It crepted up on me...

Father's Day was great. Jay got a head start on the celebration as Jayla greeted him Saturday with a big hug and these words "we took pictures today!," "we wrapped them... they are in the room" I had taken Jayla to take some Father's Day photos earlier that day and was grateful that I didn't take her the week before as planned, because the beans would've been spilled long before.

The next morning I made caramelized french toast, freshly squeezed OJ, egg whites and turkey bacon to continue the celebration. Shortly after I dropped Jay of to get an hour and half massage. We ate Thai for lunch and made a trip to the beach so I could drop some flowers off to my Dad. Then had a great dinner at Red Robin. It was a really nice day.

I must have written today's date down a million time and it just didn't occur to me. When I got an email (granted it was in Spanish) from my uncle yesterday saying he was doing a mass in my Dad's name today, it still didn't sink in. My oldest sister sent an email to all of us expressing some words about our Dad. Then I was chatting online with my littlest sister and she was asking if I was going to go to the beach. How could I possibly forget that it's been 3 years anniversary of him passing away??? Wow... my eyes watered and I felt the wind get sucked out of me. Of course, it would hit me while I am at work. Luckily, no one passed because I am sure I was stiff and looked emotional. I had plans to go work out after work and made an additional plan to stop by the beach. Father's Day, the day he passed away and his birthday are all within 4 weeks of each other, so I could see how it could slip my mind. Maybe that would explain my emotional state this past week.

Early B-day celebration

Last nite I meant up with Natalie and her friends for day 2 of her b-day celebration. The girl went to Disneyland yesterday, bon fire today, dinner next week and then Vegas. Talk about a party!

I got there right after sun set and some many people I didn't know where excited to see me. Only because I had the s'more supplies. Haha! For the most part everyone was social, funny and having a good time. Except for this girl that was drunk, laying on the blanket with her guy making out, holding hands with another guy, getting massages. Awkward! We the life guards came to tell us the beach was now closed she literally had a guy on top of her. Natalie has only met the girl once before briefly.

Anywho, it didn't rain on our parade. We joked around the fire pit, had a shot or Patron (or two), snacked on junk food and enjoyed each other's company. It was a nice night! Happy early birthday Natalie!!!

$3K

It's been about a week since I came home to this. It's a huge ditch that the plumbers needed to dig up to replace our front plumbing pipes. The culprit was a leak that attracted near by tree roots to come an invade the continues feed of water. The end result was cracked pipes and a big healthy tree. They did all that for only $1500K. Not bad.

Our front lawn was not kept up by the previous owners and the clay mixed dirt was hard as a rock, so the plumbers had to rent this bad boy and didn't charge us.

After the plumbers finished up the job, we had someone come out for another quote.

See this Juniper tree?

And see this Mulberry tree? (The culprit of most of the roots in our pipes.)

And this Mulberry outside Jayla's room that she swears something is on it?

And this other Mulberry on the side of our house?

Well, the "x" on them means they went bye-bye. I felt bad and flash backs of Ferngully: The Last Rain forest movie came back to me and I felt a little guilty for having them cut down. But hey? Mulberry's roots can grown under your foundation and crack it. No bueno. The roots in the front were farther then 10 feet away the tree and some were headed towards our foundation and had already attacked pipes. I still feel a little bad, tho.

Afterwards, they came to grin the roots. And of course I had to take pix from my kitchen window.

To grin 6 tree stumps, remove and grin some side bushes, cut down 4 trees, clean-up and remove the trash was only $1500. Not bad.

Our house is coming along. Now we need a landscaper to come out.

Seeing double

Monday night I met up Natalie at the Brea Mall to hang-out and shop for a Father’s Day gift. Originally we were going to eat at Nordstrom café, but it was closed. We seem to always end up at CPK and so to go along with tradition we dined there again. I had totally forgotten we went there after both our surgeries last year until she reminded me. Natalie had knee surgery and was dying to get out of the house and I was just given the OK from the doctor to drive again and here we are almost a year later. Crazy how fast time flies.

