Catching up

Better late then never right?

Victor and I took Alana to Pretend City awhile back on a day off! She really liked it and thought it was pretty neat! As did we. We had never been before but only heard about it. It's a pretty fun place for kids! I can't wait until she's just a little older to see how she will change in the things she does there!

Getting ready to head out for the day! Cheese!


First stop - Making a yummy sandwich to eat!

If only she would eat all those veggies on a sandwich in real life!

Greenthumb? Even I have a greenthumb at Pretend City! Growing and picking veggies and fruits!

They had these boards that you could build with and she did really great with them. She is very coordinated in building and understands how it goes together which made me very happy! You could see her brain work as she put it all together.

Beach break! She loves sand... blah.

You know I had to put a hat on Victor too!

My favorite part of the city was the restaurant. Victor and I sat down at the tables and Alana waited on us! She went into the kitchen and "made" us food and brought it to the table. She even figured out how to use the soda fountain for refills on our drinks!

Alana the builder - Yes we can! She put these little black bricks on the pegs and hammered each one twice! Soo funny to see her "build".

T-Ball here we come! This girl can hit a ball pitched at her and off of a T-Ball stand. I am very impressed with her baseball skills. I've never pictured myself a softball mom, I always just assumed she's be a Cheerleader or something... but why not softball? They can be cute and have ribbons in their hair to right?

I think Victor's favorite part of the day is when he got to be the Patient! Alana examined him and listened to his heart! Pretend City was pretty cool and very reasonably priced - and we had a coupon from Entertainment Book! I can't wait to take her back in another 6 months!

A day in the park with Rosie - How she loves the park!!

And I know you are thinking... who dressed this girl? She dressed herself! I think she may be color blind?

Once a year the Strawberry Festival comes to town and this year we headed to GG to get my Strawberry Shortcake on!! We ate and Alana rode a few of the rides! That's about all that place is good for these days!

This strawberry ride turns like the tea cups - that means I don't have to go on because I just can't do these rides. They make me super sick. So Victor always gets stuck going on them with Alana. He was not very happy to ride with her either. So these poor boys probably thought they'd have the fastest strawberry there... To bad, so sad. Victor didn't help turn at all and it was funny to see how slow this strawberry was compared to all the others! Some day Alana can go on without us and have a better turning time!

Toot-Toot!

Swimming... swimming... swimming... swimming.

Through the YMCA we signed Alana up for swim classes! Her BFF Kali was going to also be in the pool with her but in a different class. Alana loves the water and like to be with Victor and I in pools but I wasn't so sure how she would do with an instructor without us. I was a little nervious to say the least.

She was very excited when I told her what we were doing! We hung out for a few minutes before class started and watched the other kids swim!


First thing first... we had to get her into the water. I can't say enough how PROUD I am of my girl! She was a little hesitant to just go in with some random girl but after teacher Katie talked to her for a minute or so I just stood at the edge and dropped her in with Katie. She was all smiles for the next 30 minutes! I stood by the pool and shot video and took a million pictures and she was a HAPPY girl!!


Katie told me she was the ideal 3 year old for lessons! She listened to everything Katie told her and did it perfectly! It made me so happy to see her learning to swim! I grew up with a pool in my backyard and knew how to swim before I could walk so this was very important to me!

As happy as Monday swim class was, the complete opposite for Tuesday swim class was upon us. She didn't nap at Grandma's house so it was inevitable. She didn't want to go in, some other instructor picked her up and held her kicking and screaming down the pool side and tried for about 15 minutes to calm her down. Water in mouth, choking.... I pulled her from the pool after 15 minutes... Wednesday swimming class: I tricked her and lied to her about where we were going and why we were going, when she was smart enough to figure it out I bribed her with toys and candy... Outcome - SUPER happy 30 minutes in the pool and is ok to go back Thursday! I'm a smart mom!! She loves the water, but a day without a nap is not a good swim day!

Wednesday swim class with her BFF.

The YMCA was only $45 for 8 swim classes! AMAZING!!! More pictures to come for next week's swim classes! Wish me luck, you just never know what the day will bring with this little 3 year old girl!

Dad's day

Happy Father's day to all the daddy's out there! And especially my daddy!! I love you with all of my heart! Thank you for being a great dad!


Saturday we went to Lugi's in Anaheim to hang out with my family!


Another dad I get to celebrate is Victor. This day he became a daddy.


To this crazy little girl. - Victor had to work on Father's day so Alana and I went to church and then Victor's family came over to hang out! Alana got play-doh for her birthday and she LOVES playing with it!! Here is her double decker cake.

With CHEESE!

