'Just Cuz...

Here are some cute pictures that Mike and Suzanne Lagman took of Keira and Max playing this summer!

Brain Age

Yes, I'll admit it. I'm 38 years old and own a Gameboy. I am pretty addicted to the Mario series of games and have completed Super Mario Advance, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario Advance (I think number 4?) Yes, I'm a nerd. I was on my second run through of Yoshi's Island and attempting to get perfect scores on each level when suddenly the light burned out on my Gameboy. Oh, it's still playable, but it's so dark now that I can only play it when I'm in the bathroom where we have very bright lights. Once in a while, I'll be in the bathroom for a VERY long time and Dan will come into the room asking me "Are you alright??? Did you fall into the toilet or something???" I then have to confess what I'm doing. "I'm fine honey...I'm playing Yoshi's Island".

I finally couldn't stand it anymore when my feet went numb from sitting on the toilet trying to get a perfect score on Level 4 Secret Level 5. Besides, I'm going to be on Jury Duty Thursday and if they will let me bring it in the waiting area, it will make the day go by MUCH faster if I have something to occupy my time. I broke down and bought a new Nintendo DS Lite. It was a special package where it was the Crimson color (gee...apparently it's trendy to have certain colors?) and it came with a game called "Brain Age II". It is a really fun game that you can test yourself everyday to improve your "brain age". Plus there is a funny little Japanese man that talks to you. What more can you ask for, huh? Apparently, if you don't keep your brain active, your brain ages- not a good thing. Before you get to that though, you have to do a math test to figure out the age of your brain. I have to confess, I'm not very good with math unless I have an opportunity to scribble things out on a piece of paper and write everything out. I know...excuses, excuses :). Anyway, the test is where you have to subtract a certain number from a larger number. Once you figure that out, it scratches the number out and you have to remember what the last number was and you subtract the number again from that number you had to memorize. This goes on and on until you can't subtract the number anymore. After that, it calculates your brain age.

Dan and I each did this test. The ideal brain age is 20 years old. What were the results? Dan's brain is 29 years old and I apparently have the brain of a 59 year old. Yikes... Looks like I'm going to be doing the little brain exercises everyday to at least get close to my chronological age! lol

The Wild Animal Park

Annual memberships are great! When I was home with Keira, I pretty much bought up every kind there was- with the exception of Disneyland. It's so nice to be able to go to any of these places any time we wanted to and not feel like you had to be there all day long to get your money's worth. Today we headed up to the Wild Animal Park knowing that we would probably only be there a couple of hours or so. ESPECIALLY since it was about 90 some degrees! When we got there, they were showing everyone a Kangaroo. Keira just loved being right up next to it. After that, we headed over to the Meerkats as you can see in the pictures below.

There are so many different types of animals at the Wild Animal Park. The Giraffe, Elephants, Gorillas- you name it! Even with all of those wild animals, guess what is Keira's favorite? Yep, ducks. We can see ducks anywhere, but she always ends up more fascinated by them than anything else. She's a funny baby!

Here she is trying to get a really close up look at the ducks!

Feeding the Ducks

The braver ducks really did get pretty close!

Not long after that, we had to head home since it started looking like Keira was allergic to
SOMETHING at the WAP. Her eyes were tearing and her nose was running like CRAZY. One the way home, she treated us to her lovely rendition of the song from The Little Mermaid. I taped it on my camera phone, but I can't quite figure out how to post it. I'll see if I can post it though You Tube tomorrow.

After we got back, Mom volunteered to watch Keira while Dan and I had a date night! Wow! 2 in a month! We're going to get so spoiled! ;) What did we do? We ended up at The Melting Pot in University City. If you haven't been there, definitely go! It's a bit pricey, but the experience is worth it...besides...what more can you ask for other than getting cheese and chocolate???? EXACTLY ;)

Back to Work

Last Thursday, I went back to work. It was kind of weird. Even though it really hadn't been THAT long since I left, it still seemed like an eternity. It was really hard getting used to sleeping at 8:30 at night again so that I could get used to waking up at 3:30am. I headed into work and next thing I know, I'm in the parking lot. Wow! I somehow made it to work on auto-pilot. The mind does strange things.

