Dreaming of Paradise...

I know that we live in beatiful, warm California (this morning while we were singing along to Christmas songs it was almost 70 degrees on our way to work) but I am so excited to be in the extra warm, tropical Punta Cana! Every night for the past couple of weeks I have dreamt of the food, sand, and drinks!

Since there are only 6 days until vacation, I thought the blog needed to get excited with us.

(Only 5 days until Joey and Amy find out if they are having a boy or girl!)

Care Net Pregnancy Center

"While undergoing spina bifida surgery in utero, 21-week-old fetus Samuel Armas grips the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner through the incision."


I'm not ashamed to admit that I am pro-life. 100%. Co-workers recently tried to get Jose and I to admit we would be in favor of abortion in situations of rape, incest, terminally ill fetus (if there is any question about how I feel about giving birth to a terminally ill baby, take a look at my link to the Stanfield Journey and the links to many of her friends who have done just that!) but it wasn't going to happen (well if in the .001% chance that the mother and child will BOTH die if the baby isn't aborted, I would choose to save the mother because that is preserving life).

I vote pro-life, I preach pro-life, and I support pro-life. One of my favorite agencies is Care Net Pregnancy Center (and for that matter Pregnancy support Center in Lompoc, Choices in SLO, and Life Line in AG). Last night was the annual Care Net fundraiser at the Santa Maria Country Club. My entire family went to hear awesome testimonies from two women about how the center has helped , and a pretty good message from a local pastor. Also part of the night was a silent auction. Jose shines when it comes to anything competitive. I learned Silent Auctions count as competitive! Our eyes were big with some of the items being raffled, and we immediately bid on many things. Of course we got excited and HAD to have them, no matter how high the bid went. Since all the money went to support Care Net we considered it a donation, but we were still a little shocked to see our total. Yikes! I'm convinced that my family was the biggest spenders of the night. My parents walked away with a night stay at San Antonio Lake cabin, Jesse got four Dodger tickets, and Jose and I got two massages, golfing green fees for Rancho Maria, In and Out dinner tickets + bowling, and two tickets for PCPA. Funny story about the tickets....oh goodness this is embarrassing... Jose and I both thought it was for two 2008-2009 season tickets, but it was for two tickets to use during the 2008-2009 season. We ended up getting the tickets for double their value! But of course it is for a cause that means a lot to us. It was a fun night and I'm so glad we went.

A few years ago the director of the Pregnancy Center offered me the position of event planner. I wasn't able to do it (it was only part time) and I had just accepted a job with CWS. But whenever I am at the dinners I start thinking about how much I enjoy planning parties, and wish I could have done it! I am still sure that somehow Jose and I will get involved with the Center in the future. My not so secret dream is to one day be the director...we'll see.

P.S Is this the choice "they" are fighting for?

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

I am so excited the Holidays are here! Last year I was eating super duper healthy to get fit for the wedding, but this year with no wedding dress to fit in, I am so excited to make new things for holidays. The cold weather has made me turn into a baking and cooking machine (at least on the weekends). Two weeks ago I made a pumpkin pie cake (yummy!), and this weekend I wanted to make cookies. I invite Silvia (mother in law), Savannah (niece), and Jenika (cousin) over to make a batch of cookies. I had in mind making one type of cookie, but I should have known better once I invited the queen of sweets over (Silvia). She brought with her mixes for magic bars, brownies, three types of cookies, ice cream, and cotton candy flavored quick (don't ask)! It was so fun making batch after batch of junk food!



The girls even humored me and let me start playing Christmas music! I am so glad Jose gets almost as excited as me about Christmas. He doesn't mind Christmas music the first week of November (in fact he uploaded a million Christmas songs to my ipod). He even joined in a bit and made fun shaped sugar cookies.



Savannah and Jenika are second cousins and six years apart, but they get along so well! Jenika is the twins' older sister, and you can tell she is good at being a big sister. They were so goofy and fun to have around.



They got a little tired by the end. Aren't they cute?



In the end we made Brownies, Snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, and sugar cookies. Somehow we never made the kind I had planned on making (oatmeal toffee cookies) or the kind Jose requested (peanut butter), so I guess we have to have another cookie making day. Fine with me!

Update on houses

We are still looking at houses every week and making offers. If we had any other realtor, I think they would have fired us, but Emma is pretty patient with my pickyness.
We gave up on Arbor Walk homes, after our offer wasn't accepted after 5 1/2 months of waiting, and are looking in new neighborhoods. Our offers are more reasonable, and hopefully soon we will find the perfect one.

The funniest (maybe not that funny) thing is that the house we waited FOREVER for, just fell out of escrow, and the other realtor called and said the bank would accept our offer now. HA! No thanks, we've moved on.

Halloween

My family never used to be big fans of Halloween. We never put much thought in costumes, and my little brother even choose to not go trick or treating a couple of years in a row (even though I begged him to let me take him so we could get candy!). This year though he was allowed to go without parents, so he was really excited. Even more surprising was my mom dressing up for work! I think this is the last thing I could picture my mom ever being.

The Biker Chick and the Chick Magnet

Jasen insists that he could have walked around without the "costume" and it would still be obvious he was a chick magnet. Yes, I have a humble brother.

Jose liked Connor's costume the best (Go Chargers)

But I loved my parent's little neighbor the fireman the best. He was so cute! He was
walking around in a daze because he could not understand why he was getting free candy. He had chocolate dripping down his face!

The dorks on the block!

For all of you who have come to our house, you know how ridiculous our fence looks. Since I moved into our little house in March 2007, our landlord has said she would be replacing the broken down fence. But whenever I ask her about it, she gets mad and says when she gets money she will do it. A year ago, a section of it blew away, and her idea of fixing it was to nail a piece of plywood over it.

I thought our fence could not get any worse, until we drove home last night and saw this!


You have got to be kidding me! She attached a new section of fence, that she must have had left over from the front. Besides it being WAY taller than the rest, she didn't even bother taking off the old piece of plywood! I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it because it looked so ridiculous. But this morning it is just embarrassing!

Jose's grandpa offered to help us fix it this weekend, and we said no, it is the landlord's responsibility. Oops! I don't know why after all this time she decided to fix the fence (if you can call this "fixing").

Oh well, hopefully we won't have to deal with it much longer. I'm not going to get my hopes up by telling you about a certain something we may have put an offer in. Nope, I'm going to keep my mouth shut this time and not mention the big, beautiful home we may be the highest bidder on...

Jose's Facial Hair take 2

In January, I convinced Jose to grow out his goatee. In June (see blog post) he had to shave it off for an interview with Santa Maria P.D. He didn't get the job (but he was one of 5 who got an interview out of almost 100 who took the test), so he grew it back out. This past week he decided to shave it off again, and have some fun. Last time he shaved off the goatee part, and left the mustache. This time he did the opposite "Joey Duggan style".