Blast From The Past

Living in Southern California often means that you make a trip down to Tijuana at least once in your life. (Some a LOT more than others).

In 1993 friends of ours came down and we went down to TJ to party. This was my one and only time I ever went there. And for some reason you have to take these group shots while you're down there.
Yes, I had an absolute blast down there, but that was 15 years ago. I have no desire to go back now...

And apparently going down to TJ is something my family does, because here is a picture of my grandma and my grandpa John down there in 1946.......



My grandma went back down there again in 1959, to marry her 2nd husband.

Then my mom went down there to marry my father in 1967.

At least hubby and I stayed up here to get married.............

I've Been Tagged

My friend, Michelle tagged me on her blog.

What to Do:

Go to your photo files, pick the 6th folder and the 6th picture and post it! Then tag 5 of your unsuspecting friends!

My oldest folder is from 2005. This picture is of my youngest on Easter morning enjoying a chocolate egg, yummy!!! She has such intense eyes! She gets them from her Daddy, although when my mom was alive, she swore she had my eyes. I think she has her Daddy's though too.

So now I'm tagging: Stacie, McCabe, My Sassy Friend, Sueberry, and if Di had a blog, I would tag her. :)

***************************************
Tag your it!
Please consider yourself tagged!
If you play along please leave a comment so I can come over and
see what you came up with!

I Need To Get My Rollerskates Out

...because apparently I need them to help me get around faster.

SO busy today!!

But then again, Tuesdays usually are for me.

It's my "Monday" at work (I don't work on the "real" Monday, as that's my ME day), the girls have school, then I have to rush to get them home from school so the oldest can get ready for soccer practice. Then, this evening, my youngest's teacher had an individual "Open House" for her class, as she wasn't able to do it last week with the rest of the school.

So, of course, I'm short on time, so my oldest's coach keeps them late, in the meantime, I have groceries in the car that I'm hoping aren't going to melt in this horrid heat we've been having this week.

I race her home, don't even get a chance to eat dinner with family, so I grab a piece of bread and head on back to the school.

My youngest's teacher had our kids' names spelled out vertically and wanted us to write something about them using each letter of their name.

Now, I love my youngest's name, but when it came to using those letters to start describing her, I'm thinking, "Dang, why did I give her THIS name???" I did manage to write some descriptives of her though.

Then I had to race back home to help the youngest with her homework, get her into bed, read to her (I've always read to my girls, starting when they are wee ones) and tucked her into bed.

All the while getting lunches ready for tomorrow, making a sandwich for myself to eat for dinner.

Hubby did make dinner and ran the dishwasher, so I was very grateful for that.

And tomorrow? A little less stressful, but not much.

Oh, and yesterday I made appointments for a mammogram (this will be my first, but I've heard that breastfeeding is more painful than a mammogram, so I'm hoping that's a good thing for me, since I did the breastfeeding thing with each girls for 18 months each), and I also have to get a bone scan because my stupid right foot doesn't want to cooperate and is causing me pain. Yea, I found out that they inject me with something to make my bones "glow" under the scan so they can see it better.

Nice.

SOOOOOOOOOO True

If you've ever had to take your child to the bathroom and they feel like they need to talk a lot in a public restroom, you've GOT to read this. And if you have we ones, yes, one day this may happen to you........

http://amazingtrips.blogspot.com/

I laughed so hard reading this because my youngest one is SOOOO known for talking in a louder than normal (or so it seems in a public restroom), or maybe it's the fact that she IS talking in a public restroom when people usually DON'T talk in there that makes it seem so loud.

Having A Little Bit Of Fun......

.........telling my oldest a little bit about my "early days", if that's what you want to call them. LOL!!

We had just finished watching Project Runway where the designers had to design certain genres of music for the other designers. So we were talking about rock 'n roll and such and I told my oldest about how I had danced on a table once, danced in a DJ booth and at one time I wanted to be a cage dancer. No.....not a STRIPPER, but a cage dancer. Hey, it sounded like fun then. I never did it though.

