The only thing constant is change....

It is early on in 2010 and there are already changes in the our household. I gave notice at EMQ Families First, my full time job where I am a Clinical Program Manager, when I returned from our vacation and as of January 22nd I am now my own boss doing therapy full time. This is a huge relief after the last two months of working three jobs while I grew my clientele enough to justify leaving my full time job. I am excited to have reached a major career goal of mine but nervous at the same time. All prayers, thoughts of good karma and referrals my way are very much appreciated.


With my new schedule I will only be working four days a week and will get to spend more time with the kids, which is a good thing because they sure are growing up fast! On a rainy day last week we had Alex try out his new roller skates and he is such a fast learner!

Amelia has been our little stripper lately. You cannot keep clothes on the girl. If you look away for too long she has stripped down to nothing but her birthday suit. I am hopeful that this is her way of preparing for potty training. Lately she has been showing interest in the potty and often runs to get diapers when she has a wet diaper. This weekend she actually sat on the potty chair for a while, although she didn't actually do anything other than read a book - but hey, it is a start and I will take it!

Another thing I hope to have more time to do in the near future is scrapbooking. A couple of weekends ago my cousin Kim, my good friend Channone and I did a 12 hour scrapbook crop. But before that, I hadn't had time to scrapbook in almost 6 months and with all the photos I take that puts me quite behind. I still have half of 2009 to finish scrapbooking but at least put a little bit of a dent in it....

Yet another thing I hope to be better about with my new schedule is blogging both on this blog and my professional blog. Unfortunately as soon as my schedule slows down a bit I tend to fill it right back up but I'm going to try very hard to keep things a bit calmer for a while. :) Although I am thinking about training for a half marathon this summer.....

Ringing in the New Year - beach style

This year was the 4th year we have rung in the new year in Cambria, and is the 7th year we have brought in the new year with our good friends Dave and Debbie. We rented the same house we did last year, which is located right on Moonstone Beach Drive. Our front balcony gave us a beautiful ocean view which I enjoyed most mornings while drinking my coffee.
The kids of course love being at the beach as much as we do. All four kids made daily trips down to the beach and had fun running around the house together. Alex and Sean still bickered a lot this trip, but it was a little better than last year. They are so close it is like they are brothers, that great love/hate relationship.


Amelia also had a great time playing on the beach, was a pleasant change from this summer when she hated touching the sand! She really liked digging in the sand and learned to say "agua" when looking at the ocean. It was so nice spending so much time with her and Alex this week, especially since lately I have been so busy with work it felt good to reconnect with my beautiful kids.
There is a beautiful park near the house we rent and we walked the kids over a few times and let them run off some energy. They slept really well on this vacation!


Paul and I also had a great time wine tasting with Dave and Debbie. We had a babysitter for a day and took time to go out and try some new wineries. Of course we came home with quite a bit of wine to enjoy! We also ate at our favorite place - The Sea Chest. As usual the food was excellent, especially the oysters!
The weather was so beautiful and clear, it was hard coming home to all the fog here in Fresno, but we got a beautiful sunset before we came home. It was like the beach was saying good bye to us, or telling us to hurry back!

Happy 2010!

I can hardly believe 2009 is gone and 2010 is here! 2009 was such an eventful year for us and I know that 2010 is only going to be bigger and better! We were so fortunate to finish out the year with some awesome Christmas celebrations and then a trip to the beach for a week of relaxing. So many photos and stories to tell, so I will start with just a few photos from Christmas.

Alex really got the concept of Christmas this year and was excited about Christmas and Santa as soon as the first decoration went up. Almost everyday he asked if Santa was coming yet. I remember being young and thinking that Christmas took forever to arrive. Well once it arrived it sure did it fly by!




My in laws got us all Snuggies this year and this photo was just so great!

Alex and Amelia were so cute Christmas morning with all their gifts!




I promise to post some more Christmas photos soon as well as some great ones from the beach but for now laundry and a cluttered house is calling my name! Happy New Year's everyone!