Ronny & Amanda's Wedding

My half brother Ronny moved his wedding up from next September to November 6Th a few months ago. So, we were only able to afford to buy a plane ticket for me. I flew in on Thursday Night and hung out with my half sister, Danielle and her husband Jeff. On Friday Morning, Danielle, Jeff and I met up with Ronny & Amanda at the hall to help set-up and decorate. Overall, we had a fun day- but I had quite the struggle with the table skirt for the head table.

Amanda did a great job picking out inexpensive things and the hall looked pretty good when we were done, if I do say so myself. I stuck around to help out/watch the rehearsal. My soon to be nephew, Gino (2) was a little tired and shy and wouldn't walk down the aisle. I pulled out a lollipop from my purse and helped him get down, but then he just sat on my lap instead.



After the rehearsal, we had a nice rehearsal dinner. Jeff, Danielle & I stopped at a bar on the way home for a nightcap and headed in for a somewhat early night since we had a wedding to go to the next morning.

The morning of the wedding, Danielle, My other half sister Jen and I met up with Amanda at her hotel room to get ready. She had Hailey and Gino with her. We had some pizza, champagne and just relaxed for a little while.


Then we headed over to the hall. The wedding went pretty much as planned. Gino fell asleep and our cousin George just carried him down the aisle and held him during the ceremony.

There was some good food. I think everyone had a good time. There was a couple of isolated issues. However, at midnight- things were starting to wind down- but I was still on California time and was not ready for bed. So, I ended up heading home with Jen's roommates. Jen and Ronny's friend John helped entertain me until around 4am. I am glad I got to spend some time getting to know her a little better.



The next day, Jen took me to the airport. I was bummed because The Patriots were playing the Browns in Cleveland when I was getting on my plane. But after I got the score update, I was kind of glad I wasn't in Ohio to watch that game with Browns fans. I am glad I made the effort to get there. But, I was also glad to be home with my daughter, husband and my own bed.

House Troubles

Mid October we received a letter from our property manager. We have been living in our house for almost 4 1/2 years. We have signed several leases, but were currently month to month. They were giving us a new lease option, but no matter which one we chose- they were raising our rent. We could sign a 15 month lease for a $75/month increase, a 6 month least for a $100/month increase or go month to month for a $125/month increase.

The last year has been tough on us and we already thought the rent we were paying was kind of steep. So we had a huge decision ahead of us. The first weekend we found a place about $300/ month cheaper than what we are currently paying. It had a two car garage and no shared walls. It had a patio that felt bigger than our current one. The kitchen was smaller (I didn't think that was possible), as were the bedrooms and living area and we would be down 1 bathroom. Plus, we would not be able to take the dog with us.

So we decided that was not the place for us and decided to consider buying a house. We were pre-approved for a little over $200,000. That doesn't get you very far here, so we decided to look in Concord which is about 25 miles from where we currently live (The opposite way from where Justin has been looking).

We found this house that we liked, in a neighborhood that we didn't.
And a neighborhood we liked, with this house that was just too small and would need to have the garage re-converted back to a garage.
While I was in Ohio, Justin tested the commute and realized that it was just not going to be a good thing for us. The houses we can afford there are just not worth the extra time and money for the commute.

We continued to look for a rental, but decided that we were going to stay where we are at for now. We signed the 15 month lease and are going to trust that God will provide the funds we need to stay there. And since CLO-E is 16 1/2 years old, she may not be with us by the time our lease is up which will make it a lot easier to find a new place. Or maybe, Justin will get a great job and we will be able to afford to buy a small place closer to the area we love.

Hallowwen 2010

A few months ago Paige & I took a trip to Costco. While walking down the aisle I noticed that their Halloween costumes were out. So I asked Paige if she knew what she wanted to be for Halloween. We were passing by some large pillows and she responded a "Pillow". I figured it had something to do with the pillows we just saw and forgot about it.

But Paige did not forget. Anytime you asked her what she wanted to be, she wanted to be a Pillow. And then it became more elaborate, she wanted to be a Princess Pillow. One weekend I went to several garage sales looking for a princess pillowcase to make her costume out of. But I did not find anything and we realized that a standard size pillowcase would be too big for her.

I enlisted the help of my mom, who found some cute princess fabric and she made this great costume. She lined it so it kept its shape. She, as usual, did an awesome job.