I always get a kick out of telling her a little bit about my past. She's always like, "EWWWWW, MOM, I CANNOT picture you doing THAT!!!" Teehee!!

I actually do not consider myself to have a wild past. I know too many people who were way more wild than me. Yes, sometimes we were wild, and sometimes I look back on that and think, "Holy Cow, were were SO lucky to survive that! Imagine what COULD have happened"

And while I do tell her some things, there are plenty of other things I'd rather not say, but when the time comes and she asks me, I will have to ponder on what I do tell her. I don't like having "skeletons in the closet". There were too many of those in my family.

I do want her to focus on her education, which she does seem to be doing, very well at the moment. I just need to make sure she continues that when she gets in high school.

I was an Honor Roll student in high school, and had I applied myself more, I probably could have been near the top of my class. But high school became more than just education for me. It was a time where I had fun as well. And I need to teach her the balance in that. And we always talk about WHEN she's going to college, not if.

Bubble Overload

Okay, so yesterday I come home from the gym and get ready to make dinner. The oldest emptied the dishwasher for me (as part of her chores.....) and I load it up quickly and start it. So I get the chicken out, getting ready to prepare it to cook it and I turn around and look at the dishwasher and I see bubbles coming out from it....WHILE IT'S CLOSED AND RUNNING!!!! Umm....I don't think it's supposed to do that.......

Shit.

So that just put me in a bad mood for quite a while. I think I'm starting "peri"-menopause.

Because I've been moody.

Just ask my husband.

Well, it turns out that the dishwasher episode was ACTUALLY both my fault AND my husband's fault. It's his fault because he decided to make a GAZILLION scrambled eggs in a pan that left it stuck on the pan. My fault because I coated it with regular dishwashing soap, left it to soak and totally forgot about it when I threw it in the dishwasher.

So hello bubble overload.

At least it's nice and sparkly clean now.

A Moment In Time

Hubby is learning to play the guitar and the youngest wanted to "play" with daddy.

It's Official....I'm The Mom Of A Teenager

This week my oldest turned 13. Wow. I can't believe that my baby is a teenager now! Of course she's been acting like one for quite a while now. Well, she always has been advanced........except for the delivery part.

I was in labor for 16 hours, they had me push for 3 hours and I ended up having a c-section with her. Well, she was 10 pounds, 6 ounces, so no wonder she wouldn't come out!! I remember my sister-in-law down by the doctor saying, "I can see her head!!" Hubby and one of my closest friends were helping me on either side of me as they doctor would say over and over again, "Let's try pushing again" I would spend all of my energy pushing and then when they would tell me to stop I would literally fall back down and not even move until it was time to push again.

When she came into this world (and I was conscious again - I could feel them cutting me and so the "drug doctor" upped my dosage of whatever he gave me and I was out in LaLa Land when she was born) I was so happy and blessed that my beautiful baby girl was in the world. The one who I had been waiting for and dreaming of my whole life (just ask my friends, they'll all tell you I always wanted a baby).

Wow.......

Here is a picture of her at 1 week old.......

At this time she was sporting the George Clooney look from when he was first on ER.

I was SO blessed to have her!!! Hubby went out to sea for 6 months though when she was only 3 months old. Since we were moving out of state when he got back, and I didn't plan on going back to work, I moved in with mom and mom and my sister. When he got back, we moved out of state, but then shortly afterwards, I realized how much I missed my family and after he was done with a school he was at, he was lucky enough to get orders back near my family.

Here she is at 1 year old. We bought this ball pit for her, and she loved it so much!!! Hubby also wanted to get her a Tickle Me Elmo, which we still have to this day. It's in my youngest's room right now.....

