Back home!!

Yay!! We finally made it home!! James and I got home last night (Saturday) a little after 6pm. Matt had to work all day so he was rushing to pick us up. I was disappointed that he wasn't there to meet us as we arrived, but James and I were able to collect our luggage and about five minutes after we got to the curb he was there!! It was soo good to see Matt again - I missed him so much. It was nice to be home and sleep in my own bed again. Matt and I both had back aches this morning from sleeping wrapped around each other and on top of each other all night!! It was nice to cuddle again. I am so thankful every day for the wonderful husband I have!!

We slept in until noon, skipped church, and went grocery shopping around 2pm. At 5pm we went over our friends house and ate and hung out. Our friends Julie and Arie were there with their son Caleb. We went over Tony and Nora's house. They are the ones who painted our home and have actually become good friends. Nora is Philippino. She made the BEST food!! It was so good! We came home about nine and we unpacked most of the luggage and worked on laundry so that tomorrow we can kick back a bit before work and school on Tuesday! I miss my family but its wonderful to be home!!

Our visit with Ann

This evening we got to visit and have dinner with Ann!! James' Auntie!! We had a lot of fun!! Here is a picture from our visit.

San Diego Zoo

Our Trip to the Zoo yesterday!!

More pictures of my family

My Family

Me and Mom

Left to right - Mik, Me, Ari - my two brothers

Our Trip to the Beach!!

Today we went to Oceanside Beach!! It was a lot of fun. Dad, James and I walked around for about two hours. We walked along the beach in the waves and then up onto the long pier.

View of the beach from the pier...

James very intently studying the beach with a .25 cent binocular machine...

Umm - ya - I know you are wondering so I will just tell - I DID not have an accident - I was in the surf a little to much when the tide came in!

My wonderful family!!

Can you tell we are related??? From left to right - my sister in law Leah, and my little brother Mo (I call him little since I am nine years older than him) Me, James and my other little brother Mik. Yea I really feel old right now, cause I am thirteen years older than him!! Wow! Its so nice to be here though and visit. Mo and Leah have a little baby girl named Khalina - I haven't gotten an pictures of her yet, but hope to and I will post them up here when I do.

The Wild Animal Park

Today James, Dad, and I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. We had a really nice time together. Here's a picture of James and my Dad (Angelo).

And here is Dad and I!

James pretending he's a baby dinosaur...

The lions have taken over!!

Rhino

Awe!!

California

Well I am in California!! James and I had tickets to fly out here for my Dad's hernia surgery. Unfortunately about an hour after we arrived, the doctor called and canceled the surgery. There is a lump on my Dad's left lung, so they cant proceed with the surgery until they figure out what it is. They said if it is a tumor - cancer or not - they should still be able to operate, but that it could also be an infection. They said if it was an infection, and they ventilate him on the operating table, it could spread the infection and he could never wake up from the surgery. So James and I are here for eleven days. Dad says he's tired of sitting around doing nothing, so we are going to make the best of the time we have together!! Matt is in Atlanta on another training until tommorrow, after which he will be lonely at home and I will miss him even more than I do already!!

The Circus!

On Thursday evening we took James to the Circus! It was a ton of fun and Matt and I were talking about how long its actually been since we went to one. A few years at least.

Anyway - thought I would share a few pictures with you all.

The circus was at the Fort Worth Convention Center, and while we had to park quite a ways away, we saw this Beautiful pool of water!! All the walls have water running down the edges and the trees are breathtaking!

Before the circus, we got to go in a view the animals. The elephants were actually posing for the camera!

After the animal preview, they let us into the stadium and we got to have all the clowns and performers autograph our programs. They were also doing mini shows. Here is a video of one of the acrobats, and an elephant painting a picture. They gave it away, later in the show.

Here is my favorite part - The tigers!!

I thought this was pretty cool to share as well - Matt caught the cannon shoot right as they came out of it!!

Last week...

Just thought I would sit down and give everyone an update on last week! It went by fast! Matt was off on Monday and we took James to see the new Mummy movie - that was fun - we really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we walked around the mall for a bit.