On Halloween, she went to a Harvest Festival with Daddy in the morning. We went to look at a house to buy in Concord (Story for another blog) and stopped to go trick or treating at Nana's on the way home. I wasn't feeling very good so I stayed home for trick or treating at night. She actually had to come home to empty her bag. She continued to trick-or-treat at the neighbors houses for days, mostly because they kept giving her candy.

Family Weekend

Justin's uncle Hank flew in from Kansas for his 40th high school reunion. He needs some help getting around these days so Justin picked him up from the airport and he stayed at our house. They went to the reunion on Saturday and had a great time. Justin also saw his "Aunt Donna and Uncle Ernie". After the reunion, they went to visit his grandpa's sister. It was good for him to see her, but it was hard because she is really loosing her memory. Hank left Sunday morning. It was a quick trip, but Justin was glad to see him. And he was so excited to take him for a ride in his old car.

His grandma had been visiting her sister in Auburn (2-2 1/2 hours from our house) and needed a ride home to Watsonville (1 1/2 hours the other direction from our house). He was going to pick her up at her sister's house. But his grandma's nephew Ernie offered to drive her to our house and split the difference. So all three of them came to our house for a little while today. We caught up, and of course they went for a cruise in the old car. This used to be grandma's car so it was so cool just seeing her sitting in it with her sister.!

Justin's b-day

We celebrated Justin's actual birthday by having him work. I cooked a big dinner and we had my mom and sister Mikaila over. The next day we headed to Santa Cruz. We picked up our nephews on the way. We visited our old church. We were going to go to the pier and have clam chowder bread bowls for lunch, but it seemed to crowded that way. So we drove around and ended up at Carpo's for a nice lunch with our nephews. We also stopped by Justin's grandfather's grave site. The boys had never been there before and it was special for them to see where he is buried.


After lunch, we went to a car show and hung out with Dan, Michelle, Lucus, Alyssa and Teagan. The kids had a great time playing together and Dan's car ended up winning best in show. After a few hours we decided to head to the boardwalk to meet Jerry, Kelly and Landon. However, it was very crowded and by the time we all met up, we had to head back to our car. I did get the chance to give the boys a funnel cake for the first time. I just love being able to help them try new things and see new things. Overall the day was a lot of fun- even though Paige did not nap.

The Jungle Adventure

The other day we were watching Paige's favorite show "Caillou" and they were pretending to be in a desert. And Paige decided she wanted to go to the Jungle. So Justin, being the creative father he is, took her to the closest thing to a Jungle he could find- The local creek. They had a great time exploring.

A day at the Beach- Without leaving home

While we have had a relatively cold summer, we had a bit of a heat wave a few weeks ago. Justin hadn't started working yet so he decided to bring Hawaii back to our house. He bought some playsand and set up "Paige's Beach". They had a great day and even had a picnic outside.

Photo Dump

Just some random cute pictures of Paige.

She insisted on wearing just her tutu- And I mean it is just her tutu.

Eating a lolipop with daddy since mommy doesn't actually give her lollipops.

She always wants to help, so I started putting her to work husking corn. It is our new thing.

She love trying on hats, just doesn't usually wear them too long

Trying on daddy's helmet

Frist Curlers

In Hawaii, Paige saw the curlers in my Nana's hair and was fascinated. I told her we would put some curlers in her hair when we got home. I thought I still had some of those pink squishy ones that I used to use when I was a kid. But all I had was these white ones that don't stay in as well overnight. We used them anyway. She was thrilled. And (I forgot to take pictures), her hair was so cute curly the next day.

Hawaii 2010

We were blessed to be able to go to Hawaii this year with my family. It has been a rough couple of months with Justin breaking his collar bone and not working for about 3 months. We were in need of some fun in the sun. We had a great time. I am going to attempt at remembering all of the stories and hopefully lining up the pictures to match.

Here is one picture that didn't really go with anything else. We had a great chart of who was on dinner duty that night, our snacks and our schedule. It was great!














Day 1: Wednesday August 4Th:
Around 10am, Paige, Justin & I headed to Oakland Airport. We parked our car at a lot close to the airport (I found a coupon for $4.99/day!). The shuttle was right at our car and took us to the terminal. We were loaded with baby stuff (Car seat and a pack-n-play) and our luggage. Once we checked our bags and made it through security we found our way to the gate. Paige found a balloon to keep her busy with and we tried to relax a little.

