*Blink* There went November

I honestly can't really remember much of November other than Thanksgiving. Ed's family came up to celebrate with us. Thanksgiving afternoon was spent in American Canyon with my side of the fam and then we hightailed back home to get things in order for the Vista crew to roll in. They arrived at around 9pm and we had another chow down. YUM! =) I have pics somewhere but can't locate them at the moment so, I'm just going to give a few things I'm thankful for to wrap up this post.
1) My health
2) My husband and beautiful, healthy son, Evan
3) A cozy and wonderful home
4) My job...even though I hate it (sometimes)
5) My family...even though I want to strangle some of them more times than not. Eh, its family
6) My husband's family...its a blessing to have crazy, loving and fun people to add to the already crazy bunch of fam I already have. Ed lucked out cuz its part of the reason why I married him! lol!
7) Supportive, funny and super fabulous friends...they keep the weekends exciting and my days off occupied
8) The invention of video...I can view heartwarming and hilarious vids of Evan anytime, anywhere. LOVE IT!!
9) Chocolate. Its always good. It never disappoints or complains. And I can have it anytime without having to have a reason. Thank God I'm not allergic to it!!
10) Talented writers...The only pastime I choose to have when I have a moment alone is to read. Its a great escape to be somewhere else, someone else and live through a different life for just a little bit. And the characters in my head ALWAYS look hotter than any actor out there! =)

Breezing through October

So, I'm going to do a condensed post for the last quarter of 2008, starting with October. The first set of pics are of Mike & Dell Abadie who came up for a quick visit to San Francisco. We hung out in the city for an afternoon and spent some good time w/a great couple!!

The Blue Angels were performing in San Francisco during fleet week and we wanted to let Evan see them live and up close since he LOVES planes!! The set of pics below are from the day, but unfortch, we don't have ANY pics of the actual planes. Sad, I know!!

Evan has been expanding his collection of books and has taken a liking to the classic, "Where the Wild Things Are." Here's a couple of pics of him reading me the story (his version) all by himself. Its pretty cool how he can memorize a whole book!!
In October 2009, this classic comes to the big screen. We can't wait to bring Evan to see it!!! I hope it'll come out in IMAX!! =)

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October 15th, we celebrated our 3rd year wedding anniversary. It was low key and included a day at the park, a quiet dinner and of course, some pics. =)

October wouldn't be complete without an annual trip to the pumpkin patch to pick up some pumpkins for us to carve. Evan and I went on my day off and had the patch pretty much all to ourselves!! SCORE!! =)
Being our first Halloween in Dublin, we went around the neighborhood and said "hello" and "trick or treat" to everyone we knew. Evan totally came away with some good candy!!! YUM!! He was a St. Bernard and I was a baby. =)

One of our neighbors had a scary cemetery set up in front of his house. Needless to say, Evan was TOTALLY freaked out! He didn't want any candy from the house. We found a pint sized pumpkin at the patch which fit right in his hand. He was mighty impressed by it.


Just a few up close shots of Evan in his costume. The last pic of him was after all the trick or treating and he was a sweat ball!!
We had some leftover candy from the night and Evan dipped his hands into the candy bowl. He kept asking, "This one?" And when we gave in a said, "You can have this one, " he studied it to see how he was going to get that sucker open!! It was an awesome month and that about wraps up October!!! =)

On the road again

Last week was extremely a stressful as I was in the throws of our fiscal year end and without going into painful detail, it basically means I was up to the yin yang with numbers and reconciling. YUCK YUCK YUCK!!! I will be totally brain dead when all of this is over. Thank God I only have to have a 1 1/2 year old level of thinking when I get home! =) Anyway, the light at the end of that week was our turn around trip to San Diego for Laurie and Andrew's wedding. We left our place Friday at 6pm and arrived at 12:30am in Vista...definitely tons better than 3am!! Since the week was super crazy, I didn't have time to shop and so, Melanie, Evan and I went to TWO BBB's to find a gift...and yes, there was still something pretty good left on the list! Yay! We decided on this beautiful set of professional mixing bowls:

