Birthday

Today, I turned 29 and this is what was waiting for me when I got home...

Doesn't look very "jacked up" to me!
Wayne picked Jackson up early today from daycare and they spent the afternoon getting prepared for me to come home on my birthday! Jackson helped Daddy make my cake.






It looks like they had a lot of fun! You know what? It tasted great too! Wayne said that he didn't ask anyone for help -- he had been watching me make mine, so he knew about what to do! I will tell you that this just made my day! :) I also got a cute little card and a new pocket book from Jackson. They are always nice to have.

This has been a great day and I am looking forward to the year to come!

Guess what?!?!

Yay! Another year older... can you believe it? I sure can't. However, we are saddened because "Ganga" cannot be with us this year for the party. We will miss her but I am sure that she will be enjoying her once in a lifetime trip to Israel! We love you Ganga!

Jackson's birthday isn't actually until the 27th so I am sure that I will be posting a few more things about the big day including pictures! I am also working on his letter that I will post on his birthday with his traditional "birthday picture". Yay! I am so excited!

A Secret

Year: 2010

Month: May

Day: 9th

Occasion(s): My 28th Birthday and my 2nd Mother's Day

One memorable gift: Surprise destination trip ... just Mom and me.

Can you guess where? Well, if you can't, here are a few hints...I bet you still don't have any idea, do you? Those of you who already know, just shhhh...That wasn't much more help, was it?

Am I at least allowing you to get a little warmer with your guesses or are you still freezing cold?

Does this look familiar to anyone at all? I bet you've guessed it now!! And, if you haven't... um... keeping comments to myself.

But, that's right, we went to San Fransisco! You ask, "How did she keep it a secret for so long?" Well, you see, I love to be surprised. And when Mom offered the trip to me in February or March, I was so excited about the unknown that I didn't want to know. I will tell you that SF was not at the top of my list for places to go, but I am so glad I went and would go back if I had the chance.

So, how/when did she tell me where we were going. That's kind of the funny part. We were in the airport having our luggage checked and she asked the lady a question to make sure that our luggage would follow us all the way to our final destination because we didn't have a direct flight. The lady's response: "Yes, the luggage will follow you to San Fransisco". Mom and I just looked at each other and smiled. I am not sure when she would have told me, but that didn't matter any more.

After leaving the luggage lady, we were on the way to security and mom told me that the reason why she chose San Fransisco was because that was her mother's favorite city and she had never been there before. She wanted to go and visit and see what it was like and what better way to do that than to go with her daughter. I almost started to cry, so I jokingly asked her to stop talking. I just wanted to be excited about the trip! For those of you that do not know, my mother's mom ("Grammy") passed away in February of 2008. She was 80 years old. Infact, she had just celebrated her 80th birthday on February 5th of that year (and passed on the 20th). She was a wonderful lady and a very special Mom and Grandmother to four children and eleven grandchildren. Needless to say, I was thrilled to be sharing this experience with my mom.

We only where in San Fransisco for a weekend but it was jammed packed with sight-seeing and tours. Mom loves to do those kinds of things because you learn so much more about the, um, "behind the scenes" stuff about the big cities. Especially when you have a good tour guide.

We visited the Golden Gate BridgeAte at Boudin Bakery each morning for breakfast, rode a double decker bus for a tour and got just a wee bit burnt after we only talked about putting sunscreen on, took a tour of Alcatraz...Saw the production "Wicked" with a dear friend of mine that lives near the area, saw the most expensive home in San Fransisco -- which is owned by Danielle Steele, toured downtown twice but saw different things each time, had a wonderful veiw of Lombard Street but my camera just wouldn't take a good picture of it, rode a cable car, and to wrap up the tours, we were able to view these famous "Ladies"...
Now, those were just some quick highlights from our trip. This posting would be way too long to detail EVERYTHING we saw and did. However, here are some things that I noticed while we were there and walking around.

1) The homeless don't lie: While walking the streets of SF, you will find that there are many homeless people asking for money. However, you should take note of their signs that request money. "No need to lie, it's for weed" or "No need to lie, its for beer".

