yesterday

yesterday was not a good day.

we'll just leave it at that.

a new day

well... today is a new day,
hoping for a great day!!

slept soo much better last night,
i took some tylenol before bed
which made our rock hard bed
not make my body ache as much.
i also switched sides of the bed with chuck.
ab's likes to sleep on my left,
which means she is on the edge
and i'm constantly trying to hang onto her
so she won't fall off.
now that she was in the middle,
i was able to sleep and not worry.
sleep feels great!!

at 7:30 this morning out hotel phone rang.
i thought this was odd,
but i answered it.
it was front desk.
a way to cheerful person started talking to me
telling me that my children are too loud.
the people below us are complaining.
i apologized, hung up and told the kids to stay quiet.
the kids were watching tv and would get up
and walk around but no one was loud.
i wanted to ask why they had people down below us
to begin with since that was the room we had first.
this room needs some major redoing.
i can understand why they are complaining.
the shower doesn't work so you have to take a bath,
the bed frame is broken so the bed falls to one side,
the two beds are sooo uncomfortable
and the literally squeak with every single movement
i didn't hardly get any sleep myself in that room.
so... we'll see how today goes.

on a positive note,
chuck dove on a huge super oil tanker the other day.
it was 1,200 feet long and 130 feet wide.
can you imagine being under the ocean 60 feet down
looking at that massive thing?
i'm so proud of him!!
i'da said, no thank you, lol.

ab's is surprising me,
at 20 months, she is already wanting to potty train.
can you believe it??
she wants her diaper off,
then tells me she has to peepee,
then i put a diaper on her and she pee's
and takes her diaper back off.
amazing how little girls catch on so much faster
and since she is a third child, this helps a lot too.
well... i'm not getting too excited
her little life is about to change again.
BUT at least she is starting to understand!!

still waiting

well... we are still waiting to hear back
from the owners of the house.

i'm sooo ready to get out of this hotel
and sleep in our own bed again.

i took the kids to the beach yesterday.
they had a blast!
the weather was perfect,
there were hardly anyone there,
we could see all the ships in the harbor,
i managed to keep all the kiddos awake
until we got home,
fed them a second lunch
and the off to sleep they went.

i was under the assumption
that evening was going to be nice.
i had a nice dinner planned
(which is a challenge since i have one skillet,
one little pot, a microwave, a burner, a spatula and a knife)
and daddy was coming home soon enough to actually
enjoy his company,
the kids got some energy out,
took a nap, all seemed like it would be great.

that was sooooo not what happened.
the kids were horribly grippe.
the tortillas i had,
had a chemical taste and i had to throw them away,
ab's choked on a popcorn kernel she snuck
and threw up on the bed sheets,
the boys refused to eat dinner,
and oh... did i mention that the kids were horrible!!!!

i was exhausted
and when i finally had all three kids asleep
i was able to crawl into our nice HARD bed
and drift off to sleep hoping today will be better.

as i'm typing,
blake is wrapping his ouchie toe
with a pantie liner.
interesting but... affective.
now, he is teaching ab's how to open little chip bags
by laying them on the ground and stomping on them.
hey... at least no one is screaming.

and now we wait

we found a house we love.
well... i found a house that is in a great neighborhood,
with a garage, a big backyard
3 bedrooms and did you hear me say
a safe neighborhood??
cause, it is a really nice, safe neighborhood
and i've had such a hard time finding one
that meets all these requirements.
actually this is the only house i've looked at
that meets all this normal stuff.

chuck hasn't been in the house but we were able to
drive by and let him look at the outside
and he definitely liked what he saw.

we have an offer going in today.
i'm sooo hoping this is it.
we really need to get settled
and stop living out of a hotel.

a friend of mine just posted that she just got word
that the offer they put in on their dream house was
just accepted!!! i'm so happy for them!!

hoping that their luck will leak over to us
and we can get our house too.

oh... did i forget to tell you that the house
is 4 houses from the beach???!!!
this was not a deciding factor
but it is a great bonus!!

