Happy Birthday Olivia

My Livie Love is 13 today! I can't believe it! Seems like yesterday she was born, now I have TWO teenagers. Wow. We went to our favorite place in all of San Diego. Coronado. It was a gorgeous day and it was made even more fun by the simple fact that my sister Emily is here on vacation with her friend from Philly:) Glad you're here Em. Here are some pictures. Benjamin had on the cutest trunks and rash guard shirt, and then their is Isaac in the water. Featured is a picture of a house here in Coronado. I wish I could live on this island, but alas its for the Rich, sigh..... Oh well at least I can sit on the beach here right! When I get to Heaven My mansion is going to be even nicer than these "shacks" on the beach, although I will say I was reading Revelations yesterday and it says that When the New Heaven and Earth is here there will be no Sea. What?!! . I'm slightly dissapointed, I always said I was hoping that my mansion would be beach front property. Wow how did I go from Wishing my Liv happy birthday, to mansions? I can be so random sometimes. Ha. Sorry for the run on sentences too:( Anyway back to Liv, more pictures coming.

and some more pics....

I guess the other pictures of all the kids are on the other camera:)

San Diego County Fair

Rose, Leah, I, and all of our kids went to the Del Mar Fair otherwise known as the San Diego County Fair. It was a lot of fun. The theme this year is Taste of Food, My favorite topic. They also had a lot of Garden stuff (demonstrating how food is grown) and of course a fair is incomplete without the rides! So here are a few pictures of our fun day. If you're wondering why only Adrienna and Isaac are the only ones of my kids here in these pictures its becouse the other two are in Az in this week, its actually kind of quiet. Isaac is in true form for the camera, He is such a goofball, and Adrienna's second favorite animal are horses and she got to pet one! We had to take a picture of the elephants too becouse she really wanted to ride them, but it didn't happen. Melissa remember when we were 13 or 14 and rode the elephants at the zoo, wonder if they're the same ones. J/K. There's also a picture of a family made out of Butter!!!! Pretty cool.

Happy 16th Anniversary pt. 1

Happy Anniversary To the best Husband in the world! I can't believe its been 16 years and four kids later. Time really does fly when you're having fun :) I have to give my mom some credit here for my happy 16 years so hear goes: Mom thank you for showing me what being a good wife and mom is like. I remember in my school days always being asked what I wanted to be when I "grew up" and I remember saying " A Wife and a Mom" and that is what I am and I've never regretted one moment of that, thanks to you . Thank you for insisting that us girls as teenagers had to cook dinner for the family at least once a week, Arty was especially grateful for that when we got married. My only problem was scaling down the menu from 7 people to just 2 of us. I'm so appreciative of you teaching me how to really clean, Now I'm doing the same with my girls, Arty would like to thank you for making me iron, I still hate it but I love him enough to do his work clothes( church stuff goes to the dry cleaners:)) You are and were a great example of what a pastor's wife ought to be and I reference all the time of the things you used to do, especially your graciousness with people. And lastly I'm so thankful that you always loved Arty, even when he first came into the church. It was becouse of that That I knew He would be someone I could be married to for the rest of my life. Thank you for all your influence into my married life both Arty and I will be very grateful for you and Dad.
Love,
Me:)

And....at the park

Cousins

My sister Jennifer and her husband and 5 kids came to San Diego this week. My niece Serenity came and stayed with us while they were here, so the kids had a lot of fun playing with her. We really enjoyed seeing all of them as its not as often as we would like. The first pictures are Jessica and Serenity, Isaac Jessica, and Serenity, and then Felicia and little Carl there in the back.

Dining Al Fresco

We are having a lady from our church and her husband over for dinner tonight and it such a beautiful day that I decided we are going to eat outside. The roses are from my garden. What am I making you might ask? Marinated Tritip and potatoes that has been cooking in the crockpot all day, along with chicken adobo, chicken and pepper rice. southwestern chicken pasta salad, and a delicious spring mix salad with fresh strawberrys and Feta. Yum!

