Where Have I Been????

I can't believe that I went from M.I.A. to falling off the face of the planet!! So many things have happened since my last post that I don't even know where to start. For one, our family van totally broke down and is out of commission. We have not had it for about two months so we have been relying on other people to get all over the place. Ugh!! But tomorrow we are getting our replacement vehicle so I can hardly wait!!

My son finally started school. It seems like it took forever for the first day of school to come, but I was so excited when it finally got here.

I guess it hasn't been too big of a deal that I haven't been blogging recently because I haven't really been making any great meals throughout this summer. It has just been way too HOT!! Every Saturday we have a barbecue and cook lots of extras so we can have leftovers for a few days. Then everything else we eat is frozen foods or sandwiches. Pretty lame, huh?

I do have more news that I will be looking forward to sharing but that will have to wait until my next post!! Right now I am going to try to get caught up on what's been going on with all of you!!

Happy Monday!!

M.I.A.!!!

Wow!! I can't believe that it has been over two weeks that I have been Missing In Action (MIA)!!! It seems like it went by so fast! The last time I wrote I talked about my son leaving for camp. Well, he came back so fast. It was amazing how tired I felt while he was gone. I thought that I would do so much while he was gone but as soon as I had the time, I just felt exhausted. I guess I didn't realize how tired I was until I actually had a moment to rest. And before I knew it, I was already picking my son up from camp. That week flew by in the blink of an eye. I did manage to get some time in to do stuff that I don't always get to do. On that Monday night, I went out to dinner and a movie with my wonderful friend, Beth. We went to Rubio's and chatted it up, grabbed a Mocha Frappucino from Starbuck's, and then headed off to the movies. We went to see The Proposal which was REALLY funny. Also, during the week that my son was at camp, my husband and I managed to find some to go eat at Pick up Stix and get some Frozen Yogurt at TCBY and were just able to relax... a little. Before we knew it, Tyler was back and we had to get back in the groove of things. Don't get me wrong... I absolutely love my son, but it was really nice to have a break.

I would love to recap you on all that has been going on since I last wrote but in all honesty it seems like such a blur. There have been barbecues, fireworks, swimming, meetings with social workers (blah!!), work, and so many other random things (some fun and some not). So, at this point I am hoping that I can do some major catching up on all of your blogs and perhaps gets some regular posts started up again. I will have to post some random pics up in one of my next blogs so that you can get a little dose of what I've been up to but as of right now, I want to catch up on what you have all been up to. And hopefully, you all haven't given up on reading my blog! :-)

Camp and A Wonderful Treat

So, yesterday morning I dropped my son off to go tocamp. He was so excited! He has never been to camp before and he has never stayed overnight anywhere without us since he has moved in with us (about a year ago). As soon as I woke him up, he bounced out of bed with a huge smile (which has never happened before) so you know he was excited. Here's a pic of him with his sleeping bag as we were loading up the van. He could not stop smiling and saying "thank you for letting me to go camp."

Once at the meeting location, it did not take him long to make a friend. In front of us in line was a boy that Tyler instantly bonded with. They were like two peas in a pod. And they were instantly asking the camp staff in they could be in the same cabin together. And when they got on the bus they just had to sit together. Here are the buddies together on the bus.
We were pretty excited about camp, too, because we needed a break. Tyler is a great kid but he really can wear on a person. He's much better than he was but in the beginning he had us crying out to God daily. It's amazing to see his transformation (and ours). I definitely miss Tyler but it is nice to be able to relax. :-)

A Wonderful Treat

So, when I went to go check my mail today, I was delighted to see that I had a nice package. Recently I entered a give away for some Trader Joe's goodies over at Faith In Food. And to my surprise, I actually won. I was wondering when I would receive the package and today was my lucky day. I was so excited! Here's all the goods:

In the package was:
- Perk Up Your Trek Mix
- Gluten Free Granola
- Sun Butter
- Thai Style Lime Pilaf
- Island Soyaki
- Pasta
- Dried Fruit Bars
- A handy-dandy Trader Joe's tote bag
- And a really sweet note that made my day!!!

So, I'm going to get going on a high note. I gotta get some rest. Have a wonderful night everyone!

Weekend Wrap-up... Finally :-)

I hope that everyone's weekend was absolutely wonderful! As I was glancing over everyone's blogs, it looks there were some good times being had. I will definitely have to really sit down and catch up on what's been going on with everyone. My weekend was pretty jam-packed. I will have to figure out how to get some rest from my weekend. But hopefully that won't be too much of a problem since my son will be at camp all this week until Friday afternoon. So, on with my weekend wrap-up! (finally)

FAMILY FUN FRIDAY

This week we actually decided to do Family Fun Friday outside of the home. Usually we rent a movie and order a Little Caesar's Pizza but this week we decided to splurge a little bit. We decided to go get a Costco Pizza (which I absolutely love) and then go to the drive-in. i really love the drive in because it is WAY cheaper than going to the movie theater and you get to see movies. So, we went and saw UP and NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2. All three of us enjoyed both movies. I personally enjoyed UP the most. It was absolutely great!!

