Halloween

 My family and I started preparing for Halloween last weekend with a trip to Lumberton. There, Jason and I visited his family and took our daughter, Isabella to our friend's farm for some fun activities. At the farm, Izzy joined a group of Girl Scouts and local children in pumpkin painting, a corn maze, a nature walk, and hay ride. This weekend we look forward to going to a local parade, festival, and trick-or-treating with friends and family.

Last Halloween

One year in school we did a club project and painted pumpkins. I loved it and the pumpkin ended up lasting so much longer. I decided to paint my own pumpkin for Halloween

last year.

To make myself feel better about painting by myself I invited my neighbor's little girl over to paint her own pumpkin. It was rea

lly fun. She loved getting messy and I found out I could actually be
creative.

Halloween

This past week in getting ready for the upcoming holiday of Halloween some of my family, and I carved pumpkins. I haven't done this for years, and years. I forgotten how much fun it was to just act young sometimes. My mother was there helping us all scrape out all the yucky stuff from the inside. I felt like a little kid so eager as well as impatient to finally be able to cut out my shape of tinkerbell, and her fairy dust. My little sister had a blast of doing this as well, its funny to see such a vast difference in personalities coming out in the carving of pumpkins. Maybe next time i will post pictures of what I will be dressed up as to work Halloween weekend. :) Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Getting ready for Halloween

This last week has been hectic with school work and volunteering at my son's school for his Fall Festival. Now that the Fall Festival is over, I went out and got my Halloween stash for Monday night. I grew up going out to get candy and my older two dressed up and went out to get candy. That's all that Halloween was about to my husband and I growing up. I love to see the little children in their costumes and the excitement they have on their faces when they get the good stuff. I do not buy cheap candy, only candy I would eat. I always make special baggies for the kids in our neighborhood or friends that bring their children by. The baggies have extra candy and a homemade item. Last year I made white zombie pretzel rods and this year I am going with good old fashion pop corn balls. Next I will start decorating for Christmas! My favorite time of year, but my husband said I have to wait until the day after Thanksgiving! Bummer!!!

Visiting my twin brother

This past summer my mom, my sister - her husband - their 3 yr. old daughter, and me and my husband went to visit my twin brother in LA, California. We were there for an entire week, but by far the funnest part was our visit to the CBS studios in Burbank.

My brother has a friend who works as a camera man for the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, so he met us at the studios and gave us a behind the scenes tour. The picture above is us on the Price is Right sound stage. It's SO MUCH smaller in person! After the tour, we went to watch a soap opera, The Young and the Restless, being filmed for a few hours. My mom is a huge Y&R fan, so it was an incredible experience. We even were able to meet the actors and chat.

ooohh scary puppy!

Here's our oh so scary puppy, Chief, having an awesome time scaring our son.  He weighs all of 4 pounds and loves taking on the scary dog role.  He usually does this every evening and it totally cracks us up!  Enjoy!

Alligator

This is an alligator my boyfriend Chris and I saw at Greenfield Lake, while on the paddle boats. We saw many that day but this one was the biggest, 12 feet long. He was not scared of people and  got removed last year and relocated! So neat to see up close like this!!!!

u15 blog 5

I would like to take pretty pictures like the Russians photographers I encounter in a photography website. It's important to be at the right time. I took this picture one morning in the church where my family goes. My favorite part is how the crosses are black and how the sky is like something created by a painter.

Fishing with friends

I recently had a great weekend due to a visit from my best friends. Billy and Amy (pictured with me) live in Lumberton and work as EMTs. Due to school, work, and the distance between us, we don't get to hang out as much as we would like. However, I couldn't ask for better friends. I've known Billy since I was a freshman in high school and met Amy when they began dating. They're now married and I definitely consider Amy my best female friend. They are also really great with my daughter, a quality I highly respect in a friend. When this picture was taken, Billy, Amy, Jason (my boyfriend), Isabella (our daughter), and I had been fishing. We obviously didn't catch any really big fish but still had a fun time.

Becoming free of glasses

I have been trying to decide whether or not I want to get contacts. I have been wearing glasses for 15 years and I think I want a different look. I think I can really get use to myself with contact, and I may even consider getting the lasik surgery.

This is picture of me without my glasses.

Curso de español para educadores: Today I have been married 24 years.

Curso de español para educadores: Today I have been married for 24 years.: Just wanted to share that 24 years ago today, I married the love of my life, my best friend, my soulmate, the one who completes me and make...

Today I have been married 24 years.

Just wanted to share that 24 years ago today, I married the love of my life, my best friend, my soulmate, the one who completes me and makes me whole. My love for my husband has grown and grown over the years and the distance from deployments has made it even stronger. I would have to say that honesty, trust, respect and each of us putting the other first in our relationship is what has made our marriage last. We keep no secrets, except my husbands job counseling and other areas he is not allowed to discuss, and I do not share with him any confident advocating or confidential support that I give to other wives. We have always shared in the responsibility of parenting and support each other in decisions that are made. We consult each other before making huge decisions, financial or otherwise. My husband is behind me 100% when I went back to school to complete my degree. We sit together for evening meals as a family when jobs or classes do not take us away from the table. My husband and I share in the responsibility of duties to help our youngest special needs child, for instance... bed time... and we split up the nighttime duties and both of us tuck him in bed. I pray with my youngest child and my husband still prays with our 14 year old daughter, as she still wants her dad too. We do have our disagreements, but we never go to bed angry with each other and we try to never raise our voices in front of our children. This is what has helped our marriage last for 24 years.

