Dear Mama,

as always, please check out my wordpress for high res photos :)

I’d like to thank you for all the smiles you give me everyday

even though you’ve gone/going through a lot of obstacles. Sometimes you even fight our battles for us, your children.

 I thank God for giving you strength to do that because you never showed any sign of weakness. Never.

Sorry for all the times I’ve been such a brat, especially when it’s my birthday or Christmas. But always know that I never take the things you give to me for granted.

You’re more than a mother to us since you’ve tried your best to carry out fatherly duties as well.

I can only hope to be as good as a daughter as you are a daughter to Lola Pacing.

Yannis and Sean are lucky to have you as a grandmother.

No one is like you. No one comes close.

So thank you, mama! I know I’m not very vocal with my feelings but I hope this letter would do. I love you! (ang cheesy diba haha)

From Iya

Christmas Baguio/Rosario trip 2011 in film

Please click on the photos for a better view of the pictures(apparently you have to be on my page first if you’re viewing this from the dashboard). Tumblr makes the photos slightly blurier so please do click on them if you want to see better quality. :)

shot with a Ricoh Singlex TLS using Kodak Colorplus 200 film

In Baguio

Christmas lunch at the Baguio Country Club with some cousins (we had a 24th of December lunch with the rest of the mother side relatives at my lola’s house down in Rosario, La Union). 

Eggnog and champagne. Mhmm.

Feet shots are so common but I love taking them!

My favorite cousin. He’s big, funny and rides a Vespa.

Batirol chocolate + Baguio weather = most relaxed I’ve been this break

Attack of the mustache.

There’s a cross placed on Kennon road in memory of a bus full of children that lost its brakes and tragically fell off the steep cliff years ago.

In Rosario

Outside my lola’s house

This is probably the only Nikon camera I’ll ever own. Hahaha

So I got a big box sent to the office and this was inside:

My dad’s old camera bag containing his film stuff!

Nikon FG-20 with 3 lenses, different filters, a National camera flash and a mini tripod. The white thing is an old light meter I remember playing with when I was a child. So yeah, it’s broken. :))

Kids, this is a shutter release cable for film cameras. Cool stuff, huh?

You press it and a pin comes out. Of course you’d have to screw in the “pin end” to the shutter button first.

I was surprised that my dad owned one of these! You techy camera geeks have the expensive camera grips but check this out:

It’s a sort of camera grip with a cold shoe for a camera flash!

Camera manual with my dad’s notes on the cover.

I’ve ALWAYS wanted to ‘inherit’ this camera from my dad. So thanks, dad, for sending this in time for Christmas! I really appreciate it since you’ve captured so many of my childhood memories using this. Merry Christmas! :)