June Picture a Day

So fun!

Day 31 - Something Beautiful

Our trip to cruise around Hawaii in September 2007...I'm in need another vacation!

What made it beautiful?!

Secluded beaches...those are our footprints!

Birds eye view of the coast...from our helicopter tour!

Romantic dinners!

Black sand beaches with sea turtles!

Swimming by waterfalls!

Biking down the mountain side after not seeing the most beautiful sunset beacause of the fog!

Most of all reuniting with old friends! 

Day 30 - your personality

Laid back! Had a picture of my feet in the sand, lounging at the lake but I deleted it! But I think Drew is representing me well here!

Day 29 - A Number

As in the number of children, I could potentially have!!!

Not in the near future!  Just wanted to say there's the potential out there!  Lately, I've had some pregnancy brain moments but I don't have a pregnancy to blame, just my slow brain! 

Didn't have much else to go on with this one!!!

Day 28 - Today's Weather

High 91, low 72!  Perfect for a backyard BBQ with the family!

Day 27 - Something Sweet

I couldn't resist posting this!  My little Drewsters is the sweetest!  He picks me these yellow flowers almost everyday, so no biggie right?!  Today he was about to climb into the car when they caught his eye, he turned around ran back to the bush and said "I get flower for mama!"  Just melted my heart!  Of course I didn't catch the moment at that exact time!  I buckled him in then asked him to give me the flower again, since its definitely the sweetest thing ever!  Love my little man!

Day 26 - 12 o'clock

I wanted to post a pretty picture of the lake we went to, but we got there a little after noon and I got caught up in everything and forgot!   And then the place we were at didn't have service for my phone so I couldn't post anyway!  
After reading Mica's comment about midnight it reminded me of all those New Year's Eves of years past!   New Year's Eve 2001 was the night I asked Dennis out on our first date...well by then it was New Year's Day 2002; which actually caused a bit of confusion as to when our first date really took place.  But it took place and y'all know the rest! 
I don't know when the tradition started but Lam started throwing an annual NYE's party every year.  It started out as what he called his Christmas present to his friends since he provided food and drink for all.    Good food, good drinks and good friends!  Good times were had by all!  I can't even remember how many years he did it for but it was much more fun to go hang out there then fight crowds and pay ridiculous prices for drinks.  But alas all good times come to an end!
This picture is from NYE 2005 (I think)...it was dubbed the Black and White year!  Alisa and I started a rumor it was going to a black and white formal party!  Word got out so most were in black and white that night! Jessica the rebel she is...wasn't!  

Day 24 - New

My new sparkly Tom's wedges!  Got them for Mother's Day and love love love them! 

Day 25 - Unusual

If I could have taken a picture of the person who makes me behave unusually, but I try not to see her unless its absolutely necessary.   This person is the girl I hired as a contract worker to help with my work load for 3 months...I'm glad its ending soon!  I am usually a very nice person at work and can be everyone's friend finding common ground with everyone.  I'm the one that makes small talk with anyone in the office since we all do work together.  But this girl just drives me nuts, so with her its all business with as little idle chit chat as possible.  Like today she came to my office to turn in her hours, and told me about some appointments she has.  I'm nodding my head as she drones on and on about how her health insurance is about to expire this weekend and I'm just trying to make very little eye contact since her shirt was really tight I didn't want to get caught staring at her belly.  And I also hope that she gets the hint I don't want to talk anymore.  Then to make it even more evident when she pauses I'm say well ok once you finish that thing you can move on to what discussed yesterday.   I felt really rude but just wanted her out of my office!  With any other coworker I would have been concerned and talked a little more about things especially since she's got all these medical issues (migranes, nose bleeds, bleeding from the ear etc.), but I just don't care for her.  

I mean she did help out when needed but she also messed up a lot and I'm just not used to working with dumb people, and dumb people that think they're smart are even worse!  And the most annoying thing is her voicemails, like 5 minute voicemails to tell me she has a question without even actually asking the question.  Even her text messages are long. 

Top 5 Annoying Things Little Miss Ditzy Did
5. Picking up her officemate's phone to say she wasn't there and wasn't going to be back the rest of the day.  First, their desks are not close at all and secondly, we have voicemail. Why?
4.  Taking 6 hours to finish some thing that normally takes 2.  
3.  The drama, medical issues, car issues, cat issues...on and on!
2.  Wrote all over some one's original recon that she was testing. When told not do it again, she said ok I understand but proceeded to tell me with her internal audit background she didn't see it as an issue.   Any auditors you know write all over originals? 
1.  The voicemails.

