Married Life – Page 2 – Chasing Dreams

How to Celebrate Your 3rd Wedding Anniversary (Wife Edition)

August 29, 2014June 20, 2019 Rhiza3 Comments

Your third year as a married couple is such a great year. By this time you would have adjusted pretty well to living together, and have grown a deeper level of understanding and acceptance of each other. Which means, less fights, more happy conversations, and a messier house. Having children in your 3rd year comes with totally different dynamics too, but the addition of little humans in the house makes it all the more fun!

Here are 8 suggestions to celebrate your third wedding anniversary: Continue reading “How to Celebrate Your 3rd Wedding Anniversary (Wife Edition)” →

Three Years Ago

August 16, 2014June 27, 2019 RhizaLeave a comment

Three years ago today, we were about to come home from our honeymoon, excited to start our life together. Wow. So much has happened since!

Every once in a while (and by “a while” I mean “a year”), I like having an excuse to relive memories from our wedding day and go through old photographs. And what better time to do that than now, yes? Besides, my Timehop has been bursting with wedding posts this whole week!

So bear with me for this photo dump of sorts, I can’t help it! It’s that time of the year. :)

The truth is, even though our wedding day was one of the most special, much-awaited events of our lives, I don’t really remember a lot of details from that day. It was as if I was placed inside a bubble where it was just me and David, and everything else faded in the background and nothing else mattered.

In retrospect, it’s good we had someone else taking photographs that day, without which we probably wouldn’t have a recollection of what was happening outside our little bubble!

It was such a happy day, and at that point we didn’t think anything can top the happiness that we felt and the joy in our hearts. We were proven wrong, of course, because three years later, God is still giving us reasons to be even happier (and more in love) than we were a year ago. :)

Our wedding is Josiah’s Catering’s Wedding Throwback this week. Check it out!

Remember this 30 Day Blog Challenge? It feels good to look back.

Photos taken by our brothers, Ed Roderick Canuto and Nate Sanchez.

Love Comes Tumbling Down

August 13, 2014August 13, 2014 RhizaLeave a comment

Dear David,

Do you remember that day? We ran around the old Philippine Air Force museum grounds with our small crew of 3, cramming our prenup video. We had to be quick because the sun was about to set that day and we didn’t have a lot of days left. Our wedding was less than a week away.

Do you remember that day? We were grinning from ear to ear, couldn’t keep our eyes off each other, couldn’t contain our joy. We awkwardly posed where they told us to pose, jumped when they told us to jump, chased each other when they said we should, smiled for the camera till our cheeks hurt.

Do you remember that day? We were so happy like we were living in a dream, except that our eyes were wide open and you’re, well, for real. And while we knew then that the best was still yet to come, we still couldn’t have guessed what God had in store for us!

Do you remember that day?

It’s been three years since then. So much has changed and so much has remained the same (we still chase each other around and smile til our cheeks hurt, that’s for sure). But in the midst of the big and small changes, the good times and bad times, you still remain to be the boy who makes my heart sing.

Thank you for being a huge part of the happiest days of my life, and even the ordinary ones. You’re my most favorite blessing. A lifetime thanking God for you is not enough.

Happy third year anniversary!
I love you, don’t forget.

Love, Riz

Continue reading “Love Comes Tumbling Down” →

An afternoon at UP Diliman, and thoughts about “being all there”

April 29, 2014July 1, 2017 Rhiza4 Comments

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I guess I’ve proven enough in my life that the unplanned trips are the ones that actually push through. So my husband and I took an afternoon trip, on a whim, to my alma mater, and it was gooood.

He did a nice job documenting our afternoon in a post on his Facebook wall, and I thought I’d keep a record of our afternoon date in this blog too. Late lunch at Rodics, Mang Larry’s isaw (craving satisfied!), a walk around the acad oval and sunken garden, a quick stop at the university avenue to take pictures of the sunflowers (because they’re so popular lately—this and this), and a final stop at Razons for some halo-halo (his craving satisfied!) before heading home.

It was an added treat that the College of Engineering was having their graduation ceremony while we were there. It reminded me of my own graduation day, and gave D a little glimpse of how a UP graduation looks like. He was thrilled to see Oblation wearing a sablay, and couldn’t get over why it’s called “sablay” when it symbolizes success, quite the opposite of what the word means in Tagalog. (I couldn’t give an answer.)

