My baby looks like Mr. Magoo!

Sofia's Baby Blessing

Bath time!

Mas fotos de Sofia

Black and White Pictures Taken by Tara

Algunas fotos!!

More American Idol

American Idol Concert

Wow! I am actually writing something on my blog. It is a miracle! I'm doing this for my friend Julie so that she can have a taste of the American Idol Concert even though she can't go. Te quiero mucho Julita! First off is Ramiele! Now her video! Sorry everything is so little and fuzzy. We were far away!I'm going to try posting this and see if it even works. Then I will upload more later. I just realized that it is almost time for my dr appointment. I am dreading the pelvic exam, what if it's today?? Ahhhh!!!!

I've been waiting since 1:30 pm for this video to upload and it is now 7:30 and I give up!!

Ana, did you eat a gallon of ice cream or is that a baby in your belly?

The day has finally arrived!! I can finally say I am PREGNANT!!! Yaaaayyyyyy!!!!!This all happened on Saturday morning, November 17th, 2007. A day that will live in infamy! I peed on the first stick and started to cry because I just couldn't believe it. Then I peed on the second stick for confirmation and I still couldn't believe it and then I was sobbing. So I went upstairs and told my mom and Chiquis and they thought someone had died because I was crying so much!

Then we started taking pictures of everything and getting ready to go to Anna Michelle's wedding. I felt like I was in limbo because without a blood test to confirm it, it didn't really seem real.

Then my dad and abuelita came over to look at the preg tests and we were all so happy and excited! Here is my due date ticker for an expected July 29 delivery. Woo hoo!!!!

The big news!!!

"The Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California is delighted to report that you have achieved a passing score on the July 2007 administration of the California Bar Examination administration of the California Bar Examination. Congratulations; you may justly be proud of your achievement."
They even have fancy wording on the passing letter! Sheesh! Well we are justly proud!! We found out at 6:00 p.m. on Friday Nov 16th and what a relief it was! I knew all along he would do it! He is the smartest of the bunch. :) It reminds me of how tough and crazy those three days of tests were in Sacramento. It seemed so far away at the time but now it seems to have passed quickly. Thanks for everyone's prayers and support!

My recent culinary delights

This picture is of a Strawberry Cream Cake I made for my grandmother's birthday. I had bought a huge case of luscious strawberries weeks before and when it came time to make the cake I found that many of the strawberries had gone bad. Very bad. So I had to gingerly pick out the edible ones and throw away about half of the case. It was soooo sad. Especially because strawberries are so expensive!

This picture is Chicken with Goat Cheese and Basil accompanied by Couscous with toasted pine nuts. Perhaps the most delicious thing I have ever created!! Thank you Barefoot Contessa!! It is very easy and quite impressive. If anyone would like me to post this recipe on the blog let me know please. That is if anyone is reading anymore . . . (I feel sheepish, baaaahh)

This is me with my culinary art. Enjoy!

The two week wait is horrible!

Today is Wednesday and I am supposed to test on Saturday. It is still so far away! And J gets his bar results on Friday. I really hope it is good news all around. I am so horribly impatient. And everyone is pregnant all around me! Ay!

Updates

It has been a very long time since I've posted and I am very sorry! My reservoir of guilt is already enormous and I love to add on to it! J is feeling a little better at the job but basically still hates it. He is excited about the job he applied for because they sent him a letter requesting transcripts for his nomination to go forward. That is exciting! My class is going well, most of them are hard workers and there are a few that are so dependable that it makes it easy to love them. Flamenco dancing is really fun. The girl in my class, Natalie, is really nice and just dropped the "three months pregnant" bomb on me two weeks ago. We went on a double date with husbands to a dinner/show with flamenco music and dancing. It was so expensive and the dancing ended up being pretty mediocre. But we had fun and got to know each other better. Her husband loves to hunt and has lots of African animals mounted on his walls. On his most recent hunt in Africa he brought home a zebra. J feels that killing a zebra is like killing a horse except a more special rare horse. Pobre zebrita! The highlight of the night was when the sexy 50 something drunk lady started dancing her heart out on the stage. They asked for volunteers to come up and dance and this lady when wild, stomping her feet and whooshing her dress around in a passionate fashion. It was very very funny. We just stared for a little while, then we started clapping and cheering. I love to clap really loud, it makes me laugh for some reason. So there we were clapping cleverly while sexy lady danced daringly!