She has always loved to color and do crafty things. Must get it from me, although hubby is very crafty himself (although he'll tell you he's not, but he is). I've always been so glad she loves the creative side of her. I learned so much from my mom, and I hope to be able to pass that along to both of my girls.

This is her at 2 years old.......

Christmas has always been a favorite holiday in our family. Here, at 3 years old, we had just gotten back from some holiday event where they had face painting......
At 4 years old she wanted to take dance. Here she is at a Christmas Pageant.....
School. Kindergarten... My email mom's group and I were discussing on if you were a crier or a non crier when it came to your kids and them starting school. For the most part I'm a "non-crier", but I certainly did get very choked up when she started Kindergarten. What a milestone in a child's life and your own! You flash back to all the events and times leading up to this moment, and though it's only 5 years of memories, there are plenty! She was SO happy to start Kindergarten and has excelled in school since the beginning. When she started Kindergarten, she already knew how to read and say the alphabet backwards! Even the teacher was impressed about the alphabet thing!
At 6 years old, she started going fishing with Daddy every so often. She loved doing that, although I don't know how fond she was of the fish! Here she is just as they're getting ready to go fishing.
Ahhh.....7 years old. 2nd grade. She was a big sister now, and has ALWAYS been great with her sister from the very beginning (well, okay, not ALWAYS, as they argue and fight like most sisters do). She was SUCH a big help with her little sister. Hubby left to go out to sea when the youngest was 3 months old (yea, I know, freaky, huh???? ) This time I wasn't at home, living with my mom. I was out, doing it all myself, plus taking her to school, and everything else. She truly has a wonderful giving heart.
8 years old. (Of course as you can see with the birthday card she's holding up)

3rd grade. During this year she participated in her talent show at school, doing a gymnastics routine. She did SO well!! (yes, after dance, she wanted to do gymnastics...oh and has been playing soccer as well). She got to be very good at gymnastics and had it not been for an accident involving a door and her toe, she probably would still be doing it. But she was out of commission for a month and then when was well enough, she lost the desire for gymnastics.

9 years old. The start of braces.....Phase 1. (she will be in Phase 2 in a couple of years from now). She also started a new school, because she became GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) Identified, so she qualified to go into the advanced class, and because her current school didn't have it, we moved her to a new school, the one she is still at right now.

This was a hard year for her. Moving to a new school can be hard on children. And while she is a strong and determined girl, she's also shy.

But she got through it.

10 years old. Double digits. I remember thinking, WOW....she's TEN years OLD now! Where has the time gone????

She had the most wonderful teacher in 5th grade. He is truly a gifted teacher to inspire his students the way he does.

It was also this year, just before she turned 10 that she cut her long hair and donated it to Locks Of Love.

Also, this was the year of Hurricane Katrina and she was the driving force in starting a Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund at her school. She also helped to raise money for the Pandas this year as well.

11 years old.

Yes, as you can see in this picture, she's no longer my little girl. She's growing up. Gone is the "baby face", and now, even though there's still 2 more years until she was an official "teenager", the teenage "attitude" started. It was definitely more about the clothes as well.

12 years old.

7th grade.

This was a hard year for her too. Her school is a K-8 school, and they separate the 7th & 8th graders to the "junior high" part of the school.

So now, not only do you have school, but the "cliques" definitely start forming here.

And last (for now) but certainly not least, by any means......

13.

My little baby (well, okay, so she wasn't so "little" when she was born) is now a teenager.

For part of her present she got to upgrade her cell phone to a nice one. As I'm sure you can see, she is EXTREMELY happy about it. Daddy also got her a pink electric guitar for her birthday too. She can't wait until she can learn how to play it.

I am SO proud of her! She has SO many talents and sometimes I think she wishes she could clone herself so she could have more time to do all of them.

Happy Birthday my baby.

Work In Progress

That's me.

I went to the doctor's a few days ago for refills on my blood pressure medication.

Yes, I have high blood pressure, and it sucks sometimes.

