Day 13: Old Christmas Photos

I know we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet, but I wanted to share these photos. I decided that in an effort make our place more festive come time to decorate for Christmas, I wanted to replace the photos in our picture frames, with photos of previous Christmases. I asked my mom for help and she emailed me these today.

Why I had a boys haircut, I do not know!

Rainbow Bright!

Picking Raspberries and Eating Apple Cider Doughnuts

Our first trip to Oak Glen for the fall season was with Troy, Melissa and the kids. Last week, we went and visited Snow-Line Orchard, where we picked raspberries and ate yummy Apple Cider Doughnuts. They were sooo very good!




Watching our doughnuts being made.








Time to go pick Raspberries!

















Ivy smiling away in her bassinet.




Madelyn wanting to play with Ivy!




Being that it was a Monday in September, we avoided all the crowds. Hopefully, when it cools down, we can do another trip out there. It was a great way to kick off the fall season!

Cousins

Ivy is very lucky to have two awesome cousins. Madelyn is a about a year older than Ivy and Jackson is almost 3 years. We typically see them a couple of times a week and hopefully they will become close friends because of this. We always talk about about how in a couple of years Ivy and Madelyn will be having tea parties together and sleep overs!

The other day Madelyn was excited to see Ivy and wanted to play with her. Ivy just sat in her carseat and watched. It was too cute!

This is my first try posting a video so hopefully this works!

Day 29: Back to the Grind

Sigh... I can't believe that the Thanksgiving weekend is over. It went by so quickly, probably because it was very enjoyable. Like I previously posted, we had a great Thanksgiving with family.

Friday, we went to David's parents place for breakfast and just hung out. No black Friday shopping for us. We haven't even started our Christmas shopping to tell you the truth. Saturday, lunch with friends and family at Chick-fil-A and that afternoon I cooked a mini Thanksgiving meal, while the boys watched a boring USC vs. UCLA football game.

Today, we had grand plans to go get our Christmas tree after church. We had lunch with David's parents and headed over to Home Depot. Due to the acquisition of more furniture, since last Christmas, we have less room this year for a tree. We looked for 5'-6' "skinny" tree, but couldn't find one. The selection looked pretty picked over. So no tree yet! :( I was really looking forward to putting up decorations and playing Christmas music.

Tomorrow means back to the grind. My boss will be gone on vacation till the end of the week, so that means I will be very busy. But one nice thing about it being busy, is that it will go by quickly. I am looking forward to hanging out with the girl's tomorrow night and possibly a weekend away with friends in Big Bear!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and extra time off!

Day 27: Mission Inn Lighting

I am in desperate need of updating photos with you all, but I am going to go out of order, since today is kind of the kick off to the Christmas season.

Tonight, we went with the family to see the Mission Inn's festival of lights. It was my first time ever going the lighting and I'm not quite sure what to think. It was very beautiful and the fireworks were fun. There was a chill in the air and it felt a little bit like the beginning of Christmas, but oh so many people! I think I might just stick to going down there on an evening when it's not so busy!

Here are a couple photos that we took:

Day 17: Lots of Yawning

I am fading very quickly, so this will probably be short. It's only 9 and I can't stop yawning. I will be going straight to bed, once I am done with this post.

If you minus work, it was a really great day. After work, I met up with my MIL at Tai Pan. I had never been there before and when I mentioned to her that I was looking for some Christmas decorations, she said she knew just the place. I can't believe how many that they have. I don't think I have ever been to a store with so many. It was amazing! So, So, pretty as well! There were so many things that I wanted to buy, but I was good and picked out a couple items that were my favorites.

We then got dinner and headed over to Kirklands. All that shopping and walking around wore me out. I am never this tired at this time. I just yawned again for probably the 5th time since starting this post. Opps and again! ::yawn::

So, if you live near a Tai Pan, I definitely recommend going there! Right... I am now off to bed!

Bring on the Pink

My niece will be here soon! They are inducing Melissa tonight. Oh, I am so excited. David's family is all boys, so it's a celebration just the fact that Melissa is having a girl. Madelyn is going to be so spoiled by her grandparents and all her aunts and uncles!