please say a pray and i'll let everyone know if we get it!

house hunting part II

house hunting in the long beach area is horrible!!

i'm so incredibly frustrated.
i would have given up already,
except we kinda have to have a house to live in.

day one produce only one nice house
and a bunch of houses is not safe neighborhoods.
immediately after viewing the nice house,
i tried to apply but the realtor never sent the email.
i called several times with no answer,
finally i asked my realtor to help
and she got a hold of the application, on day two,
sent it to my email at 1:00,
didn't bother to call me to tell me it was there
and there was a 4:00 deadline.
so... we missed that house.

my realtor seems to be on a schedule of her own,
she doesn't answer phone calls,
answers emails but doesn't answer them in a timely manner,
considering she has a fancy phone and she doesn't
have to be a at a computer to read them.
the simplest question like, are you available tomorrow?
sent at 7:00 in the morning won't get answered until 'tomorrow'
i've asked the same question 3 times with still no answer.
and my list of complaints goes on and on.
i may be a bit more frustrated than the average client
but... COME-ON!!!
could you help me out a bit!!!
i'm not from the area,
i'm not familiar with the neighborhoods,
i've hauling around 3 young children
in the middle of tons of freeways
and massive traffic jams.
my poor kids don't want to sit in the car
for days and days while i drive around neighborhoods
when i specifically say 'i need SAFE neighborhoods'.
and when i arrive, i find that i'm the ONLY white girl around
with cars parked in the driveways that are beat up,
graffiti on the walls
and storefronts filled with advertisements in other languages.
plus, i'm doing this all by myself.
chuck is working (and doing a great job at it!!!)
and my realtor is 'not available' AGAIN.

can you tell i'm a bit frustrated???

property management companies are almost worthless over here.
you call them and they say
'look at the website and call if you want to see anything'
i look, then i call, then they tell me it's not available.
i ask them to do a little search for me
and they tell me that is not their job.

day two was filled with tons of frustration
and a lot of wasted gas and time.
i didn't like one neighborhood.

i'm really not even being that picky.
i need a house (attached or not, i don't care)
i need a garage (my husband has too many tools to sit in a closet)
i need a yard (small is fine, my dogs have to pee somewhere)
i need a safe neighborhood (picky huh?)
i cannot live in a 1 bed 1 bath house (find me something bigger)
i need to enter the house on the bottom floor (i lived on the top floor in NJ. it is VERY difficult to haul 3 children into the house, sometimes asleep, and bags of groceries, while keeping everyone safe. what am i supposed to do, leave a sleeping child in the car unattended? or leave them in the house unattended while i haul groceries up and down stairs? and i don't like waiting till chuck gets home, he's worked hard all day, he doesn't want to go grocery shopping.)
and... well... i think that's it.
simple enough, but haven't found a thing.

THANKFULLY i have a new contact with a new realtor
that i will call soon.
hopefully, this gentleman can help!!

on a side note, i did go into a target yesterday
that had underground parking.
i must say... that was kinda cool!!

house hunting

well... i'd love to get back to blogging
it is just so hard when we are traveling or unpacking,
or house hunting and everything
else that is crazy in our lives.
once things settle down,
i promise i'll start doing it again.

chuck got a job in long beach!!
he started last thursday.
while driving to work yesterday
we got stuck in a horrible accident
and traveled 2.1 miles in over an hour.
welcome to LA traffic.
he was an entire hour late to work.
when he arrived his boat had already left
and they had to send their little boat back
to the dock to get him.

while driving abigayle threw up not once
but THREE times!!
then blake threw up one HUGE one.
after we got chuck off to work,
we were supposed to look for houses
but had to stop at target to get more clothes
and some febreeze and cleaner to clean the car.

after everyone was clean
we began our house hunting.
our realtor has pretty much stopped helping us look
for homes so i'm pretty much on my own
in the strange town.

the first three houses we went to were
not even close to being in a safe neighborhood.
we moved to another area and soon found that
it was not safe either.
we only found one house that was a possibility.