It's hereditary for me, so no matter how much weight I lose, I'll have it.

So because it's a yearly thing, I have to get blood work done to make sure everything is functioning okay inside.

Good news, my glucose levels are fabulous (which is a good thing because I had gestational diabetes with both of my girls).

My thyroid levels are great.

All the other numbers came back fabulous.

Except one.

Yes, that darned cholesterol.

It came back a little high.

I'm not on medication for it, thank goodness, but she's giving me six months to get it down with diet.

Well............I've done it before.

Granted I did have help with cholesterol medication before, but I followed that way of eating so well, I lost weight as well.

So I pulled out paperwork that I have that lists what foods I can eat that are recommended for keeping a low cholesterol diet.

I'm getting back on track, because I am choosing to do this so I can lower my cholesterol, lose the weight.......AGAIN.......and keep it off.

Last time I did this I was SOOOOOOOO good!!!

Then I went and started having panic attacks.

Oh joy.

Now that I'm through the panic attacks (for the majority of it, I still get anxiety, but with the help of therapy - which I highly recommend to anyone - I can recognize them and work through them), and healed, for the most part, in regards to my mom's death, I can work on this for me.

Yea, so that's it.

I'm a constant work in progress, I guess....................

1st Day of School

Tuesday was their first day of school.

Yea me! LOL!!!

Every single year I always take the same pictures of them going to school. Even when the oldest was just going to school.

Here is my youngest in her "Mitchie" outfit (Camp Rock movie). She LOVES this outfit and so it was fitting she picked it for her first day of school outfit.


Wow, I can't believe she's in 1st grade. She is now the age that my oldest was when I got pregnant with her. I can't believe THAT much time has already gone by!!!
And here is my oldest. Her top is from Hollister, "of course". I'm telling you, I felt like SUCH a "MOM" when I took her shopping there last week. It's one of the HIP stores to shop at (meaning expensive, of course), but she usually finds stuff in the clearance section, because even though she loves their stuff, even she thinks it's expensive.
She still loves her hair too. (Thanks Aunt!!)

Wow, time flies, huh??
After we took these pictures, we were off to school and then yea, I was free!!! LOL!!

Actually I don't get my first "me" day until Thursday. I am very much looking forward to it! :) I love my girls with all my heart, but I do enjoy my "me" time. :)

Countdown to School

Enjoying her last days of summer vacation.

I am enjoying it as well.

As much as I can't wait for them to go back to school, I have enjoyed the laid back atmosphere that is about to end.

We don't sleep in every morning, as I do still have to work, but on the days I don't and we don't have to get up, boy is it nice to sleep in until 8:30 a.m. Yes, you read it right, that's about the longest I even like sleeping in. Because too much after that I feel like my day has already gone.

Next week will start the cycle of getting lunches ready, getting everyone in bed on time, getting to school on time, picking them up from school, helping out at school, etc.

The girls already started soccer practice so we're already doing that. Although next week the oldest will start softball practice as well. I'm going to work on going to the gym more while the oldest one is at practice too, at least the softball practice, because the gym is right around the corner.

But ahhh......I will enjoy this last week.

Our "California Adventure"

Our original trip was NOT to California Adventure. We were originally going to go up to Los Osos, Morro Bay area, to help celebrate my hubby's grandma's 80th birthday. Well, plans got changed and it was no longer going to be up there, it was going to be down in the L.A. area. So once again, our plans to go somewhere got cancelled. I felt so bad for my oldest, because it always seems that plans to go somewhere keep getting cancelled. So we decided to take the girls to California Adventure on Friday, stay the night and then go up to the birthday party on Saturday.

The girls were so excited and happy to go there! Plus they were going to get to go on Toy Story Mania, which has had advertisements for it all over the place.

We got into the park around 11:00 a.m. And our first ride was the Grizzly River Run.
(Never mind the guy in the photo, we don't know him.......)

