Meet Kyra Yuna

Hi, guys! It is unfortunate that I was not able to put up any posts a month after giving birth. Things had just become even more overwhelming for me as a new mom. But now everything's settling down a bit (just a bit) what with my daughter being 2 months already and learning how to self-soothe. She's a lot less fussy nowadays too which is a relief for me. 

I gave birth last August 3 (2:50pm) to a healthy baby girl and was practically bedridden for a week. Looking at her, I never imagined I'd have a baby come out of my you-know-what. It's amazing, to be honest. 

The first week with her was CRAZY and I've learned A LOT from it, but that's for another post, maybe? 

Right now, I am learning to juggle between being a first time mom and a wife (and housekeeper), as well as a blogger/vlogger, and soon a business woman (fingers crossed!). That's a lot on my plate, but I'm confident that everything will run smoothly eventually. In fact, I am loving what I'm doing now. Surprising as it may be for me, I'm actually living up to my goal in life. To be happy and to do what I love to do. There, I said it. I love being a stay-at-home mom. lol! Though of course, I still want to be independent hence a business (in the very near future). 

So back to my baby, Kyra. The story behind her name is this: back when her dad was still in high school, he already wanted his first baby girl to be named "Kyra" and there is also a reason to that, but I'll leave the explaining to him ;) "Yuna" because his dad loved playing Final Fantasy and I like watching him play his video games and I loved the name Yuna so I thought, why not make that our baby's second name? Also, I think it sounds pretty, the name Kyra Yuna. What do you think? 

Anyway, this post was just a quick update for the readers of this blog. I have not abandoned ship yet, I just gave birth and am learning the ropes on how to be a mom. That said, I do have some ideas for posts lined up for this blog. I'll just have to find the time to execute them. I'm thinking, baby OOTDs? Mommy tips, and of course my Foodie Fridays, and product reviews. 

Hopefully you guys will also check out my YouTube channel, The Bohemian Doll! 

Baguio 2016

Hi, guys! I'm back and have somewhat settled down a bit in our new home. The only downside to this whole moving thing is that there's still NO internet. We have repeatedly contacted Globe and PLDT and so far no response from either ISP. Well, PLDT did finally reach out to us after 2 weeks of waiting (we contacted them even before our trip to Baguio) only to find out that we had to wait another week or 2 for them to find out if we can have the Fibr plan in our area and then I guess another 2 to 3 weeks for installation. I mean, seriously?! So now, I'm relying on my Smart Bro sim and even that is not performing as I'd like it to. Oh well. C'est la Philippines? 

Okay, so Baguio. I had fun visiting one of my favorite places in the Philippines and it was even more special since it was my fiance's first time being there so I really wanted to play tour guide lol. On our first night in Baguio, we went thrift shopping and food tripping at night along Harrison Rd. Okay you guys, I don't know if this happens every night, but from 9pm onwards, there's a (thrift shopping) night market along Harrison Road and you can find things from shoes to blankets to pillow cases being sold there and it's really so much fun. 

View from our hotel (we stayed in hotel Veniz)

Inside our room in Hotel Veniz

Harrison Road at night

Dinner! Food from Harrison Road night market

The next day, I dragged brought my fiance to Camp John Hay to visit the Bell House, The Cemetery of Negativism, the Butterfly Farm, AND Chocolate de Batirol. From Burnham Park, we took a jeepney to Camp John Hay and it dropped us off at this place where you had to climb up a freaking hill (it was more of a mountain to me) road and I swear, at the first step going up, my fiance and I stopped dead in our tracks and verbally expressed our shock because it was so high up that you really feel your(?) weight (or gravity?) pulling you down. But we had no choice so uphill we went. 

He wasn't too happy being woken up so early

We found these cool activity place where you can either play paintball, target shoot (using paintball), rappel, zip line, etc. And since I was pregnant, I couldn't do most of those except target shoot with paintball and so that's what my fiance and I ended up doing. After that, we came across the butterfly farm, but manong didn't have change for my 1k (I don't blame him since it's still quite early in the morning and we were perhaps his supposedly first customers) therefore I had to forego that YET AGAIN (in my 4 times of being in Baguio I have never set foot in that butterfly farm and believe me, I've been wanting to go since my first visit). 

I was looking for the cemetery of negativism, but got lost and ended up on a road with arrows pointing to the direction of the Tree Top Adventure and Camp John Hay Center (where the Mile High Inn and lots of restaurants are located). We tried to proceed to the Tree Top Adventure, but got tired on the way that we decided to just go to the center where all the restaurants are, assuming that Chocolate de Batirol is located there. Unfortunately it wasn't. We had to go the exit on the other end of Camp John Hay opposite where we entered. I had to stop on the way just to use my inhaler. Thank God it was still cool in Baguio! 

And then FINALLY we found Chocolate de Batirol and had a much needed rest and some refreshments. My fiance had Choco Mallows while I opted for Choco Mocha. The drinks were sooo good! 

 After our visit to Camp John Hay, we went to visit our great aunt who is a nun at the ICM House of Prayer and we had a wonderful lunch there, after which she gave a small tour of the place. I really like the tea house and the history behind it. That tea house was a gift from Yamashita to his daughter (as I recall). 

 Unfortunately, we weren't able to do much after that since I suddenly had stomach flu and up till now I'm still musing over which food (I ate, and I ate a LOT) was responsible for my predicament. 

Nonetheless, it was still a memorable experience and I enjoyed our stay. Especially since I got to buy a bouquet of lovely roses (at only 120Php!!!) before leaving for Manila.  

The Bohemian Doll Updates

Hi, guys! I'm not sure if I actually have regular readers here on this blog but I'll still put up an update just in case.

