Thursday, September 22, 2011

It's been about a week

I've been trying to be better about keeping up on my blog, and being able to do it has been great. However, I miss adding pictures! But when the day is done, I just want to relax with Jason and not have my face buried in the computer. So I have a neglected blog. I think I might try blogging on the phone and then later, go back and edit the posts by adding pictures. We will see how that goes.

Last Saturday we went to the LA Arboretum, which I a huge botanical gardens. It cost 8 bucks for adults, 3 for 5 and up and 5 and under are free. We had never been before and the weather was supposed to be cooler Saturday so off we went. Holy cow, we walked in and about 5 steps later BOOM! Free range peacock right there in front of us. No way. It was just chilling. I can't wait to post the pictures. Ethan was 4 feet from the sucker and would have got closer if I let him. Over the course of the day, we must have run across 20, various sizes and coloration. So cool. Worth the money just for that. This place is very stroller friendly and even. Not hilly at all so you can cover more area without getting winded. I read later that the 3rd Tuesday of every month is free for everyone so check it out.

This past Tuesday, Ethan had his first Back To School night. It actually was more of an informative night, but we did get to see his classroom and some of the crafts he's made. Today I got a letter from his teacher saying that he's getting a special certificate on Monday for all the progress he's made so far! So proud!

Other than that, it's been day to day stuff. I'm looking forward to the fall weather and gearing up for holidays. I'm already thinking of Christmas because I want to try and do some crafting. Hope it goes good!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Mundane

I'm about to blow your mind with how exciting our week has been. Well...not really. It's mostly been mundane, with a couple of doozies thrown in there.

The biggest one is the water heater. Oy! We came home from running errands Saturday, ready to give the boys a bath, and no hot water. Wha? The pilot light went out on the heater. Only catch was, that after it was lit, it wouldn't catch what it was supposed to and ended up smothering out. Boo! What a blessing to live near Jason's parents because we just loaded up the boys and took them over there for baths. Jason's dad came and looked at it but couldn't fix it. So the rest of the weekend no hot water. We called the gas company Monday and they came and looked, said it needed new parts but that would have to come from the manufacturer. Ugh. Well, Jason's parents just purchased a new one and Jason helped his dad install it Monday afternoon. Thank you! From the bottom of our hearts.

Somehow we lost water pressure in the kitchen sink, which ended up being an easy fix. The filter on the faucet got plugged. We pulled it out and voila! Water! So thank you again to Don and Jeannie for saving our butts.

The other crazy thing, is that my email got hacked. Someone got into it and changed the password on it from the inside. I couldn't check my email for 2 days. Ugh. It's fixed now, but I am going to get a new email and gradually start using it instead.

The rest of the week has been kind of uneventful but I'm grateful for that because it means nothing crazy is happening.

I want to say congrats to my cousin, who just moved into her first house this past weekend. No one deserves it more than her. And one of my dear friends is having a very hard time right now with some personal stuff and I wish her the best and hope everything works out for her. Love ya chica!


Tomorrow is Thursday, which is followed by Friday and I am looking forward to the weekend!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Remembrance

I think it's important to remember as much as we can. It's easy with happy memories. It's harder with the sad ones because all we want to do is forget. I'm posting this tonight so that it can be read tomorrow...and we can remember.

10 years ago, I was oblivious. I had been married for 2 months and just such a naive 20 year old. I woke up, too early for my tastes, but I was scheduled to opened for Admissions at CSUSB. I was tired and didn't want to be there. I walked in and found my coworker listening to the radio. (Ugh. News. I hate the news. Can't we pit on some music) He told me a plane had crashed in New York, right into one of the Twin Towers. So we sat and listened while we got our office ready for the day. As we were listening, we heard them announce another one had just flown right into the second tower. THAT got our attention. The first was an "accident." This second crash made it obvious that we were under attack. The calls started coming in. Would school be in session? We didn't know. Nobody knew if we were targets all across the country or if it was isolated to New York. In-between calls, I tried to contact my husband. At the time, he worked in an office in the parking lot of Angel Stadium. Would that be a target? What about Disneyland? That's just down the street!

He was fine and being sent home. Then we heard the Pentagon had been hit. (Oh My Gosh, this is not happening right now) Another plane went down in Pennsylvania. We didn't know if it was related to the others. We would later find put that brave Americans took over the plane and sacrificed their lives to keep this plane from hitting the White House.