Okay, BIG mistake!! We should have NEVER gone on this ride FIRST.

Yes, it's a water ride, like going down the rapids.

Yes, we got wet.

But not only did we get wet, hubby and I got SOAKED! I mean wet to the bone! It was like someone poured a 20 gallon bucket of water over me. I felt like I had a pool of water in my pants while I was sitting there. So of course it got in our shoes (well only one, but really, what's the difference) soaking our socks, etc.

So imagine what kind of store is right next to the ride. Yes, it involves clothes. So we spent way too much money on socks and then AFTER we bought the socks, I mentioned flip flops, so he went back in and bought himself a pair of flip flops. Well, I guess that was our "souvenir" for the day.

After that, we had some lunch (of course eating outside to try and help "dry" off, which really didn't happen until midway through the day and I think my underwear was still wet by the end of the day) and then made our way through the park, hitting the rides as we wandered our way over to Toy Story Mania.

Okay, this ride is SOOOOOOO cool!!! You get your 3D glasses, but it's actually a 4D ride! You get in the car and as you make your way through the ride, you stop at various places and target shoot at the screen. And when you pop a balloon you actually feel the "whoosh" of the air from the balloon! It's soo cool!!! The oldest said she got a little wet on her leg from hitting one of the targets! And then the ride has a screen where it keeps score with your partner in the car. It was definitely one of the funnest rides we have been on!

The girls then had to go on the Carousal ride. I'm not a big fan of things that go around and around. You won't get me on the teacups at Disneyland, and even the Dumbo ride sometimes gets to me. It's the whole motion of going around and around and around. Okay, I need to stop talking about it, just thinking about it is getting me dizzy....

However!! I do like roller coasters. So after this, we made our way over to California Screamin'. The last time we came to California Adventure, I chickened out on this ride. But I really wanted to go on it this time. So hubby took the little one over to the HUGE ferris wheel (again, not a big fan of things that go around and around), while the oldest and I went to the roller coaster.

Wow.....

I absolutely LOVED it!!! It's not like a regular roller coaster where you chug along going up to the top and then speed down. You actually get shot UP the roller coaster. That was my FAVORITE part! I looked over at my eldest though and she has a PETRIFIED look on her face and is crying! Oh, my poor baby!!! I'm trying to hold her and and reassure her it's going to be alright, while I'm THOROUGHLY enjoying the ride. They have a point in the ride where they take your picture and I tried to get a good picture of it with my cell phone (hubby had the camera at that point) but I couldn't, but it was a hoot. I was sitting there, grinning from ear to ear and you could see the fear in my oldest's face. And the thing is, she's been on this ride before! I guess she's just not a big fan of certain roller coasters. She's gone on a lot of them at Magic Mountain (up in Valencia), but even there she did not like the Colossus.

After we were done we went over to the Sun Wheel and saw the hubby and the youngest on there.

My youngest loves ferris wheels. Well, as long as hubby's there to take her on it.

Then we made our way through the boardwalk, stopping to take pictures.....

Then we went over to Flik's Fun Fair, where it is all kiddy rides. The 3 of them went on Flik's Flyers (again, it goes around and around, not for me)
Then we went over to the Hollywood Studios Backlot section of the park to go on Mike & Sulley To The Rescue Ride. It's a cute little ride for the kiddies. It's nice and cool inside there, you get to sit while your car "wanders" through Monsters Inc. Very cute ride.
Again, another "photo op" after the ride.
Then we went over to Tower Of Terror. I really wanted to go on it and so did hubby, but there was no way the oldest was going to go on it. So hubby went over to it while we ran into Goofy and the girls got to have their picture taken with him. The photographer asked if I wanted to get in the picture, but with having had a shitload of water dumped on me earlier in the day via the Grizzly River Run, I was not up to having my picture taken (the above picture of me was taken so far away, it was okay...LOL!!).
By the time hubby got off Tower of Terror, the line had gotten pretty long and we were all ready to go. The girls were getting very grumpy. But it was a good day there, it wasn't too hot, it wasn't too crowded, the longest we had to wait for a ride was about a half hour or so with Toy Story Mania, all in all it was a good family day.

