Fabulous Foto Friday!

Happy Friday!! Happy 3 day weekend too!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We are planning on camping. It's an annual thing for us.

So, to kick off this fun weekend, I leave you with party photos from last weekend's birthday party for my daughter. I know I said here that I was worried about how it was going to turn out but I worried for nothing. The party was a hit and the kids had a great time!!

{BTW...I made the cake! My daughter loved it too!}

{My friend, Charlie and my brother in the pink hat. I worry about him sometimes...lol!}

{ My brother}

{After a day of partying hard!}

{My hula girl}

{I sure love these two!}

{My Ozzy-boy holding on for dear life!}

And now, I leave you with yet another silly picture of my dog!

Have a FABulous weekend! Be safe!

Writing Assignment: Wedding Makeover!

It's that time again with Mama Kat. This week I couldn't pass up. As soon as I got to prompt #2, I just knew that was the one for me to do....

2.) If you could do your wedding over, how would you do it?(Inspired by this tweet “I am watching TLC’s wedding shows and this makes me want to get married again. Same groom but a totally different ceremony.” by Jen @BuriedWithKids)

My husband and I got married 9 years ago, June 9th, 2001. Before we had decided on the venue, we had looked at local spots and I just had my heart set on one place that I just loved. It was at a golf course in the town next door to us. One of the "must-haves" were palm trees. I really wanted palm trees in our wedding photos. Only thing was, this place was well out of our price range. We were paying for the wedding ourselves and this just wasn't in our budget.

When we came to the reality that we just couldn't afford the local places for what I wanted, we had to make one of two choices:

1. Either wait a few more years to save up the money so we can afford it. Sure, this doesn't sound so bad but by this time, I had already waited 8 yrs and I didn't want to wait any longer.

Or

2. Get married in Las Vegas. Which is what we did.

Sure, I never wanted to get "hitched" in Vegas terms so I wanted to make sure we did it at a nice place and not at one of those Elvis chapels or Drive-up window chapels. Oh, and can't forget the palm trees.....that's a MUST!


So, we started checking the websites for the hotel chapels. By this time, my "soon-to-be" husband and I already knew Vegas. It was basically our second home. We went there often, so we knew what the hotels looked like, just not the chapels. First on my list was the Mirage. I knew they had palm trees galore. Only problem....no chapel. Next! Mandalay Bay Hotel. The chapel was very pretty and it had the palm trees I wanted. I double checked the other hotels but none compared to the Mandalay Bay. In February 2001, we took a trip out to Vegas to check things out and discuss packages, dates, etc. It was confirmed! We we're getting married!!!

Then...we checked the rooms online for the reception cause again, we couldn't afford a hefty price tag so we found the Terrace Suites at the MGM Grand Hotel. Perfect! It was a 1,300 sq ft two-story suite with a 786 sq ft balcony (I know!! Awesome, right?!). We called the hotel to check rates and it was $700 for one night. We booked it!! Everything is going perfect!

I should have known it was too good to be true, because.....

A week before the wedding, since my dad has back problems, he wanted to go into the doctors and get a shot to ease the pain for the drive to & from Vegas so he could enjoy his time. Apparently, a few days later he he was in pain and then the doctor said that the shot had meningitis in it and he needed to get to the hospital. There were a few other people that got the same shot that same day my dad did and they were infected also. A couple of those patients ended up dying too. It was all over the news. It was so scary! Fortunately, my dad was being treated and was okay but he had to stay in the hospital for a week which in turn, missed my wedding.

Once at the ceremony though, the priestess lady held a cell phone with my dad on the other end so he could hear the whole ceremony and my grandfather walked me down the aisle.

Once we got to the MGM Grand for our reception, we learned that supposedly our room had a water break (*cough* bullsh** *cough) and we ended up with a smaller room which didn't allow enough mingling. With that, I was so upset and mad and refused to ever stay at MGM Grand again because they lied to us (Come on now! We all know they gave our room to a highroller. I'm not stupid. Sorry, still a little bitter :/) and only gave us a refund of $100. Oh boy! That really covered the difference. I think NOT!