School was cancelled and we were told to go home. I drove to my grandparents because at home I would be alone. When I finally got there, I was able to see the footage of the planes crashing into the towers. Words cannot describe it. But then...we watched as the towers collapsed, one at a time. I cried. I cried out of fear. I cried for the people I didn't know who were caught in those buildings. I cried for their families. I cried for the service men and women who lost their lives, running into the wreckage to save others. I cried for my brother.

My brother, who 4 months before had received his commissioning as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I knew he would be going to war. I didn't know when, but I knew.

He served 4 tours and he is with us today. We are lucky. I am lucky to have such a wonderful brother, who fights for those who cannot, who didn't have a chance that day. God bless him.

My story is not special. I didn't know anyone personally who lost their lives that day. But I will remember them. They never had a chance to fight. If I can, I will fight for them. If I can't do that, then you better be sure I'm keeping their memories alive. Never Forget.

Please, share your story. Whether you leave a comment here, or write it somewhere else, even if it's in a private journal. Share it.

Remember.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Random thoughts

I don't really have a specific thing I want to write about, but it's almost midnight and I can't sleep again. So I thought I would write a couple of my thoughts down. Lately they have been about Ethan and school, because that's the most exciting thing going on with us right now. He's doing really well. Next week is Back To School night and I'm looking forward to seeing all the things he's been doing in class. He also came home with 2 things: the Parent/Teacher handbook and his first permission slip for a field trip. Woohoo!

Handbook: mostly just rules but what I was excited to get was the list of school holidays and breaks. You should see this thing! There are so many things to remember. Minimum days, shortened days, no school, conference week. Whew! He gets a week of for Thansgiving and 2 weeks for Christmas. I need to look again but I think just 1 week for Spring Break.

Field Trip: it's in 3 weeks and to the LA County Fair. I'm going to try and go. Hopefully Mom can watch Michael. I also have to get a TB Test in order to go with. My mom wasn't able to go on many field trips with us when we were little because she was a working single mother. But the few she could go on, I enjoyed. My favorite was when she went with the HS choir to Washington DC. It was fun to experience new things together. So I would like to go on Ethan's 1st. Just to see how he does and be there to take pictures. Hopefully he will enjoy me too. When he heard I had to get a "shot" he said, "Mom, you don't need to go, I'll be brave." He didn't want me to have to get a shot. So sweet!

Anyways, that's about it for now.

Oh! The salon I took pictures for has their website up and running. If you would like to go see the pictures I took, the address is: www.sonnysalondayspa.com.

Go check it out!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

A Fabulous Weekend

I haven't written any new posts because we have been pretty busy! Having lots of fun with lots of pictures to come, but I just wanted to sum it up!

It's Labor Day weekend and Ethan came home from school Friday with no homework. Woohoo! So I decided to take the boys to the mall, which I don't ever do by myself. I am trying to get better at things like this. There is a weekend long event happening at the mall because they opened a bunch of new stores and updated their play area. Radio Disney was there with fun stuff and there was face painting, balloon animals, and all kinds of crafts. So we went, did some stuff and had dinner.

The next day we went again, and today we went again. Dad was able to come with us today.

Let me back up to yesterday: one of my friends had her baby! So Jason told me to go have a night to myself. I went and picked up my mom and we went to visit her in the hospital. Cute little baby boy! After that, my mom and I went to have dinner and dessert. It had been forever since just the two of us did something so it was nice. With all the visiting, I didn't end up home until midnight. My husband is the greatest!

This evening we went to my aunt's to celebrate her two youngest daughters' birthdays. It was a lot of fun and nice to visit with the family.

I want to post some pictures, and when I do, I'll elaborate more. Have a happy Labor Day Weekend!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

You'd think...

You'd think that at the end of the day, when it's been a cranky day, and I have to wake up at 6:30, that I would be snoozing away at 12:45am. But NOOO! My brain keeps thinking about all the stuff I want to do tomorrow or this weekend or next week or this bill that needs paid or Ethan's back to school night (in 3 weeks) or his first field trip (in 4 weeks...to the county fair!). Ugh! I can't even do anything about these things right now.

I've tried silencing my brain...nope
I've tried focusing on breathing...nope
I've tried visualizing peace and sleep...nope

Hopefully blogging about it will get it off my brain and send me to dreamland!

I'm glad tomorrow is Thursday. Then one more day and maybe I can sleep in. I'm glad there's no school on Monday. It will be a nice break. It's been a little rough adjusting, Ethan gets tired too but he loves school. So worth it!