FAMILY GET-TOGETHER AT LOPEZ FARM

To celebrate my brother’s homecoming this year, my dad opted to spend an out of town weekend at Lopez farms somewhere in Cavite. We dropped by Project 4 to pick up my brother and current beau before proceeding to Makati to go to Cavite in convoy with my dad’s vehicle. We left at around 12 and reached Cavite some two hours later. The place was quite pretty indeed. It is filled with so many trees and hammocks that make the place so utterly relaxing. The main house is also quite a marvel – made entirely of wood and filled all around with windows, making it quite airy and spacious, too…not that it needed to expand its space since the place is already big, as it is.

At around three in the afternoon, the kids took a dip in the pool while I just lazed around the house reading a book. When night started to fall, I helped the hubby and their current hired helper (Ateng went home e!) cook the grilled meat and we had dinner in a while. The dining area filled up the back part of the entire house. It had a very long table…which was just right for a big family like ours. It was a truly satisfying meal we all shared and afterwards, since the place had no TV, we made small talk and exchanged stories in the sala…amid the background of a tuko croaking somewhere in the trees that surround the place.

In a little while, we retired to our bedrooms. We were given rooms downstairs – one room for us and the other bedroom for my brother. There was one airconditioned bedroom upstairs, beside the sala for Papa and Tita E. The other was just a fan room which was reserved for an aunt who did not come…instead it was my stepsister’s family who slept there. Papa’s room was quite big and could accommodate us if we wanted to sleep there but it was a bit cold and so after I used his laptop a bit inside the room, I went down na rin to our room…but aside from the four bedrooms of the main house, they had a dormitory that could house about fifteen to twenty people…just right for a teambuilding session.

The next day, we did nothing much…they swam a bit, ate a lot, laughed a lot, slept some more and basically enjoyed our stay in that very peaceful and restful place. Sometimes, it's nice, too, to get away to a place like this...without any television and just nature at its most basic...well, we have electricity but at least we spent much time just TALKING with each other, getting updated on what's going on in each other's lives instead of just staring inanely at the boobtube...we also got to reminisce about our past vacations...happy times we spent together...it was a fun and meaningful time for us...if not for the proliferation of numerous insects, this would be one good place to return to...