The chaos has begun

The holidays have started. Corey and I went to Macy's Home Store yesterday and they already have fully decorated Christmas trees, the Christmas dishes and decor were out, they even had pretend snow on the ground. While Corey went to the ticketmaster in customer service I stayed and looked at all the beaufitul ornaments and I got an idea.

Usually for Christmas I do gift baskets, a mixture of baked goods and the person's favorite things. I make the baskets all pretty with decorations, ribbons and bows etc. My thought for this year was to give everyone in their basket a great book. I did some looking and it's going to be harder then I thought but well worth it. BUT yesterday at Macy's I kept seeing ornaments that would be perfect for my family. An old woody with a surfboard on top for my dad, a beautiful chandelier looking ornament made with pearls for my mom, a Wedgewood Nativity scene for my grandma. etc etc etc. I've been wanting to get Corey's mom the miniature Wizard of Oz character ornaments so that fits perfectly. My sisters will be easy, Josh might be a little tough and Corey's brother's won't be easy, but friends will be really really fun. I think this will help me get in the Christmas spirit early which I'm really excited about because then the season seems to last longer.

Here's an orament similiar to the one I liked for my dad, but the one in store was much better.

Considering it's only the second day of October I guess I'm getting a little a head of myself. I enjoy Halloween but I LOVE Thanksgiving. Last year we planned on going to Lake Arrowhead for Thanksgiving, my grandma and her sisters and brother had driven up Tuesday and we we're going to leave early Thanksgiving morning for the 2 hour drive. Wednesday around 10 I start getting text messages from my sister saying my dad wasn't feeling well at 10:30 my dad was having a heart attack and I was driving to my moms work to tell her and pick her up. Obviously we didn't make it to Arrowhead, luckily my dad is doing much better now. We had planned to reschedule the trip this year but my dad needs to have more surgery and it'll probably be right before Thanksgiving.

Letting nature take it's course

Corey and I have decided to let nature takes it's course. In other words we're not trying to conceive but we're not NOT trying to conceive either.

With the recent ovary issues we had agreed that we would really start trying about this time next year, but we mutually decided I should stop taking the pill because it seems to be doing more harm then good for my body and it's $50.00 a month. That $$ will go towards paying off some bills which will just make us that much more ready when the time comes.

Everyone keeps asking when we are going to have kids and we usually come back with "eventually" and I think that'll stay the same. We figure the less people that know exactly what's going on the more we can avoid the more prying questions.

I've been doing a lot of research lately about PCOS and it gets scarier and scarier every time a new study comes out. I want to educate myself but it's hard reading those things and realizing some of it applies to me. Notice "some" of it...it's true I'm probably in denial, but I really don't feel like I'm going to have too hard of a time getting pregnant. I have faith and I just have this feeling it'll happen. I read woman's stories about how they've been trying for 8 months, 26 months, 4 years, and I just don't see that being me. There's all these abbreviations and charts that I just don't see myself needing to learn.

Fun Days

Like every Saturday Corey worked :( so I did some laundry and went to lunch with Nikki. Saturday night we went on a date to Mi Casa, yum.

Sunday we got to sleep in and then I met my family down in Balboa for lunch. Julia my cousin works at a cute little cafe down there on the same street as the ferry. So we and ate lunch there and then took a ride on the ferry per my grandma's request, got some chocolate covered strawberries and rode back. Walked around the island a little looking at all the fun houses.

Then Corey and I started a new tradition of Banana Split Sundays, we had a lot of fun making them lastnight and can't wait to do it again.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to my grandma's for a BBQ dinner to celebrate Josh's 16th birthday. Yay!

It's hot today

Fall just started yesterday and I'm so ready for the seasons to change. It's very hot today and I'm over the heat.

Zoey came to work with me today because we are having our trees trimmed. I went home at lunch to survey the progress and wowzer, our huge tree in the back yard isn't so huge anymore. We have 3 groups of banana trees, one on the front side of the house and the other 2 are in the corners of the backyard. I can't wait to see when they're all done, I'll post some pictures.

We have a bunch of birthday's coming up in the near future, I'm excited for so much fun stuff. My younger brother isn't so young anymore, I asked him the other day what he wanted for his birthday next week and he replied "clothes" for the last 15 birthdays I have given my brother toys: basketballs, legos, race cars, and more recently video games. I know my brother isn't a child anymore, he towers over me by 8", but hearing him say clothes is reality that he is now a young adult. Maybe this makes me so sad because it's a chapter of our lives closing, since I'm 6 years older then Danielle and almost 10 years older then Josh I got to experience some of my favorite child hood memories twice. I remember going to Disneyland with them when they were old enough to really be excited, it's like seeing Disneyland for the first time all over again. And holidays, oh I could go on and on about how at 15 (Josh was 5) I still got to experience the joys of baking Santa and his reindeers cookies and waking up Christmas morning to find hot cocoa and loads of presents Santa had left.

When I think back to all the fun we used to have I'm grateful that now I have a blog to document everything.

Sunday

After not doing much on Sunday Corey and I decided to take Zoey down to the beach. I really strive to make our Sunday's family day. Since during the week it's hit or miss and Saturday's Corey works I've made Sunday our day. We've even gone as far as making them "No Cell Phone Sundays" where we hide each others phones so it's really just a day for us.

We walked the beach until sunset and then he started heading back, the pictures below are of Corey and Zoey playing, I wasn't trying to be all artsy, I just wasn't using my flash to try to get the sunset in. I think the pictures came out very cool.

Zoey and Corey playing ball
Zoey looks freezing in this picture, but she was running around like crazy and wasn't cold at all, and it really wasn't that dark outside, that's just the way the flash made it look.

Eve 6

I love the band Eve 6, love love love it! They broke up awhile back but are now back together. Friday night we went to their show at the Key Club in LA for Jen's birthday, I had the best time!

The picture is Michelle, myself and Jen. Not the greatest picture of any of us but the only one we got that night.

I won tickets on the Radio to go see Jay-Z at the Hollywood Palladium the night before Corey's birthday. Good thing he likes Jay-Z. I know a lot of people don't like rap but I personally like all music, I'm not into "gangster rap" but I really like Jay-Z as an artist and that night he's going to be backed by a 12-piece band. I'm just as excited to see him as I am to go to the Palladium. The show we are going to is the opening night after an over year long renovation, Frank Sinatra opened the first show back in 1947. My grandma used to go there dancing in her younger years and Frank Sinatra was the love of her life. I'm excited to be able to visit a place my grandma used to have so much fun at, I hope I can experience some of the joy she used to and I can't wait to tell her all about the remodel.

Disneyland & the zoo

A few weekends ago we took our niece Alyssa to Disneyland, she loves the merry-go-round, it's her absolute favorite ride.

Last week I went to the San Diego Zoo with a friend for her birthday, I haven't been there in years so it was nice to visit again. The polar bears and black bear were the most active that day, the giraffe's were really fun to watch too.