I'm watching a lot of T.V. I won't comment on this, whether good or bad, I'll just present the facts.

Monday: Dancing with the Stars (I love Julianne and Helio), Chuck, Heroes (Peter is suddenly very good looking!).

Tuesday: Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser, and House (today he chooses new interns!)

Wednesday: Pushing Daisies (I'm really excited about this one!) and Bionic Woman (which I haven't seen yet, I'm still deciding whether to watch or not)

Thursday: This night is reserved for one special show - THE OFFICE! (I expected more JAM from the first episode of the season but ni modo)

Friday: Ghost Whisperer (I can't believe that I watch it either) and Moonlight (new show about a vampire private investigator!) YAY!

What next? Health insurance problems, infertility dilemmas, our entire future hanging in the balance . . .

One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song

This is exactly what goes on in a beginning Spanish college class!

Tombola!

I have recently discovered Marisol!! I love her! And I love this song! The video is fantastic and you can watch the whole Tombola movie on Youtube. Plus she has a ton of movies more to watch :)

Watch Justin and I do the Charleston!!

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!It is hysterical!! Turn the volume up to hear the music!

I love to read!

My library website has a great feature that lets you make a list of all the books you would like to read in the future and then gives you the option of requesting them electronically. Then you will be notified via email when your books are ready to be picked up. It's great!! So I am adding here the books I have recently read, with some extra comments. This week is Harry Potter week so I have planned to read one Harry Potter book per day until the grand release! I read HP 1 on Saturday and I will read HP 2 today. One more bit of news . . . yesterday we went to Bakersfield to see my cousin Diego who is back from Iraq! It was so wonderful to see him and he looked great. He is alive, which is the most important thing of all! It was really good to see him and we met his little girlfriend Natalie. I quizzed Justin with his flashcards all the way there and back. He is worried! By this time next week we will be driving to Sacramento and on to our destiny! More about that later.

1. Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn. It is basically the story of Jane Eyre but set in a futuristic space setting. It sounded great to me and I was really excited to read it. I liked it okay but Jane Eyre is better of course!

2. The Grand Tour or The Purloined Coronation Regalia. It is the second tale in the lives of Cecy and Kate, the magical cousins I have come to love. They are on their honeymoon doing a tour of all of Europe and solving magical mysteries all the way there. I love the idea of honeymoons across Europe!

3. Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer. From reading the description of the book I was desperate to read it. It is Pride and Prejudice told from Darcy's perspective, which in the original novel is almost non-existing. Naturally I was quite piqued! However, I perhaps had too high expectations because it ended up being very close to disappointing. Let me know what you all think about it.

4. Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton. It is the first Jane Austen sequel ever created. Written in 1913, I felt the language was closest to the original than any of the other PP offshoots that I've read so far. The most intriguing part of this book is that it pulls together the characters from all six Jane Austen novels into one story. It might have been bad but I really liked it. It was a great read for me!

5. Mr. Darcy's Daughters by Elizabeth Aston. I loved this book!! It was great! Did it depend heavily on the same PP formula that Jane Austen made so famous? Yes of course it did, but I still loved it. The Darcys have 5 unmarried daughters and wreak havoc all over London. Very exciting to read!

6. The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years Later by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Kate and Cecy now have a bunch of magical kids and more adventures. It was a little convoluted but I still loved it!

7. Deep Waters or Many Waters by Meredith Ann Pierce (I can't remember the name now). It was a compilation of short stories that I read a while ago but had forgotten to put on this list. It was okay, I read it fine, but the fact that I had forgotten about it tells you I didn't really like it all that much.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!

It's almost Harry Potter time!!

Moving!