In the San Marcos plaza where one of the BBBs were, there just happened to be a Nordstrom Rack and so...we HAD TO go in...AND look for dresses because Mel just wasn't happy with what she had at home. I scored a cute one too...hee hee! =) Here's a pic of us in our snazzy outfits! =)

We made it to the church just as the ceremony was beginning and although it was SUPER hot, it was a very beautiful ceremony. We hung out a bit at the church and mingled then proceeded to the reception site where we hung out and mingled some more. Here are some pics of us at the church. (All of the pics are courtesy of Mel cuz I haven't uploaded my pics and I think I didn't take as much as she did. So, THANKS MEL!).

Here are some pics we took at the church while waiting to leave for the reception site.

As we made our way to the reception, Mel and I were lucky to run into Lori (the bride) and snag a pic with her before she was whisked away! =) She looked SO beautiful!!!

Mel & Ernie took pics w/the Castillo brothers, Ryan & Ronnie.
Ed is also posing w/Ronnie. We were about to catch up w/the two of them before the reception started and then it was food, dancing, drinking and yes, MORE fun!!! =)
I'll try to update this post w/some of the photobooth pics we took as soon as I get around to scaning them. For now, lemme get ready for October!! =)

San Diego celebrations

Melanie's birthday landed on a Friday this year and she took a day off to enjoy herself...a bit of sleeping in, a relaxing massage and a lunch with all of us! Ed and I took the day off too and spent the majority Friday relaxing and catching up with mom and dad. We had to be at Vera Cruz at exactly noon for lunch with the birthday girl. Ernie had work so he was meeting us there.

Here's Mel and Ernie with the beautiful flower arrangement he got for her.

Here's a nice montage of the entire fam. Its not very often that we get to celebrate Mel's bday altogether so this was a great treat!

After lunch we headed back to mom and dad's. I thought I would get a nice nap in after all the great food, but we had another stop on our agenda. Ed contacted Adam to see if he and the fam were available for a visit. They welcomed Gavin Chong on Tuesday, September 16th. Lucky for us, they were available so we made our way over to the Chong residence in San Marcos. Here are a couple of pics of cutie Aiden and one of the two boys together. Why don't I have a pic of Gavin? I have NO idea! I think I was just too happy to get a chance to hold him that I totally forgot to get a pic of him!! Evan and Aiden kinda played with each other but mostly played next to one another. lol!! Evan has GOT to be around more kids!!

The rest of the day included a MUCH needed nap and of course, gearing for Saturday's festivities!! There was LOTS to do!!! =)

So, I don't have any pics from the party for Lola on Saturday but will be getting some from dad, when he gets a chance to upload all of them. But I will say that there were A LOT of people and it was just a fun party, which is nothing new when it comes to any Salvador get together! Evan got to see the Vales side of the family, which isn't very often so it was a great opportunity. Evan also played with his cousins, Gavin and Leila so he thoroughly enjoyed that!!

Before the party however, we were able to get together with the Bouchers at Peggy and Jerry's house. Micah and Evan had a blast playing with one another. Here a few pics of the boys hanging out.

Evan still calls out for "Mikey, mikey." That's his version of "Micah." And then he goes, "want, want." Its pretty amazing how he remembers him and he even says, "Mikey...car." Micah had two wind up cars that Marc was revving up and making them run back and forth and the boys LOVED them!! Its too cute. Lastly, here's a family pic of all of us. We'll have to try to visit them again the next time we're visiting Vista. We left for home Sunday morning at 9am but not before stopping off at Alberto's for 5 rolled tacos (for me) and a California burrito (for Ed). Yuuuummmmm!!! We got home at 5:30 which was great since we had made two stops so Evan can stretch and handle some "business." We were able to get things cleaned up at home and get ready for the work week.

