2011 in Review…I know its kinda late.

Yes its only 15 days into the new year…so I’m not THAT behind on this post…OK yes I am. Since arriving home from Ireland life has been a bit crazy. Our first week back we had to fit another Christmas “day” in (aka Owen opening more presents from Santa, Mya & Papa and the VanSoest Family)…then Yosh left for a polo tourney near Pismo beach…THEN back to work. First week back was crazy busy…I get 2 brand new groups of students in my online health class and my regular in class health too…so I have to prep for those, get ready for swim season AND nurse my darn foot (physical therapy started last week as well as getting an MRI done to see whats the real problem with this darn foot!) Oh man. So blogging has been put on the back-burner for a while. There were things in Ireland that I was going to blog about BUT I feel like Ireland was so long ago already haha So those got scratched :/

But like last year I want to take my one favorite photo from every month and post in on here now.

January

We have started a mini tradition of going to the beach on MLK day..since we have no school and sometimes we get great weather. 2011 we had amazing weather. Addi and Owen look so little and young here…and this was the first of MANY beach trips we took this year.

 

February

I completed my first 1/2 Marathon at the Surf City event in Huntington Beach!! Mom, Nichole, Donnita & Erika participated in 2010…in honor of me! I was strong and healthy enough so it was something I was really excite to do!

 

March

At the end of March, during the first week of our spring break, we went to Big Bear Lake with the Gerke’s and Goller’s for a night. It was so fun since it had snowed a whole lot before we got there…Owen got to play in the snow, fish and have fun in a cabin with Addi! it was so peaceful (after I recovered from the car-sickness getting up there BLAH!) Only in California we can be at the beach in January and in the snow in March and then sweat our buns off at Disneyland in April.

April

For Owen’s 2nd birthday we had to chance to get signed in to Disneyland by our friends.  It was such an awesome day. He LOVED every second of it (even though here he looks scared…which is common of my child when he’s not sure about something new, which was the Pinocchio ride!!!) Disneyland is a place that Owen talks about almost everyday and I love it. He remembers when we have good times and I’m thankful for that.

May

So much happened in May…we did a Breast Cancer walk (which Owen participated in), I did Zumba at a school dance recital in memory of a student that had passed away, Yosh played in a faculty basketball game at school, mothers day, lots of in the sun, etc….but my FAVORITE picture is this. After leaving one of my routine oncology appts my “after summary report” said I was “officially” in remission. Seeing those words brought tears to my eyes…made me so happy. I stopped RIGHT then and took the picture in the middle of the hallway at Kaiser. Next month it’ll be 2 years…and I can’t wait!

 

June

5 years wedding anniversary is silverware (Google told me so!). Yosh had been complaining about how our knife set was getting old and we needed a new one…so on our anniversary I thought it was a great idea to get him exactly what he wanted! haha BUT I also brought him to Vegas for the weekend with some of our friends. I wasn’t THAT mean to just get him knifes and call it a day…especially since he got my rings “enhanced” for our 5 year.

 

July

In July we got to hang out with Yosh’s sister and family from New York. They moved there about 9 years ago…and come out to see us every year. I love when they come home b/c we get to go fun places, eat bad food and just have fun! haha. But this year was special…Owen LOVED his cousins. Oh man! I felt bad for Bailey and Peyton at times b/c they weren’t always up for playing Lego’s and cars and stuff BUT were such good sports and would play WHENEVER Owen asked! I loved watching them hang out together and bond. I pray that someday they will be as close as I am with my cousins who live in another country…distance doesn’t mean much anymore with technology!

 

August

I don’t know why I just LOVE this picture…ok yes I do know why…my child is just so gorgeous! I love capturing pictures like this of him…in his eliminate, happy, carefree, casual! No forced smiles, no awkward poses…just Owen…doin’ his thang! I love it. This was one of the many many days we spent at the beach…which he just loves. We found something that we enjoy…which was playing in the sand at the beach. The sound of the waves, breeze, smelling “the beach”…brought happiness. I wasn’t a beach person before BUT I love it now!!!

 

September

I love the color in this picture…and the event we are at is one of the coolest things I’ve taken part in!! This picture was taken during the opening ceremonies at the Light The Night event at Angels Stadium. This is a fundraising 5k walk for the Leukemia & Lymphoma, which is obviously a foundation that has become very important in my life.  It was the 2nd year we had done it and it seems to get better and better every year.  Owen and my mother are so happy here…captured a beautiful thing!

 

October

Only in California you can have such a beautiful October day at the beach! I feel that this picture was something very rare…us four girls got together as a “last time” before Erika moved up to Warden, Washington. We hadn’t spent much time together…just us four, minus kids, husbands, etc. in probably over 10 years. So it was nice…to just be together.