Day 23 - Technology

I was close to making post how I spent my day on a call with a bunch of techie IT folks, but the realized I couldn't really capture a picture of that.  Especially because I was the remote participant on the call and everyone else was in Riverwoods!

So I had to think about what else I could use for this.  I'm not too technologically advanced so I was limited, but thankfully Dennis likes some techie fun stuff and got us the EyeFi.  When he first brought it out and told me about it I was uh ok, but its definitely come in handy!   If you don't know, its a camera memory card that loads automatically to you computer without you having to do much of anything.  We found that we do have to snap a picture once back in the house to activate the load but everything else is taken care of.  I know you're thnking how hard is it to load the pictures but I do get lazy. And now its super easy! I love it!

Day 22 - Pink

When I think PINK, I think of my little princess!  Nothing I can do about it!  Here she is in all her Pretty in Pink glory!  She got this dress a while ago from John and Christine...they get her the cutest clothes mostly from H&M and this one is no exception.  Its one of my favorites!   It wasn't one of hers at first since she said it was "too fancy".  By the time she took a liking to it, it was too short as a normal dress so we pair it with leggings!  I still love it! 

ps.  In honor of today, I'm also wearing a pink dress!

Day 21 - Where you stand

Not sure if I should be writing about something more figuratively like where I stand politically, but I'm taking more of a literal take on it.  Today I stood next to these flowers and waited for Taysa for our first ever running date!  I don't normally run with anyone but I wanted to get Taysa out there so I made her committ to meet me.  We've decided to meet on Mondays to run for a little.  It was good since I made her run longer then she would have and I actually got out there and ran some.  I haven't done a thing since Mother's Day! Needed to get back in the game...it was a good way to ease back in! 

Day 20 - Something you can't live without!

The laughter that these 2 bring into my life!  Just a few of the fun moments I've managed to capture! I wanted to include Dennis too, since all three were cracking me up this evening, hopping around the house...but I didn't act fast enough!

Day 19 - Favorite Place

One of my favorite places is San Francisco!

One of my favorite places in San Francisco is Mount Tamapalis (aka Mount Tam)!

That's me and Dennis on one of our visits back to San Francisco! A trip I suggested we take and a visit to the top of Mount Tam that I also suggested!  Which worked out very well for Dennis's master plan!

He planned to propose on top of Mount Tam and I played right into his plan without suspecting a thing!   Like I said, I suggested the trip to San Francisco and Alisa and Thach came along.   I suggested we take Alisa and Thach to the top of Mount Tam since they had never been, but for some odd reason Thach really wanted to go to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art).  You would have thought I would have suspected something then like why would Thach want to be Downy, but I didn't.   Dennis said he still wanted to go to Mount Tam without the Hoang's, weird but I still didn't think anything of it.    I should have suspected something since Dennis didn't wear a hat that day and put gel in his hair, but still nothing.   So much so, so that while on top of the mountain I turned to him and told him this would be the perfect place to propose and he could even practice if he wanted.   So he took a piece of grass and made me a ring and then got visibly nervous.  I laughed at him and asked him why he was getting so nervous when it was only pretend!  I might not have even been that nice about it.   So he asked with a grass ring and I said YES!  

Then he got down in front of me and asked "How about I do it for real?"  I said "Uh yeah!  I've been  waiting for you to do it! Any time!"  And so he whipped out the ring and asked.  And I said YES!



Not so much re-enacting the scene, since its not how it looked at all.   But we wanted to capture the scenery of the moment too!  It was the perfect proposal for us and it definitely makes it one of the my most favorite places in the world because of it!

Day 18 - Something you made

I planned on posting a picture of the cute little photo frames I made for the kids' teahcers. For Drew's I printed out a picture of a girl super hero and put "You're a super Teacher!" and had him color (aka scribble scrabble as Emmie calls it) them.  But in my hast to finish the presents for the teachers before bedtime, I wrapped them up before snapping a picture.  So no biggie, right?  I didn't wrap Emmie's yet because she still had one more day of school left and she told she wasn't finish with her drawing that was going to go in the frame.  Little did I know that Emmie took it upon herself to bring in her teacher's gift unfinished and unwrapped!  So yah so no picture of what I made.  But there's a picture of the original frames that I stole the idea from.  Originally I was going to buy cheap crayons to do this but in the end went with Crayola because they looked so much better!  