Oh! On Saturday, on our way back to mom and dad's from Peggy's, we stopped at a garage sale and picked up a sweet drum set for Evan for $3!!! OH YEAH!!! So, we had him go at it when we arrived home and well, the pics say it all...ladies and gents, we've got a ROCKSTAR in the making!! ;) This is Evan warming up...And here's Evan totally rockin' out...even losing a drumstick in the process!! WOOT! WOOT!!

What an eventful weekend!! And guess what? We're gonna do it again next weekend! Oh yeah, that's right! We're heading back down to SD...AGAIN! lol!!

A packed week

On Wednesday, our good friend, Charles Bradshaw was coming to the bay for work and naturally asked what we were up to. We invited him for dinner and that usually leads to enjoying beverages of the alcoholic kind so we also extended our home to him for the night. It was a great midweek treat to have him over and hear all about his new career venture, love interest and the latest with his sister and nephew (who is now FOUR). Evan was totally loving his Uncle Charlie and showed him his soccer skills, batting skills and basically cornered him for playtime for about half an hour. We had a wonderful dinner filled with great food and conversation. As the night drew on, Evan and I turned in and left Ed and Charles to do what they do best...drink and talk the night away. Yes, it was a Wednesday night but like that ever stops them (4 bottles of wine and at least 8 beers between the TWO of them)! ;) Here's a pic of the boys...

Incidently, we were making the drive down to San Diego after work Thursday. Yeah, Ed was definitely still hurting! I took the last leg of the drive and we arrived in Vista at about 3:00am. We were there to celebrate Lola Doring's 1 year death anniversary and to celebrate Melanie's birthday.

Warm summer nights

On September 11th, Ed was able to get off of work early so the three us headed to Walnut Creek to grab a bite to eat at Chili's and then took a stroll around and eventually parked ourselves at the fountain area in the Broadway Plaza shopping center. Evan was of course, fascinated with the water and kept pointing at it saying, "Wa wa!! Oooooh!" Here are some pics of him hanging around the fountain.

On September 12th, Evan and I woke up unusually early and decided to take our time getting ready for work and lola's house. Evan has been a lot more vocal and when I'm unable to understand what he wants, I simply ask him, "Please show mommy what you want." He takes my finger and takes me to what he wants. Its awesome. This particular morning, he kept saying, "rock, rock." So I replied, "All the rocks are outside and its too dark to find the rocks." He immediately said, "no no no. rock, rock." and started to get a bit agitated so I asked him to show me what he wants. Well, he brought me to this...and he "rocked." =)

On Saturday, September 13th, we celebrated the upcoming arrival of Baby Akramy at Anita (Mariam's bff) and Pat's place in San Jose. My camera was acting up so I only have one picture of the happy couple. I will post more as I get them. We were able to *FINALLY* catch up with and see our old friend, Steve Wright!! He was lookin' good and it was nice to see him!! He is also part of the ProBusiness group and this year marks our 10 years of friendship. We have DEFINITELY done and seen quite a bit of things in our time together!! =) And I'm sure with all the weddings and babies in our future, we'll have another crazy 20 years ahead! OY!!

Here' the glowing Mariam with her loving hubby, Tim.

A midweek city dinner

On September 8th, Evan and I decided to meet Ed in the city since he was working a little late and Ed wanted to see Evan for a bit before he went to bed. Evan and I hopped on BART (Evan's 1st BART ride) and met Ed at the Embarcadero station. We walked around Justin Herman plaza and let Evan run around the Embarcadero Centre before deciding to eat at Tony Roma at Embarcadero One. It was pushing 8:30pm and I had already fed Evan his dinner on BART so I knew he was ok but getting a little tired. We were able to sit in the back of the restaurant which gave us the privacy for Evan to be loud w/o disturbing anyone. The challenge was keeping him entertained while waiting for dinner. We drew pictures, played with all of our utensils and had some fun with a couple of rubber bands which is dipicted in the pics below! =)

Fun times!! We made our way back home on BART and Evan fell asleep. =)

Another year older

On Ed's actual birthday (September 2nd), the three of us headed to Half Moon Bay to spend the day and explore the Fitzgerald tidepools. It was a fun filled day for everyone! But as you will see in the pictures, it was mostly Evan's day at the beach! =) I will say that all 3 of us got an awesome tan from our beach day! Yay for summer days!! =)

You can't tell from these pictures but Ed and I pointed out a sea lion that was swimming close to the shore and Evan finally spotted it. He was also VERY excited to see the water.