2) Seafood smells make me nauseous: We stayed at Fisherman's Wharf and walked near the water quite a bit. There are several seafood resturants in a row on the main drag there and oh, my golly... do they stink!! Ewwe.

3) Danielle Steele is really rich: So I mentioned previously that we saw the most expensive home in downtown SF. I really shouldn't say that I saw the home because there is a HUGEMONGOUS hedge on the property borders that block the home, but I was able to see the top of it. So, she purchased that home for a whopping $30 million and the tour guide told us that before the market crash, the home was valued at $60 million!

4) The homeless (and others) will do some interesting stuff to earn money: I saw a man sitting on a crate holding a large tree limb/bush in front of him. There were a few picture takers behind him. He was facing on coming walkers and every so often he would shove his limb out a little bit and say "BOO!" and scare the day lights out of the people coming by. It was quite entertaining. Maybe it was because he didn't scare me... the first time I saw him do it, I was on the side of the photographers and I knew what he was doing when I came back by. I beleive the girl in front of me just about fell off the curb. It was quite histerical.

5) The Golden Gate Bridge: Is painted yearly and it takes 365 days to paint. Just as the painters are finishing the last stroke at the end of the bridge they turn right back around and begin again. Can we say, "job security"? However, if you go to visit the bridge make sure you go at the right time of the year because if you don't, fog will cloud your view of the bridge even as you drive on it.

So, again, I had a marvelous time and will cherish the memories of this trip forever. Thank you Mom for planning such a trip and maybe, just maybe, we can do something like this again?!?! :)

Happy Birthday

It has been an exciting week. Jackson turned one on Wednesday and we celebrated with family on Saturday with the first snow of the year. It is kind of unbelieveable that it has already been a year. Time has really flown by! However, it has been such a great year!

When my brother and I were little, my mom had a little tradition of waking us up on our birthday with the Happy Birthday song and a picture with our eyes just slightly open. I want to carry that tradition so I made sure to take a picture of Jackson. However, he was already awake when I went into his room but the sleep was still fresh in his eyes! :)

We had a great day. I took the day off to spend with him. We were able to get his birthday pictures made and Grandma and Nana came over that evening to spend some time with him and he was able to open some gifts!

Another tradition that I wanted to begin was to write him a letter for each birthday. It will definately be a special addition to his scrapbook. So, here goes:

Dear Jackson,
A year has already passed us by! I can’t believe it. Just a year ago today, Daddy and I were anxiously awaiting your arrival. We wanted to meet you and see the little boy that God had given us. This has been a busy year and a year full of learning. Not just for you, but for Daddy and me as well.

I think the first few days at home were the hardest to get through. We all were trying to adjust to our new life. On a humorous note, the first night we were home, we couldn't figure out any way to make you stop crying. I think you were just as frustrated with us as we were with the situation. We were all very tired and just wanted to sleep, but you just wanted to cry. Daddy walked out of the room, went to the bathroom, came back in and said "It was so much easier with just the two of us." He was very serious in the moment, but we both just look back on that and laugh. We used to tell everyone that you came out at night. For the first couple of weeks or so is when you decided it was time to stay awake and cry. It was great when you figured out that when it was dark you were supposed to sleep!

We got a very slow start with your feeding schedules. Your doctor was getting a little worried because you were losing some weight instead of gaining. We were able to adjust your milk intake and you finally started gaining weight again. Mommy and Daddy also learned very early on that you wanted to sleep a lot (which may have been some of the reason why you lost some weight in the begining too). It was great because we could sleep too but we did get worried a few times when you didn’t wake up to eat. We made it through though.

It has been fun watching you grow and learn new things – watching you smile for the first time, beginning to eat solid foods, sitting on your own, rolling over, beginning to babble, and of course crawling and then standing with help. Learning your personality has been a joy as well. It still amazes me how much you have been able to take in this first year of your life and how much you have learned.

As we begin to embark on your second year, I am so excited to see what is to come. Daddy and I love you very much and are so blessed to have you in our lives.

Love You Always,
Mommy

wordless wednesday

Two more weeks...

Can you believe it? Jackson will be ONE in 2 weeks! We definately can't believe it. Here is the invite that I created. Of course, for web use, I have blurred our phone number.