Victor and his daddy Oscar! This is the greatest man ever!!!

Alana and her cousins!

Big family day with the man who is really their dad! I heart this family! They are the best in-law family that could EVER be!

Goofy and goofy jr celebrating Father's Day!

Random-ness

Victor and I were invited to an Angel's game from my friend Christina. We all decided to meet at his new hotel, one - so I could check it out and two - because it's close to the stadium and the shuttle would take us so we could drink and not drive! As Victor is showing me around the hotel we are wondering the halls and some guy comes up to us and says, Are you guys lost? We laugh because Victor works at the hotel and we were not lost but this guy started a conversation with us. His name was Paul and he is from Australia. Super nice, polite guy. He saw our Angel's gear and said he had never been to a game and would we mind if he came with us? Um... Sure?!?! No clue in the world what this guy was all about but he was staying at the hotel by himself doing the tourist thing so an American Baseball game was on list to do list. So we all hoped in the shuttle and headed over to the stadium. It was the game vs the yankees so we told him there may not be a ticket for him to buy once we got there. But he ended up paying for one in our section (which was pricey). He sat next to us for the whole game and we learned a lot about it.

Meet our new friend Paul from Australia


Me and Christina!


This is the brick that I bought for Victor a few years ago that is at the Stadium outside of the entrance.

Here is my husband hanging out with it.

Christina and her hunny bunny

Victor and his new BFF Paul. - After the game we got out of the shuttle and we never saw or heard from him again. Seriously just so random, weird but enjoyable all at the same time. I wish I could hear the story he gave to his family when he returned to Australia... if that was all really true?!?!

A World without Cancer would be Sweet!

(prepare for picture and story overload)
You may have thought we had a candy overload for Alana's birthday the weekend before but Relay for Life is something we've been planning since April of last year! Last year we were Jenny's pennies in Murrieta. This year since Jenny was busy being all pregnant I decided to step up and be team captain and form "Another Lap for Pat". Victor came up with the name. I thought it would be perfect for us! After all, relay is really just walking laps and we were all started there because of Pat. Great team name! I signed my team up in Corona this year because I wanted to walk in Corona, be in Corona and have the support of Corona behind us. After all, that's where my mom lived for 30 years and that's where she died!
I got really involved with the planning of the Relay for Life in Corona this year. Because I started to form my team before we could even sign up a team, I joined the planning committee. I was on the board! I was excited to be part of the planning and see it go from our first meeting to the day of. They sure pulled it off really well! In my planning of my team I wanted a team banner this year. I was going to order one online and pay $100 for it, but I would have because I really wanted one! I asked a girl at work to check around to see how much our banner printing company for EPL would charge me and they ended up donating not one, but TWO banners to our team! They knew it was a great cause! That MADE MY DAY!!! The last week before Relay we had some of the team over to my house and we modified the decor from Alana's sweet birthday the weekend before.... yes, I planned it that way! 2 in 1 with only the work of 1!!
During the day at Relay you get a campsite and you are supposed to have a fundraiser there. We chose to have a raffle! It all started when I won a PS3 at work back several months ago. We already have one at home so why not raffle off this one? I thought it was one of the best ideas EVER!! Days leading up to Relay my cousin really came through and made all kinds of awesome baskets for us. She pulled stuff out in boxes that she had and made the best baskets ever! Some of my team members also pulled in favors with friends, bosses, or family and contributed some baskets as well. I even had one vendor give me a basket from her hubby who worked with Jiffy Lube! It came out amazing! Not only did we have great prized but we had a few talented team members that could decorate REALLY well and be very creative! So not only did we have an awesome raffle of prizes but it looked amazing too! Some other campsites had raffles but we were hands down the best and the best looking! People told us that as they walked by ALL DAY!

A WORLD WITHOUT CANCER WOULD BE SWEET!!!


Here were some of the prizes we had for our raffle. My team put the tables together like pro's!

After setting up (or in the middle of) we headed to the front of the park for the opening ceremony's.

They let Doves go which of course brought me to tears. What didn't bring me to tears that day or any other time I think of my mom?

I knew this day was going to be emotional for me and all of the team. It was a day to Celebrate, Remember and Fight back! I was doing a little bit of all of those that day!

As Relay starts, the first lap is the survivor lap. Everyone in a purple shirt is a survivor and as they walk the first lap everyone stands for them and claps and we celebrate they are alive and have survived this crazy horrible Cancer.

My reason to celebrate, My dad and my sister. 10 years ago my dad had cancer and he fought back and won! We celebrate him! My sister also had Cervical cancer about 5 years ago. She fought back and won too! There is reason to celebrate on a day that makes me sad! The fact that my dad got out and walked an entire lap around made me so happy! I celebrate having people in my life that are survivors!