Weekend

Movie with an awesome friend

Yogurt and great conversation to top off the evening

Sleeping in till mid day

Mafia sandwich from Antone's

Hospitals and waiting

Giggling and smiling nephew

French fries and an Iced Coffee

Movie Cars and a walk with the cutest kid in the world

Glass of wine

Crying at the end of a good story

Lazy morning

Visiting with extended family & relaxing at the in laws

Late lunch with family

4 hour nap on a Sunday afternoon

Beautiful summer evening

Quick errand to grocery store

Pick up dinner

Finish laundry

Head on home

Comfy bed and some snuggling

Sleep

Weekend Recap: Long

Weekends are normally a chance for me to sleep in and recharge from the previous work week. This was definitely not the case this past weekend. We were extremely busy with my FIL's (father in law) surgery and entertaining. I feel like the weekend flew by and it didn't feel like I had a weekend at all actually. A detailed weekend recap is below. I am warning you in advance that this is probably going to be very long, because I just need to get it all out. Writing allows me to chew on it and process everything and put it behind me, so I can focus on what's ahead.

RECAP:

So Friday, I was really looking forward to the weekend and catching up on sleep. Like I said earlier this didn't happen. I was a little preoccupied all day while at work, thinking about FIL's surgery. I kept waiting for phone updates from David, but his surgery kept being postponed, which was frustrating. I spent the evening cleaning as we had guests coming to stay with us for the weekend. I got a lot accomplished and was proud of myself. Our guests Erik, Joleen and Adam arrived pretty late as they did have a long drive. It was awesome to see them as it had been a couple of months, since we last saw them. We love hanging out with them, thus it was quite late before we got into bed.

Saturday - FIL's surgery was scheduled for pretty early, so David headed over to the hospital at like 5 to see him before he went in. I woke up around 8:30 and made everyone Paula Deans baked French Toast. It is sooo good! I made it previously for a friends baby shower and everyone loved it. David had been asking for awhile for me to make it for him. I think we headed over to the hospital mid morning and hung out with MIL in the waiting room. David and I occupied our time by watching clips of open heart surgerys on Utube. Holy cow is all I have to say! I think I read a bit, I am re-reading the Twilight series, haha.

FIL got out of surgery around 2ish. Like previously reported, the surgery went well. They planned on keeping him ventilator till the next morning, thus they kept him sedated. We had to wait awhile before we could see him, but finally were able to go on in. The last time, I had been to the ICU was when Mark was in the hospital and seeing FIL on the ventilator, the sounds, putting the hand santizer on before going in, brought all those memories back. It was hard.

We left the hospital and went to dinner to celebrate my MIL's birthday, which also that day. By the time we got home, I was wiped out. The guys all watched the UFC fight and I promptly fell asleep on the sofa. I really wanted to socialize, but it just wasn't happening. Seemed like the guys really enjoyed the fight as I awoke to quite a few time to cheering. Finally, I gave in and just went to bed.

Sunday morning, we slept in a little bit but it wasn't enough. I had to resort to keeping myself awake by having some coffee, which I never do on weekends. Our guests left and I was sad. I really wish we could have spent more time with them. :( We sat around and waited for the hospital to call us when they had taken FIL off the ventilator. It took awhile, as I guess they were having some issues with his oxygen levels. The hospital finally called mid day and let us know that FIL was off the ventilator and they were going to start weaning him off the sedatives. The entire family headed over to Panera for lunch and then to the hospital. We completely took over the entire waiting room. :) When David and I went in to see him, they were making him sit up in a chair, which you could tell was very hard for him and he was in a lot of pain. He will probably been in the ICU for 3 days. He is expected to stay in the hospital for 5 to 7 days total. So maybe, this coming weekend he will be able to go home.

Our friends Chris and Tess were so awesome and had everyone over to their place for a BBQ, as they live just down the road from the hospital. We all trooped on over there. The food and company were great. It was awesome to just sit and relax. I throughly enjoyed just sitting outside in the warm summer evening and talking with everyone. Thank you so very much guys!

