Remembering Tatay

Conrado Lopez Soyangco, Sr. (at the right) December 08, 1926 - April 04, 1992

Family Gathering

I love, love family gatherings. As in. It's one of the reasons that when I have work I'd like to have weekend and holiday off so I can attend every gathering. I really wouldn't miss if for anything. Do I sound I am crazy with my family? Yes, I am. I love my family. Especially the SOYANGCO side. We all grew up really close with each other. I could really say that my cousins and I all grew up together that now that we're not kids anymore, we can still talk about the things we used to do when we were younger and will laugh at it. And we'll laugh about everything. We really do have fun together and it's one thing I miss a lot. We used to spend Christmas and New Year's together. But now we still managed to see each other once in a while.

Our most recent gathering was yesterday at my uncle's house in Pasig. My parents, aunts, uncles and cousins went there at around 10am in time for lunch. I came at 3pm because I had classes at Graduate School. As usual, we feasted on so many foods. My cousins and I were talking that we are not the family that eats at restaurant a lot because we know to cook really good food. The foods that we had yesterday weren't really healthy but it was REALLY yummy. We had roasted pig (whole pig), crispy pata (another pig), kare kare (beef in peanut sauce) that is paired with a bagoong (shrimp paste), crabs, puto and dinuguan (family's favorite), desserts, and fresh fruits. After eating, we danced using the XBox 360 of my cousins. It was even more fun because we can't choose when to dance. It was a draw lots. We were so noisy like kids. After dancing, we got tired and it was our excuse for eating again. My cousin, Jor el, bought isaw (chicken and pig's intestine) and barbecue. My uncles grilled it for us. My cousins and I, again, ate A LOT. We also had grilled mussels which was so good because it was fresh. We also had couple of drinks and for our dinner, guess what we had??? JOLLIBEE CHICKEN JOY. Hahahahaa. Yes, we had fast food. My uncle got a free food from Jollibee and Chowking which we consumed once again. We love food, don't we??? We really do!!!

At past 9:00 pm, we had to leave because we have to go back to Bataan. I wish we could have stayed longer for another round of dancing and eating. I really miss my relatives and I also wish we could do it more often. It's one family tradition that we'd like to pass to younger generations. And we want our younger cousins to grow up really close to each other just like we are.

All Saints' Day 2012

It has always been a family tradition for us to gather on a November 1. It's a one long day affair. Sometimes, it lasted until the morning the next day. Usual things happen every year - relatives from Manila come home, we ate lunch together (Roasted pig or lechon is our favorite), we go to cemetery in the afternoon until midnight and we eat again then we come back home and eat again. This year we feasted with Filipino food - goto, tokwa, dinuguan, lumpia and lechon. It was so much fun! We had rice and pork for our midnight snack! Calories, cholesterol and carbohydrates overload. I never missed All Saints' Day in Bataan because I don't want to miss the fun of spending time with my cousins. And it's a tradition of the Soyangco family that we would like to pass to younger generations so we could continue living up to the family tradition that have been a practice for so many years.

We weren't able to take lots of pictures because we were to busy laughing over our fun conversations so I will only upload few pictures.

With my cousins. These are just less than 1/2 of our big family.

Bella and Dianne

Dianne, Chloe and Bella

Tita Luz's 84th Birthday

My family and the rest of the Soyangcos and my grandmother's friends celebrated her 84th birthday last August 11, 2012 at a dinner in her home. My grandmother, Tita Luz, is a younger sister of Tatay (my mother's father), a retired OB-Gyne (and one of the best) and was diagnosed of Alzheimer's disease. Last couple of years, she only recognizes few people like her son, my mother and uncle but this year, she doesn't recognize anyone anymore and doesn't talk anymore. It made me so sad to see her seated in the wheel chair because I grew up seeing her healthy and active but for some reasons, she stopped going out and now she's sick. I'm really hoping we get to celebrate more birthdays, Christmas and New Year with her.

Deep Fried Fish Fillet

Cordon Bleu

Lengua in red sauce

Chicken Parmigiana

Pancit Guisado

Crab and shrimp in coconut milk

Quail Eggs with vegetables

Home made birthday cake

Food Coma

Tita Luz with her friends