Summer fun

I have been playing around on the computer and I changed my blog again! I really like this new template! If you want to have a new blog look too, here is where I found it.

I called this post "summer fun" because I am in denial that it is August!! It makes me sad because once August comes the summer goes so fast! I love being on summer vacation! Christine and I have declared August 1st as "National Teacher Day of Mourning!"

It sure has been a while since I have posted so here's what's been going on...
Brad and I celebrated our 13th anniversary on July 23rd. We went to Disneyland as a family and had fun. We rode the new Toy Story Mania ride and here is a pic with the 4D glasses you have to wear. You use an air gun on the ride and it is like a shooting gallery. It keep score of all of the targets you hit. Sammie scored 125,000 and beat Brad!! I scored 150,000 so I beat him too! He got 109,000.. Tee hee hee.... It is an awesome ride!



Sammie finished her 2nd session of swim lessons. She did great. This was a wonderful swimming program! She went off the high dive by herself!! Only 1 other kid did that! This kid is fearless!! I was so proud of her since she didn't even want to put her face in the water at the beginning of the first session. Now she can go under, blow bubbles and even swim a super short distance.





We just got back from a little vacation to Legoland and Sea World. Sammie loved Legoland. She had a great time going on all the rides. This was our first time there and we really enjoyed it. The park wasn't that crowded and the weather was perfect! The 2nd day, Sammie made a little friend named Audrey and we hung around with her, her sister, and Grandma the rest of the day. It was too cute! The miniland was great too. They have replicas of Las Vegas, Washington DC, New York, Hollywood... It is incredible!!


What was Sammie's favorite part about Sea World??? The Anheuser Busch Cyldesdale horses of course!! They have a place where you can take a photo with the horses and visit the barn, which we had to do twice!! The funniest part was the Clydesdale that we got to meet and take our photo with was named Sammy!!!


We did enjoy Sea World too. She loved the penguin encounter. The sea lion show was funny and we saw 2 Shamu shows as well. One was the regular Shamu show and the other was Shamu Rocks which is a nightime show. Sammie was trying to talk about it the next day and refered to Shamu "shamrock" because of the name of the show. I thought that was funny.
They had a new area that just opened called Sesame Street Bay of Play. There are some kiddie rides and a huge climbing thing that she loved. We were busy from morning till night and she was on the go with no naps at all... These past few days she has been catching up on sleep and has slept until 10:00 one day and 11:00 another day..
She has her first soccer practice tonight which should be intersting! She is the youngest one on the team and probably the bossiest!! The kids all voted on their team name. Sammie wanted to be the Mustangs because the uniforms are brown and she loves horses but she was the one who voted for every name that was suggested and then the winning name was the Tigers. ( which is also cute) She was pretty disappointed about the winning name choice. I dont think she really got the "concept" of voting. oh well..
Anyway.. I will be back soon with more pics. Blogger only lets me upload like 4 at a time ( unless I just dont know how to do it right) LOL!! I took a ton of photos.

I've been tagged!

I have been nominated by Dawn t and Christine and Jennifer to receive this blog award. Here's my list and the rules: Check out all of their blogs because they are great! Christine has a RAK on hers! If I didn't tag you and you are reading this, why don't you play along anyway.. it is fun!

1. Post the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you. ( me)
3. Nominate 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to their blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blog.

Have fun!
Thank you Dawn, Christine and Jennifer! I nominate these people....
1. Erika She is a very talented scrapbooker. I met Erika through scrapbooking but we also took classes together with our kids at gymboree and in Ms. Heidi's class. Wow, time flies!

2. Susan ( scrappydoo2u) She is a friend I met on tallyscrapper. We chat online and she is a cool gal!

3. Laurie Laurie was my 4D ultrasound technician when Iwas pregnant with Sammie. She is very skilled! She was the only person who saw Samantha's cleft lip. No other technician could see it, even in a diagnostic ultrasound! (Laurie, you rock!) She has a husband Brad and a daughter Samantha too! We have kept in touch over the years and that is cool!

4. Donna L. One of my dear friends for many years! We met in the teaching program at CSUF. Donna, get your blog up and running girl!!!

5. Stacey She is an awesome scrapbooker and very sweet gal. I met Stacey when I was on a scrapbook design team. Stacey's daughter loved My Little Pony too! ( We bought all of her ponies)

6. Annie She is such a sweetheart and an amazing scrapbooker and mommy. Annie is always friendly and fun to talk to.

7. Nan A friendly fun gal who is an awesome scrapper. I met Nan when I was on the design team. You should see her stuff!

Thanks for hanging out with me! Please make a comment so I know you were here!

