Here's to Peer Pressure!

Jasmine blows some bubbles!
Mom & Jasmine wave hello
They had life vests at the pool for little kids and Jasmine really liked that she could float and feel safe!

Wednesday the 15th, I took Jasmine to the pool for a church organized playdate. After going to the pool several times this summer and having to cope with Jasmine's new fear of water - I wasn't sure she was going to be happy going to the pool. Boy, was I wrong! She had a blast at the pool and after seeing how brave all her friends were, Jasmine did a few things she never did before. She jumped off the side of the pool into my waiting arms and she stuck her face willingly into the water and blew bubbles! I am so pleased that she finally decided the pool was a fun place to be! The past 2 days she has been asking to go back to the pool. Let's just hope I won't have to spend most of next summer convincing her the pool is fun again!

Here's Looking at you Kid!

There were so many people - and we have another picture of all the people behind us! It was the most I have seen on the mall!

A most famous Casablanca scene as seen from my chair! Amazing isn't it?

It was a record breaking crowd at the last Screen on the Green Monday night. The weather was beautiful, not hot, not cold, perfect with a slight breeze and the movie was Casablanca. I for one had never seen Casablanca and I can't say that I have seen it now. Jasmine had fought taking a nap that afternoon and so she was a bit of a handful until she fell asleep and then the movie was more than half over and I had no idea what was going on. The great thing was that we got to spend time with Kevin & Cindy Zarcone and a few of their friends. We ate good food, enjoyed good company and spent some time doing something unique. All in all, I would say it was a great time! Now I will rent the movie to watch it properly!

Jasmine hydrates! I love the cheekbones!

Awww - best friends! Feel the love!

The whole gang - thankfully we had pretty good seats!

Mela-Fun

Sabrina & Kevin - Future Corporate Directors

Build Your Tomorrow Today!

Last Wednesday through Saturday, I got to go to the Melaleuca Annual Convention in Atlanta Georgia. Our good friend Kevin Zarcone, who we introduced to the business came with me. It was an information packed 3 days and we learned a lot. We attended workshops on Financial Freedom, personality types, and many more relating to a Melaleuca business and how to build your tomorrow today. We left with a plan on how to achieve our business goals and ready to tell others about this amazing company, Melaleuca.

The company announced new products, among them healthy foods (Strawberry Cruch cereal, Cinnamon Clusters cereal, Breakfast Cereal bars, organic chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies, and snack organic crackers), a whole new body satin line and mineral powder foundation. They also reformulated some existing products and we are looking forward to trying all of these products out. We were able to sample all the food products at convention and I must say, they taste great.

Sabrina & Nicole Miller

In the large company general sessions, we were favored my speaches from Frank Vandersloot himself and Chris Gardner, the man behind the movie the Pursuit of Happyness. He was amazing and I don't think there was a dry eye in the house when he was done speaking. I got to meet him and also Nicole Miller, the fashion designer behind our makeup line.

Our President and CEO, Frank Vandersloot

Chris Gardner was an amazing speaker

All in all, this was worth the 10 hour drive and lack of sleep. It's time everyone we know give this amazing company and their healthier products a try!

Family Togetherness

Tio Ryan & Jasmine have a cuddle

Sabrina, Natalia & Roman

Tio Robert celebrated his birthday in high style this year. In fact, he is still celebrating! His birthday was July 19th - and we went to take him a cake and have lunch with him. Then, he was scheduled to have a birthday party last weekend but it got cancelled because he was at a soccer game with tickets he got as a birthday present (from my mom). So we all got together this past weekend to celebrate his birthday all together as a big family. It was very fun and nice to see everyone. Fernando was even home for a visit. We did miss Rory however who isn't coming to visit for another few weeks. Also, you will see Lorne absent from the party as he had to go to NYC to entertain an important client.

Grandpa and Roman take a snooze

Ryan, Sabrina & Fernando

Tia Susana, Abuela, Tio Robert & Roman

Campbells vs. Crabs! Campbells Win!

Our next door neighbors, The Matheses have a beach house at Colonial Beach VA which is abour an hour and a half away. Every year they have a party there and have invited us to go for the last 5 years. We have never been able to go but this year we could. They had a lot of good food but we got to do something we have never really done before. We got to sit around butcher-covered paper tables and eat steamed and seasoned crabs that arrived in a cardboard box. Apparently this is something lots of people like doing and somehow we have never done it. After getting a short lesson from a pro - we were on our way to enjoying some delicious crabs. They are a bit of a pain to get at but once you do, the meat is good and from what we have been told, sitting around at a crab feast is more about the conversation and less about filling up on crab. The whole thing was a bit barabric (cracking the shells open with hammers and knives) but a lot of fun!

