , beachfront hotel boracay, army  navy, family room, station 1, station 2, station 3, bora hotel, boracay hotel, guesthouse boracay

middle march

hala! so i’ve heard this space here has been suffering from brutal neglect. (insert shamefaced icon here).

i was assigned the hunky-dory duty of taking my husband’s cousin from australia and her gorgeous blue-eyed daughter around to shop. the shopping (window-shopping on my part) went on for days and i ought to say, what could be a better part-time job than that? i sucked in a lot of good energy from retail-watching and i certainly hope those steve madden cuties i fell in love with would patiently wait for me. after all, i won the eye-staring contest (yes, rightfully against a pair of ballerina flats) so i firmly believe that i deserve a prize. it would be lovely to take home the loser, wouldn’t it?

i turned 37 last march 3 and like all the years that passed, this one,too, didn’t hurt. i got stuck at 25 and i guess that’s how it’s going to be no matter how hoary i’d look with all the lines and creases on my face 50 years from now.

dairy queen's oreo cheesecake ice cream cake.
not the smartest pre-island diet
but even a martian would say 'yes' to this

a (not so) surprise trip was planned for my birthday and it was our little girl’s many firsts at 1.6 years old, so i was a bit worried about how she’d take her first airplane ride, how to sterilize her feeding bottles while we were out vacationing and which sunblock was the best for her. all those worries and yet all i could manage to do was to buy her three different kinds of swimwear and throw everything i could grab into her baby bag. so much for a planning-champ mother.

taking a break from the red stilettos.
silly things...but you buy
and wear them anyway

then there was the island called boracay. it’s been many years since the last time i stepped on the island and this recent trip we had was a (literal) burst of good sunshine for the entire family. it was so good that another trip is being brewed by this guy sitting beside me who can’t stop thinking about staying in boracay longer and burying his feet under the sand while he’s working. if he succeeds with this ultimate plan then that means i’ll also be working in my swimwear… and carrying around my little one who firmly insisted when we were there that the sand was “dirty”. that’s the punishment i get for unconsciously rubbing off baby version of oc-ness on her.

there's life...then there's THE life

one of the best things about the trip was seeing a long-time friend whom i have not seen in years. our daughters and husbands met for the first time and what a lovely time that was. 

my gigi and my ally

when i filed for a leave of absence (to the tune of “it’s a holiday ‘coz it’s my birthday”), my editor replied animatedly with “have fun! you deserve a vacation!”

i can’t remember any other boss who ever told me that i deserved a vacation.

so march? we’re about to kiss my birth month goodbye and i’ll do so with gratitude for being undoubtedly a winsome one. 

  

ps. young and talented graphic artist bj erasga is designing a new banner for running in red stilettos which we will see soon. so i’m up on my red stiletoes tiptoeing in sheer excitement!

okay...maybe not this young.
he's grown a bit now

boracay, pisces, steve madden, shopping in manila, dairy queen, ice cream cake, toe bikinis, oc, baby travel, graphic artist, bj erasga, baby swimwear

capiz shells -- old friends come back around

yes, you're seeing eggs in our living room.
we like making our decorative pieces functional   

we recently went hunting for interesting pieces for the house and discovered this antique shop/warehouse not too far from where we live. the boys and i hyperventilated when we saw the pieces being sold. i revamped our home office a couple of weeks ago and the husband and i agreed that aged window panels embellished with capiz shells would look perfect on the off-white wall behind my desk.  we found just what we were looking for and that made it an awesome sunday for us.

maxi, the antique shop owner, told us our pieces are from ilocos

i personally have a special connection with these window pieces because it reminds me of our humble home way back in the 70's. as a little girl, i enjoyed sitting  by the window where the planters were to watch what was happening on the busy street below me. we lived in an old apartment surrounded by sliding windows and i remember how pretty they looked, especially when the sun shone on the capiz shells in the morning. 

my mother owned an insanely heavy oval antique table with intricate carvings. to her it was part of a collection, but to me it was my house. i’d bring my toys and stay under there most of the day. if the house would fall silent and i was nowhere to be found, that meant i had fallen into slumber in my “house”. one of the things i remember doing while lying under the table was watching the blue sky through a hole in the window where a piece of capiz shell once belonged.

now, seeing these panels on different parts of the house pleasantly sweep in nostalgia. we only needed two panels for the office but ended up buying five — because they’re too pretty to turn our backs to.

i’m currently completing the work that i’m doing in the office. i’ll post pictures when we have the final look. for me, it’s half done without the lamp. we’re still hunting for the “right one”.

capiz shells, antique shop, manila, philippines, sunset, sunlight, home office, decoration, window panel, old table