Thursday, Matt went to work and I went to Marshalls and Ross looking for some new photograph albums. I had a testing with Chase for a Personal Banker position. In the afternoon, Matt and I met up and went to JC Penny's to look for some good shoes Matt can work in. He spends most of his day standing and we are on the search for some really nice looking shoes he can wear with slacks that are comfortable to stand long hours in but not to pricy. No luchk . IN the evening, we went to the $1.00 theater and saw the newest Chronicles of Narnia movie, and I went to Sprouts on the way home to get some fruits and veggies.

I cant remember what we did Friday.

Lets see - Saturday Matt spent most of the morning outside digging the patch for our new dog kennel. In the evening, the missionaries came over and helped him finish the digging and then had dinner with us.

Sunday morning came all to early and we went to church, and then did some much need grocery shopping at Costco and WalMart.

Yesterday, Matt studied from home on his lap top and today he had a big job to go out on. He was gone most of the day. James and I went to JC Penny's to exchange the jeans I got for him that were to small. They were a slim and he needed regular. We ran a few other errands we needed to do, including stopping at the library to pick up 8 more CD's. Matt and I have been gathering quite the library on our I Pod's.

I guess that's it for now - tomorrow James has scouts during the day and at three thirty we have the appointment with the attorney in regards to James. Its just an initial consultation. Here's hoping it goes well. As soon as I got home from Atlanta, I filed a report with CPS but they said everything I filed in the report did not constitute what they consider abuse or neglect. Said they have lots of families living in hotels too and so the fact that James' dad is spending his visitation with James in a motel - there is nothing they can or will do about it. I even mentioned that he only has a one bed room and James at 9 is way to old to be sleeping with his dad. Hmm - well I am praying about this app tomorrow that whatever should happen will and that we receive the right guidance for what we are to do next.

I have an application in with Capital One right now on a job so here is hoping as well that they call me for an interview.....

Will write more later.

Lynchburg Tennessee trip

Well we finally made it home!! It was a looong flight! Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:15pm and it was delayed until 10:10pm
Our trip to celebrate Chandra’s birthday was a lot of fun.

The drive up to Tennessee was absolutely beautiful! It took us about 3 ½ hours to get there (1 of which I slept). Chandra’s mom who lives in Atlanta as well drove out there too so Chandra and her sister Sasha met us in town at the local Subway. Chandra’s sister Sasha and her husband Benji live in a town called Lynchburg with their two kids Haley and Hunter. Their house sits completely out in the middle of no where about 13 miles from the itty bitty town.
When we got there last night, we visited for a little bit before we headed to town for dinner. Poor Matt hadn’t eaten since 11 am and all he had to eat was a bowl of soup. It was about 7 by the time we headed into town to eat and TN is an hour behind Georgia time, it was about nine hours since he had eaten anything. He started to get a migraine (which turns REALLY bad for him) so when I realized it was probably for lack of food, we forced him to eat a cheese stick and he took some migraine Excedrin. He wanted to wait for dinner for anything else, so we headed into town. The only local restraint that just opened a month ago, was an hour and forty five minute wait due to the amount of people there. Plus the hostess said her main cook’s mom passed away and so he was off for the evening. Poor Matt by this time, he was about to throw up because the Excedrin on an empty stomach was getting to him. The hostess gave him a few Keebler crackers while we decided to either wait the hour and forty five minutes, drive the 13 miles back home, or drive another 11 miles to the next town and eat. We decided that it would take longer to drive back home and cook than go to the next town so we all drove over to a place called Crocketts. It was a pretty good steakhouse, although I don’t think that it was as good as Texas (I am biased right?). It was fun though for sure. Chandra was there with her mom (Tamara), sister (Sasha) and her family and Benji’s sister in law. So it was a pretty big crowd.

I gave Chandra her birthday present which she really liked and then we went home and sat on the porch outside until about 1am and talked while the kids went to bed.

We got to sleep in a cabin on Sasha and Benji’s property. It was an old milking shed that Benji and his dad converted it into a mini cabin. It was SO neat!!