So since its not a picture of something I made, I'm posting a picture of the diaper trike I made for a friend's baby!  Yes I'm calling it a trike because I don't think there's any rules saying a tricycle has one big wheel and two small wheels. I imagine if I looked up tricycle it would just mean three wheels.  And really how many tractors do you know have three wheels?! 

My favorite part of this were the little ninjas.  I didn't make those though...my awesome cousin, Jeanie, sewed those.  She's very crafty! 

Day 17 - Snack

Strawberries are getting cheap again! Luckily I brought these in this morning for my afternoon snack or I would have been forced to eat the cupcake under that foil that my coworker had saved for me!  Healthy habits!  I'm trying but its damn hard!  On the brighter side the strawberries were delish! 

Darn! Thought my post was posting, but its in limbo.   And I deleted my picture!  Now you can't see my attempt at artistically placing the starwberries in front of the covered cupcake and angling my phone just so to capture the moment.  Please use your imaginations. 

Day 16 - Something you're reading

I got this book from Amazon's Daily Kindle Deals or from the top 100 free Kindle books.  It got good reviews and you know I can't resist true stories.  This book is basically the life diaries of a Russian woman who was a slave laborer for the Nazis during the Holocaust.  Her first dairy started at 9 when her dad gave it to her. She kept dairies ever since.  She was the only surviving member of her family and eventually made her way to America.  There she met a man married him but never revealed her past to him.  After 40 years of marriage she finally showed him all her diaries and how she spent years translating them into English.  She made him promise to not publish anything until after she passed.  So far the writing is a bit choppy and jumps from place to place but the story is still good!  If you know me, you know I read pretty much anything!

Day 15 - Love

Since my happy post was about Emmeline, I figured its only fair for my love post to be about Drew!   There's plenty I love about this kid, but one thing I love is how much he's started talking this year! At his 2 year check up, I had some concerns about how he wasn't talking much and wouldn't really speak in phrases.   The doctor recommended taking him to a speech therapist for some testing, but I decided to wait a few months.  With no real improvement, I decided to sign him up for the Easter Seals Early Childhood Intervention Program.   Basically its an in-home speech therapy program, and they began working with him for about 6 months.  He started talking more, not sure if it was the program or what but he cracks me up with the things he says now a days!  The picture is from his ECI graduation, since they stop working the child once they turn 3.   If needed, they refer you to the school district for additional services but Drew's teacher said she didn't think he needed it!

Here are the top 10 things I love hearing him say:

10.  Hmmmm - He says this when he needs to think about something before he answers!
  9.  I hea Justin Biba - His sister's Bieber fever has rubbed off on him!  Its not his favorite song, but
       that's what he requests to hear in the car rides from Kids Bop 18
  8.  I see rew undies slong. Jut one time. (I see real undies song, just one time) - He loves watching
       the LMFAO Sexy and I know it video, but I only let him watch the Chipmunk version.  He's
       figured out how to find the real video and will watch it every now and then himself. 
  7.  Daddy toot all day! - Nothing really needs to be said about this one!
  6.  Daddy, Mama or Emmie do that all the time! - When someone does something that they do
       often he likes to remind us that its something we do and he knows it!
  5.  Daddy lob that song (lob = loves) - When he hears songs that his dad likes to listen to, he lets
       you know.
  4.  All ob it ("all of it") - This is used when there's a large number of something and he doesn't want
       to count them (i.e. Oh, how many flowers do you see Drew?...his answer "All ob it"!).
  3.  I have tiny meelk - If you know Drew you know he loves his milk.   We try to limit his milk so
       that he doesn't just fill up all on milk, so he's started bargining by asking for some tiny milk,
       meaning not so much!  He makes the tiny sign with his fingers too, so its hard to resist!
  2.  How bout 1 mo minute? - He's good at bargining now.  When we ask him to do something, he's
       now asking if he can have 1 or sometimes 5 more minutes.   Again, he has this look on his face
       when asking so hard for me to resist!
  1.  I gib you kiss?! - Another one of his bargining chips that he's just added recently! He uses this
       when I've just told him or something he doesn't want to hear and he turns to me to basically ask
       if he gives me a kiss can he have his way!   VERY HARD TO RESIST!