I met Natalie in front of Nordstrom where she was talking with a guy. It was her cousin who was selling some all natural creams and lotions in a middle cart. He was a riot as he went through his script while we exfoliated our skin and saw the dirty water afterwards of our dead skin and toxins. Our hands left so smooth afterwards and he even gave us complimentary scrubs to take home. What a nice guy!!

So we hit the mall for gifts ideas and then headed to CPK. But before we went in Natalie treated us to some smoothies. I had a java, peanut butter, banana smoothie and the girl taking our order kept asking me “are you sure you want it like that?” … “it sounds weird” … “if you don’t like it, I’ll make you another one.” She wanted me to try it at the station to make sure I like it and she looked some what grossed out when I tasted it, but hey it I liked it.

For dinner we both tried something different then the regular. I tried the Kung Pao Spaghetti with classic Kung Pao sauce with garlic, green onions, peanuts, chicken and red chilies and Natalie the Four Cheese Ravioli. YUM!

So tonight starts an early celebration of her b-day. She is having a bon fire and I'm bring the s'more stuff.

p/s. Not sure what's happening BUT... do you notice the time I am blogging? Yup, it's in the day and I am doing it from work AND see other blogs AND see photos on Cindy's blog. IT must have taken the restriction off.

Kid magnet

Before the move I took Jayla to the local park to have some exercise. She met a little girl named Halie and soon they started playing all sorts of imaginary games. Halie wasn’t the most well behaved kid and kept stealing other kids soccer balls. I don’t know why, but some how I became the playground mediator, as Halie would run over to me and ask ME (not her dad or other kids) to play catch with her or hold the ball. Then Sebastian would come crying to ME (not his mom or Halie’s dad) asking for his ball. This happened like three times!!! When Halie had a “boo-boo” she didn’t run to her dad, she ran to me to show me it. Then, she later hugged me. It’s a little awkward when a kid you don’t know just randomly hugs you. I didn’t know what to do, so said thank you and stood up and told her to go play with Jayla.

Yup, so now at the new house Jayla and I went for a walk (more like a climb up the hill) to the park about 6 blocks away. Shortly after we got there Mom Amy and her son Michael and daughter Alison showed up. Jayla is a friendly gal and soon the kids were playing together. The kids totally ignored Mom Amy and kept coming ME. They would run around me literally, show me all the pine needles they collected, the girls came to me looking for safety from the monster (Michael) and Michael kept wanting to tell me his colors and the type of monster he was. I don’t mind that interaction at all. I was sitting on the edge of the park and next thing I knew Jayla and the two kids I just met were hugging me for what seemed like a VERY long time and wouldn’t let go. Mom Amy just looked at me and I thought quickly and told the kids to have a race on who could get to the slide the fastest.

There must be some kid sign on me that we adults can’t see that reads huggable kid mediator or something.

Our new home

Well, the last two weeks have been filled with packing, moving out of the old place and into the new place, cleaning, fighting a cold, and finals, along with the normal work schedule and getting Jayla for the summer. It was a lot to go through, but finally we are in our new place and starting to settle in. Tah dah... here's our lil piece of Cali!



We bought the house that was in a short-sale so it was sold "as is" which means we inherited some problems and the house was not move-in ready:

1. We fixed the leaking faucet in both the front and the back of the house where you attach your hose to, plus the kitchen sink faucet . Well... that must have put some pressure back in the pipes because when the painters flushed the toilets the toilets flooded. We got that fixed ASAP.

2. We had the inside painted. You will see why in just a little bit.

3. We had new bedroom and bathroom doors installed.

4. There were two previous leaks on the water heater which caused the floor below it to rot and water heater to cave in. Jay and the handyman replaced the floor, scraped the closet of the popcorn and painted it, plus replaced the water heater.