When we went to go to bed the crickets were singing so loud it would start to make your ears ring! I have never heard crickets sing that loudly! Matt and I opened the window upstairs in the cabin so we could listen to them singing us to sleep.

We slept until about 8 am and then Chandra came with the kids to get me and we went for a gorgeous walk. Here are some pictures I took along the way.

I will say that TN is more humid than Texas in my opinion. It feels like you are breathing liquid! It is not as hot as Texas but the humidity certainly makes up for it. We had a great time.

Here is Hailey riding her bike.

When we got back, Chandra took me back to the cabin and Matt and I showered and packed up. It start to pour like crazy for about 45 minutes. The drops were literally about the size of fists! Benji said its been raining like that every day the past few months. I believe it because its literally like a jungle. All you see is green! Green everywhere!
Then we went and got a sandwich to eat at Sasha’s house and took off. It was pretty cool because on the way out, it was so warm again after the rain that there was steam rising off the road!

The drive home went well. I slept again for about an hour while Matt was driving. After the really long delay on the flight, it was nice to get home and sleep in our own bed and be in our own sheets with our own pillows!

Aquarium

Here are two pictures of Rhodes Castle and I figured I better post this one of the Aquarium. SorryMatt. He had it as our main picture on the blog and I changed it to the one that’s there now! I know I am a stinker. Hopefully it will be ok if I post it here!
~Angelique!

Our trip to Atlanta

Well our trip to Atlanta has proven to be a lot of fun. We got to take long walks along the river, go to the Georgia Aquarium, Rhodes Castle, the CNN tower, and this afternoon we are off to Nashville TN to visit my best friend Chandra. She lives in Boise, but she flew out here to see her sister and we found out its only a 3 1/2 hour drive! We are going to leave this afternoon as soon as Matt gets out of class and then we will fly out late tomorrow evening. Tomorrow is her birthday and I haven't gotten to celebrate it with her since I moved from Idaho. It will be nice to see her again. She flew out for the wedding and is the one who took all the pictures.

I have been watching Monster.com and Career Builder.com and have applied for about 50 jobs since I have been here, but no one has even called for an interview. I think a lot of it has to do with the jobs I am applying for. There are no positions open doing what I was doing at Capital One. I have been applying for jobs in the mortgage industry (pay a lot less) but underwriting in that field v what I did at Capital One (auto) seems to be a lot different. I am just hoping and praying that something will turn up.

I got to read a few good books while I was here, along with working out and taking a lot of walks. The best part was getting to sleep in every morning until 8:30 - then rushing to get dressed and make breakfast before they close it down at 9!

The bad part in the visit is missing James. My ex and I have joint custody and he technically has James a month during the summer. I was able to get him to agree to split the time, but this month he has him for a full two weeks. My ex doesn't work and from the conversations I have had with James, he is getting one (two at the most) meals a day. He says his dad doesn't have any money to buy food. Its been really upsetting to me to have to be here and know even if I went home early, there is absolutely nothing I can do about the situation because I have a court order that obligates me to leave my son with him. Lots of prayer has been going into this situation that's for sure.

Matt's been doing well in his class. It seems to have been a good two weeks, but most of what he learns is going to be in the field tagging along with his co workers. I know he has a great head on his shoulders and am sure he will pick it up quick. Its been great to see him finally doing something HE enjoys and not what everyone else THINKS he should be doing. Its been good to see Matt the last year really start to think for himself and push for what he wants in life, in his family and in his home. I am really proud of the person he is and continues to evolve as! He has been a great rock for me emotionally this last year with all that's been going on. I've never had anyone that I have been so close to and that gets to me like Matt does! Seems like in so many ways we are so much alike which helps us understand each other and we think the same, and then some things we are totally different and it is nice to have someone who can see things from an opposite point of view.

Looking forward to getting home tomorrow evening and sleeping in my own bed. The hotel bed has been ok here, but the pillows are to soft and it feels like my head just sinks to the bottom when I lay down. This is the third neck ache I have woken up with since we've been here for two weeks. Ugh - I cant wait for my own bed!!

Well I will post some pictures of our visit with Chandra when we get home! Bye for now

Angelique