If your still reading this wow!

So there you go, that was our weekend, tiring but also some aspects very enjoyable. I do hope this week goes by quickly and also that I won't be so stubborn and stay up late either reading or waisting my time on something pointless like restaurant city. I really need to catch up on my sleep, as the circles under my eyes look horrendous. Thank goodness for makeup in the mean time though!

My father in laws surgery went well. He is currently in recovery and
we have not been in to see him yet though. Thank for all your thoughts
and prayers!

Postponed

My father in laws surgery has been postponed twice now till tomorrow morning. Jeez!

Father in Law Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that my father in law had an angiogram done today and it turns out one artery is blocked 90% and another 75%. He is going to have to have double bypass surgery tomorrow morning.

If you could please pray that the surgery goes well and that he recovers quickly, it would be greatly appreciated!

Scatterbrain Today

I can not concentrate today at all. I am a complete scatterbrain right now. I just want to go curl up in bed and go to sleep. Maybe it's the over abundance of caffeine in my system and lack of sleep?

We have guests coming this weekend to stay with us and the apartment is a disaster. I will definitely be spending my evening cleaning and doing laundry (oh joy).

*On a serious note, yesterday my father in law went to the hospital as he was experiencing some chest pain. It doesn't appear that he had a heart attack, but they are still running tests. If you could pray for him and that if there is something wrong it will show up on the tests, that would be awesome!

Photo Scavenger Hunt

I have not posted any photos in a very long time, so we are going to just have change that!

This past(it's more like last weekend now) weekend we celebrated our friend Josh's birthday in the form of a photos scavenger hunt. It was pretty cool. The scavenger hunt took you all over, to certain places that were a part of his life. You had an hour to go to as many of the places on the list and at each place you had to do something, like for example at the high school he went to you had to take a picture of your team doing a cheerleading poses. Different spots had different point values so you had to be smart and plan out your route and how many you could get done, because once you passed the hour time limit, you lost 50 pts for each minute you were late.

It ended up just being David and I as team. I think it would have been more fun if we had more people in our group, but all your teammates had to fit in one car and it just didn't work out with kids and space, so we ended up on our own. We did have to be a little creative on a couple of our photos and use the timer and place the camera on the car but we worked it out. We did have a blast though.

Angie's family pulled up as we were taking out photo and decided they were going to jump right on in.

The hubby with the Starbucks barista

Our secret hand shake

Drop kick to the face

We ended the scavenger hunt at Portillos, which has really good Chicago style hot dogs. Mmmmm, they are good! But we came in 2nd place. Angie's team barely beat us! We knew it was going to be close, as we ran into themselves places as were racing around town. Great job guys!

So here's one last photo of me enjoying my hot dog!

Summer is Here

I can not believe that today is the first day of summer. It is amazing how quickly time flies. Since, today is the first day of summer I thought I would share some of my favorite summer memories.


Summer memories as a child


~ catching fireflies at night

~ my mom taking us on a bike ride/picnic in the country. She would make us cucumber sandwiches (she is British).

~ all the cool fireworks you can get in Indiana. The real sparkles and not the cheesy lame ones you have here in CA.

~ riding my bike to the library and checking as many books as I could and then going home and laying on a blanket in the shade and reading all day.

~ the awesome thunderstorms we would get. Sigh... I do miss those.


California Memories


~ Bonfires at the beach

~ Driving my little old Cabriolet convertible that I used to own.

~ The hubby rigging up an outdoor movie experience with the projector and watching the old Disney movie Summer Magic on blankets and signing along to the music.

~ Walking to Dairy Queen after bible study and getting ice cream.

~ Watching Disneyland's fireworks show on a hot summer evening.

What is one of your favorite memories of summer?

Great Weekend

It's little late to do a weekend recap, but oh well. I wrote this post out a couple of days, but never finished it. So here you go.