After getting everything up and decorated at the campsite it turned out amazing! I have to thank my cousin Amber, her mom Joyce, Crystal, Susan and everyone else who helped to decorate and pull our campsite together. It would not have looked like this without them!!! Thank you ladies! You are an amazing part of my team and I am thankful that you are part of Another Lap for Pat.

More awesome raffle items to drop tickets in for!

There was a campsite there that sold these fun things!! Crazy girls!

This was my table to remember my mom. She is our reason to Relay! On the right I created a sign for every single person who donated even just a dollar to our team. If you donated money to our team then your name is on this sign. THANK YOU!! Our original goal was $1500 but then we had a few team members that kicked some butt and helped us to raise over $3,300!!!!! Before we even showed up for the day! Every single penny of this money goes to the American Cancer Society for so many good reasons!!! Research is my favorite reason!!! If they could do more research into the cancer's that are rare, like my moms.... more people will be survivors!!!

We moved our sign to behind the table because or raffle got so big we had to double up the tables of prizes!

Lexers and her papa!

This tree was one of my favorite things of the day! One of the campsites built this tree. The leaves were all of the donors to their team. The leaves with butterflies are the survivors. The bark of the tree has names of people who have died because of cancer! It was so smart and I just loved it!!!

Another of the campsites had a "jail". You could pay $1 to put someone in jail and they had to pay $2 to get out. 3 bucks to the team for doing nothing already!! So SMART!!! So we put Jacquie in jail and some random person paid to get her out! But that was after we paid to keep her in jail longer!!

My friend Susan from EPL joined our team and walked for my mom! She was also an amazing help with Ellie and Lexie! She's so loveable!!

Me and my survivor!! My pops! Love you daddy!

Hailey and grandpa!

Team picture!!!! Best team EVER!!! Thank you to each one of you for being part of our team and no matter what your reason to Relay, it all goes to the best cause EVER!!! I love you guys so much for your love and support!!

Me and Rosemarie!!! So glad that she came out for a few hours!

As the afternoon hit it was going to be my favorite part of Relay for Life!!! Luminaria bags!!!! There are two special ladies at work that I just adore! One of them remind me so much of my mother! She is sweet and loving like my mom was. She always cares about what is going on in my life, she even has the same look as my mom did. Short hair, bright eyes! She makes my day when I see her at work! Her and I bonded last year when I started because she had just lost her mother to cancer as well. So last year and again this year i made her mama a Luminaria bag!

Same thing with another lady I work with. So sweet and caring! She remembers every Holiday and leaves me little presents! I can't tell you how lucky I am to work with such amazing women! She also lost her mother to cancer! So I made her a bag as well!

Hailey and the girls playing around in our campsite.

After a LONG day of selling raffle tickets, which my whole team did a great job of, it was finally time to pull names out of the bags! I was really excited to see the crowd of people that came back to see if they won! It was fun to have everyone surround our campsite! Can you guess how much we made the day of the raffle just from raffle tickets alone???? $700 in raffle tickets and all together with donations and raffle tickets over $800!!!! Yes, $800 is amazing!!! I'm SO PROUD of my team and the support of my team members! All in the name of my mother! I couldn't have ever been so proud!

The night time hit and they lit the Luminaria bags!! The track was BIG and they had over 2.000 bags, some celebrating, some remembering, and some for those whose are fighting back! They had a bag piper start everyone off for a lap to look at the bags and spend some time remembering why we were all there!!

The bag I made for my mom from our family!

The bag that my moms best friend Debbie and Jenna made for her! I can't tell you how happy I am that my mom's best friend still cares so much for our family that she is so involved with us. It's like she is just part of our family and we couldn't be happier about it! She's an amazing woman and was the bestest friend to my mom for years!!

This bag is for Donovan's dad. I'm sure Donovan remembers him daily like we remember our mom!

The slide show came and went and we had tons of pictures in it of my mom, of my dad and of our family and friends!

Remembering Grandpa Shultz for my friend Jen and Kris!

At 11pm our team came up with a "glow" themed lap. We may have been the only team with glow on but we kicked butt and had fun!!! Walking for PAT!!!!

Thank you, thank you to my awesome team. To each one of you, one's who came up with great ideas, one's who dealt with my stress and my day to day craziness with Relay. Those who just showed up the day of and did as much as they could or even just walking. For those of you who helped with anything. Every tiny bit helps me pull this together. I couldn't have done it without everyone's help! Here's to planning next year! Another year, another theme, another goal, Another Lap for Pat! xoxo - J