Moving was tough even though we only had a small apartment worth of stuff. Justin had to be in Fresno 2 weeks before I would be done with work so we had to do all the loading of the truck the Monday after his graduation. Those were really busy days! I had lots of help though. Jessica was nice enough to come help me with the glass stuff even with her baby and new job. I had help cleaning: Julie, Luz, Piedad, Erika, Alba. And yet I still couldn't get it all done. The day I had to turn in the keys and have the inspection was the same day I was going to Salt Lake and leave Ogden forever. It was literally the worst day of my life. I was super behind because the day before had been my last day of work and I was there until about 7:30 p.m. trying to finish cleaning out my office. So Friday morning I got up really early to finish what was left. I thought it was just a little but it turned out to be so much work. I kept finding drawers with stuff still inside, and I didn't have anywhere to put the suitcases and other things I was taking with me. Then the worst of it was the hoarder in me that just couldn't throw any useful things away. Poor poor Julie was my savior and the savior of my stuff that hopefully can be put to good use by someone in Ogden. We went from house to house delivering vacuums, microwaves, running errands and a thousand other things that I hadn't done yet because I didn't have a car. I forgot to mention that! The last week and a half I had no car which was okay in the beginning but then disastrous in the end! I had so many things I wanted to give away but no way to get them to the people who needed them, who unfortunately also had no transportation to my house either!
Now for the piece de resistance (that is supposed to be French but it just looks like bad English!) . . . As I was helping someone from the branch, that had come to pick up a desk that day, down the three flights of stairs, it crumpled in our very hands and fell right apart! The pull-out shelf for the keyboard flew out with increasing velocity and the edge of it landed right on my pinky toe. Oh the pain! The terrific, colossal pain! After he left I started crying and crying, wondering how I would ever finish it all. I called Hermana Milla and left a message telling her I needed help desperately. Where were my visiting teachers? Was the Spirit prompting them to come help me but they were burning lunch or packing meat so busily that they couldn't come? Anyway, I continued my work between sobs, going up and down the stairs with trash and more trash and my foot throbbing. By the time Julie came I was a little more composed but within 5 minutes I had started crying all over again. Talk about stress! Nobody could get pregnant this way! The apartment lady came to inspect everything and of course busily scribbled notes of things that they would deduct from our deposit after making us pay almost a whole extra month's rent!! Ahhhh! Sure enough we just received the check and they gave us $78.00 out of $200!!!!! What a rip-off! They totally cheated us and they'll do it again and again to other unsuspecting tenants I know! It is all part of their evil plan! So frustrating! Oh well. That's life, la la la la la la. Or asi es la vida, a veces triste a veces color rosa. Well, I'm off to continue my present project known as "Organizing pictures so they aren't destroyed by heat and dust in the garage". Good news . . . I have been called as secretary in the Primary. I'm excited! I get to sing all the songs but with a lot less responsibility than before! Hooray! Beijinhos a todos! Ate logo!

More books to read!

I have checked out and read so many books that I can't seem to remember them all. I logged onto my account at the library trying to find a history of everything I have ever checked out, which I could then conveniently cut and paste here, but there are already too many conveniences in this life, and this sentence has gone on long enough! Here are the ones I remember now, I'll add more later. I just remembered another two: "Listening at the Gate" and "The King in the Window" which I never finished. Too bad. :(

1. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. This is a great book and so well written but very sad at times. I really loved it. It is a murder mystery based on a real case from the early 1900s.

2. The Truth-teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn. Very very fun to read. Let me offer some tantalizing tidbits: twins, mistaken identities, a dashing dancing master and his more dashing apprentice!

3. A Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan. This one is okay. I'm not good at reviewing books because I usually like them all well enough. This one had a racy page at the end but I survived it. :) It is about a deaf boy and reminded me of "Signing time with Rachel and Leah".

4. Twilight Child by Shelly Warner. This one was okay too. I liked it but maybe I've read too many of these fantasies set in Finland and Scotland in ancient times, and so I'm beginning to become callous to the plot intricacies.

5. No Shame, No Fear by Ann Turnbull. Quakers being persecuted for their religious beliefs with a Romeo/Juliet love plotline in the mix.