Lorne digs into his succulent crab!

Sabrina finds a worthy opponent!

Hammering away - trying to find that precious meat!

Jasmine spent most of her time in the kiddie pool out front!

Jasmineisms

As you may have guessed, this blog is entitled Jasmineisms because she has a lot of cute things that she says that we want to share with you. It probably won't sound as cute being written down but you have to imagine it in a cute 2 years old's voice and then you will smile!

Jasmine makes up her own words such as:

• Cocobella (co co beya) - means cereal or granola bar - took me 2 days to figure out what she was asking for and we aren't sure how she decided that that was what they were called.
• Di go go - means chocolate - this stems from last Christmas when she was 18 months old and we had an advent calendar and we wanted her to know it was special so each day when we opened one of the doors, and gave her a chocolate we would sing Jingle Bells which she started pronouncing as Di go go.
• Plus Plus (ploos ploos) - This was something she said for 3 days before I understood she was asking for Blue's Clues.
• Mica - a Jasmineism for the word musica meaning music - she always would say this over and over when she wanted to hear music.
• Cuddlebee - this is a word for laying down and cuddling and we love it when she asks for cuddlebee.
• Bailabee - Baila for dance and bee because that's what we call her.

Jasmine also says some very cute things:

• Bye Bye Good Luck - this is what she says when people are departing. We do not know why she wishes everyone good luck but she does and even wishes the dog good luck when she leaves him.
• Mommy Sit Down - This is what she says when she wants me to sit with her while she eats, plays with playdoh or colors.
  
• Si Yeah - This is what she says to mean yes, the si for the spanish word and the yeah for the American slang.
• Papa Veni Veni (beni beni)- This means Daddy come here and she says this everytime she wants to get out of her high chair or get a hug and kiss from Daddy.
• Seat Belts Buckled - this she says as we put her into her carseat and she says it because the characters on the tv show Little Einsteins say it when they buckle up.
• Mmmm Delicious - she says this as she is appreciating food that tastes good, the first time she said it I almost spit my food out because I was laughing so hard!
• Aww Beautiful - she says this when I do her hair and she likes it or she has on a pretty dress, or most recently when I put on a pretty dress.
• Happy to You - her way of saying Happy Birthday to you and she even sings it "Happy to You"...
• Cow Pasa? - This morning her little cow fell off the changing table and Jasmine said, "Oh No vaca cow! Cow pasa?"
• Sleeping Buddah - That is what she calls Sleeping Beauty on her Disney Princesses nightgown.

More and More movies!

Seems this is the week we watch movies in all the different ways possible. Today I took Jasmine to Kingstowne to see Ant Bully. For those of you who don't already know, this movie theater shows free movies each week (for 8 weeks) in the summer and I only found out about it last week! So I took her last week to see Jimmy Neutron and this week to Ant Bully - next week is the last week and they will be showing Clifford. I will take her then too! It is great - I buy her the $1 popcorn and the $1 soda (she likes Sprite) and she sits in the booster seat and watches the movie. She gets restless during the last 15 minutes but I manage to get her to stay seated! Anyhow today we took Abuela Meme with us and went to Pizzeria Uno for lunch afterwards. None of us had pizza!

Screen on the Green!

Monday night we went downtown for Screen on the Green - an annual tradition we have and this year we have only managed to make it once, but hopefully we will go for the last one in 2 weeks as they are showing Casablanca and Sabrina has never seen it! We went with our friend The Childs. It was a great time - we ate our picnic dinner (which we purchased from Chicken Out) and enjoyed each others company until the movie started around 9 PM. Jasmine was a little restless at first being outside and all and we were trying to get her to sit down. But as the night wore on, she settled and had a nice time. We saw Wait Until Dark - an older movie with Audrey Hepburn being a pretty convincing blind lady.

Jasmine & Ryan cozy up in the same chair!

The Whole Gang!

The cutest part was that after the movie, we packed up our things (chairs, blankets, little cooler) and Jasmine demanded to carry her pink chair. You see, we have special screen on the green chairs (we specifically bought them for this event that we go to yearly - it makes all the difference to having to sit on the ground). She slung it on her shoulder and walked several blocks all the way to the car. It was not cute however when she threw a massive temper tantrum when we packed the chair back into the car and she didn't want to go home and screamed for her pink chair!

Jasmine in her Pink Chair!