Wicked Busy!!

This has been a super busy week for us. On Wednesday night, I saw Wicked with my coworkers. It was wonderful. I loved the play and the Pantages theatre is amazing as well. There were 18 of us that went and we went here for dinner before the show. I picked the place based on a recommendation from one of Christine's friends who lives in Hollywood. The food was delicious and everyone was so happy! We had a good time.
Here are some photos of Sammie swimming, our trip to the fair, (Elephant ride), pony club, and Sammie's lego creation which i love!





So here's what we've been doing in the last few weeks or so since I have posted but not necessarily in this order!
1. Swimming lessons
2. Went to the park
3. Saw Wall*e ( cute movie)
4. Pony club meetings
5. Dentist appointment ( Sammie and I)
6. Hair appointment ( Sammie and I)
7. Crafts
8. Oil change on my car
9. Took Nana shopping
10. Went to the fair
11. Lunch with Betty and Irene
12. Lunch with Christine
13. Pony club sleepover
14. Disneyland
15. Horse riding lessons
16. Made a mini scrapbook album for pony club
17. Just lots of stuff!!!

Anyway.. hope you are enjoying the warm summer weather and cool nights.
Sammie and I went to Disneyland a few weeks ago and the nicest thing happened.. We were standing in line to order dinner and the people in front of us liked her shirt and started talking to us. The next thing we know, the son who was 18, his girlfriend and mom, bought our dinner and invited us to sit down with them and eat. We hung out with them for a few hours after and just talked and laughed. It was fun. The kids took Sammie on the Tower of Terror which is her favorite ride and I can't stand it. We had a good time getting to know them. I was just dumbfounded that they bought my dinner. What a Random Act of Kindness.

Friday night we went to the OC Fair. Sammie and I rode an elephant as you can see in the pictures. We have both ridden elephants before but I forgot how funny it feels. They are so wide and they really sway when they walk. She rode a few rides, ( and a pony too of course) we looked at all the animals and ate some good junk food. We had a good time but spent lots of money. The fair is so expensive. It is a good thing it is only once a year!

The pony club had a swim party/movie night/sleepover party. It was a lot of fun. The girls swam and then we had yummy hamburgers & hotdogs. People brought tents and it looked like a little village. The event was at a house in Yorba Linda. The family has pony club meetings at their house because they have the perfect set up and horses in their backyard!!! How perfect is that?? After dinner, the girls made "marshmallow sandwiches" as Sammie calls them. We put on jammies and got into sleeping bags and watched a horse cartoon and then a horse movie called The Horse in Gray Flannel Pajamas". It was an old Disney movie. I had never heard of it but it was cute. Sammie liked it too but only wanted to see the horses, she didn't enjoy the dialog parts. We didn't wind up sleeping over. I decided it would be "too much" so we came home at around 11:00pm. ( yes, she was still awake!)

In other news, Sammie will be starting soccer in August. Her cousin Emily will be playing on her team and my brother- in- law Keith, is the head coach along with Brad as the assistant coach. It should be fun for Sammie. She has a pretty good running kick already. ( She definately does not get the "athletic" gene from me!!) It will be tough once practices start because that will be more places we have to be, but it is for a short time and then they just have games on the weekends.

Off I go for now. Be back soon!

Art Zone

Here are the pics of the Art Zone as promised in my last post. I have been a lazy blogger.. I will make up for it and post again tomorrow.. I have had a busy week!!

The first picture is the dress up room.. Are you surprised at what Sammie found??





They have wonderful painting easels which are really old "doors" with hangers for the paper.. Sammie painted a lot of pictures.




This is the "mud kitchen" which has a small "drippy" water faucet and the floor is wet and muddy. The kids wear crocs to walk around and play in the mud. They have towels, spare clothes and a dryer if you want to dry any wet clothes. This is Julia, my friend Jennifer's daughter with Sammie.. They had a blast making mud pies, etc.. They were in there for almost 45 minutes!! Very cool place!!

Harker Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Happy Birthday George!

Christine and I got to spend George Michael's 45th birthday with him in concert at the Forum on Wednesday night. He put on a great show. I saw him in 1988 ( yikes) and also as WHAM before that. It is hard to believe it has been 20 years!! He still was fantastic and I enjoyed the concert so much. You can see the set list by clicking here. I was sad when the concert was over. It is always so cool to see a live show and George is so talented. ( and nice to look at)

I have been keeping busy during my summer vacation. It seems like I still can't get caught up and I am not even working right now. EEEKKKK.

