Good Bye 2008!

It has been an amazing year and I want to thank all of my friends and family for sharing it with me!

So many changes, challenges, and best of all: Blessings this year!

So one last time: Thank You & Good Bye...

Family

This weekend, as Hubby and I were visiting our parents, we came up with this CRAZY (REALLY Crazy) idea: Let's invite all of the kids to come visit us for a few days and give the adults a bit of a break!
(Sounds reasonable, right!??!??!??)

Anyway, Hubby and I brought the kids over in my parent's truck and drove a few hours home. They brought their PS3 and some movies, and off we were. After driving only 15 minutes, we realized that maybe this wasn't the best idea ever, lol. The youngest (Jonathan, 6) was being such a brat! After calming him down and finally arriving home, we set up camp, haha.




We had 2 blow-up beds and a bed topper laid out on our living room floor for them to sleep. FUN! :)

The first day, Monday, we just stayed in and played games all day. We watched like 3 movies, lol.
Tuesday we went to the mall and to the beach (after Hubby came home from work). We got to take some amazing sunset pictures:

Betito & Agustin:


Gaby:


Jonathan:

Hubby and I:

We Had so much fun! Believe it or not, it went up to 83 degrees that day (DECEMBER 30th 2008).
Wow, the power of SoCal! :)


I Love my family, but I don't think we'll be doing this again anytime soon, lol.

Today is hubby's and my 1 year anniversary!!

BIG Day today!

Hubby and I got married December 29, 2007 and are celebrating our 1-year anniversary today!


We just want to say "Thank You" to all of our family and friends that remembered our Big Day! You guys are Amazing and we truly appreciate it!

I LOVE YOU, hubby!
Happy 1-Year Anniversary!

Christmas (Eve) Time!

Christmas is a BIG deal at my house! When I say Big I mean BIG!!
There are so many people, it's hard to keep track.
PLUS, we don't wait until midnight to open presents, only because there's SO many that if we waited until midnight to start, we wouldn't finish until around 3 AM!!
This year we decided to start around 11 PM and we finished at about 2 AM. That should tell you how many of us get together!
(You should have seen the amount of gifts we had, too)

Anyway, here are some pictures from Christmas Eve:

Vicky being her adorable self:



My Brother and nephews:


Vicky messing with the Christmas tree:



Some of the kids waiting for their next gift:



Alma got us all the same shoes:



Look how high the trash was stacked at the end of the night!:



I hope you all had an amazing Christmas Eve as I did with my family!!

Again, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! :)

I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!

May the Lord Bless you this holiday season and may you all have an amazing New Year!





Also, please remember the reason for the season!





<3 ya!

What do you think??

So I am super excited for my photography class in January that I decided to learn a few tricks on my own... Let me know what you think: (p.s. It's a little blue/green, but I did that on purpose, I like it better that way!) =]
(Click to enlarge)


Before:




After:



Thanks for the feedback! :)

BTW, I took these pictures on a little trip through Valley Circle. We didn't really know where we were going but we ended up by the 118 freeway, around Simi Valley/Chatsworth area. These are looking off the mountains towards Simi Valley and the 118. You can see the freeway on the bottom-right. Look...

Amazing views!



<3

BREAKING NEWS... =]

So Baltazar and I bought a fish tank and about 10 fishies about 4 months ago. Two of our fishiess started, how do I put this, umm... making looooveeee (they are called Mollies). The girl is white and the dad is black.

Well, we would see them get it on ALL of the time!! People were over, they were doin'it. They didn't care! lol. Anyway, the mom, Molly (creative name huh!?) got really fat all of a sudden. Then she got skinny again but we saw no babies. Then Hubby spotted a tiny speck of a fish one day (probablly the size of this period mark --> . ), and Molly came around and ate it right in front of our eyes! :( We were sad.

That was about a month or two ago and today Hubby saw a small fishy that looks like a fishy but really, really small!!!

WE HAVE FISH BABIES!!


It was sooo exciting to see it swimming around and stuff so we looked around for another one and we saw a second one!!! Yay!! We are very happy to have two amazing grand-children-fishies!! :)

<3

101 in 1001: #87 - In Progress

This is a goal I set for my mind (I guess I can tell you this one now): #87 - Re-read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.



I had to read this book in High School in one of my honors English classes and I fell in love with it. On a random trip to Barnes and Noble with the hubby yesterday I saw the book and decided to buy it. Good thing I saw it since it was on my list!! I started reading it this afternoon and am already about 60 pages in! It is such a good book and I hope some of you that haven't read it will decide to do so sometime soon.

