Perfect Pluth Party

We decided to make a trip to Ohio, Columbus to be exact the weekend before Christmas. It was a bit crazy but we have done it the past few years and it is the time when we get to see our dear friends the Pluths. Amy & Martin have such a cute home and we have so much fun visiting them each year around Christmas. We always go in conjunction with their annual Christmas party.
This year, we left Thursday afternoon and arrived around 9:30 PM and picked Lorne up from the airport. He flew there from his business trip to New York.
We had a great time on Friday as we went shopping at Easton and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We played around in the square by the Christmas tree and then headed back for some relaxation and movie watching.
On Saturday, we helped with party preparation and Amy & I got to go shopping. Jasmine also enjoyed singing Christmas carols with Amy at her piano. The only downer was that Xander, Amy's miniature shnauzer, had a hard time learning to play with Jasmine. He nipped at her and barked and knocked her over every chance he got. We had to keep them seperated. We think Xander thought Jasmine was a toy to play with.Before the party, we met up with Michelle and her boyfriend John at Olive Garden for dinner. I went to college with Michelle a long time ago! Originally, we were supposed to go to the Columbus Zoo lights and then to Amy's parents house, The Garvers for cookies, hot cocoa and caroling. Well, as it was a nice evening (50 degrees) the rest of Columbus had the same idea. We sat in a line of cars for 45 minutes and we only moved about 10 feet. Amy decided that we should just go to her parents house and so we ended up skipping the lights. Well, there is always next year.
We had a great time with the Pluths and we even stopped by Cindy & Kevin Zarcone's house on the way home where we were treated to cookies (freshly baked) and hot cocoa and visited for a bit before going home.

It was such a nice weekend before Christmas!

Congratulations Rory!

In our family, we fill our lives with twists and turns and sometimes take our time to get to where we are going. But when we get there, we do it right! Jasmine and I had the opportunity to go to Tampa, FL (December 15th 2007) for my brother Rory's college graduation. He completed it in just 8 years (it took me 9!) I had promised him a long time ago that come hell or high water, when he finished his degree I would be there to cheer him on! And even though he graduated 10 days before Christmas, we were there!

It was such a great trip, short, but great. We stayed in a hotel that had an amazing view, the room wasn't much to write about but the view was something I couldn't get over. And the amount of wildlife we saw just sitting on tha balcony was astounding. We even saw dolphins swimming in the bay! I had never seen dolphins in the wild before and it made me wish Lorne had been there because he loves that kind of stuff.

View from my hotel room!

My parents and my grandma were also there and they were in the room next door so that made it easy for us to spend all the time together. We ventured out and saw Rory's campus, visited his apartment (with 2 large dogs, a cat and an iguana), and ate some great meals together. It was so nice to even be able to spend some quality time with my brother and catch up with him. He has become such an amazing man and it is neat to talk about things that we have in common. Jasmine also loved seeing her Tio Rory and she asked for him anytime he happened to step away. It was so great to see them together since she doesn't get to see him often.

The graduation was nice, the speakers were a bit boring but watching Rory walk across the stage and get his degree was totally worth it! For those of you who don't know, he double majored in Marine Science and Biology and minored in Chemistry. There is no way I could ever master those subjects!

So, CONGRATULATIONS my little brother! I am so very proud of you!

New Year's Resolve

Before I finish updating December's adventures, I wanted to take a moment to announce to my audience of readers the resolutions I am making this year. I will try to keep up with them and not let them go by the wayside. So, ask me how they are going from time to time. I have heard that you have a better chance of keeping your goals if you write them down and if you share them with others, and I will do that here!

1. Go to the gym 3 times a week.
2. Lose 20 lbs.
3. Read to Jasmine everyday.
4. Read my scriptures every night before going to bed.
5. Purge the house of unnecessary things.
6. Organize my home and keep it tidy.
7. Maintain this blog with at least 2 new entries a week.
8. Finish Jasmine's first year scrapbook.
9. Take my vitamins daily and make healthier food choices.
10. Plant a garden.

There you have it, might sound like a lot but I could have written so many more so I will keep it to this list! Happy resolving everyone!