5. We had a guy come out and remove the popcorn from the hallway and bedrooms.

6. We replaced the wooded garage door we a metal automatic one that rolls up.

7. Jay and the handyman closed up two door ways, one from the master bedroom to the garage and another from the entry way to the kitchen.

8. Plumbers came out to snake the bathroom tub and their camera guy came to see where some obstruction was occurring. Pretty cool that they can stick a camera down the pipes and record for us to see.

9. We had carpet and base boards installed in the bedrooms. Which meant almost a week of Jay pulling up tile in the rooms and sanding the concrete foundation and long days!!

10. We had a guy haul away a truck and half full of a whole bunch of crap that the previous people left behind.

11. Ordered shutters for the living room and bedrooms. In 6-8 weeks they should be in and installed.

And this is where the work pays off with before and afters
BEFORE: This is what you call running out of paint and never caring. Can you believe this was a little girl's room?

AFTER: This is now our guest bedroom. New baseboards, painting and carpet. We used Behr paint in all the rooms and this one is Peanut Butter color. We ordered shutters so have temporary shades up.

BEFORE: This is the master bedroom's closets, tile and door that we closed off to the garage.

AFTER: We need to add closet doors and rods, but it looks SO much better already. The paint is Quiet Veranda. Jay was too cute and said I could pick out the color to our room. Thanks LOVE!!

BEFORE: This is still the master. I can't even begin to explain how much dirt was in this house. i kept saying over and over again "how do people live like this???"

AFTER: But now it's in good hands that are giving it much TLC! I love our room!!!

BEFORE: This was another little girls room. There was a huge Rot and Mastiff outdoors that left dirt and paw prints on the outside window.

AFTER: But now it's out office to be. Once we get furniture in here. This room is Peanut Butter too. The painter's tape was just touch up spots for the painter, but now all fixed.

BEFORE: This room house a older son that was the last one to move out. He didn't have a job, smoked pot back here and waited until the eleventh hour to remove the dogs from the property. Arrggg! Seriously, we closed Escrow late because he couldn't find a place to live.

AFTER: This is Jayla's room now and we still need to put a closet rod up and closet doors in each room. Her room is a little darker because she is young and will touch the walls, so we didn't want to have marks all over, so thought it would be safer to have a darker color. It's called Burnt Almond. What a difference from the top, huh?

BEFORE: Living room before, was this dark Tera cotta with yellow mustard ceiling with dirt EVERYWHERE!!! Even gum on the floor and dead flies...GROSS!!!

AFTER (in progress): We removed the greasy and filthy ceiling fan and painted. Excuse the mess.. we still haven't unpacked. Next weekend we are replacing the sliding door.

That's all for now. The neighborhood seems nice and we have friendly neighbors which is always a plus!

We have some upcoming projects:

- Add A/C (yes, we living in the desert of CA with no AC...YIKES!)

- Add ceiling fans in each room (being done next weekend)

- Add recessed lighting in the living room and kitchen

- Replace the back sliding door (next weekend)

- Remove the big ass tree in the front whose roots are breaking through out PLUMBING PIPES!!!

- Replace the front plumbing pipes (being done this week)

- Remodel the kitchen (maybe in the next two months)

- Remodel the bathrooms.

- Landscaping

- Re-stucco the outside and paint

- New front door

Oh the joys of being a homeowner. I hear the projects never end LOL...

Some sushi, Dodo and a key

Since the last time I posted, I experience some VERY exciting stuff.

1. I had some damn good sushi! I think the place Cindy, Mr. W and I went to Yama Sushi (if not there, then somewhere close to it). I tried quail egg for the first time and LOVED it!!! Of course these pictures are taken from my camera phone and suck.

I was adventurous and tried the lobster head on the left.

This is the quail egg on top of Salmon and crab.

2. While Cindy and Mr. W were traveling in FL and the Dominican Republic, I was watching Dodo. :)

3. And last but no least... See this key... Well, it opens the door to our new home. We got it at a steal and are new home owners. It's so surreal. Tomorrow I am heading to the property and will take some more pics for you to see.