I got to spend Thursday and Friday catching up on new procedures and policies as well as catching up on emails etc. There were still thousands of them, even after most probably already aged off. I checked in on Keira and mom a few times during the day to see how things were going. Mom let me talk to Keira on the phone. She was so cute just jibber jabbering away. I even put her on speaker phone so that everyone could hear her. Mom was doing a great job with her and I wasn't worried at all that she was being taken care of. I think mom really loved getting Keira all to herself as well. It was wonderful baby and Lola bonding time.

When I got home, Keira looked at me screaming and started to cry. It was a trip! It was almost like she didn't realize that I was gone all day until she saw me. Then she realized that I had been missing all day.

The weekend went by so fast. I'm back to work again tomorrow, but this time, I'm back to facilitating system outages instead of catching up. Wish me luck that I remember what to do! lol

Labor Day!

What better way is there to spend Labor Day than at your bosses house for a barbecue- especially when it's a surprise to your boss that you're coming! lol

Dan has a great crew at Budget and he truly loves working with all of them. They all have fantastic chemistry and work so well together. He always has funny stories to tell me of things that happened throughout the day. He can always depend on them to get things done---and at the same time making it fun as well. They are all such a riot and I do sometimes miss going in to work with them on my days off from my regular job although I think now everyone is so much more advanced than I am in doing everything on the computers that I would probably be banished outside to wash cars since I would just slow everyone else down now! Plus being a full time mom to Keira was a big enough job on it's own :).

Sandy called me a few days before Labor Day asking if everyone from Budget could come over for a barbecue at our house. Of course! We'd love having everyone over! The trick was that it was supposed to be a surprise for Dan. It's been a long time since Dan has had a 3 day weekend, so keeping him in on Labor Day without telling him why was going to be tough. Fortunately, the heat made it much easier for him to want to stay in without too much of a fight!

They brought a ton of food and we had a ton as well...so we did ALOT of eating that day!
Luis and Mabel brought their daughter Armanie. She is only a couple of days younger than Keira so it was great to have her over for Keira to play with. At first, they were a little competitive with each other (Keira was especially for Luis' attention-who she was just madly in love with!) but as time went on, they were sharing not only toys, but trading shoes. Keira came running out with Armanie's sandals and Armanie came running out with Keira's Crocs. It was very cute.

We had a great time and really had fun with everyone here...thanks to you all for making it such a great Labor Day!

Speaking of Labor... I go back to work tomorrow. Wow! Time really flies! I'll see all of you guys back at work :)

Here is Keira with Luis- who by the way, was able to get her to do the impossible--wear a hat for an extended period of time!

"The Budget Band"

featuring Freddy on vocals, Efrain on the Ukelele and Danny on keyboards

Freddy's solo with Sandy on backup

The End of Summer

Time has flown by so quickly. It seems like yesterday that it was just starting to get a little warmer and Summer was starting. Now tomorrow is Labor Day, which pretty much marks the end of summer. Keira and I have been spending quite a bit of time at the beach taking advantage of the warmer weather and a great little cabana that I got at Walmart! I think that it was only $15, but it's a little beach tent that pops up pretty quickly and comfortably fits about 3 people. It packs up pretty small, so I can carry it very easily in her stroller. It gives great shade and has made it so much funner to stay at the beach without being under the blazing sun. As you can see from the pictures below, Keira thinks it was a pretty good investment :)

Here she is loading rocks into her Crocs that Auntie Gigi and Max got her

What to do with your foot when your shoes are full of rocks

We spent the beginning of the weekend down in South Bay at the Military Beach by Coronado for Robin Sese's birthday. Uncle Omi and Auntie Lulu brought their dog. Keira loves dogs so much! She was petting the dog and gave him lots of kisses...unfortunately, she doesn't usually distinguish where those kisses land, so they pretty much landed on his behind! lol Maybe one day a few years from now, we can get a dog for her to grow up with. I'm not going to be ready for a dog for a while after losing both Jackson and Lucy so recently. We'll see...

Anyway, we had a great time getting to see the Bernardo Clan that day---all 5,000 of them! lol Just kidding. They are a very big family though and have been like a family to us as well since I can remember.