Celebrating our new neighbor to be!!!

I am beyond excited, our dear friend/neighbor Melissa is expecting and we can't wait to meet this sweet little miss.  She has 2 little boys who are so dang cute and absolute monkeys, so having a girl in the mix is going to be awesome.  Can't wait!

Her shower was last weekend and it was awesome - she got so many girly girl gifts, clearly we're all super excited.

Here's a couple shots from the lovely day:

Nan and Kirk visit

It was so great, last week, my Aunt Karen and Kirk visited for lunch - Kirk's son Parker lives in the Ocean County and they were visiting him for the weekend.  They came down for lunch and we had such an amazing time catching up with them, I didn't want them to leave.  We had such a great chat (and lunch was DELICIOUS and you can't beat those views at George's!), it was HEAVEN - love you guys!!!

BBB Day Of Fun!!!

For our godson Bennett's 5th birthday, we took him for our 3rd outing together and these just get more and more fun the older he gets - he's such a blast.

First, we took him to the Corvette Diner for lunch, and for those of you not in San Diego - the CD is a 50's themed diner where the waitresses are all in poodle skirts, they play oldies music out of the jukebox, it's constant sensory stimulation with balloon animal guy, dancing and delicious burgers and shakes.  It's so dang fun for kids...and I'm not going to lie, we had a blast too.

Kid Crack!!!

 After we all got cracked out on sugar, we went to the New Children's Museum.  We had such a great time there, their current exhibition is about Trash (which sounds super weird, I know) and it's all hands on and informative about the environmental impact, recycling, etc.

 They had this cool art project made entirely out of trash, we built a monster together while the museum docent taught us all about recycling, that horrible floating plastic mass in the ocean, etc.

 Here's Bennett's Monster!

 This was a cool thing, they had the kids dress up as super heros and they're going to be a part of a big comic book, it was neat seeing the kids get really into it.

 Climbing cardboard

 Painting the old car and tires were a huge hit.

 Sometimes you just have to listen to some jams. (though really it was about trash and Bennett said the guy was boring, haha!)

 Dude, what a great day!  Love you buddy.

Van Gogh, eat your ear....off?

We did another one of those Paint it yourself date nights and we had such a blast again!  I think it's official, we're becoming addicted.  Funny enough, we found out we'd picked the hardest one the first time around when we did Starry Night and luckily, we picked a way easier one this time.  We did a really fun cherry blossom one this time, and it was cool because there was way more opportunity to do it yourself and each person had a more individualized and different painting at the end.  It was such a great experience, I love doing these, and now we have our "artwork" hanging at our house!

I know it looks like a poo, but beauty is in the eye of the...well...never mind.

Please to enjoy...

 It's fun how different they are..not sure if you can see that from this view or not, but they are.  Mine's on top.

Sister wives become Aunties!

My dear friend Sarah finally had her darling baby boy Adam 2 weeks ago and he's absolutely precious.  We girlfriends all went to visit together and we couldn't get enough of our new little buddy, he was AMAZING!!!  Here's a few shots we took of the day:

Clearly there's going to be no lack of love for you, little guy!!!

ROW - the blueberry meringue pie edition

I got this recipe out of SELF magazine and I'd just like to point out that it says you should eat a slice after a big workout. Seriously. Hey, people. If its in print that means its true. I'm just the messenger. 

So, anyhoo, of course I had to try this sucker and holy cow it was delicious. Super easy until I got to the meringue part though. Is it me or is meringue more prissy and particular than a Kardashian? After 2 failed attempts I went online and learned that

1) meringues "hate" water and the bowl has to be perfectly dry. Well I hate paying taxes but I still have to deal, mr meringue. 

2) egg whites can't even have a drop/smidgen/trace of yolk or the whole thing will fail. No pressure or anything. And no,egg whites in cartons don't work. I tried damnit. 

3) the whites have to be at room temp for at least 30 minutes so forget being in a rush when you make this thing. Humph. 

Anyway, after that whole drama, it turned out like perfection and the house smelled like baked coconut for days. Wish my blog could be scratch 'n sniff. Seriously. 

Enjoy!!! It's da bomb!!!

Health Update - I'm almost scared to say it....

Oh my gosh you guys, I'm doing really well!  I've almost been scared to talk about it or say it out of fear it'll jinx me...hope it such a dangerous thing sometimes.  I just remember so many times when I would have a decent day followed by a crushing, awful streak of days and days of horrible dizziness that just wouldn't quit and I'd wonder when I'd be lucky enough again to have some relief.  But, not this time!!!