We got on the plane, armed with activities and other fun things to do. Our portable DVD player is 6 years old and has a very short battery life so we had other things to do as well. We made fruit loop necklaces, and I made rice crispy treats for take off/landing. I had some other fun coloring/sticker activities. We did watch some movies, but Paige did not really like having the headset on and the battery died about 30 minutes before we landed. She did take a nap, but it took a little while to get her down. Overall- the flight went well but we were ready to get off.



















After we landed we went to pick-up our compact rental car which we got through Priceline.com for $12/day. They had not compact or mid size cars on the lot, so we walked out with a full size car for the same price!

We headed to Wal-Mart for a few things. We got a booster seat for Paige for $12, a couple of pairs of water shoes for Justin & Paige, some disposable cameras (One for Paige which we believe we lost unfortunately) and an underwater one for Justin. My family was landing a little while later and we were not sure if we were making a Costco trip or not. So we plugged in park in our GPS. We discovered that parks in Hawaii are usually a beach or something similar. So we hung out at the beach until my parents called.
















Once they had their rental car, we realized we had no room for Costco. So we headed to our condo about an hour from the airport. We got checked in and went out to pizza. It was almost 8pm Hawaii time (Or 11PM our time). Paige was a trooper. After dinner we went to the grocery store to pick-up a few things. Paige looked at Chelsie and said "I want to go sleep in my new bed please". So Justin & Kayla took her back and put her to sleep. Her new bed was the pack-n-play which we put in our walk in closet as her own little room.

Day 2- Thursday August 5Th:
She was up at 4am. We discovered we had an emergency exit off of our bathroom which helped Justin take her to the beach without waking everyone else up. He was digging for crabs with her and met an interesting guy we call "Arkansas". It was his 2nd to last day there and he was so excited about digging for crabs he woke his wife up. He was fun to watch from our balcony- quite the character.

The rest of the family woke up and we enjoyed some coffee and breakfast on our Lanai. We spent the day relaxing at the beach/pool. My parents/Nana went for a long walk. They ended up near the place we stayed last time and decided to have lunch at the Hula Grill. This is the barefoot restaurant we just loved.





























For dinner we started our first dinner at home. Chelsie was the head chef, and Me & Dad were her helpers. She made Mango chicken which was so good. We headed to bed fairly early and hoped Paige would sleep in a little later.

Day 3- Friday August 6Th

Paige slept in a little later but she was still up early. Justin took her to the beach again. We had a nice breakfast. I believe that we spent the day relaxing. During the day, Paige had fun playing with the coasters and made daddy a "Bikini".And then for dinner, my parents neighbors, the Spaldings, came over for dinner. It was their last night in Maui. Their son and Justin had a great time scaring people passing by pretending to be a Teradactle.





















































Day 4- Saturday August 7Th

We went up the coast to a place called Honolua Bay to go snorkeling. The beach was all rocks. We had to walk through a rain forest to get there. We put Paige in her life vest and floaty ring. Kayla, Chelsie and I were in our floaty's too. When we got in the water, my dad actually took all of us out to the middle of the bay for snorkeling. Justin was too nervous with my daughter so he took her back to shore where my Nana/mom were hanging out.

I snorkeled for a while and saw some cool fish including a puffer fish. When I headed in, my mom headed out. Sitting on the rocks, I found out that there were lots of rats/mice crawling in there. Plus there were gigantic bees. I could not wait to get out of there at that point.

We hiked back through the rain forest. Justin, Kayla , Paige and I headed back to the Condo so Paige could nap. My parents, Chelsie & Nana checked out the other beach we had wanted to go to.

Justin stayed home with Paige while the rest of us went shopping at the Cannery mall.

That night, Mom, Nana & Chelsie were on for dinner. We had steak, shrimp and three bean salad. They also made smashed purple potatoes which everyone seemed to like, but I did not.




























Day 5- Sunday August 8Th

We realized that Paige had some gunk in her eye that was not going away. So while everyone else headed to a church on the beach, Justin & I took Paige to the Urgent Care in Lahaina. She did have pink eye. While we were waiting for our prescription we walked around the Cannery Mall and got an Orange Julius.

We waited at the condo for everyone. Had a nice lunch and then headed to the beach that we had missed the day before. Slaughterhouse beach was perfect. It was sandy an the water was great. We played and floated around in the ocean for hours.

We headed back to the Condo so Paige could take a nap. Mikaila took Paige to play with her beach ball down in the lawn. My mom and I were on the Lanai watching the sun go down. My mom saw something floating- it was a beach ball. Just then Kayla came back and they had lost the beach ball in the ocean.