Anyway.. I have been staying up late and sleeping in a little so I guess I am just too lazy! Sammie and I went to LA to visit Jennifer and Julia on Monday and went to a cool place called the ART ZONE. The girls loved it. It is a children's art studio and the kids can do their choice of art during their studio time. Sammie painted, played dress up, made a collage art piece, played with clay and went in the "mud room". I will post some pics of this. It was quite messy fun. A very cool place. We didn't want to ride home in traffic so we stayed at Jen's house for a while and ate dinner.

Well, I am tired tonight so I am going to bed but I'll be back soon with some photos for you.

Bye for now!

Busy Weekend

My last day of school was Friday June 13th! I am so excited to be "done" for the summer. I just want to "hang out", scrapbook, go to Las Vegas, go swimming and play on the computer.


My parents came in town for the weekend. My little ( and much taller) brother Jeff graduated from Cal Poly Pomona on Saturday night. I am so proud of him! It has taken him a long time to accomplish this but he worked hard and finally did it! He earned his degree in Communications with an emphasis in Journalism. He is a brilliant writer and is very talented. He has an internship right now at a radio station in San Diego and has been "on the air" several times. He has a very outgoing personality and is very witty and personable. Jeff prides himself on his knowledge of pop culture (and teases me on my lack of it as well as my insistance on listening to 80's music) We went to eat at Heroes after the ceremony ( yummy food) and I even had a margarita!



On Sunday, my mom, dad, Nana, Brad, Sammie and I went out to Tom's Farms in Corona. It is a fun place to hang out if you have never been there. They have a train ride, magic show and good places to eat. This photo is of "Anthony the Magic" a magician who did a great show. He made the doves turn into a chihuahua. My Nana didn't want to walk too far so we put her on a chair in the shade and she sat with some really friendly biker guys and they talked and laughed with her. My mom told her "don't pick up any men!" It was hilarious! ( she's 94)
We ate lunch there and then Sammie rode a pony. It was a fun time.

After that, we went to the strawberry stand to visit Jeff, Jill and the kids. ( Sammie's cousins) Sammie loved the strawberries so much.. She ate and ate them one after the next. ( from what everyone says, theirs are the BEST!) She must have eaten close to 20 of them and wouldn't stop in between to rest. It was hilarious! Here is a goofy photo of her and the strawberry juice dribbling down her shirt.


On Monday I went to breakfast with my parents before they left to go home. Sammie and I went shopping at the Target Greatland in Fullerton. It was fun to explore a Target I don't go to regularly and then we went to Old Navy and Linens and Things too. I got some shelves to try to organize my pantry this summer. It is always a mess because it is tall and deep. The store was closing so everything was on sale. Sammie asked if she could have a lollipop while we were there and I said yes, and what flavor did she grab??? MARGARITA!! Yikes.. am i in trouble??? Just kidding! It was so hot that we came home and went in her little splash pool in the backyard. It was refreshing!

I know this is sort of a long post but I have lots to share.
Christine, Donna, Jennifer, Janet and I recently attended the Freckle Friends crop for Autism Speaks. It was held at the MAMBI warehouse and decorated so cute!! This was a great event with FABULOUS make and takes by Suzy Plantamura, Annie Adams and Suezi G. (who works at MAMBI) We had a wonderful time. I'll post some pics of the layouts I made. Anyway... in other scrapbooking news, I am very excited about THIS.

We are going in October and it will be extra fabulous! The teachers are Teresa Collins, Layle Koncar, and Janna Wilson! All who I adore in the scrapbook world! It is in Henderson, Nevada which is right in my parent's backyard!! YIPPEE Today we went to the Yorba Linda Library for story time. They have a great summer reading program with prizes and fun activities for kids. The story time is for kids only so moms have to wait in the waiting area but there is small place to observe. Sammie loved the cute songs and fingerplays that they did and the puppet show. We checked out a bunch of horse books and then went out to lunch. She had a riding lesson at 2:00 and learned how to trot today. She did an awesome job. She rode a new horse named Belle and after she trotted around the arena, her trainer Alyse asked her if she liked that and Sammie said, "Can we do it again?" So they did. We came home afterwards and relaxed for a while. It was super hot today!
P.S. We got the bill from the ER visit ( see previous post) and the charges to remove the eraser from Sammie's nose with a paperclip were $1353.00. We didn't have to pay that (thank goodness for insurance) but have to pay $213.00 to meet our ER deductible. We have a PPO.