 

November

This is Owen and the birthday boy Ryland at his 3rd birthday party at the Railway Museum in Perris, Ca. It was a super fun little place and I thought it was adorable how Owen and Ryry took it upon themselves to hold hands while crossing the street. Watching friendships be born is pretty cool…its different now…before we forced our kids to hang out whether they liked it or not…but now they ask to see each other and I just LOVE that!

 

December

This is Braid (there is suppose to be an accent over the a but I don’t know how to do that)….there is now a solar powered cross, which replaced a regular ol’ wooden cross, at the top that was put up there by the people in the community. Its not a holy site or anything but just something that was done many many years ago (my mom’s grandmother remembers it her whole life and she was born in 1902). I guess I’ve been up there as a kid…but don’t really remember. But its always talked about “climbing up to braid” (which has a path).  But  spending a good bit of time in Ireland this year was pretty amazing. We got to hang out and really bond with family which was really nice. We had no where to go or any obligations (other than the wedding) and we kept it that way. After we left I thought to myself maybe we should have DONE something…but nah…we shouldn’t have. I spoke with my 2 year old nephew/cousin on the phone and hearing him say “I bub boo” (I Love You) it made my day…and his daddy told me that Jayden asks for one of us everyday since we have gone home…it confirmed the fact that we started a relationship with him and that’s worth it. I hope that Owen and Jayden find a bond that my cousin Alan and I have as well…distance won’t mean anything if they really love each other (and technology continues to advance!) haha and ps. this will be the view out of my parents back window when they do move and build after retirement.

 

So there…that’s my year in review. We had an amazing year…happy, healthy and growing everyday. I’m so very thankful that we have had a good year together as a family (just us 3 and our extended family as well)…you can’t ask for anything else when you have your health!!! So now we are 16 days into 2012 and I feel that it will be hopefully one of the best years of our lives…many milestones to meet and I can’t wait!! Cheers everyone!

St. Stephen’s Night

The day after X-mas in Ireland is one of the best days of the year to go out on the town!! If you work in a bar in America you know that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of the biggest nights out…that’s kinda how Stephen’s Night is in Ireland. EVERYONE comes home for Christmas…pubs are closed for the day. Then they re-open on the 26th (St. Stephen’s Day) and everyone goes MENTAL!!! It’s a good time for ALL!  Here is the meaning behind it all….found it on the internet since Mom is flying home right now and I can’t ask her the details of the holiday!

Catherine decided that would be a great day to do her wedding rehearsal…which is also much different than our rehearsals here in the states..there is no dinner after paid for by the grooms parents or anything…its literally meet at the church…do what you gotta do…end of story.

But the maddness didn’t disappoint this year. Nana and Granda watched Owen and man it was a crazy night in Foxford. Started off quiet at an “old peoples pub”..haha j.k Had a drink and listened to a few men play some Irish music in the corner…it was nice! I later found out those music people were my dad’s cousins…haha Small towns are just so different than what I’m used to.

 

 

From there we went to Cruisers…and man o’ man it was WEDGED. LOTS of people in a pub…VERY little room to walk, no where to sit, no air conditioning and its like 95 degrees inside…LOUD music..its nuts but OH SO FUN! haha

It was tons of drinking, dancing, chatting and just typical Irish fun! haha

And yes my cousin and I will dance in the middle of a TOTALLY crowded floor…we got we got the moves…low impact for my darn foot…but still able to move! lol

 

 

And I want you to look around at the people in this photo…can you see the sweat dripping off them by the buckets…that’s how HOT it was and how mental people go!!!

 

 

 

This year was my 3rd Stephens night in Ireland…first time was in 1999…spent the night in Maloney’s…here is the page in my scrapbook that I did from my senior year in high school…God knows I don’t have digitals of old pics

 

(Tara Deacy: I told you I have a picture of you up on a table dancing from YEARS ago…some things don’t change…you were up again this year! haha)

 

 

 

My second Stephens night was in 2007…the year we came home for my cousin Alan’s wedding…and that was also a night unlike any other.  Here are some pics of the pics from that trip (I LOST all the digital copies of my pictures from 2007 due to a crappy hard drive!)

Same craziness…with a lot of the same people!

I thought this was funny…..

    2007                                           2011

      
Thanks Anthony Deacy for all the shots of Baby Guinness, past, present and hopefully our future!!!

So in a nutshell St. Stephen’s night in Ireland is like how most American’s think the Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s day BUT I will say I have never been in Ireland for St. Paddy’s day…maybe some year we’ll have to do that…just to make sure its not a better night out than Stephen’s night. haha 

Home Sweet Home!