Foodie Friday

I've decided to not do the Foodie Friday posts every Friday because you know, eating out can be a bit pricey (and we're having a baby and all that jazz so I really have to budget wisely) BUT I will do it every other Friday instead. Starting March 25 because...

Baguio

I'll be going up to Baguio next Friday and have decided to pause blogging till after I come back which will probably be next, next week. But I will still try to post at least one blog post for next week. Hopefully my trip will be exciting enough to post about here on this blog.

I'm Moving!

Probably one of the most exciting things to happen to me this year. So yeah, I am actually in the process of moving to a new house right now so that's one of the reasons I haven't put up OOTD posts or beauty reviews or whatnot. I'm actually just waiting to finally move in to our new home before I do those types of posts. I hope you bear with me.

YouTube Channel

I am also planning to start vlogging once I've moved and I wanted my beauty reviews and style posts to correlate with my YouTube videos and so that's one of the reasons I've decided to put blogging on hold until around the end of March (or beginning of April) which will most likely be the time I'll have finally moved.

An Exciting 2016!

photo from: stocksnap.io

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted anything all throughout the month of January. It doesn’t mean I hadn’t had an exciting start to a new year because I actually did. In fact, I had two very exciting things happen to me: one, a month before the new year and the second, a day or two before new year’s eve. I just thought I wouldn’t post anything about them on the month of January when everything was still a little overwhelming and shaky, and I wanted to be a hundred percent sure of what’s currently going on in my life. 

Also, I thought you guys would’ve by then been tired of all the “New Year, New You” and “New Year’s Resolutions” posts that I am guessing have been rampant especially throughout the month of January. I guess what I’m saying is, I just wanted all the excitement to settle down a bit, you know?  

Now that it has, I just want to grab this opportunity to share with my readers my exciting news (I haven’t even announced these big news on my Facebook account because I thought it was so special I couldn’t bear to share it immediately with anyone except really close friends and family).

I am currently pregnant with my first baby! I actually never thought I’d be a mom except during my younger years wherein I really wanted to be a young mom (no, not teen mom. Just young mom). Back then I didn’t really know what I was talking about, but now that I am definitely of age and very much in love with my partner, I can truly say that this pregnancy is a wish come true (for both of us, of course). 

And I’m engaged! It was sweet, funny, and quite unromantic the way my fiancé proposed to me, but I think I’ll keep that story to myself… for now. We have been planning to get married(well, he was. It wasn’t really part of my plan though I DO love him tremendously) ever since the first couple of months of our relationship (he said after 3 years into our relationship he was going to propose, but decided to do it a year early hehe). 

photo from: stocksnap.io

So those are my two most exciting news for this year and now that you guys know, don’t be surprised if I suddenly start sprinkling this blog with some baby/parenting or married life/household posts. Don’t worry, it will still remain a beauty, style, AND lifestyle blog. I do want to be “yummy mummy” after all. 

Halloween Late Update

I can't believe it took me so long to post this. My laptop went AWOL on me and I had a hell of a time trying to transfer my photos from my iPad to my boyfriend's computer. Talk about bad luck. I feel like this may be irrelevant now, but I just want to share with you guys how I spent my Halloween. I thought it was going to be pretty much nondescript and since I seriously didn't want to spend Halloween night not doing anything, my boyfriend and I decided to just go on a proper date (which we haven't really done in months now).

I let him surprise me and he came up with dinner at Tenka, this Japanese shabu shabu place in Glorietta mall. The place looked cozy and intimate, perfect for a romantic date in town. It certainly didn't hurt that the place was decorated with Halloween-related stuff like cobwebs on the walls, tombstones on their replica of a cherry blossom tree, and best of all, the staff made up to look like witches, ghouls, faeries, etc. It really made up for us not donning on costumes and going to Halloween parties (which quite frankly, I think I'm getting too old and boring for).

To be totally honest, we haven't really been to a hotpot/shabu-shabu place before so we really didn't have an inkling as to what we were doing. We got practically everything on the menu and left the heat on so high that towards the end, some of the food we put in to boil ended up getting mushy. The seaweed on my seaweed miso soup took on an entirely different taste and it wasn't good. Aside from that error on our part (we have learned our lesson, don't worry), all I can say is that the food was SO delicious and I enjoyed my time there and regretted nothing even when my tummy was close to bursting and I could feel my food reaching up to my throat (I didn't throw up. That would have been wasteful). The staff was also very accommodating so that's a huge thumbs up to Tenka! We are definitely going back for more. 

Oh and through all the excitement, I forgot to take an OOTD so I hope these half photos of my outfit will suffice. It's a tank top from H&M and a Tommy Hilfiger scarf paired off with an American Eagle jeans and my classic black Charles & Keith heels.

A Fresh Start

image source: StockSnap.io

Dear Readers, 

        If you used to frequent The Bohemian Doll or maybe visited this blog once or twice, you have probably noticed that all of my previous posts are no longer here. The reason for this is because I finally decided to focus on this blog rather than just dabble in it, updating sporadically. My poor excuse was that nothing interesting nor spectacular really happens in my life; nothing worth blogging about. Then I realized that the reason behind this way of thinking was that I would compare my beginnings to well-established bloggers' middle (yes, I'm talking about this quote). Instead of waiting for something beautiful or spectacular to happen in my life, I should go out there and make it happen because more often than not, just sitting around waiting is useless and counter-productive. 

I'm so excited for the fresh start I'm giving my blog! Expect honest reviews on beauty products, beauty and style tips, opinions on the latest trends, travel and living, maybe a bit of food blurbs here and there since I love to eat, AND more OOTDs (definitely working on this since I find OOTDs my weakest point as I'm uncomfortable having my picture taken in public). 

Wish me luck!