Hasta luego!
P.S. I have to give a talk on Sunday. The topic is "Gaining Knowledge". Let me know if you have any ideas! Gracias!

Great new books

I've recently checked out 6 books from the library that I like a lot. I actually have only read 4 of them, I started the fifth last night but I am a little burned out from reading too much. :) (Yay!) But I wanted to share them with everybody. The first two I will mention I absolutely loved, so Julie run, don't walk, to your nearest library and get these books ASAP!!!!!!

1. Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (I love the title!) by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (Make sure to read the Notes by the authors at the end)

2. Treasure at the Heart of Tanglewood (for the nature lover in us all) by Meredith Ann Pierce

3. The Counterfeit Princess (The little Sarah in me freaks out whenever I see the word "princess"!) by Jane Resh Thomas

4. The Thief (I liked this one but the ending was a little confusing) by Megan Whalen Turner

5. The Edge on the Sword (I barely started this one but let me just mention the heroine's name: Aethelflaed, imagine the a and e together in the same letter, very Anglo-Saxony!)

6. Far Traveler (This is the sequel to the Edge on the Sword) by Rebecca Tingle

California here I am!

I'm here! Finally! These last 6 months of my life have been rather hectic and stressful. Although real stress would have been doing everything I did plus kids, pets, in-laws, and a large house full of stuff. As it happens, it was only Justin, me, job, and small apartment. Oh and LAW SCHOOL! Justin's graduation was fun but also crazy. It was hard to be with everyone that came and make sure that no one got left out. Justin had to spread his love around to everyone as a bee spreads pollen from flower to flower. Fortunately there weren't any needy crazy flowers, just polite but anxiously waiting flowers and I was tormented by those waiting to congratulate Justin. "Hold on a little longer," I telepathically transmitted to them. We ate a lot that day and that night we went to Joe Morley's for the special graduation dinner. Hmna Milla, Mami, Chiquis and I went to get our hair done at Super Cuts. What a mistake! We ended up being half an hour late to my own husband's party! I was so embarrassed and on the verge of tears the whole time as I went from table to table saying, "I'm sorry I'm late, enjoy the food!" in a strangled sort of voice. Then Justin gave a nice speech where he thanked everyone and talked about his Grandma Vaudis. And therefore under the protection of fond grandmother memories I let all the day's stress out and had a good cry. :) This, folks, was the beginning of a three week cry fest that would amaze even me, with its unexpected choice of times, places, and quantities of liquid. I will continue the tale at another time because I REALLY need to shower and get dressed. But let me leave you with some tantalizing tidbits that I will title . . .

WORK!

CHURCH!

MOVING!

Thank you for all those who keep checking my blog for updates and have been constantly disappointed (Susan and Julie). :) I promise to do better in the future. :)

Celebrity Look-Alike

Ya casi nos vamos!

We're getting closer and closer to moving to California. I told my boss at work that I would be leaving at the end of May and I was so nervous that I started to cry! Pretty embarrassing. I feel sad to leave but I am a little tired. This March is going to be tough because I will have six classes to teach and three of those are off campus. I'm teaching two classes at Ogden Regional Hospital and I have a new one starting next week at International Armoring. They do car armor, the employees speak Spanish but the managers speak English. So they want to bridge the gap and that's where I come in. I'm excited but a little nervous too.

I've been having Harry Potter dreams and last night I dreamed of a pig that was a baby. I want a baby really badly even if it looks like a piggy. Justin had weird "Lost" dreams and he was with Jack, Sawyer and Sayid. There was something about flowers and drugs and they all died but it was actually a hallucination of Jack's brought on by eating a yellow flower. We sleep a lot, we love to go to bed early and wake up late plus we love naps. So there is lots of time for dreaming, strange or otherwise.

