*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!! =)

source

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. =)