Day 14 - Grass

I took this picture some time last week thinking I could use it some time and now is that time! The kids convinced me to take them jogging one day.  When they got outside and saw the sprinkler on watering the grass, the idea of jogging was so boring...standing by so the sprinkler could spray them was so much more fun!   They had a blast! 

Day 13 - Mum

So yes!  I'm pretty sure here we are suppose to post something about our mommies!  But when I saw mum, and saw the medal that I got for completing the duathlon on Mother's Day I decided to go with it!   I don't know what kind of flower you see, but I totally see a mum flower!  

I really can't believe I subjected myself to something like this on Mother's Day, since it required me to get up at 4:15 in the morning when I hadn't slept more then 3 hours the night before!  But I did and I finished!  It was definitely a tough one to do, but it was inspiring to see all the ladies and girls out there doing it.   Little 7 year old girls with six packs and older women of all shapes and sizes out there giving it their all!   LOVED IT!   Even though it was pretty tough, transitioning from the bike to run (bricks) definitely wore me out, I'd probably do it again!   Special shot out to Suzanne and Annie for signing up with me and Alisa for waking up extra early just come out and support her bestie!    Love you!   And with that...wishing all the moms out there a happy happy mother's day...especially mine!  Since without her, I wouldn't have been able to do this race! 

We did it!  We did it!

That's my boss responsible for telling me about this to begin with!  I'm still a little disoriented at this point since as we were leaving I had asked if we got a picture of us after the finish! 

Day 12 - Something that makes you happy

I had all great intentions of posting something got the picture all set but got caught up in the race day preparations that I completely forgot to do it!  Then yesterday after the race I was seriously too exhausted to do anything at the end of the day...so today is my catch up day!

So there are many things that make me happy and one of them is spending some QT with my little Emmeline!   Usually our time alone is limited, and its become increasing more difficult now that Drew is in the process of eliminating his afternoon naps.   But on this particular day he slept, so after folding mountains of laundry, there was a request to paint some nails.  I was pretty tired and wanted nothing more then to just lay around, but couldn't resist her!   We had to have a pattern of purple and blue with sparkles.    There was talk of having a nail painting party just like Maddy did 2 years ago.   It just makes me happy that we can spend this time together!  After we painted we read some books together while her nails dried!   It was some good QT! 

PS...I don't know if you can tell, but we are dressed alike. She's going through a phase where she wants to be like me!  Which means since I was wearing black pants she had to go dig up some black leggings and of course put on her black shirt!  For a week or so she even wanted to be like me and where a bra, so she sported her bathing suit top under everything. I'm glad she got over that!  But I'm loving every minute of it!

Day 11 - Kitchen

I completely forgot about checking today's category until pretty late, but luckily remembered before sneaking my dessert in the kitchen while the kids watched their show before bed!  Of course this will be one of my last times hiding out in the kitchen and sneaking bad for me desserts, since come Monday a new me starts eating right!  Did you catch my come Monday there?  I'm hoping to get my traditional red velvet cheesecake for mother's day if only husband will remember.  And I'm doing a duathalon that day I deserve something!  Hee hee! 

Ps..this Mounds bar is not as good as the Reese's they have!

Day 10 - Favorite word

Since today is Dennis's birthday, I'm dedicating today's blog to him and sharing with you my favorite golf word!  Mulligan! It basically means do over and the picture is of Dennis doing a mulligan for a shot he just didn't like the first time.  I tried to point out the old and new ball so you don't think I'm just making something up! 

We had a great day for his birthday! It started off with the scavenger hunt the kids and I put together for him.  We got him small things he could use for a triathalon, swim lessons and will be registering him for one in September (it just wasn't open yet)!  If you can't see in the picture he got goggles, gloves and socks.  I threw in some packets of tuna since they were on sale and know he likes to eat tuna when trying to lose weight!  I had the kids hide the gifts and wrote out clues for him.  It was a good time and he's a little concerned because he's not a strong swimmer! I believe with the lessons he's going to be awesome! 

