Design: One Farmhouse (Part 3) -- Post Halloween Edition

My family and I went to my parents' vacation house up north for the long weekend here in the Philippines. We had a long non-working holiday weekend not because of Halloween but All Saints' Day.

November 1st is always the time for Filipinos to remember their loved ones who passed away.

It just so happened that the 31st of October was declared, too, as a non-working holiday, hence the 4-day weekend.

As I was saying, we went up north; there rarely was any Internet connection. Their vacation house was kind of in the middle of nowhere. There were a few 3G spots here and there (like in the lanai bench, or in the seating area of the mini chapel in the garden -- READ -- too scary on Halloween night). I need to tell you though, having the personal hotspot connected to my Mac made my surfing super fast -- faster than surfing on the phone), but I just discovered it too late.

The chapel in all its glory.

Over the past however so many years, my mother always buy fresh cut flowers and does the floral arrangements herself. She bought potted flowers this time to place at the cemetery. I think that they are absolutely divine.

Uhmm okay maybe I'm just a sucker for hydrangeas.

I still can't get over the fact that you can actually get hydrangeas here!

I think they're hydrangeas, but looking at the stem, I'm not so sure anymore. They're still lovely.

It was my mom and sister's birthday celebration too. Here's my mom with Alyssa.

And here's my sister. Oh, she's going to get mad I posted her picture here. Haha.

We celebrated... with food. Lots and lots of food.

Here's their cake, which was made by the same dude who designed Alyssa's christening cakes. It melted during the 3-hour travel from the city.

On another note, this is Simba, my other sister's golden retreiver.

Alyssa loves watching him. It's one of her favorite things to do... as well as feed the koi in the pond.

There are also live turkeys in my parents' farmhouse.

My baby was so happy.

She even had enough energy to pose for her week 33 photo -- as a fairy.