We are home sweet home…and man it feels good. Everyone loves to go on vacation but you know at the tail end of all the excitement the dreaded trip home starts to hamper the fun. So of course a few days left in Ireland and I was ready to just BE home…such anxiety worrying about the long journey we had ahead of us.

We left Foxford on Jan. 2nd…after the good-byes (which are HORRIBLE every year), even with wonders of technology I cry and cry leaving my family! This year made me sad thinking about how my grandmother is getting older and her health isn’t getting any better. She’s one hell of a tough cookie BUT you know you can’t stop age.

I saw this cool picture on pinterest of the generations of a family…this is our 4 generations…Nanny Molloy, Nana, Mama and Owen…I love it. We are kinda hiding Nanny’s hands..this was taken as we were walking out the door saying goodbye…in the small kitchen in Irishtown full of people…so I had to get the pic and fast! And this rainbow showed itself as we were literally walking out the door to our car to drive away…ironic?

But we drove the 3 hours from County Mayo to Dublin…the sun was shining most of the time and we got to take in just HOW beautiful the country is. When we go to Ireland people always ask me what we did…or what we saw…and I always have the answer of nothing. haha We don’t really go site-seeing when we are there. Usually its for 2 reasons a) we have an “event” we are there for that takes lots of time or b) I don’t like taking time away from family. BUT someday we will travel that country and see what it truly has to offer.

But…everything about this journey home wasn’t so pleasant…I’ll explain.

We had to get up at 3am to get ready to drive to the airport…I should have known our day was going to be horrible when I missed the turn off to get us to Dublin airport..we ended up having a scenic tour of some ghetto Dublin town at 4am. We finally figure out how to get back on track…and were in search of the car rental drop off area. Dublin airport has recently built an AWESOME new terminal so we weren’t sure where to leave the car back. In typical Irish fashion the Hertz car rental desk was closed until 5am (which was the time we were suppose to be checking in)…so we waited….and waited…and the a-hole of the worker strolled in 10 minutes late to work. Grrr
So we check in with AerLingus…knew we were headed to Frankfurt Germany then switching to U.S. Airways for our flight to LA (or so we thought), when they told us tat the desk that we could check our bags straight through to LA AND we could check the car-seat for no additional fee we were stoked. So from here I’ll just highlight the “exciting parts” (fyi I cried)

• Flight left Dublin 30 mins late due to high winds.
• Get to Germany…hurded into an airport with no direction…having NO clue what terminal, gate or direction to go. (Frankfurt airport is HUGE…we had to take a tram to another terminal) We were looking for our Los Angeles flight…wasn’t there…that’s because we were heading to Philadelphia!!!! And No one told us this.
• Found out we had to collect our bags in Philly to go through customs. (Grrr would have been nice if the lady in Dublin would have told us this)
• (FYI: German nationals scared me…I didn’t like being in a country that didn’t speak great English.) We finally find our terminal that has NO food and NO bathrooms…where does that. We are stuck and unable to leave the terminal since we didn’t have much of a layover due to leaving Ireland late. Owen is starving at this point…but I had snacks for him.
• From Germany to Philly Owen is an ANGEL (best lil traveler around!). He watched TV/movies..ate 1/2 a chicken breast but I didn’t stress since I KNEW they’d have McDonalds in Philly.
• Landed in Philly…and waited over an hour to get through customs…5 flights landed at the same time and only 3 customs officers working…seriously??? Clock is ticking for our connection to LA!
• Waited at Baggage claim…missing 2 suitcases…worst nightmare!!!
• Go through HELL, I mean security again for the 3rd time today, with a hungry TIRED child is NOT fun!!!!
• We RUN (yes Yosh even ran…and we didn’t get to stop for food!!) to our gate…since our plane is about to leave us…to realize that the German U.S. Airways worker booked our seats…3 different seats no where near eachother. At this point Owen is having a total MELTDOWN! He was hungry, wanted a bottle and was exhausted.
• Get on board…ask for some milk for Owen’s bottle to be told they don’t carry milk (5 hours from Philly to LA…and NO milk?!?) So Owen is upset…I’m upset. Yosh is sitting away from us…I felt so sad for him. I cried there in my seat b/c I was feeling like the worlds worst mother..not feeding my child when he was hungry. But he fell asleep on take off and slept the whole flight home. Poor lil dude.

Get to LAX still missing the 2 bags…and now 2 days later we are still missing the 2 bags. What an adventure coming home. I don’t recommend it to ANYONE, especially when traveling with a toddler! I’m still hoping we get our bags…maybe tomorrow?!? But I had to get this off my chest…I’ll have to get back and write about some more of the FUN things that went on while in Ireland!!!

And Happy New Year Everyone!!