**Disclaimer: Next month we are going to Vegas and um...yeah, guess where we're staying? After 9 yrs, I have decided to suck it up and stay at MGM Grand hotel. We're gonna try and suck a deal out of them though!! :D

So, if I could do my wedding over, I would have my dad there to give me away. That moment he missed really tore him up and I only hope that next year we can afford to have a beautiful simple ceremony and renew our vows so we can make it up to him.

Also, we would have had the reception at the RIO Suites instead. It was a toss up between the two hotels and in the end chose the wrong hotel. Oh, and when I was 6 months pregnant, we stayed in the suite at the RIO Suites that we were considering. Beautiful too!! Wish we went with that one. Perhaps it would have been a better reception.

~~~

Now it's your turn. Head on over to Mama Kat's and see what others are blogging about.

Did You Know?

I was listening to the radio station, K-Love. They gave a little insightful information the other day.

Apparently they have done studies that when a child gets a "boo boo" and mommy kisses it, it heals faster. Apparently when mommy kisses it, the child feels a little better which in turn, releases endorphins that help heal the boo boo faster. Cool! Make sure to get your boo boo's kissed!

This tid-bit of information made me curious to know some other "Did you know" facts that I didn't know. This is what I found:

Cows don't have upper front teeth.



The tomato is the world's most popular fruit. Not in my book...yuk!



Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.



Butterflies taste with their feet. Mmmmm, yummy!



Coca-Cola was originally green.



The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.



TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.



Do you know a "Did you know" fact?

Happiness....

It's these moments. This is what I live my life for. The things in life that are so precious to us. I try and capture and hold tight as long as I can. To keep time still....

And all of God's beauty! The flowers that He gave us to enjoy! The beauty that we take for granted...

And then our wonderful husbands who make us laugh when they let their wife put their daughter's headband on and then refuses to take a picture.....not even knowing it was on his head in the first place!!

What brings you Happiness?

Six Word Saturday!

Celebrating My Baby Girl's Birthday Today!

Okay, so it's a bit early.....3 weeks to be exact but with school coming to an end, we wanted to make sure there was a good turn out for her birthday. You see, her birthday falls after she gets out of school. So by then, I'm sure families have already made vacation plans and I figured, if the kids are still in school, they could make the party! So far we have at least 12 kids coming!

We have one of those 5-in-1 jumpies. We originally ordered a waterslide jumpy but the weather hasn't been cooperating so I had to call and switch it to a dry one.

We have one of those funny photo opportunity props, an air hockey table, I made the cake myself (a 3-tiered cake) which I've never done before and it relatively came out cute. A tiny bit crooked but my daughter loves it so that's all that matters!

Then we have one of those canopies in the backyard and since the wind was nuts yesterday, it tore our canopy. We had to jimmy-rig it so it doesn't look that pretty with it's fabric flapping around. Yeah, not happy about that! I ordered a new one but the company is out of stock so it won't get here in time. Looking at the beginning of August.

It's supposed to be windy but at least the sun is out. We kept seeing on the weather reports that it was supposed to rain. Thank the Good Lord it's not!

~~~

Now head over to Cate's to see what everyone else is saying.

All I Want For Christmas....

I am so loving the new feature that apparently Blogger announced last Fall?!?! *Where the heck have I been?* I'm talking about Blog2Print. Have you guys seen this or checked it out?

My whole thing was, I wanted to print all my blog posts for my daughter for when I'm not here anymore. A little piece of Mommy and her thoughts, per se. Well, I'm now working on 402 post and the thought of printing out 402 posts would just take for ever, plus it wouldn't be as clean or the pictures wouldn't be in color so I'm sure you can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon Blog2Print. So. Awesome!

I figured I would do my books by year and since I started blogging back in July '08, I calculated what each year would cost me. Just 2008 and 2009, I'm looking at $150...not including this years.