This past weekend was really good. We did a lot of relaxing and sleeping! But also, was able to include some quality time with friends and family. This is always a hard balance, as it seems it's always one or the other. Too busy or relax and get nothing accomplished.


Highlights of the weekend included going to lunch at with Rachel and Scott on Saturday. We then headed over to Walmart and their gardening department. I picked up some pots and bulbs that were half off! I spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden. Pictures coming soon!


Later that evening we headed over to Angie's for a BBQ. After dinner, us girls all watched Twilight, which I loved! I never saw it in the movie theatre when it came out or read the books. After hearing all the raving from other people, I had planned on reading the books. Life of course got in the way and I never got around to it. Since, watching the movie I definitely want to read the books now! Btw Jenni, I have to borrow them now!

Quick Weekend Recap

Just a quick weekend recap before I go to bed. Since, I have been bad about blogging consistantly lately, I know that if I don't do it now, it won't happen at all.

So, last week the hubby was gone for a couple of days due to work. I missed him terribly and I was really glad when he came home. My work was on his drive back home, so he stopped and we got lunch together on Friday. Henry's has some of the best sandwiches and for a great price!

Saturday, I went to a good friends baby shower. I made Paula Dean's baked french toast. I think it came out pretty darn good, for never trying it before. The rest of the day, we took a nice long nap and I finished up the book "Persuasion", by Jane Austen. Great book by the way!

Today, consisted of church and then some good bbq with Angie and her family. We then visited both the hubby's grandma's. They both live in the same apartment complex, so we spent the afternoon with them. Then, we watched some tv and relaxed. Dinner, we picked up In N Out, yummm! And took it to Angie's, where we spent the rest of the evening.

So overall, it was pretty good weekend. We caught up on our sleep and spent some good quality time with family, that was much needed. I feel recharged and ready to tackle to coming work week. I am not looking forward to getting up and leaving for work while it is still dark though. But, it will be nice to have more daylight, after getting home from work.

Hope you all had good weekends as well!

One Month

That is how long it has been since the last time that I blogged. I am pretty sure this was the longest period of silence for me, since I started my blog over a year and a half ago. I really do apologize for the lack of new reading material!

Quite a bit has happened though in the past month. David's cousin Mark unfourtunatley passed away. We were so very sad and still are. I know David is especially finding it hard to comprehend the concept that Mark is gone. It's never easy loosing someone that you care about. Thankfully, we know that we will one day see him again, as Mark is with the Lord.

I also started my new job. Change is always hard and this time I believe it was even harder on me, as it wasn't my decision to leave my old company. I am sure long term wise, that I am in the right place. They want me to do some traveling and further my education, which will help me make this a career and not just "job". This all deserves it's own post though, which is coming soon.

Some exciting news that we received recently, is that my sister in law Melissa is expecting her second child. Come the end of Septmeber, we will have another nephew or a niece to spoil! I am hoping it will be a girl, but knowing the hubby's family though it will probably be a boy. I will be happy either way.

Also, my parents have decided to come out to CA in May. I am very excited about this, as we have not seen them since our wedding. I can't believe we have been married almost 2 years! It seems like just yesterday, that all the family was out here for the wedding. I am already planning in my mind where I think they might want to go and also what to cook for them!

Anyways, it finally seems like life is slowly starting to fall back into a routine or return back to "normal". This I am very thankful for. I already have a couple potential blog posts floating around in my mind. I do promise it won't be another month before my next blog post!

What a weekend

I am blogging this from the hospital. We have been at here all weekend and it has been really tough but well worth it. It has been amazing to see how many people have come down here to be here for Mark, Angie and his family. So many people are praying for Mark and for God to perform a miracle.

The Pray for the Lamberth's blog that was started already reached the top 100 blogs of the day today on Wordpress! The power of the Blogging world constantly amazes me, as there have been over 300 comments already. People all over the country and world have visited the blog.

Please keep on praying for Mark!

To leave comments for Mark's family or get up to date news, visit here:

Praying for the Lamberth's


Picture taken by Scott Montgomery