WAITING FOR THE NEW YEAR 2013!

A bit delayed since it is past Epiphany today, but, I do want to share my New Year's Eve in pictures!

I arrived a bit late already for the New Year's Eve rendezvous (work seems to follow me 'til evening|!)... just before 11 p.m. and the raindrops were starting to fall!

Apprehensive was I! I am driving alone now to the "mountains" (but just about 10 km from the city!) where my family was waiting. But since the roads were completely dark except for the car lights and weren't concrete yet, so I was praying really hard it wouldn't rain! I also couldn't go up if it rained and they were all there already!!!

with a panoramic view of Zamboanga City

But, with a view like this, I guess you now understand why I want to go up to our place, too.

Here we are with family and friends!

Those little lights are the lights of Zamboanga City!

Monette and Ailish prepare the Shabu-Shabu!

This table is filled with ingredients for Shabu-Shabu! The hot soup so fitting for the cool breeze we are already experiencing! And the noodles and everything else were really filling!!!

We loved the Shabu-Shabu and lovinly served by "Tita Auring"!

But we also had barbecue, dinuguan and puto, brownies, biko and hotdogs!

My sister-in-law brought sky lanterns but the windy night wasn't so convenient for sky lanterns. 

Good, we were so far away from "civilization" so we know we wouldn't be causing any fire hazards for the houses... but it was mentioned, what if we would cause forest fires? Luckily, it was drizzling so we know the forest wouldn't be too dry!

But our first sky lantern went down instead of up! And bumped on the swing... and burned!

Our second sky lantern indeed flew to the sky, but it flew too fast because of the strong winds!

Can you seen the sky lantern in the right upper hand corner of the picture and just looks like one of the lights?

This is Zamboanga City panorama before the New Year fireworks!

viewing Veteran's Avenue,  Nunez Extension and Sta. Maria

Of course, we waited for midnight! There were already fireworks even before midnight and went on even up to about 2 a.m. and a few more until dawn!
We even appreciated the fireworks in Basilan from afar, but, that was really too difficult to photograph!

But later, it seemed so dark... we were wondering if the smoke was the cause of the dark cloud over the City or if there really were brown outs in some areas!

 

and it was really cold!!!

but sometimes, the gadgets make us forget everything
and everyone else!

Well, we all welcomed the New Year with happy hearts, spontaneous smiles and l♥ve all around!!! 

♥♥♥HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013!!!♥♥♥