My birthday was Friday and we had a fun time too. I had lunch with Coqui and then we went to Boyd and Patti's to sing karaoke. Justin and Boyd sang "Whiskey Bar" quite eloquently and fervently with much passion. Then we went to Rodizio's with Brenda and Felipe, Tex, and Lissette and Edgar. We ate until we were sick! It was great. Too bad Jeff and Ale couldn't be here, it would have been like old times. (Minus the Germans and Lolimar). :)

Justin is cute and I love him mucho, he gave me a karaoke microphone. I sing all by myself for hours and hours. This microphone gives you a score at the end and the highest score ever was won by Justin. He got a 96 for his rendition of "La negra Tomasa". No one has been able to beat him! It is pretty fun. La la la la la, la la la la la la, la la la la la la Sing, sing a song, make it simple to last your whole life long.

I am now trying to work out 30 minutes every day. If I do this for 100 days in a row then I get $60 which I will use for a new outfit. I am using Slim in 6 which I like but is very tough. I am going to try to shorten it by doing 60 minutes every day, I need that outfit now! It is really working, I have lost a little weight and have a lot more energy and strength. I am determined to eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise. They came to our school to do health testing and my cholesterol was borderline high! I don't eat a lot of meat, my dad said it was genetic. Ni modo! I was stricken at birth, it is my destiny. So I have to fight it of course! Well that's it!

I'm weird and crazy too

Hola a todos! Sorry I have been lax about keeping my blog up to date, whenever I think about writing in my blog I can't, and whenever I am totally free I don't think of it. My friend Julie tagged me to be part of her mysterious game so I must comply. Five unique, weird, or crazy things about myself is tough because I can't keep it to just five! Here we go, these won't be too bad.

1. My back gets really itchy and luckily my arms reach to every part of my back so I can give it a good scratch. Justin can't reach all the parts of his back because of his huge and muscular arms, it is funny to watch him try. :) But for me a good scratch leaves my back raw and practically bleeding. Excessive, yes, but it feels sooooo good! That is sort of weird, right?

2. I am a bed pile instigator. I start with the remote control, add a sweater or two, some books, my iPod, and before you know it I have a mini version of Kilimanjaro on my bed. I can sleep very peacefully with my collection of stuff and I even toss and turn without affecting it in the slightest. Marriage has changed all that. Justin can't even stand the remote control on the bed and when my pile begins to acumulate he kicks it off in the night. Ni modo!

3. I don't like clothes, especially socks. They are so burdensome. I would be naked all the time if it was acceptable to society and if it wasn't so cold.

4. This next thing is unique and a little strange, but I won't be alone in it because Justin does it too. Justin and I like to make music together and special beats that are harmonious and cool for us. So Justin might start with a tap tap tap and I will correspond with a tappity tappity tap and then pretty soon we have a full blown arrangement going on that sometimes gets quite complex since Justin plays the drums. We would also sing hymns by breathing loudly through our noses. It is tough to explain but quite hilarious in practice.

5. Last one, and I KNOW I can't be the only one out there that does this: Pampered Chef product hoarding. I have drawers and cupboards full of Pampered Chef stuff and I don't cook. :( Ever. So sad. It all collects dust and goes unused when there are so many deserving people out there that would make good use of it.

That's it everybody. The end. I don't know who to tag except my sister because she might need double tagging to do it. Tchauzinho!

She-Ra the jungle queen!

Lots has happened recently. Can't remember everything. Choir is crazy and frustrating, only 2 practices left. I will write more later. Ahora no puedo. I am She-Ra, jungle queen!

MEXICO!!

Here we are in Mexico! It is very beautiful here and the water is beautifully blue and turquoilsh (this is how Jeff´s mom says turquoise). Everything is going really well except today I almost died from the heat. We walked and walked forever and it is so hot and humid!! Tomorrow we will swim with dolphins and I can´t wait. I will sing them the song "So long and thanks for all the fish" from the opening credits of Hitchiker´s Guide to the galaxy, a very funny movie. We have seen monster crabs the size of chihuahuas crossing the street clackety clack. Quite creepy but also thrilling! We have had a lot of fun and no sign of the red wave yet. Julie, I wanted to send a postcard but I didn´t know your address so I made it up. I will let you know how creative I was on Monday. Tara I have no idea what yours is. Sorry! But there is one for Mami, Papi, Chiquis and Abuelito Julio that should arrive for sure. Love you all!!