So, you know what I'm adding to my Christmas list this year!

~~~

So, a funny thing happened today. This morning I went to my pantry looking for some canned fruit for my daughter's lunch. As I was browsing through all the cans and jars of stuff, I decided to look at the dates on a few. As I looked at a jar of pizza sauce, I noticed the date on it said 2002. WHAT?!

So, once I saw that, I had to do what I always do.......update my status on Facebook, but of course. Only thing is, it came out completely wrong. This is what I said:

"Okay....I seriously think it's time I go through my panty and purge. Just found a jar of pizza sauce in there from 2002?!?!?! Ewwww! That sucker made it through 3 moves. LOL!"

Needless to say, I couldn't stop laughing. It was one of those laughs that we all need once in a while. You know, the kind that makes you cry. Yeah, that good!

So, have you had one of those moments recently?

Say What??

My MIL shared with me a conversation she had with my daughter. It went something like this:

My daughter: I want to be a fashion designer.

MIL: That's wonderful! That's a talent. Everyone has talents, things they are really good at. Some people can sing, others can do fashion design like you want to do. All these things are talents. I don't have a talent though.

My daughter: Yes you do, Grandma! You're really good at sitting on the couch watching TV!

Ahhh, yes....the things children say! lol

~~~

At the craft fair I just attended that was being held at the local hospital by the hospital staff, the booth was reserved under my SIL name. My SIL just volunteers there.

While there at the booth, it was me, my husband, my SIL and my MIL.

Well, a lady came up looking at my photos. She was actually someone with a booth of her own and this was the conversation:

Lady: Wow! Your pictures are beautiful! (while looking at my SIL).

My SIL: Oh...Thank you!

Me: Yes, thank you! Those are actually mine!!

Oh...and this happened a couple times. Can I just say.....the nerve! And, her response when I actually said something about it, "I was afraid of getting in trouble." In trouble for what?? What are they going to do....fire you from volunteering???? You just don't do that, take credit for someone else's work, especially when they're trying to make a name for themselves and get their name out there. Just not ethical!!

Positive Experiences

On Saturday I had the Arts & Crafts fair. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. My SIL was the one that signed me up for it and so I just got my stuff together. She told me the time, the date and where it was. That's all I knew and basically, it was all really vague, the information I got.

Once we got there, I saw that there were only a handful of booths. Besides that, there was jumpy fun and little race cars, music and a car show. It was really small. It was just mostly the hospital staff that was putting it together for a fundraiser. Again, something I was totally unaware of. So, the few booths there, was just a small snippet of what was there. I feel this just wasn't the right event for me....but that's okay. I still enjoyed myself!

I didn't sell anything and that's okay also. Honestly, from what I saw, I don't think many others sold anything either....except the lady that was next to me selling her candle stuff.

To be honest though, I actually left feeling pretty good because I got so much positive feed back from people on my photos that I started to feel confident about actually attending a "real" arts & crafts fair. I needed that confidence boost.

Sure, my family and friends all told me that my photos are beautiful but then again, the people that audition for American Idol are told they sing great. So, it's nice to get that outside feedback.

The people that came by really thought my pictures were beautiful. The frames I had them in was also a nice touch and made the pictures look even better. Funny thing was, there was another photographer selling her pictures and when she came over, my husband got the feeling she felt competition. I take that as a compliment but I'm not competitive at all. She was however, trying to get some information from me about my photos. At first, I thought she was just someone looking and was interested. She was but she had a motive also. She had kind words and loved my photos and frames but again, I take it as a compliment!

Anyways, one of the highlights of the evening was, we saw and got our picture taken with the traffic guy, Sal Castaneda from our local news channel that we watch everyday. A local celebrity!!

So, I have taken this as a positive experience and look forward to being able to attend other events. I feel that since I live near wine country, that arts & wine festivals would be the perfect type of event for me. Also, my husband thought about attending next year's State Fair here in California but that is a costly event, so it's definitely something we need to think about. Plus, the extra time will allow me to slowly get stuff that I can use for my booths.

Yah for new experiences!!!

Six Word Saturday!

Hope It's A Good Turn Out!

Today is the local Arts & Crafts Fair that my SIL signed me up to sell some of my pictures. It makes me feel good that she has this confidence in my photos and I'm excited about this but at the same time, extremely nervous. I've never down anything like this. If it wasn't for her registering me on her own, I probably wouldn't be doing this. I know, just need to be forced out of my comfort zone.

I'm just concerned about a couple things though. It's at the local hospital and I have searched the city website and stuff and didn't find any type of advertising on this fair. So, how the heck is the word getting out about this? My husband checked with his sister and I guess it was in the paper and around the hospital. I just hope that's enough.