It started with 3 good days in a row which was UNHEARD of, followed by a really tough day at the fair - but granted...the fair is just craziness with the heat, crowds and sensory overload - definitely not good for nerve damage (or anyone, for that matter, haha!)  But, I woke up the next morning and the good streak started again!  It's now been going on 3 weeks with occasional bad moments, a few bad hours and an occasional bad day thrown in there, but NOTHING like it was.  It's so strange, it's like my physical therapy is finally working and something in my brain has just clicked.  PT is easier, I've been able to drive a bit further, and the fog has lifted sometimes.  It's still super random and unpredictable, some of the hardest times for me are still walking slowly in the neighborhood, being on the computer and trying hard to concentrate...but HEY, I'll take it!  After 14 months, I'm just so incredibly relieved.  I'm hoping that this is now a sign of the times and that the dizzy moments will get further and further apart and that I'm able to focus more.

The other amazing news is that I thought my teaching job was gone because you have to teach once a year in order to stay active, but out of the blue they emailed me and said I was able to keep my job if I could attend a meeting last weekend...and you better believe I'd have jumped through fiery hoops to get to that meeting!  My girlfriend was sweet and drove me and I felt so victorious!  It was really tough to focus and I got pretty dizzy, but even just putting on professional clothes and having professional conversations made me feel so...NORMAL and functional, it was awesome.  Score one for the home team!!!

Truly onward and upward.  And as always, thank you to EVERYONE for all of your ongoing support, encouragement, texts, emails, phone calls, visits, prayers, good thoughts, etc.  It means the world and you have gotten Rob and I through this awful year.  I pray we're nearing the end of the hardest part as I'm adjusting to the "new normal" and one that is much easier to live with.  Woot woot wooty woot woot!!!

And for the happy that always I like to end with (not that this needed it), this one takes this cake and is freakin' cute overload.  The last part made me laugh so hard, enjoy:

The fair pig out! Followed by an actual fair pig. Far out.

We missed the fair last year when my vertigo hit and even though crowds still make me really dizzy and are definitely NOT my jam, I had missed it so much we went for the 4th.  I'm so glad we did - we had such a great time together eating tons of crappy fried food and doing all the mandatory fair stuff.

We only took a few pics this year - I know, I know, I'm out of practice - but here are a few for your viewing pleasure.

On the way from the parking lot to the fair on the "upper decker" of the double decker bus, heh heh :)

And I can't help it.  I freaking love walking through the animal pens, even though it really does turn me into a pretend vegetarian for several weeks both during and after the fair.  I honestly don't eat bacon for months afterwards, who could after looking at these adorable little piglets?  I mean, catch a load of these little buddies!!!

The petting zoo part is always my fave too - I always come away wanting my own goat.  This time the goats were being bogarted by a bunch of kindergarteners, and instead of pulling a Costanza and pushing them all away

I hung out with the sheep this year instead.  Way cute, though, sorry sheep, you're not as cool as goats.  There, I've said it.  You just aren't.  You don't yell like humans or play "king of the mountain"

And of course, we stuffed our faces full of fried greasy and fatty, fatty, delicious, fatty fatterson food.  Tasted of self loathing and happiness all at the same time, strangely.

And last but not least, we had to do our annual photo booth pic - this numbers our 7th year in the fair photo booth if you can believe it!  I enjoy the "fair pass out" at the end, though strangely, we look dead.  After a long day of doing the zombie walk muttering "cotttooooonnnn caaaannnndddyyy" in the heat and the crowds, I guess it's basically the same thing.

Summer cut cuteness

We got Galileo's hair cut a few weeks ago and because it's been so hot, we asked our groomer to give him a "summer cut".  Well, girlfriend went nuts because she brought back an absolute NAKED dog and for about 10 seconds, I actually thought she brought us the wrong dog, hahaha!  She shaved him so close that you couldn't even grab any hair and you could see all of his freckly spots - it was really weird.  His tail was even gone and everything.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any pics of the nakedness - or maybe I didn't forget, I was just traumatized by our hairless cat of a dog, much like Mr. Bigglesworth.

Anyhoo, it's grown out a bit but here are a few pics of him lately:

Sunning his buns on the chaise lounge, his daily morning ritual.

And Rob caught an adorable shot of him the other day - this seriously is one of my favorites!  Rob thought it was an excellent "case of the Mondays" but I think G looks super embarrassed here.

Man, I love that guy!  So naked and cute.

Luau! (or, dang it I love our 'hood!)

Last weekend our neighborhood community association had a luau and it was amazing - all you can eat and drink awesome food and foofy frozen coctails, Hawaiian dancers and a DJ that lasted late into the night.  It was another reminder of how much we love our neighborhood and all the cool activities they have for us - plus we had so much fun with our neighbor buddies.

You know we love us a cut-out photo op.

 We love our neighbors Matt and Lindsay - this is my good girlfriend that I go on walks with every week (our "mobile therapy sessions").  It's such a horrible pic of us with the overhead lighting but at least you get the drift of who they are - she's been such a lifeline this year, she's the best!

 Erica and I show our rockin' moves...haha!

 I look like a crazy dancing zombie here, it cracks me up

 Brains.....

 Not really anything needs to be said about this.