new job!

Well, tomorrow is a big day for me! I start my new job at Menlo Park Police Department. I am that normal mixture of excited and a little nervous. I will miss Kyle a lot because he was my companion all day, every day for the past 10 months. At the same time, it will be nice to do something new and I just really like having a job! I realized that, more than ever, by being unemployed. I will have a great schedule! I work 10 hour days (whoa!) but have three day weekends every weekend, which is fabulous! I will start work at 6:30am and get off at 5:30pm with one hour for lunch. I think, especially at first, I will be exhausted at the end of the day. Luckily, I am off early enough to still enjoy my evenings. I want to come home very day and cook dinner, play with Kyle, walk on my treadmill, shower, and crochet/knit/read/watch movies before bed. I will be waking up at 4am (I don't like to rush in the mornings) and leaving for work before 6am. It takes about 25 min-to 30 min to get to Menlo Park and I'm sure it will be even less in the early morning since there won't be too many people on the road, but I want to get to work without stress.

Robert and I have gone through these different steps in our relationship: dating, seriously in a relationship, engaged, married, baby-and now we want to go into the next phase, which will be buying a house. Since my dad is a realtor we are able to look at any house we want. There was one for sale in Montara for $689,000, which is pretty cheap for around here. It was a three bedroom, two bath house with a totally cute and cottage-y kitchen that was still totally modern, if that makes sense. It had another room off the living room that was for an office, but you could totally make it an office/guest bedroom. It had a huge master suite with it's own fireplace, huge jacuzzi tub, walk-in closet... it had beautiful hard wood floors throughout and the other two bedrooms were a really good size. And, it had a big two car garage and a super big back yard. Plus, it was on a side street between two bigger streets so it was the only house on that small block. And it's right next to the old Montara Grammar School which is totally art deco and now is a ballet school. It also had ocean views from the living room windows... i mean, there were trees so it was a little obstructed, but you could see ocean! We fell in love with that house and wished that we had the money now to be able to buy it. We also just love Montara! It's a small town just 7 or so miles north of Half Moon Bay and it's a really beautiful place.

Now that I am starting this new job and when Robert graduates from the academy and hopefully gets a police job, buying a house will become a reality. We are going to be penny pinching for the next year and writing up a budget and sticking to it. We can't wait to have a place to call our own where we can raise our family. I am getting excited just thinking of it!

Today Kyle and I are relaxing since it's my last day before work and I'm getting some house chores out of the way-laundry mostly.

It's a nice windy and rainy day so it's super cozy!

VIDEO!

I tried to upload this video onto the previous post but for some reason it didn't work... it could have to do with our faulty internet connection! Anyway, here it is now! And if for some reason it does end up showing up on the previous post, then cool! We can enjoy it twice! :-)

Parkay

Today Dan called and asked if Kyle wanted to come to Ocean View park and play with Elena! We went and had a really fun day. Robert had to go to the range and practicing shooting so it was just me and Dan and the kids!

Christmas!

This Christmas was very fun! Kyle loved opening his presents and visiting with his cousins. We spent Christmas Eve and my Uncle Tim and Aunt Lupe's house and it was a very special holiday with all the babies being so big and making Christmas magical again :-) Erika is due in one month from today and is having another baby girl, Lillian! We can't wait to meet her.

On Christas Day we really had nothing to do. I read a book using my new Sony Reader that Robert got me for Christmas. I L-O-V-E books and thought I would miss feeling the paper between my hands and the wonderful smell of a new book, but I'm actually okay. I mean, don't get me wrong, there is nothing like a new book but at least now, with my Reader, I can just download any book I want and start reading right then and there! It was especially helpful when I had a book club meeting a few days after Christmas and I still hadn't bought the book. (It is a super good book by the way-The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I highly recommend!) Anyway, on Christmas Day evening we decided to go on a little family drive into San Francisco. There were a LOT of people out and about that day! We just thought we'd drive around until we thought of something to do. We went past Pier 39 and saw the gigantic Christmas Tree with tons of people swarmed around it. We drove down Fisherman's Wharf where there were also lots of people lined up outside of restaurants to have their Christmas dinners. We turned and started into North Beach where we went down Lombard Street with all the other tourists that day and then headed up to Coit Tower to take a look at the view on that cold night. Many other people had the same idea because every single parking spot was taken! It was a really different but nice way to spend the day together. :-) We can't wait until next Christmas when Kyle starts talking about, looking forward to, and believing in Santa!

Christmas treee

We got our Xmas tree yesterday! I wanted a short, skinny tree, a la Charlie Brown, as Robert says. We don't have a lot of space for a tree so we thought if we purposely got a teeny, skinny one and made it look vintage, it would work! But there were no skinny trees! So, we settled on a short and fat one. It still has a skinny top so it looks pretty cute and we are really happy with it! I also made our stockings this year. I had a ton of canvas fabric, so I cut out the shapes and painted them with fabric paints. I put the years of our birth on the stockings-it was something my mom did when she hand-embroidered our stockings when we were kids. Since I don't sew, my mom is sewing red felt onto the back of them and we'll hang them up near our tree.