It’s not the first time I took him there, but something about this particular afternoon that was a little extra special. Maybe because I left a pile of work at home and it felt so liberating to ditch a few tasks and do something on a whim. Or maybe because I’m a little bit older now, and having my husband with me in places like this makes me look back on years past, and how far God has brought me, us.

Being in UP Diliman always brings me this feeling of nostalgia, good memories, and maybe a little tinge of regret. I wish I made the most of that place. I wish I studied better, appreciated being there more. All those days I spent in the UP campus, dragging my feet to my next class, wishing I was somewhere else, and sometimes, wanting to get college over and done with already. If only I knew that college was going to be so quick, I would have slowed down a little and made the most out of my time there.

Not that I didn’t enjoy my college life, I did. I just sometimes wish I practiced a little “being all there” more. There goes my lesson for the day.

The babies were just waking up from their afternoon nap when we got home, it didn’t feel like we were away at all. Recharged, I went back to my desk, checked my email inbox and went over my never-ending list of tasks to see what else I can tick off for the day.

I’m glad we went to UP. I needed a breather, and to be reminded of things that matter. Besides, it was about time I satisfied my isaw craving.

30th Year With You

December 31, 2013December 31, 2013 RhizaLeave a comment

Allow me to post this before the month (and the year!) ends.

Once upon a time, I was not very fond of Decembers. For me, Christmas season was the saddest of all holidays; like, there’s something melancholy about it that I couldn’t quite point my finger on. But just like the many things that changed in my life, the month of December has become merrier and brighter through the recent years.

Evidently, much of this can be attributed to the addition of this guy in my life, whose birthday happens to fall right smack in the middle of the Christmas season.

And then these two girls were born, and suddenly everyone’s birthday feels like it’s their birthday. My, Decembers have never been better than this.

Highlights of D’s 30th birthday

We were at our bible study group’s blue-and-orange Christmas party the night before his birthday. Totally unintentional, this year’s color motif lends itself well to the birthday boy’s favorite NBA team, and he was happy to have the excuse to wear his New York Knicks shirt..

..which is, obviously, his favorite shirt. (He was wearing the same shirt on his birthday 2 years ago.) Haha. Funny coincidence.

We surprised him with a birthday cake as the clock struck 12mn, and once again we feel blessed to have friends who would, well, wait around ’til past midnight to celebrate special days like this. Thank you, Thursday Group. And special thanks to our friend Jasper, for decorating his birthday cake with robot candles. Very 30-years-old. :)

The rest of his birthday looked like this:

Christmas sunrise worship, tapsilog for breakfast, home-cooked meals, a coffee date to cap the night, the gift of time.

Except for the birthday cake we had in Thursday Group’s Christmas party the night before, I managed to stick to his birthday non-cake tradition. Three years running, LOL. First it was stacked pancakes, then it was donuts, and now, this:

In my defense, I’d looove to buy him a real birthday cake, or maybe even bake him one.. but he hardly eats cake! Either it gets spoiled in the ref, or I end up eating the whole thing, which is bad for my new year’s resolutions, lol. Maybe someday, when Dawn & Rain are big enough to finish Daddy’s birthday cake with me. :)

Thank you, 2013

2013 is the year both of us turned 30 years old, and surely it was the year where we learned the most meaningful of lessons. God blessed us with opportunities to trust Him even more, to live simply, to be content, and to place other people’s welfare above our own.

30th year is a beautiful year in and of itself. As an added bonus, I get to go through this journey with D, to see him grow, and to witness up close what God is doing in his life. What a blessed year indeed. I wouldn’t have it any other way. :)

Sweet Novembers

December 3, 2013May 13, 2019 Rhiza2 Comments

And so the past month ended with us attending a beautiful garden wedding, and I knew we couldn’t have said goodbye to November any better.

My husband and I doubled as dessert buffet suppliers and invited guests to a friend’s wedding, and we have loved the excuse to take out his coat and my gown from the back of our closet and dress up for an unusual Saturdate.

It almost felt like stepping inside a different world!

Fernwood Gardens has changed a lot since the last time I was there. The glass garden is still as lush as ever, but they also opened a lounge area with a country feel in it, complete with a collection of vintage things. (I was completely blown away seeing an Underwood up close!)

It was the same venue of my brother’s wedding in 2008, and I remember inviting my ex-boyfriend to come be my date, but he was halfway across the world and naturally, was unable to make it.

Five years later, I was back in the very same place, this time, with him.

Can you tell I’m still swooning? Continue reading “Sweet Novembers” →