Kitty

This is my cat CJ, well I should say my mom's cat now. I got CJ when I was in middle school for getting straight A's. Of course being a kid I took care of him for about a month then mom had to take over or poor CJ probably would have died. Once I got older I did start to help a little but still not as much as I should have. CJ, lives with my mom still since I moved to UNCW for school. I was debating whether I should bring him or not and decided against it. He is closer to my mom now then me. My mom won't admit it but she would die without that cat. If he was gone if would just be my mom and dad alone and that would drive her crazy. I am thinking of adopting a new little feline friend from the pound to keep me company.

BiRthDaY ceLeBraTiOn!!

Since my 33rd birthday will be on a Wednesday this year, we went out to celebrate last night.  We had a great dinner at Chili's and went to see Moneyball with Brad Pitt.  (It was a good movie, but kind of slow.)  Then we went and did some karaoke...well the hubby did, I just watched.  No one would want to hear me sing!  He found these awesome birthday glasses for me to wear, which was sweet. It was a great time with some great friends and of course, I rocked my birthday babe sunglasses ;)

baby Giraffe Born May 2, 2011

My Boyfriend and I went to Charlotte, Nc and we went to Lazy Five ranch. You can pet animals of all kinds around the world. I love giraffe's so I posted this picture as she is so cute, her name is Maggie.

Hazel and Her Exercise Ball

This is a video of my youngest dog: Hazel. She is a basenji, jack russell terrier mix and she absolutely loves to play with huge ab exercise balls. I'm pretty sure she could run for hours if we didn't make her stop and take water breaks.

Video de Jorge para el blog cuatro de unidad doce

This is my daughter Sophie and I running in the beach in Surf City. Since then her speed has increased notably :).

Reason to Celebrate

I've had many things going on in my personal life recently and have many reasons to be happy. Last week my boyfriend and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. We have been together since I was 16 and are truly high school sweethearts. We celebrated by going out to a nice dinner and then going for a walk on the beach. As a treat to all of us, we also took a family (Jason, our daughter, and myself) trip to the zoo over the weekend. This Wednesday (the 5th) is also Jason's 24th birthday. We plan on celebrating by taking a day trip to Lumberton on Saturday to visit his family and our best friends. Thursday (the 6th) is also my grandmother's 82nd birthday. Moday, the 10th is my parents' 24th wedding anniversary. We plan on having a big family dinner at my grandmother's house on Sunday to celebrate all of these occasions. Not to mention, we are also greatly looking forward to Halloween in my household. My daughter Isabella is already prepared with her Cinderella costume.
The picture I included is of Jason (age 19) and myself (age 16) after attending Military Ball.

Growing with technology...............

I don't consider myself to be old; however, I realize that I have fallen behind in technology advancement. I just purchased a smartphone a few days ago. I've had a cell phone for many years with text messaging and internet access. However, I didn't feel that I needed to have all the different applications as with a smartphone. Well, I decided to go ahead and upgrade and"man, I have been missing out". I purchased an HTC Evo shift 4G phone and I love it so far. I have downloaded books, games, email, and many other things and I hate the fact that I didn't get it sooner. I will be careful not to fall behind as much....:)

Me aNd My HoNeY

As of Saturday October 1st, my husband and I have been together for 13 years.  These are some of the happiest moments of our time together.  I hope I have many more years to come with him; he is my world.

Water Park

Before my fiancee left for his deployment he was given 8 days to visit family so we went to Ohio. While in Ohio we decided to take his younger brother and sister to a water park before they went back to school. It was a really fun time. I was a little upset because he sister turned out to be afraid of heights and at first we couldn't get her on any rides but by the end of the day she had at least tried 1 slide. I was very proud of her.

I think my favorite part was at the end of the day when his little brother found a stuffed penguin that he absolutely loved. I don't know why he loves penguins but he does. In the picture above is me, my fiancee Erin, his little brother Mason and his little sister Aubrey.

I would say that we are a little obsessed with our dog, Nalu. I participated in a fashion show that raised money for breast cancer, and had to sit in hair and makeup for several hours. We figured a photo shoot with our 60 pound dog was needed!

Mi familia

I have already shared pictures of my family, but I thought I would share some of the pictures from the past few years of my extended family. We have lived in North Carolina since August 2009 and previously lived in Honolulu, Hawaii for 2 1/2 years.

Sunrise Service Easter Sunday 2007 on the USS Missouri, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor Hawaii 2009. My house was on Ford Island which is in the background.

Big Island, Hawaii June 2009.

Chili's Sept. 20111. My parents and my daughter while celebrating my Birthday. My parents came to visit me from Ohio, while my husband was in California. Sorry about the glare!

This is my hermano and hermanas and their niños. There have been a lot more niños added
to the family since this picture was taken in June 2008.

My parents patio in Ohio summer 2010 4th of July cookout. My family is very close and my children miss spending Holidays and summer cookouts and fall bonefires with their cousins and grandparents.

My Twin Brother

While friends have come and gone in my life, I've had one best friend who has always stayed the same: my twin brother. When folks meet us for the first time, they have a hard time telling us apart....

Not! He is an entire foot taller than me! While we definitely have the same mannerisms and facial expressions, for some reason he just kept growing after I stopped. Growing up we were pretty much the same height.

(and apparently loved to hold hands) But soon after elementary school, he started growing much faster than me!