Also, I am still doing well with the other two goals I had started a couple of days ago! This 101 in 1001 thing is amazing! =]


Good Luck to all of you trying it!

Love ya!

101 in 1001: #47/#26 - In Progress

So... I am on a good start towards completing my list... =]

I know, I know. I just started, I'm all excited... blah, blah, blah. Anyways, I AM excited and I am happy to say I have started two of my goals.

The first one is supposed to last a month, so let's see how I do! Hopefully everything goes well!

The two goals do not relate to each other at all and I am glad I jump-started this process! I seriously hope some of you are also pondering this idea. I already got a couple of people to start, so you should give it a try! Good Luck to you all!

Let me know if you start and keep me up to date on your progress!!

"What are your 101 in 1001?"


Wish me luck!!

101 in 1001

If you haven't heard of this, here is what it basically is:
"The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.
The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).So I made my list and I am very proud! It took me 2 days to come up with 101 things to accomplish, but I finally finished and I can't wait to get started."

I thought it was an amazing idea and I started immediately! I hope I can inspire some of you to do this as well. Hopefully your list doesn't look like this:


lol


Instead of doing New Year's resolution, you can do this. Plus, you'll have almost 3 years to accomplish all 101 things! You can pick your start date and figure out your end date here.

I also gave myself an incentive: at the end of the 1,001 days, I will buy myself something nice. The catch is, I only get to spend $2 for every goal I reach! BUT, if I accomplish less than 75 goals, I have to donate $2 for each goal I don't accomplish to any charity instead of buying my something nice! Either way, someone wins! =]

Hopefully your list is full of great goals! I know mine is!
I will keep you all updated on how I am doing. Maybe I'll reveal my list as i go... we'll see! ;)

December!

December is an amazing time of year in my family! We always have lots going on this time of year just because of the holidays, but Man, are we busy!!

First there's my brother Jr's Birthday on the 22nd. He's turning 20 this year.



Then there's Christmas Eve/Christmas. We have an absolutely HUGE family so Christmas is extra crazy!


Hubby's and my Anniversary is on the 29th (we hit the BIG 1-year mark this year!! I hope Hubby reads this and remembers how special it is to me, lol. J/k, he knows better than that!)

After our Anniversary is my Dad's B-Day on the 30th! He turns 50 this year so we are making a HUGE deal by throwing him an amazing party but, shhhh, it's gonna be a surprise so please don't tell! =]

THEN, it's my parent's Anniversary on the 31st!! (I warned you about all of our celebrating this month...) They are celebrating their 31st year of marriage!! Amazing, right!! They're a huge inspiration to all of us!

After the 31st is New Year's, of course! And that's always fun!! (Hubby and I are staying home for New Year's so hopefully we can still enjoy the celebration!)

And that's it for December through New Year's Eve and New Years. But to go just one more day in, my oldest sister, Gabriela's B-day is on the 2nd of January and her baby daughter, Vicky's 1st Birthday is on the 17th of January! Wow... That's a lot of Celebrating in one month's span if you ask me!!!















But: I'm NOT complaining! It's actually pretty amazing!! =]
You will all see how each of these events pan out since I will be taking LOTS of pictures and I will be showing them off to you all in blog-world! Yay!

If you haven't Noticed...

It's beginning to look a lot like
Christmas!!

I'm Baaaaaa-aaaack!!

So I have been soooooooo out of the loop these past four months (this semester) and I have lots to make up for!


You have to understand, though... I mean, if you were a business student at Pepperdine and you took Policy with Seshan you would DEFINITELY understand, lol. Anyway, I was way to stressed and way too busy to do anything but HW, papers, projects, cook, and clean... so sorry to the few loyal readers I have had, lol...

I finally finished the semester last Wednesday and can finally come back to you, dear blog friends. I have only 1, yes ONE, semester of college left and I will not abandon you again. You see, next semester will be Super-Chill!! Here is a list of courses I am signed up for:

• Humanities III
• Service Leadership
• Piano, and
  
• Photography
  

Amazing, right!! I can't wait!!

PLUS, I am taking FULL advantage of the photography class and, in preparation, my amazing father bought me an early Christmas gift: Nikon D80!! As I have said before, BE JEALOUS!! =] I hope this is the start of an hobby that will some day be more than just that. Can't wait!! :)



Anyway, I want to mention my amazing friend and twin, Carmelle... She had a harsh past couple of weeks and I want her to know I am thinking of her waaaay over here in the west coast! =] I also want to send some readers her way: you can read her blog here! Enjoy!


Thanks for reading!