Live Your Dreams!

Dear Isay, Today on your 10th birthday, as we celebrate it with a simple dinner at home with family and few close friends, my wish for you is to live out your dreams. Yes, live your dreams anak! I chose this photo of you from our recent trip because it was raining that day as it is today...complete with thunder and lighting and for a less than an hour the rains drenched the city. I was afraid that people might not be able to make it to our dinner at home. But the rains stopped and we had a good celebration. Today while I was preparing and cooking, I listened to a video of the Feast by Bro. Bo Sanchez. It was the last of the series of talks on the subject-- guess what? "Drenched". By a stroke of inspiration this hit me now... with the rains this afternoon and the messages received. My prayer for you --- may you be drenched in God's blessings in your life. May He bless you with the good things in life. May He continue to strengthen your spirit to overcome the trails that will come our way and wisdom to appreciate the permanent blessings in our lives. You are one of those blessings. Continue to be beautiful inside out. I see and experience a beautiful soul in you everyday. Thank you for understanding and being sensitive to your Nanay's quirkiness. You are a blessing to us in many ways. We love you very much always remember that. You remind me to be good everyday and to choose to do good. Remember that you have a unique quality to be gentle, yet strong in spirit. And today we are indeed drenched in blessings with the goodness of family and friends and of God's provisions. Build you hopes and dreams, nurture your faith in the Lord and hold that pure love in your heart always. We love you bebe mahal! <3 Nanay

Sweden

I saw this window along one of the streets in Lund, Skane, Southern Sweden. The message is so clear and it called me out and spoke to me. You can barely make out the person in green jacket reflected in the window-- thats me :) This trip proved to be one unforgettable trip of a lifetime with family. It called on our inner courage to embark on this journey and go ahead visit those places that we wanted to see and experience. Visit love ones and spend meaningful time with them and experience what it is like to live in their chosen country.

Scandinavia ~ Sweden, Norway and Denmark

After many years of dreaming and a few months of planning and communicating to the Universe to make our dream a reality, we finally arrived in Sweden and we took this train from Copenhagen to Helsingor to ride a ferry bound for Helsingborg to take us to Glumslov. I always write it as Glumslove ahaha which is appropriate I guess... because this is our major destination.

Arriving in Sweden. It was almost 32 hours trip since we left the Philippines, this includes stop over in Istanbul and Oslo.

Hampas Lupa Adventures

The beginning of our epic adventure of shoestring budget adventures across 8 countries in Europe. Keep on dreaming. As Alice said-- nothing is impossible. As in every trip the planning and challenges abound. But these were the moments that the kindness and love of God proved to us how blessed we are indeed. At the moment when I least expected it, the invitation to visit Sweden came in an email. Yes, we were talking and dreaming about visiting Sweden one day, next year then next year again. But when the email arrived in April this year, then I thought, this is really happening. It is not just me but Amats took the time to make the communications happen. In the past, it was always me who would plan this trip and that and make arduous research about everything. But this time, it was Amats who started the ball rolling to make this epic dream trip a reality. Our window of time for planning and making the trip is less than 3 months. Amats and I were all busy with work as well. At that time, we cannot lodge our Schengen visa application due to a business travel he has for Thailand wherein he had to keep his passport at hand. It was only last week of April that we lodged our application for Schengen. We prepared many many documents. First miracle of the trip, we got our Schengen visa approved within one week. It sounds easy but it took hours and many sleepless nights to prepare the online application and proper documents ready. We have scouted for tickets and visited travel fairs for promo fares and bargains. We chanced upon NAITAS and got the information on the anniversary sale of Turkish Airlines. It was only after we go our visa that we really bought our tickets. Since we are visiting relatives, we also decided to take our chance in applying for a UK visa. Many people would tell us this is one of the more difficult visas to apply for and given the limited time we have, people just wished us luck. Many friends and family also prayed for us. It was just 16 days before we leave and the chances to get it on time was slim as I did not apply for express processing (which cost more than the application for visa itself). But God is good indeed! We got our visas just in time, it was the night before our flight... a last minute photo finish. It was indeed a great blessing. We were granted multiple entry visa as a family good for the next six months. Unbelievable but true! It was by the prayers and the goodness of the angels of people who helped us along the way.