Hidden Valley Springs: A mountain resort

Three weekends ago, Daddy had a strategic planning seminar in Laguna, Alaminos and he brought me along, together with mommy.

Laguna is situated southeast of Manila and it took us approximately 1.5 hours of driving time to get to Laguna (without much traffic). Thereafter, we took another 45 minutes drive to arrive in Hidden Valley Springs Resort. As its name described, this resort is really well hidden in the mountains. It is a secluded spot wedged between 2 mystical mountains, Mount Makiling. The resort is itself, a 300 feet deep volcanic crater believed to have been formed by volcanic upheaval thousands of years ago. The mountain resort sunk 1,000 feet below sea level. The hidden waterfalls, natural spring and pools are formed by water constantly flowing from the mountaintop, said to be rainfall accumulated through the years.

This was my first experience swimming in a pool filled with warm and comforting natural spring water, nestled in the middle of a rainforest. We had to take a little "trekking" trip to get there and love the sounds and smell of nature. When we finally arrived at the pools, I was eager to get inside. The waterfalls were a little too gigantic for me and they intimidated me a little. Perhaps I wasn't too used to swimming in such an environment. However, the second day was definitely better. I am acclimatized by then and I started dunking my head in the pool. It was spring water afterall, safe for drinking. If a picture can paint a thousand words, a video definitely does an even better job:

I spent the rest of my day running around the nicely-landscaped garden, visiting the monkeys and chilling out in our nice and cosy room. Do check out some snapshots uploaded on Facebook.

On the night of our first day, I witnessed my very first partial lunar eclipse. Earlier in the evening, I thought I saw a full moon but later in the night, the full moon took the shape of a crescent. I was excited that I kept pointing to the sky and said "moon, moon"!. Mommy then explained to me that an eclipse occurs when the moon travels into the path that passes behind the earth. When the shadow of the earth covers the moon, a lunar eclipse occur. Interesting isn't it. Mommy commented that she first witnessed a lunar eclipse when she was 14 years old.

Our short little retreat very quickly, came to an end. It was definitely an eye-opener for me; fun and interesting.

Happy 17th Month

Yipee, I recently turned 17 months old (Tuesday). Needless to say, I am getting very active, cheeky, and mischievous. I am more sociable and friendly. I like to entertain people with my funny antics but at the same time, enjoy testing the limits and patience of my parents. I think I am already a big girl so I want my independence in everything I do: eating, cutting up my food, climbing up the stairs, taking a bath with Mommy's facial wash, and even climbing into the stroller and car seat to buckle myself up. And yes, I do not want any assistance.

My gross motor skills are also getting fine tuned...I enjoy walking backwards (and into things since I have no eyes on my back), twirling around in circles, jumping, running and climbing up big chairs and my rocking horse (with wheels; I am a little daredevil too). As for fine motor skills, I love putting different shapes into my shape sorter and I feel encouraged to do more when I get them right. I like stacking blocks too and mommy gets really amused whenever she sees me stacking blocks on my ball. Another skill I have is arranging and aligning things (from shoes, colored blocks to pebbles) :)

My cognitive development is also on track. Mommy has been counting the words that I can say. She is very happy and impressed because for this particular month, I have added not 5 or 10, but over 20 new words to my existing word list. She did a tally and ta da, I can now verbalise at least 80 English words. I got to thank my daddy and mommy for speaking so much to me since I was an infant and more importantly, they did not speak to me in baby language but in proper sentences. As a result, I can understand up to 3-step commands, nod and shake my head accordingly and finally, started my first steps speaking in sentences (e.g. cold water, come daddy, what's that, see it there, are you). My new words are:

• out (out)
• book (book)
  
• brush (brus)
• bib
  
• stack (stax)
  
• hug (hug)
  
• door (oor)
  
• house (house)
  
• swing (ting)
  
• feet (peet)
• arm (arm)
  
• head (hed)
  
• hair (air)
  
• nose (ose)
  
• eye (eye)
  
• ear (ear)
  
• bellybutton (beh beh)
• drop (rop)
• muck
  
• catch (cach)
• zoo (zoo)
• bus (bas)
  
• moon (moon)
• press (bes)
• cold (cold)
  
• hot (hot)
  
• egg (egg)
  
• apple (ple)
• bread (brea)
  
• banana (ba)
• mango (mang)
• yogurt (gurt)
  
• cockroach (cock)
• flower (powber)
• socks (sox)
• box (box)
  
• take (take)
• marble (marble)
• twinkle (kle)
• ouch
• blue (blue)
• spoon (poon)
• buckle (buck)
• stop (lop)

My word recognition skills are also getting better. I can now recognize and read more words than before. Mommy also realized that my print awareness has gotten better because when I see words, I attempt to read by the sound of the letter that I see in the words (e.g. arm for aircon, ca for cabinet). This goes the same for numbers. When I see numbers, I start saying things that sounded like numbers (though they might not be accurate; e.g. oh, oo, ee, orh, ive). I can also identify a few numbers when I see them; 2,4,5,7,8,10.

That's it for now. There are so much for me to learn and do stay tune for more updates.