Remembering Papa Don

We are still facing a lot of rain and thunderstorms here and the kids will have no school next week due to the swine flu, so we did what the day dictated:

See our waterfall? It lasted about 15 minutes of intense downpour. Right now, it's raining again!


We cleaned up the dining area more (pictures soon), washed the dishes, cleared some of my baskets, paid rent and visited one of my friends. We got back just in time before it rained again...

Today is also what would have been my late father's 71st birthday. So I made a simple dinnner menu and tablescape that he might like... Pasta with eggs on top and pineapple smoothie.
The sangria goblet came with 5 other ones and a pitcher. This Libbey set was made in Mexico and it is as beautiful as this picture on the front of the box (online picture).
Here's the simple table with our kiddos, L-Infinity, J-Pony & I-Dude. Don't they look happy to celebrate my late dad's birthday? That's because everything on that table, they love to eat! My dad loved fruits and cakes, but not a lot, so I made dark chocolate brownies, sliced up our freshly ripened mangoes and watermelon.

Then it was time also for L-Infinity to attend a church dance after the Youth Conference held by our Stake. The theme is "Kick Off Your Sunday Shoes!" So she loved wearing her Converse and yes the other shoe belongs to Daniel, her beau...

Here's L posing by herself. With that smile, she is a good combo of me and her dad. She's wearing a glittered party dress over a black T-shirt.

And here she is with Daniel. Like my magnetic door? That's next to be organized! I can't keep up with all the stuff the kiddos put up on it! ;-)

Noritake is my favorite fine bone porcelain china, especially after learning that they have a pattern called, "Carolyn". Well double my surprise when I learned that they also made a pattern called, "Adonis", my late father's first name! Look at how beautiful it is! One look at it and it reminded me of my father. Now I know which pattern I'll be looking for next. This is a lidded sugar bowl.

If you know your mythology, you'd know that the Greek demi-god, Adonis, was represented by red anemone blooms.

Anemone. Greek mythology linked the red anemone, sometimes called the windflower, to the death of Adonis. This handsome young man was loved by both Persephone, queen of the underworld, and Aphrodite, goddess of love. Adonis enjoyed hunting, and one day when he was out hunting alone, he wounded a fierce boar, which stabbed him with its tusks. Aphrodite heard the cries of her lover and arrived to see Adonis bleeding to death. Red anemones sprang from the earth where the drops of Adonis's blood fell. In another version of the story, the anemones were white before the death of Adonis, whose blood turned them red. (Mythencyclopedia.com)

The picture is from my own print; each bloom represents my late father's love for each of my children he never met...

And here is my late, beloved father, Adonis. Known as "Papa Don" to my children. None of them met him but I know that if they did, they would have loved him as much as I do. He was an avid-Elvis fan who had a similar voice, too! He loved chess and bowling, new tv's and freshly roasted peanuts! The last song I ever heard him sing was Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline". It was his way of asking me to come home, but I just couldn't...

Back in December 27th, 1997, we woke up to a phone call from my second stepmother telling me that my dad was in the hospital due to pneumonia. I couldn't talk to him because the doctor said he was too weak. The next day, they said he was doing better and I relaxed a little. And that all he could muster was if I was coming. I told my stepmother that I'll be home; just to do everything to get him better and I told the doctor to place him in another and better room. In the afternoon, we went to my mom's house and three of my brothers, my sister, my mom, my aunt and Mr. Man watched me yell on the phone then collapse because the doctor declared that my father passed away. It was the morning of the 29th in the Philippines then.

He died on my 25th birthday, in the morning, after the doctor assured him that I was on my way home... I didn't get to fly out until January 4th, 1998...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, "DADDE"!!!

I STILL MISS YOU EVERYDAY...

MAY 2, 1938 - DEC 29, 1997