That night, Kayla made Terriyaki Chicken sticks, rice and a really good salad.
















Day 6:Monday August 9Th

The morning of Day 6, we went shopping at Hilo Hatties. Then we headed back to the Condo, had a lunch and headed out to Lorraine's Shaved ice. We stopped at the Blow Hole on the way there. It was actually blowing this year!

Lorraine's is one of our favorite places to visit. It is a little bit of a drive on a one way road. But she is a character. We had our shaved ice, bought a new t-shirt and some passion fruit. My parents bought her banana bread and toasted coconut. The food is good, but it is Lorraine that makes the visit worth it.

On the way home, we stopped at a couple of great lookouts. Papa had his binoculars. He let Paige look through them. The first thing she said was "I see my ball"! It was so funny.

Dinner that night was Justin, Chelsie & Mikaila. He made Terriyaki burgers with grilled pineapple.
































































Day 7- Tuesday August 10th

On Tuesday Morning we split up a little. My mom, nana & Paige went swimming at the Marriott while Chelsie, dad and Kayla went to ride Jet Ski's.

Justin & I rented Mopeds to go on a drive down the coast- Or so went the plan. We rented them from Aloha Moped Rentals. The guy taught me how to ride it and away we went. I was shaking, I was so scared and of course I only went about 20 miles an hour at the fastest. I couldn't turn very well and I was so afraid of falling off. We road for about a half hour total and then returned my moped while Justin went to finish off the remaining 1 1/2 hours.

Since it was Chelsie's last day- we went to lunch at Duke's (The restaurant at our hotel). It was expensive and it was OK. But at least we tried it.















After lunch, we put Paige in for a nap and then Chelsie, Kayla & I got our nails done.

My parents friends, the Burns, were also staying in the same building (Same floor) as us. They came over for appetizers and Chris brought his nice camera. We took some great family pictures at sunset.

Then we enjoyed dinner prepared by Me, Justin & Nana.



























































Day 8- Wednesday August 11th

Chelsie had to head back a day early so she could drive down to school. So my parents took her to the airport and then went for a hike with Nana. Justin & I took Paige to the Maui Ocean Center. It was expensive for what it is, but we may just be spoiled with the places we have around us. There were some fish we had never seen before, and I loved the Sea Turtle exhibit. Kayla stayed at the condo and hung out by the pool.















































After the Ocean Center, we headed back to Lahaina where we had lunch at Aloha Mixed plate. It was good. One of the best meals out we had all week and fairly inexpensive. The rest of my family missed out.

We headed back, put Paige in for a nap. Kayla and I head back to the pool since it was our last full day/night.

In the evening, everyone except Paige & Me went on a stargazing cruise. Paige & I relaxed at the hotel and enjoyed our final sunset from the Lanai. It was weird staying in by ourselves. And Kayla & I had gone to the hot tub almost every night so I missed that.















































Day 9- Thursday August 12th

Our last morning, I got up a little earlier than normal. Everyone except Kayla met Mr Burns and went down to Black Rock for some snorkeling. The waves were much gentler than they were three years ago. Black rock was where a wave crashed me into the shore into Chelsie when I was pregnant. My mom did get hit with a big one, but most of them were small. I saw some great fish.




















When we got back to the condo, Kayla and I went for one last swim. Paige joined us a little while later. When I was taking a shower, I was informed that we had to check out earlier (2pm instead of 6pm) than expected. However, my dad took care of that and we were allowed to stay until 5:30. We packed up most of our stuff and put Paige in for her nap.

We had some lunch and I kept going back to the pool/spa for one last time, putting my feet in each time. I took Paige on one last walk on the beach after her nap while other people packed. At 5:30 we loaded up the cars and headed towards the airport. We stopped at one lookout point but it was so windy we didn't stay long.

































We stopped at L&L's Hawaiian BBQ for dinner near the airport. We split up to return our rental cars. When we were going through security, Paige spotted my family and it was hard to keep her in line with us. We were on different ends of the terminal, so we said our goodbye's and headed to our gate.

The flight was difficult with Paige, she fell asleep after take-off but woke up about 1 1/2 hours into the flight and was kicking and fighting. She was in her car seat which made it easier to kick the seat in front of her. I pulled her out and she cuddled/slept with me until she woke up screaming "I want my mommy" about 45 minutes before we landed. I calmed her down and she just cuddled with me for the rest of the flight. She complained about her ears hurting a little, but she didn't cry about it. We got off the plane, caught our shuttle back to the car and headed home.