Reflecting on 2007 and Happy New Year

Right now I am sitting in a hotel room in Canada (Wheels Inn in Chatham) while my daughter and husband have their afternoon nap. Today is the last day of 2007 and we are spending it together having the most fun we could drum up. I wanted to take a moment during this pause in the day to reflect on the year.
First let me say that I am feeling full of joy to think of the great blessings we have been given this year. I know that all we have is because our Heavenly Father has blessed us and I feel so grateful that He has filled our lives with so much. We are a family that lives with an abundance of the best of everything. We have the best family we could possibly ask for, loving and united and always there for us. This year we have been blessed to spend a lot of time with family and the family has grown too, Ryan and Casey had little Roman and Rob and Dayna had little Valentino. Our family has shared in the success of Rory's college graduation, Natalia's new job, Fernando's new job and Ryan's new job. The closeness we have with extended family is special to us. We have had fun at the family gatherings and family dinners this year. We love that Jasmine sees her grandparents here every week and that she sees her other family (The Barolins, The Ricks', and Titi and Abuela Meme) here frequently.
We have the best of friends. We pride ourselves in being good judges of character and our friends don't disappoint. We have been fortunate this year to have gone to visit many friends (The Peterson's in Arizona, Terry & Michele in Cleveland, Summer & James in Canada, Amy & Martin in Columbus just to name a few). The friends that live close to us also spend a lot of time with us and we have shared so many memories to last an eternity this year. We loved our trip to Florida with The Childs, Great Wolfe Lodge with The Childs, our trip to North Carolina Outer Banks with The Childs (don't leave us, we love travelling with you!) and made some new friends, The Shupes and The Kolowichs. We visited The Vallejos in Christiansburg VA and I took a trip to Atlanta with Kevin Zarcone and started the year off taking a road trip with Cindy to a scrapbooking retreat. We have enjoyed game nights with Jeff & Jill, Shelly & Matt, and The Hansens. We have spent so much time with our friends and neighbors The Traugers. I can't say enough about how much we enjoy our friends. We welcomed Annie Astle this year and so look forward to meeting Baby girl Child and Baby girl Zarcone in the New Year! I am also grateful for my friendship and partnership with Marcia - we have gotten to know each other so well this year and she means a lot to our family!
This year we have travelled and seen more of the world, both in the United States and abroad. Jasmine and I got to spend a week in Wurzburg Germany for a wedding of a dear friend. We went to Orlando to Disney World and spoiled our little girl. We went to the visits mentioned above. We are a family on the go and hope to continue that trend in 2008. We decided to end our year in Canada and have had so much fun.
I have grown a successful business this year and have begun moving forward to open my own bakery in 2008. I never imagined that a hobby would turn into a profitable business that I would enjoy and still be able to mother my beautiful daughter. I continue to sing with The Mormon Choir of Washington and also have become their flute player. I work hard as a counsellor in the Primary Presidency and above all love my role as mom.
Lorne has grown in leaps an bounds in his job and has closed many successful deals this year. He is impressing his colleagues and his boss and is working so hard and it is really paying off. He has also gained great responsibilities at church as the Elders Quorum president and it has been wonderful to see the changes that have come over him as he serves the members of our ward.
Jasmine started preschool, I can't believe it. She has grown and is becoming a sweet, beautiful, loving and smart little girl. She has had many adventures in her short life and she seems to relish every moment she spends with us and with others. She is a girl with many friends and people who love her and I believe this love makes her blossom into the girl she is becoming. It truly takes a village and we have such a strong one.
We have been able to make some wonderful changes to our home as we slowly repair it and get it looking like we imagine in our minds it will look like when it is finished one day. We remodeled our master bathroom and also got new windows and shutters. We also gave our master bedroom a paint and bedding makeover and are so happy with how it all looks.
We were able to pay down debt and pay off my car and are so happy to be able to be saving for Jasmine's college one day.
As I think about how happy we have been this year and how we have been blessed and surrounded by loved ones, I can only pray and hope that 2008 will be as wonderful for us. We hope to become a bit healthier, do a bit more traveling, remodel a bit more, visit some more friends, get a little older, and if we can be blessed with our deepest desires, have another child. Keep reading this blog next year and we will keep you updated on all our adventures!
For now, We wish you all a Happy New Year and a Prosperous and Joyous 2008!

Celebrating Mom's birthday

Ok - this happened before Ryan's birthday and I didn't realize that I didn't write about it yet. On Mom's birthday, we congregated at her house and dad got some pizza and we feasted on it and cake. Mom opened her gifts and we had a great time celebrating with her. I am so grateful to live near my mom, I can't imagine raising my daughter away from her abuela!

Celebrating with Ryan!

Yes - I know - I haven't updated in a LONG time - and it isn't because I don't want to. I have just been swamped! So, I am going to attempt to tell you all about the last few weeks!

We celebrated Ryan's 25th birthday with him at his house and had a great dinner of all of Ryan's favorite foods. To cap off the evening, I made a cake for my littlest brother, a Redskins helmet, his favorite football team! He was super excited about it and took lots of pictures of it. It was also tasty when we cut into it!

Girls on a Train!

I know these posts this week are all a bit out of order - but I am trying to catch up and tell you all as much as I can about the fun we are having this holiday season. It has been hard for me to keep these all in order! Please make sure you scroll down so you don't miss any posts - especially when I write more than one in a day!
Saturday the 8th, we went down to Manassas with a group of friends (including The Astles, Team Trauger with Noel and Abuela & Grandpa). We had lunch at the City Square Cafe (delicious - my favorite sandwich there is a toss up between the Chivito and Lauren's Pita). Afterwards, with the hottest tickets in town, we boarded the Santa Train.

It was very nice. We rode the train to Burke and back and were serenaded by carolers, given candy canes and cardboard engineer hats, and had a visit from Santa himself. Jasmine really enjoyed being with her friends and seeing Santa. She also got a kick out of riding on the train. We were happy to take her and it was so nice to be able to share it everyone. She told Santa she wanted a train, a hat and a toy!

A tired Bee fell asleep in about 10 minutes after we got in the car!