Kyle was so cute at the tree "farm"-(Every year we go to the Boy Scout's tree lot for our tree. Even though there are a bunch of local farmers that grow and sell their trees Robert would rather pay a little more but support the Boy Scouts.) I think he had a good time and he loved running up and down the aisles :-)

I call this the "male model" pose!

We don't have any room in our house for a proper Nativity scene...nor would it be very good to have one when we have Kyle running around the house grabbing everything lol I bought this small statue back when I lived on my own and it works perfectly :-)

I had Kyle help me put a couple of ornaments on the tree and he loves looking at all the different ones on the tree and does sometimes grab one but always tries to put it back.

Our star broke so I put this little angel figurine on top since it's hollow and it worked perfectly! I love it!

Here she is! All 5 feet of her!

As for updates, we've all been sick in our household lately! I caught it first, then Kyle was a few days after, then Robert last. Kyle is still kinda sick with a cough and runny nose but is getting better daily! He still is liking to be babied and held throughout the day and I think that is why he is crying all the time... it helps him also get his way, which he enjoys LOL

On the job front, I had an interview last week and it went well-I have a second interview scheduled for this coming Thursday morning. The first interview was with a panel of three people and they each asked me a bunch of questions. Some of them seemed almost too easy to answer because I did that job already so I have a solution to every problem because I faced all of them before. I was sort of nervous that I answered too briefly or honestly but I could tell they liked me (and they laughed at my jokes!) so I wasn't too surprised to get another interview. I am pretty good at interviews and I get weirdly comfortable during them. Even though, before and after, I am a nervous wreck! This next interview is with the Commander so that does make me more nervous but I think I will do okay. I just have to be myself and be honest and do my research on the department before I go in.

We are really excited for Christmas this year! Kyle is at an age where he is noticing the lights and the Santas and decorations. It's so much fun! We are going to take him to Santa once he gets all better! Pictures of that to follow!

Love, US

Happy Thanksgiving!

A new cute picture of my favorite boys.



Today was our (mine and Robert's) third Thanksgiving as a married couple... today was also our (mine, Robert's and Kyle's) second Thanksgiving as a family. It was a really laid back and delicious day!

This morning we met for breakfast at my Abuelita's house. We being my parents, my brother, Robert, Kyle, me, and of course, Abuelita. My dad made swiss cheese and ham panini's and the coffee flowed. It was a great way to begin the holiday! At 3pm we headed over to my Aunt Lupe's and Uncle Tim's house for dinner. They made a tradional Thanksgiving feast and it was so very good! And Robert and I commented how we just ate a little of everything, it was delicious and we didn't leave feeling stuffed. We just felt so content. Since I started getting sick (allergies probably) today, we left a little early but came home and watched a movie together with some apple pie.

On another note, I have a job interview this coming Tuesday morning! It is for the City of Menlo Park Police Department and I am interviewing for the position of Police Records Officer. It is just another name for exactly what I did before for HMB PD. I was a Records Clerk II at HMBPD. So, if I get the job, I will be an officer, not just a clerk. Menlo Park is a really nice, small city that neighbors Palo Alto, where Stanford U is, and Menlo Park also houses my favorite book store in the entire world: Kepler's Books. I can spend hours in that store... and have! In other words, it could be dangerous for me to get the job b/c I will be spending a lot of money on books! But luckily, the Menlo Park Library is right next to the PD so I will save money on books. It's just a win-win, really. If I don't get the job, that means I get to spend my time with Kyle, which is pretty great, also. It really is a win-win situation.

I have been doing a LOT of crocheting lately. I go through phases with my yarn crafts... it was all about knitting until I learned to make slouchy, crocheted berets and I can't get enough. I keep thinking of new ways to make them; different little accents, such as popcorn stitches so they have little bubbles coming out every so often (much cuter than it sounds), bobble stitches every so often (make little bumps) and just plain berets. I also learned to crochet birds (from my Happy Hooker book!) and I sew a button on it for an eye, which is fun bc I get to search through my huge tin of buttons for the perfect one. I found a great yarn by Caron called Caron Country. It is a merino wool blend and it's so soft! Especially compared with the normal acrylic yarns that can be a little stiff. And the colors are gorgeous and satiny-looking. It's a little more expensive than some of the other yarns at Joann's but WAY cheaper than going to Fengari on Main Street! I think I am going to go to Joann's and Michael's tomorrow in case they have some major yarn sales.

Hope you all had a beautiful Thanksgiving!

PS We found the digital camera! It was at Tim and Lupe's the whole time! Woo hoo!

Kyle and Elena at the kid's table! My mom knit his vest! It was so cute and he looked like a little man!

kyle and mommy photo shoot

We lost our digital camera and will be hopefully getting one before Xmas, but for now, we can only use our computer's camera!