Ed brought Evan for a closer look at the ocean. He wanted to jump in so badly but it was seriously freezing!! He brought some sea kelp to show me.

A large group of kids parked next to us on the beach and Evan couldn't wait to join them for some fun! He made himself quite at home with all of their toys, but the kids didn't mind him at all!

Evan found himself a red pail to play with and he decided that filling it with sand was of HIGH importance!! He did glance over at us to make sure we were 1) still there and 2) going to acknowledge his efforts. =)

Finally, at about 6pm, the ocean retreated to reveal the tidepools which we waited the WHOLE day to explore! Evan's energy level stayed up and was excited to touch and see everything!!

Evan's biggest discovery was a sea anemone which he touched and felt it close up. His reaction? "WOW!!!!"
Just a couple shot of Ed and me with Evan at different places in the tidepool!!


We had a long and fun filled day at the beach! Here's a last look at the beautiful tidepool and a pic of me hoisting na exhausted Evan back to the car. It was a great way to ring in another year for Ed!! =)

August

So, August also came and went and without one post BUT again, it was a VERY busy month!! We had Ed's mom and dad with us for 3 weeks and a slew of events to attend. The most significant one was Christine and Will's wedding on August 16th. It was beautiful and fun!! Evan was the coin bearer and apart from a few stumbles down the aisle, he did a great job!! It was on a private estate in Portola Valley and the day was just perfect! Chris and Will looked so happy!! It was a beautiful wedding! Here's a pic of our boy all dressed up in a barong.

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Here is one of the happy couple. Chris looked gorgeous!!! Oh and Will looked good too, but as we know, its ALL about the bride! ;)

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Before I close out our August post, here are a couple of pictures of Evan and me on August 30th. Now let me get to September!!

This is a funny pic of Evan trying to squeeze his BIG head through the stair rail. Obviously, lots of effort but no go! =)

I snagged a shot with Evan and the little ham all by himself. He's my cutie patootie! =)

What happened to July??

I know, I know, I said I was going to be better about keeping this this current but in my defense, we have had a CRAZY couple of months and yes, July flew right on by without a post to save my life. So, here goes a condensed month's recap.

July 4th: Got together at Auntie Belle's house in American Canyon, DJ and Mariella hosted a bbq and got all the folks together. Ronnie and Mike were up from Socal so it was nice to catch up and see them since we don't get to do that very often. Randy came by sans Jaime & Ben but we got to hear all about Ben. The babies were all there too...Logan, Isabella and Alexis. They have all gotten so big and are just so YUMMY!! I'll post pics later. Apart from the homies, we also met some of DJ's and Mariella's co-workers and family who were all so cool and fun! The guys spent most of the day playing drinking games (flip cup, what?) and the ladies hung out in and out of the house, it was a great way to spend the day. We didn't even have to go very far to see some fireworks. American Canyon's firework display was right behind Auntie's backyard!! So cool! Evan LOVED it!! He sat high on Ed's shoulder and kept saying, "WOW!!" Too cute! Again, pics to come later. The party kept on keeping on into the early morning hours. Mariella introduced me to this WONDERFUL massage chair where Evan and I both fell asleep on. It was heaven!! After an hour's nap for me, I put Evan down and rejoined the party. The boys thought it would be a good idea to stair surf which led to a crazy pile of guys falling down the stairs. Hilarious! Ed and I decided after watching their 3rd attempt that it was time to go home.