hopefully something will pan out
and we can move down here quickly.

on a better note,
chuck actually dove in the ocean!!
he said it was awesome!!
the current was wipping him EVERYWHERE!!
when he surfaced,
he had baby shrimp all over him.
i told him to catch them and i'll cook them up for dinner next time, lol
his job was to scrap ocean life off an old WWII ship.
he said it was amazing to see all the muscles and such.
he did really well and his boss said that
they expected him to surface a lot sooner than he did,
since the current was so strong and he had a calf cramp.
he was able to swim down to the prop.
it was a 'baby prop'
only 26 feet wide.
can you imagine a 26 foot prop??
i can't, but he said that it was so huge.
he can't wait to see one that is not considered a 'baby'.

well... back to house hunting.
have a great day everyone!!

a new decade

well... i've entered a new decade

and honestly it doesn't seem to be

that big of a deal for me,

at least for now, lol.

twenties had many ups and downs.

here are a few high and low-lights:

i met and married the man of my dreams,

two weeks later my nano past away,

two weeks after that my husbands grandfather past away,

we went on our first and only cruise so far with my dad's entire family!!

we bought our first home together.

we had so much fun dreaming about our future together!!

then unfortunately my dad past away,

then a cousin past away,

we definitely had too many losses at the beginning of our marriage.

had our first baby boy,

how exciting is that??!!!

i received my first digital camera!!

saw Celine Dion in concert,

moved to the country,

had our second baby boy,

very difficult pregnancy but he came out healthy and hungry!

we had a blast with our horses,

bulls, drop calf's, miniature donkey, ducks, chickens,

skunks, snakes, possums (ok, not so much these last three)

but our favorite were the TARANTULAS!!!

we loved piling all four of us on the quad

and searching for those hairy spiders every night!!

we took our first real vacation

(other than the normal beach vacations)

and flew to Texas and North Carolina.

we had a blast touring all the nascar shops,

meeting michael waltrip,

having a bush car driver drive us around

the charlotte motor speedway in a

real nascar!!!

i must say it was AWESOME!!

we also tasted McAllister's Deli for the first time

and fell in love with their food!!

might be the name but... i doubt it, it's great!

texas was hot but filled with great company,

good food and super fun memories!!!

life continued.

my grandma past away,

mom married,

then the economy dropped

and my husband was laid off

and there was no work to be found.

we finally found him a job that paid 1/2 of what he was making.

we had to sell our house in the country

and move to the city.

we had our baby girl

God must have known that we needed her little smiles!

but we continued to struggle until Thanksgiving 2009.

that was when we decided to bail out of the 11 year construction career

and find a new one.

after weeks of research and prayer

Chuck signed up for Divers Academy International in New Jersey.

we packed our bags and away we went.

New Jersey is definitely a time in our lives we will never forget.

we loved the weather, the lightening bugs, the beaches, the history

and... well, that's about it.

people are extremely rude, the produce is expensive and from Cali,

the roads are full of pot holes and I can go on and on but there is really no point.

we were able to see our Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island,

The Liberty Bell, a draft of the Constitution of The United States,

Benjamin Franklin's grave, Independence Hall and

the chair where George Washington actually sat to sign the Constitution.

the history of our country is amazing!!

one day, we will go back and learn more.

i've ended my twenties back in our house in the city in Cali.

this move is more than likely temporary since i am so proud to say,

my husband is now a certified commercial diver!!!

he not only graduated but he graduated with honors!!

we are currently looking for a job

but our hopes are high.

my thirties, i'm sure will bring

many great memories,

i'm sure some struggles,

a new and amazing career,

more nights full of rest

(considering, i will no longer be pregnant or have a baby nursing)

my children officially starting school

(home school or traditional is still to be determined)

games and recitals to attend,

camping trips and most importantly

family time together,

both immediate and extended family.

my twenties were great

but i'm looking forward to what

my thirties will bring!

i'm sure they will be even greater!