Salo-salo sa Hapunan

Earlier this afternoon, Mike came over to our house and invited us to dinner at their house. I was gonna invite them that time to watch the "Stepfords Wives" DVD but dinner sounded better.

Ijo, my wife, made a delicious molo soup and some steamed shu-mai's. Zoe was still sleeping when we were about to go but disturbing her beauty sleep was not at all a problem for her because she knew we were going out.

Tonight was a very foggy night and our neighborhood looked like one of those in the horror movies where a town has either been abandoned or everyone just disappeared and their village became a ghost town. We were freezing as we walked towards their house which is only three houses down.

Marivic, Mike's wife, opened up the front door for us and Zoe immediately ran inside and played with their two year old daughter Melea. These two were born just a couple of days apart.

Few minutes later, Monsi, Mike's sister who lives next door, came in. We talked for a while until Pat's family arrived. He came with his wife Marichu, and their children Shealene, Kaelan, and Chloe.

All of us live within the same block. My house is in a corner and Pat's house was in the other corner on the same street. There are only two houses in between ours.

Marichu made up this salad which I must admit the most delicious one I have ever had. I forgot what she called it but it was absolutely yummy. I think the wine in it did the trick. Her famous baked salmon was as mouth-watering but she didn't bring one tonight. The other food on the table was pork barbeques and some vegetables.

The children were just busy playing in the living room. At times, they would come and grab a bite of what we were having. Zoe would oftentimes go to her mom and ask for a bite of rice.

Everyone was thankful that we all became neighbors. We were all complementing each other for how nice and friendly each one is. Then we talked about our different stories on how we got our houses.

Houses in Mountain House are not readily available to the buyers. One cannot buy houses just because he/she has money to spend. Buying houses here will require some effort and a lot of patience. You need to attend one of the lottery drawings.....

Mike and his wife, and his Sister came on a Saturday and tried their luck on that week's lottery. But they initially went to a different neighborhood. Their names were not picked so they decided to go and have lunch. On their way out, they found out that our neighborhood, the Liberty, was then having a lottery and was about to begin. There were about a hundred people that day and only five will be lucky enough to purchase a home. Everyone was very impatient that they only give you five minutes to choose which house you want before they pick the next buyer. The first one drawn was Mike and his wife. They couldn't decide which available house they wanted to buy that day. But because of that 5 minute pressure, they chose the biggest house. But they chose what Monsi wanted. But Monsi's name was not picked until the third draw. Her immediate reaction was "What have I got myself into?". Well, they ended up switching a house since they were right next to each other and Monsi really wanted the house that Mike picked. And Marivic loved the house the Monsi picked. Everybody wins.

Pat and Marichu were not planning to buy a house when they walked in to the Liberty office. It was 4:45 in the afternoon on a Saturday. The office should have been opened til 5:00 but the lady in the office immediately closed the door behind them when they got in. She said there is one house available and you've got 15 minutes to decide whether you want to buy it or not. Talk about pressure. The house became available because the original buyer backed-out. While on the tour of the model house, someone called the office and was ready to buy but was put on hold while Pat and Chu decides.

Our story was somewhat similar to that of Pat's. Except that we were really looking for a house to buy and had already been searching for weeks. We've been to the models in Mountain House but when we found out about the lottery, we lost interest. Simply because we were, at the time, staying in Milipitas which is 45 miles away. I didn't wanna drive each Saturday to attend the lottery draws..... We were on our way home, after an exhaustive search of a house in the Pittsburg/Brentwood area, when I asked our realtor to call Mountain House and ask if someone had backed out. Well, someone did, and so we got a home. Our first one.

We finished dinner shortly before 9 o'clock. We all had great time. Even the kids.