Zucchini Anyone?

My friend Jessica Sublasky holding a gigantic zucchini grown by my friend Lydia:)

Earthquake

We had a nice little earthquake last night I think around 9:30. I had it in mind that I was going to bed early. Isaac was asleep, Olivia and Jessica were in bed still talking, Adrie had spent the night at a friends house. Peace and Quiet . Yeah Right: all of a sudden everything starts shaking like crazy, both of the girls come running out of their rooms and jumped on my bed which I figure to be the safest place anyway. It wasn't very long maybe 20-30 seconds. According to signonsandiego.com Since the Easter Sunday quake in northern Baja, there have been six aftershocks that measured 5.0 or larger, USGS says. There also have been 108 aftershocks measuring 4.0 to 4.9, and about 1,000 measuring 3.0 to 3.9. A series of 3's hit about 11:30 p.m. Last nights was a 5.7. I must confess I am now earthquake sensitive, I can be laying on my bed and all of a sudden I think "oh did I feel the bed move?" nope that was Arty moving his leg, never mind I won't sound the alarm. Its kind of a wierd thing when you go through an earthquake, its kind of scary and sort of exhilarating at the same time. And even though you read about what to do you're still not that sure if thats what you're supposed to do. When the earthquake hit on Easter we all ran outside, now I'm not running outside at 9:30 at night. By the way you're not supposed to stand in the doorway anymore, they understand that construction is not what it used be quality wise. Not a very comforting thought. I didn't get to sleep that night for quite a while after that, but I did sleep good:)

Babysitting

Most of you know there are 6 girls in our family and one of the awesome things that it entails is being an Aunty. I believe there are 19 grandkids total, my mom will have to correct me if I'm wrong here. So I have lots of nieces and nephews and its a lot of fun cause my kids have cousins near and far. This weekend I got to babysit Rose's son Joshua while she was celebrating her anniversary. Now I have to say this , maybe its becouse Rose is the baby of the family and maybe becouse we are done having kids and she is not but my family(and Leah's too) absolutely love love love Joshua and now Benjamin too! They are like the golden children of the family. Ha-Ha. We have a lot of fun with Joshua when he comes over. I have tons and tons of pictures of him taken all by his older cousins Adrie and Olivia, and I"m not joking its a big fight when he comes over, same with Benjamin although he is too small to stay over night yet. The funny thing is as much as the girls fawn over Joshua Isaac is the one he follows everywhere. So cute! I'm so happy Rose got married to Joel and moved back to San Diego:) I wish I could live near all of my family but am thankful for the ones close by. Joshua loves coming over too so that makes it even that much more fun. When Rose had Benjamin and then was in the hospital for so long , he would come over and be so excited to go to "aunty Taye's(his pronounciation of Kelly)house. I love it.

Catalina Trip

One of the fun things we got to do this past spring was go to Catalina Island. We drove about an hour up to Dana Point and then took a boat to Catalina. I think the boat ride was one of the most fun things. Isaac especially loved it because it went really fast as in speedy. Catalina is a really tiny town on a fairly good size island. You can walk from one end to the other in about 20 mins. I loved it becouse there are very few cars and you have to walk everywhere, so much fun. Its also very hilly in the more residential area(where all the non-tourists are) so Arty and I would go walking in the morning up and down while the kids were still sleeping. We got to go kayaking and saw dolphins! I wish I would of been able to get pics but didn't want to ruin the camera in the water. Arty took the girls parasailing too! I'm not brave enough so Jess, Isaac and I just watched. Here's some pictures that the girls took, they're my photographers, Bear with me as I get this blogging thing down:)

Introduction

I have really enjoyed reading, following. blogstalking...whatever you want to call it other blogs. I love the idea of being able to post pictures and happenings of our family life not only to my friends but my family who mostly lives on the other side of the country. So here's to my mom and my sis Em who I miss daily and all my aunts and cousins. I hope this will be a great way to catch up!