After the hunt we took the kids to school and I stayed because Drew's class had a tea party for all the mommies! It was cute! The teachers were so sweet and put together photo albums for each mom with pictures of the kids throughout the year!  My little one is growing too fast!  Sigh!

Anyway after class, I met up with Dennis for a free buffet lunch!  We stuffed our faces and debated about making the drive to the boonies for Dennis cash in on his free round of golf would be worth it since it might rain!  He decided he wanted to take the chance, so then I got to be the cart and pin girl. It was a nice day to be out on the course and it was super relaxing.  He didn't play a full round since it did start raining but we still had a good time.  Since he wasn't counting this game he didn't care about the mulligans!  He had a few! 

He wanted to go catch Avengers so I had to tell him Emmie had something planned for him. She was throwing him a surprise football party. She asked to invite Maddy but I had to make sure Thach could come too.  Then she wanted to invite her Titas, cousins and Lolo and Lola.   We ended up with the Hoang family and Lolo and Lola "surprising" him on the drive way.  We took everyone out for some yummy crawfish and ended the day with some beignets and honey! 

It was a great day and I wouldn't mulligan anything! 

Day 9 - Something you do everyday

It took me a little time to figure out what I do everyday!  Thought about kissing my kids or spoiling the hubs nightly with back scratches, but when I travel I don't get the pleasure!  So one thing that I do for sure every day is put on these babies!  I can't sleep without them.  Became totally addicted to sleeping with them when we moved into our house; since its near the train tracks I would be rudely awaken several times a night.  Got the plugs and they did wonders!  Now the railroad crossing by our house has become a quiet zone so trains can't blow their horns anymore but I still live by these babies! I bring them when I travel too!  Sleep is good with them...most of the time!

Day 8 - A Smell You Adore

A smell I adored (still do but can't smell much anymore) was of Dennis's laundry when we first started dating.  On our first few dates I kept sneaking sniffs of his clothes.  Then one night after a movie he said I could wear his jacket since it was cooler.  I smelled that jacket all night and finally asked him what detergent he used.  He kept it a secret so that I'd stay around just to smell him. Eventually I found it was a combination of Tide and Swavitel (the cheap fabric softner).   We still use the combination to this day but the clothes just don't smell the same anymore...may have to do with the high efficiency formula. 
The picture is of Dennis when we first started dating, only way I could think of getting the smell documented.  And just to add a little more meaning to the picture, the lady behind him is his Tita who Emmeline was named after!   She passed away shortly after we started dating but I did get to meet her.  She also gave Dennis a necklace, ring and earring set to give to his future wife who ended up being me!  Dennis's mom hung on to it and gave it to us on our wedding day! 

Day 7 - Someone that inspires you

This girl inspires me to kick start my weight loss.  I was doing pretty well working out but wasn't losing weight. I knew it was my diet but wasn't doing much about. Then working out was falling by way side and now I'm just feeling blah, but seeing this hot mama and reading about her being at peace when running has got me inspired!  Austin here we come!  She was my inspiration when I lost all that weight back in college...haven't been able to do it since, but now is the time!!! Love ya, Mica!

Day 6 - You

Look its me and I even caught my mini me in the shot! We're hangin' in the town square after a fun filled family dinner! 

Day 5 - Bird

This was a tough one. Thought maybe I'd have to chase down some pigeons in the parking lot or something, until we were suppose to make onesies at a baby shower!  I didn't make this one but I came up with what to write on it, so I get a little credit! 

Day 4 - Fun

Today's fun was a little date night for us! Picked up a few things for a May celebrations we're having with Dennis's family on Sunday.  Everyone but Dennis and I got married in May, so that's 3 anniversaries, 2 birthdays and Mother's day all rolled into one for us!    Then went to Studio Movie Grill to watch Hunger Games. I just finished the last book last night so it was perfect timing!   I loved it!

Day 3 - something you wore

Purchased a few exercise clothing pieces today!  I think I'll be sporting this tank with built in support for my duatholon next weekend...since it matches my bike and all!

Day 2 - Skyline

Just want to say I attempted to post last night from my phone and it didn't work!   So here I am, first thing in the morning. 

This is the skyline that I hope to see in person one day...Maldives!  Sigh...a girl can dream right?   I thought it'd be more fun then any skyline that I see on normal basis!