According to Princess Diana, Family is the most important thing in the world. According to The Food Scout, God is the most important thing in the world and the family comes after.

One weekend of November, both God and family took the spot of my weekend as I spent most of the time prioritizing God and my family alone.

Our parents’ discipleship group at church planned a family outing (retreat) at Mt. Makiling Re-creation Center also known as CCF Prayer Mountain. It was a one-day out of town trip with more than 15 families belonging to our church group. We all assembled at CCF Center at 5:30 in the morning, left our cars at the center and rode the bus assigned to us. There were 2 buses, just like we were in a field trip.

Travel time from C5 Ortigas was approximately 3 hours. Not a bad idea to drive all the way there.

In this one-day retreat, the first thing we did was to sing praises with the group. Right after, a message about love and a group discussion about a verse given to us.

Around 30 minutes after lunch, we watched a Top Show by Joe Mauk, known for setting up the World’s Biggest Spinning Top.

I watched Joe Mauk more than 10 times in retreats I’ve been attending since I was in high school. However, I didn’t imagine there would be an added story to his Tops Show. He made us watch the video on how he built the “Biggest Top in the World”.

Don’t worry, there’s a Youtube video on that for you. If you have about 16 minutes of your time, please do watch. You’ll see what’s so amazing about this documentary and how God moved in this area.

What do you think?

If you ask me, I am in awe of God’s wonders when I see Him move in people’s lives. Joe Mauk’s story is a story worth sharing.

He makes a move in our lives for our story to be filled with Him, not only about us.

Reine and I switched on our competitive mode during games. Hooray to us and our team won first place! Free time in the afternoon and the two lovebirds (dad & mom) blended with the trees for some photo shoot.

If there is one person who appreciates nature more than me, it would be O.

Like little kids, I dared myself to go under that spitting water without getting hit and wet. 😀

A place of serenity and intimate bonding with your family and God.

We took time to roam around the mountain and look what we saw, cute animals!

Observing the monkey could take up time. I didn’t notice we were just standing by the monkey’s area for more than 10 minutes already.

Dad didn’t know his family was aware that his birthday was the following day and was even planning of kidnapping him from SLEX to Tagaytay.

O and I made this crazy plan of getting picked up by the driver at one gas station at SLEX and drive us all the way to Tagaytay for dinner. What happened was, I told dad’s dgroup leader to pull over at one gas station for stopover. Dad thought it was just a normal stopover. Besides, everyone does that when you drive out of town. So mom pulled dad to accompany her to the restroom at the gas station. While both of them were at that direction, O, Reine and I grabbed all our things from the bus and brought it all the way to the van where our driver was waiting for us. The three of us rode the van and simply waited for mom to bring dad to the van. When mom was pulling dad to a different direction, not going to the bus, dad’s temper started. He got irritated of mom in some way. Hehe. So when mom was almost there at the van, we helped her open the door from the inside and shouted “SURPRISE!” then sang “Happy Birthday to you!”. Hahaha!

Dad’s face is priceless!!!

So there, dad and mom rode the van and we all went to Tagaytay for dad’s birthday dinner.

A must-try at Hawaiian Bar-B-Que! Meat is cooked evenly, soft and tender. The barbecue sauce itself conquered our plates. Every bite of this hawaiian barbecue couldn’t stand on our spoons without the tasty homemade barbecue sauce.
I know my dad won’t say no to meat and rice. It’s his comfort food. O and I knew dad will approve of the restaurant we chose for his birthday salubong.

Alzheimer mode, I forgot what this chicken is called. 🙁

Please please tweet me when you find out. But one thing is for sure for this mystery chicken dish, I finished almost all of it! I can’t help but pour on the garlicky gravy on top of my rice. Just imagine two sauces on my plate, barbecue and gravy that was oozing with goodness on my plate.

For mom’s seafood satisfaction, we chose Foil-baked Shrimp for her. Cheese melts down to the body of these shrimps. Its garlic bits completed the flavor we were looking for. That gooey cheese blended with the strong spice of garlic. Yum!

Dad was speechless the entire night. He didn’t think we were that crazy to plan that surprise dinner for him.

That picture of meat surpassed dad’s expectation! Woohoo! Birthday dinner surprise turned out as a success! 🙂

Season may change, but my family remains the same.

Thank you Lord for filling my life with your love through my family.

An unlovable person like me feels so undeserving to be pampered with so much love and care from amazing people.

Cheers,

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CCF Prayer Mountain / Mt. Makiling Re-creation Center

Location: Brgy. San Bartolome, Sto.Tomas, Batangas City Philippines

Website: http://www.ccf-prayermountain.com/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mt-Makiling-Re-Creation-Center/440720626018806

Location: 45 Aguinaldo Highway, Silang Crossing East, Tagaytay, Cavite, Philippines