Here are the cutie twins and their awesome parentals. =)

Cutie pie Logan is in the left pic with Christine & Oli, the middle one has Mike and Oli and the one on the right has Christine, sleeping Logan, Randy and Mike. I heart them! =)

July 8th: EXCITING NEWS~After months of house hunting, our efforts finally paid off and we got the keys to our new home in Dublin. We had talked about moving for a very long time and looked at A LOT of places but found that we were always drawn to the Pleasanton/Tri-Valley area. Maybe because that's really where it all started for us so it was a good place to come back to and settle in for awhile. We love our neighborhood, location and city. We are just excited to be able to give Evan a good place to call home and a great community to grow, explore and learn from.

This is a shot of the front of the house taken by our realtor at the time of purchase. I can't tell you just how happy we are to be living here. The house has everything we want and was totally move in ready. Green Valley was a wonderful home to start our lives together but we can see ourselves staying here for a VERY long time!

July 12th: Packin' it up and headin' out! Ed and I had been slowly packing up Green Valley and decided to make the move to Dublin in one shot. With the help of Scott, Jay, Tim & Vern, we had enough man power to make the transition to Dublin in one trip. It was exhausting but the guys did a great job!! =)

July 14th: I left for a week long training in Austin, TX. It was a nice break/mini vacay for me to unwind and not have to do a single thing other than attend classes. I met some really great people from the different VAs across the nation and got to check out a couple of places around Austin. The weather wasn't all that bad either!! =)

July 19th: We celebrated Scott and Jay's birthday at Tim and Mariam's house. It was a sleepover so we were totally excited and looking forward to it. Everyone came out and we played poker, drank, talked babies/work/cooking, drank, watched Atonement, drank and discussed future business plans. Its always a good time when you're around great people! =) Here are some pics of the festivities. **The yummy strawberry cake was made with love by Letitia...Chef Letitia! ;)**(Clockwise): Here we have Evan checkin' out the key, a friendly game of poker, the hosts Tim and Mariam with Chef Letitia, and Todd with Ed and Evan. =) We have to include some pics of the yummy food!!! (Clockwise): There's Jay waiting to get some grub, the yummy birthday cake for Jay and Scotty, posing before blowing out the candles, and a group shot of Scott, Letitia and Christine. =) And there just HAS TO be pics of the fabulous and beautiful girls!! Hello! =) On the left we have Mariam with baby Akramy (in her belly), Letitia and Lilian. On the right, its me with Lilian! I heart her!! =)

The remainder of July was spent unpacking (which we did in a week) and hosting family and friends over. We still have a few random boxes but we're taking care of those a little at a time. The move has been great for Ed's commute since we have a BART line 2 mins from the house so now it only takes him 45 mins door to door and hardly any driving at all. As for my commute, I went from a 15 minute drive to 45 mins, which means I lose an hour of sleep but I guess its ok. I'm working on getting transferred closer (either Walnut Creek or Oakland) but considering that I work for the govt, this could take awhile. What a great month!! =)

Its FRIDAY!!!

Thank goodness the work week has FINALLY come to an end!! I'm going to relish the last 28 minutes of my work day because Monday is the last day of the month which means I'm going to have A LOT to do. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. *tisk* *tisk* It F-R-I-D-A-Y and in 27 minutes, I'm outta here!


I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I cut my hair. I know, doesn't seem very exciting news, does it? But, oh, IT IS! My hair had grown to about 3 inches above my butt...in other words, VERY LONG! And it had gotten VERY healthy and shiny (according to my hair stylist) thanks to all the post preg hormones! So, I wanted to donate it to Locks for Love and I thought after the cut, I would end up with shoulder length hair. HA! Here's a pic from Father's Day with Evan at a park in Aliso Viejo and you can see just how short my hair is:


That's right...its ABOVE my neck!! I haven't had my hair this short since I was in THIRD grade. Although, this cut is WAY cuter than the bowl cut I was sporting back then. On the plus side, its a helluva lot faster to wash now! lol!! Oh, and that look on Evan's face is his attempt at a smile after getting up from a nap.
And since its Friday, and I'm feeling a bit less stressed (with only 19 minutes left in my work day), I would like to also share that last month I went on a girls trip to Florida to visit my homie, Jessie. I missed last year's since I had just given birth to Evan and wasn't able to leave. They had gone to New York and although I wanted to go, I wasn't too upset because I had gone twice during my pregnancy! ;) I'm not sharing any photos of the trip here as they're not very "appropriate" for this type of environment. ;) If you're so inclined, you can check them out on my myspace profile. I will say that A LOT of fun was had and Jessie and Erin were fun and gracious hosts!! Anyway, while I was gone, Ed had Evan all to himself for some daddy-son bonding for 3 full days. In that time, they went to the zoo, took a ferry ride into the city, played at the park and to my surprise starting training for the major leagues. Here's Evan displaying his athletic prowess at the age of 15 months:

Its Elroy's birthday today so we are all going to dinner at Sushi King to celebrate. After, Chelle and I are going to watch the movie "Wanted" with James McAvoy...mmm...oh, and Angelina Jolie...mmm...I think its going to be a GREAT movie!! lol!! LOTS of eye candy! yum!! Tomorrow we're going to visit Gen & Mick and Gen's beautiful baby bump! I am SO excited! We haven't seen them in ages and we recently found out they're having a baby GIRL! Yay!! Sunday I'm taking mom and Auntie Myrn for their spa day while Ed has to go to work. Chelle and Evan are coming along so we'll probably do some shopping and walking around while they're getting their treatments. Apart from those activities, it'll be another mellow weekend, and that's never a bad thing!


I hope everyone has a fun filled weekend!! =)

Its 16 months tomorrow

I won't talk about the fact that it took me almost one year to provide an update because its pretty obvious! lol! So, this will be one helluva compressed post with a nice photo recap of Evan.

This is Evan when he was first born:This is Evan at about 3 months old:

Evan at about 6 months:

Evan at about 9 months old:Evan at ONE YEAR:
He has grown so much that I can honestly say that time really flew by. He got his first tooth in August 2007 and a total of 8 teeth in September, learned to walk on his own at 11 months, has an interesting vocabulary of english, visayan and tagalog words, can make numerous animal sounds, loves to point out and say "car!!", is a natural in front of the camera and more recently has added four additional pearly whites to his beaming smile. He has also mastered the expression of awe by picking up something and saying, "wow" with pure amazement. Its a joy to see this world through his eyes!!

In other news, Ed embarked on a new career venture with PG&E. It has brought him back into San Francisco which he is enjoying. So far, the new position has been challenging but he has already joined a good group of people for a weekly happy hour. I knew it wouldn't take long for him to jump back into the city swing of things!=)

As for me, things are still going well with the VA and I don't have anything new to update. Although, I will be traveling for business mid July to Austin, Texas. I'm hoping we can make it a family affairs since I can be there through the weekend and we can spend some time with Jay and Stacey! Ed is working on getting the time off as we speak.

On the baby product front, we have recently moved Evan into his convertible carseat which was a challenge in itself. The orginal one we had just didn't work for him for various reasons and so, we are faced with getting one that provides him comfort without sacrficing safety. I've got my eye on the First Years True Fit Convertible car seat. Its gotten really good reviews and I'm going to have Evan try it out this weekend. I will let you know how it goes.

Another challenge that I'm facing is finding a good umbrella stroller. With Evan being more active, the Chicco travel system stroller that we have is a bit on the bulky and heavy side, which poses a challenge when I run errands with Evan and have to juggle multiple bags, a backpack, oh and Evan! So I'm currently in the market for a good, dependable stroller and I'm leaning towards a Maclaren. In an effort to reuse and recycle, I've been scouring for an older Volo, Triumph or Vogue model in good condition. So far I have a prospect in San Jose which Ryan is willing to check out for me. I'll definitely do a write up on whatever one I end up with.

Well, its time for me to end here so I'm going to end this post with a picture of Evan after his first haircut which he endured on June 21st. Ed and I decided it was time. He looks so handsome!!