Then, because we seem to be spending an awful lot of money on other things going on lately, my husband didn't want to spend too much money on "stuff" for my booth. For instance, I hope I have enough tables. My SIL was gonna check on that for me today. I have a vision and I hope I can display that vision. Also, I need tablecloths and I honestly think they should be white but I don't have white so will another color work? A color I actually have here at my house?

I just hope it's a good turn out and I can at least make the money back that I spent into getting this prepared.

We'll see.......and so will you cause I'm bringing my camera so you can bet I'll share the details later. Wish me luck!

~~~

Now it's your turn. Head on over to Cate's and see what's going on in other's neck of the woods.

Bored....

First, let me start off by saying....Whoops, I was too tired last night to put together my Fabulous Foto Friday so I didn't do it. I'll do it later tonight so I guess it will be a Fabulous Foto Friday Night Special! lol

Anyways.....

Okay, this is where I start to get bored with things.



In this case...it would be my blog that needs to be "dressed".

Things such as my blog layout. Don't get me wrong, I love this layout but I like to change things up.....often! You see, I won this beautiful layout from Shabby Creations but as I've said before and I'll say again, with as much as I like to change things up, I refuse to buy a layout as I get bored too often. I'm surprised I've kept this one as long as I have. I really like it, it's pretty, elegant and classic but it's almost Summer and I like to change things up to stay with the seasons. Honestly, it's not looking Summery around here.

So, what should I do? Any suggestions? Anyone know of a good place to get cute layouts (headers included) that can be customized....for FREE?!?! Or does anyone know of a giveaway for a free blog layout?

I know, perhaps I'm asking for too much but I don't like to spend money on things like this. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Facebook....in Real Life

Yes, I'm part of the millions of people out there who has a Facebook account.

It first started out on Myspace because a friend of mine back in 2007 was moving to Oregon and she thought it would be a great way to keep in touch with each other since we would now be hundreds of miles apart. It worked well! It also was fun cause it allowed me to "create" something, which is fun to me.

Then, my aunt in Hawaii invited me to Facebook. I immediately thought "I don't want too many of these things to keep track of" but at the same time thought, "What a great way for me to keep in better contact with my aunt" so I registered.

At first I didn't like Facebook. It was boring, plain and it really didn't allow me to "create" my own page like Myspace did. I didn't take to it very easily but I bounced back and forth to it once in awhile....until I got more friend request. At that point, it seemed as though everyone was migrating away from Myspace and going to Facebook.

I've now been on Facebook for who knows how long, 1-2 yrs now. I used to play all thouse applications (until they started freezing up my computer whereas I quite playing them) so now I use Facebook mainly to keep in contact with all my friends because I don't like the phone, although I do have my weekly chat with my BFF....but that's okay cause I enjoy those weekly chats.

Anyways, while on Facebook yesterday, I saw this super funny video and just had to share cause it is so true.

Writing Assignment: Husband Edition!

I love to do Mama Kat's writing prompts each week. However, she's been giving some very challenging prompts lately that I haven't done them in a few weeks.

This week I thought I would do something different. I thought you guys would enjoy this little treat.

I have decided to have my husband do one of the prompts!! I asked him and he agreed. I was surprised too....but intrigued.

I read him the prompts and he choose:

4.) Write a 20-line poem (rhyming or non-rhyming) dedicated to your favorite piece of clothing (could be shirt, hat, shoes, etc)

So, without further adu, here is my husband and his Writing Assignment.....

{Beware: Rated PG-16}


My Jewelry Box

Sorry boxers,
I don't like you.
My nuts aren't punching bags
for a boxer like you.

Some say commando
is the way to go.
I don't want to zip it like Stiller
Cause that would be a killer.

Some men like thong
but I'm no chippendale
and I think it's wrong
oh well, what the hell.

Silky and sleek
are too foofy for me.
Slippen and sliden
isn't gonna happen, you see.

Briefs is my case
where I keep my rocks.
Safe and sound
in my jewelry box.

~~~~

Now it's your turn. Head on over to Mama Kat's and see what other's are writing about.

I Love...

When my baby girl helps me in the kitchen like making cupcakes...

When she poses for me so I can take a picture of her pretty little face...

When she makes the silly faces she does....all the time....because that's her...

I Love when she's just there with me....


I love that I got so blessed and lucky to have a beautiful, funny, smart, charming, lovable daughter who loves to spend time with me!


Thank You God!