And that's all that matters.

?????

The other day I was driving in my car and scanning the radio stations. I came across one, a "soft rock" station and they started playing Devo's "Whip It" Huh??? "Whip It" is considered SOFT ROCK????

WTF???

A Day In L.A.

Instead of a birthday party, my youngest decided she wanted to go to the American Girl store and get an American Girl doll. It was actually going to be cheaper for me to do this, rather than have a birthday party, because the place she wanted to have her birthday party had a $200 MINIMUM there.

So we started out day at about 7:30 a.m. to get there by the time the store opened. The American Girl store was located at The Grove in Los Angeles.

My youngest was SO excited to get to the store!

We went through each "Era" of the dolls so we could see all the displays and so she could get a feel for which doll she wanted.

She had originally wanted to get a doll that looked like her. When we got to this "Era" of 1974, she immediately wanted the doll, Ivy, that she is touching here.
My oldest desperately tried to talk her out of this doll, mostly because of the clothes. Which I admit weren't the greatest looking clothes. But I told my oldest that it is the youngest's birthday and whatever doll SHE wanted, she got to get. And I told my youngest that that is why they have so many different dolls because all girls have different tastes.

In the end, she got the doll she wanted, Ivy.

But we still perused through the store looking at the displays.
These dolls behind her are the "Dolls of The Year". Each year American Girl comes out with a doll that is only available for one year. My oldest has the 2nd doll from the left.
Afterwards we walked around The Grove for a little while, going into the 3 story Abercrombie & Fitch store where there are 2 gorgeous guys at the front door welcoming you in.

There is also a pond in which the water shoots up to the beat of music that is played.

We also got another outfit for "Ivy", and once the oldest changed Ivy into this outfit, she did finally admit that she was wrong and that Ivy was a very cute doll.

We couldn't stay at The Grove for very long because my sister had a surprise for my oldest at 12:30, and my oldest had no idea what was going on, and thank goodness my youngest doesn't like to peruse the shops for very long. She got what she wanted. She was happy.

So we made our way through Hollywood to get to the surprise.

Ahhh.....Sunset Blvd. Home of the famous Whisky-A-Go-Go, The Roxy and others. I spent many a weekend watching bands here before marriage and kids.

The famous Hollywood Blvd.
Okay. So we get to the surprise. It's actually a hair salon, called Krimson. My sister is friends with the owner. We pulled up to this place and get out and my oldest is asking why we are here and I tell her that her aunt is here and we are meeting her here. She thinks NOTHING of it. We get inside and my sister gives her a hug and then tells her, "Surprise!!! You are getting your hair done!" My oldest was in SHOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I loved it!! I loved that I was able to pull it off and she had NO idea what was happening. She was going to get a REAL haircut and highlights in her hair. So here is her "before" shot. (Yes, I admit it, we've been doing the Supercuts thing)

And here is her "after" shot. A BIG improvement, don't you think?? This was her birthday present from my sister. Have I told you all how much I love my sister??!!!!! She is THE BEST!!!!


And don't worry, I'm never taking her to Supercuts again. Now I just need to find a good hairdresser for her down here.

The Calmness

Ahhhhhhh........life in California.

I took this picture one day on my way up to my friend's house. I just love driving up this street with all the palm trees on either side.

Life is calm and mellow right now.

Of course soon it won't be.

Soccer practice has already started, softball practice will start soon and then throw the big thing back in there...........school.

I will actually be glad when school starts up for the girls again. I will have my routine again, working while the girls are in school. Of course I will have the added pressure of getting their lunches ready, in bed on time, schoolwork done, to name just a few.

So I will revel in the calmness of now while I still have it.