After the movies were over, we headed home pretty late. We were pretty tired afterwards. And I was definitely ready to go to sleep.

SATURDAY WEDDING

After we slept in a little bit we got ready to head out to a wedding in San Diego of some very dear friends of ours, Jon and Emily. It was such a beautiful wedding and they absolutely deserve it!! These are two down-to-earth, God-serving, generous people. They had the most God-centered wedding/reception that I have ever been to and that was AWESOME!! I love these two dearly. In addition, they have also stepped up and said that if anything were to ever happen to us, that they would take care of our son. That is amazing!! They had their wedding on the Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. It was perfect weather and a perfect view! Here are the some pics of the wedding. I didn't get too many cause we didn't get a good seat up front (since we were trying to save some seats for some friends that were late). But here's what I did get.

The view is beautiful!

The handsome groom - Jonathan
The absolutely beautiful bride - Emily (with her father)
Husband and Wife - Mr. & Mrs. Jon & Emily Shum!!!!

We also took advantage of the fact that we were all dressed up and on the beautiful Sunset Cliffs. So, we got some nice family pics.

The Fam :-)

Me and the Hubby

Father and Son - Two Good-Lookin' Fellows if I do say so myself! :-)

After the wedding, we headed over to the reception at a Chinese Restaurant. I think it was called the Emerald Kitchen (but don't quote me on that). But they had a great amount of food. I didn't pictures of everything as my camera batteries were starting to die.:-( Here's what we had to feast on.

Here's the menu. Basically, it was like a round robin. Everything on the menu was brought to your table at different times and you got to try everything. It was pretty cool.The Shrimp which I think was my favorite
The Vegetarian Dish (which I surprisingly liked more than some of the other stuff)

The duck
The head of the chicken was on the plate!! Crazy! And Tyler's reaction to seeing it! :-)

Almost everything else. As we got closer to the end, we were pretty full. But in this pic is we have fried rice on the top, in the back is the flounder and the vegatarian dish. Up front is the chickena and the lobster toward the front right.

And finally here's a pic of our family with the newly joined family. We love them!!Congratulations Jon & Emily!!

SUNDAY SABBATH

On Sunday morning we woke up really late since we didn't get home until probably one in the morning. So, because of that we went to the 11:00 am service at church (which we were late to). After church we all went home and crashed. We were all so tired that we pretty much slept through the afternoon. When we got up, we started packing Tyler up some stuff for camp. He was getting so excited. After we got his stuff packed, we headed over to my parents's house to eat dinner. My parents ordered Kentucky Fried Chicken (no pics, sorry... but it's just KFC). IT was great cause my bros were there, too, who I don't really get to see too often. It was great catching up with them and relaxing. A great way to end the weekend!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Mine was great but exhausting!! I still have to update on yesterday, too. Will do that this evening. Have a great day everyone!!

Last Day Of School + Pool Play Date + Hubby's Birthday

** NOTE: Hello wonderful bloggers! This week has been so exhausting for me. I can't even believe it. I do want to apologize. I actually typed up this post yesterday but didn't have time to download the pictures. So, today (6/28) I am uploading the pictures but I'm not changing any of the text. So, some of the things that says that I am going to do may have already been done. But I will write a weekend wrap up either tonight or tomorrow as well. Sorry for the bad blogging. I am amazing by those of you who do it everyday and especially those who do it twice a day!**

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Wednesday was my son't last day of school. In honor of it, I made some marble cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The kids devoured them.When I went to pick up Tyler (showed up a little early) they were watching The Sandlot. I wish I would have showed up even earlier cause I love that movie! I even remembered to bring my camera. I asked Tyler if he wanted to take any pictures with his teacher or staff members and he said yes (while almost crying). This was such a big year for him and he got his best report kid ever since he started school. And he didn't get suspended once this WHOLE year!!! (He used to get suspended at least once every other week before he moved in with us.) Tyler was kind of sad that he may not see his teacher anymore. He's going to have a different teacher and a different school next year. Here's a pic of him and his teacher.
And then we were walking to the van, Tyler was almost crying. But that didn't last long because of what was planned for after school...

SWIMMING!!

After school I had planned a swimming play date with one of the girls from our soccer team. So, right after school, I took Tyler over there and they went swimming and had some hot dogs, chips, strawberries, and some ice cream. No pics of any of the food. Don't really know why I didn't take any. But did get some pics of the kids playing. One of the girls was on Tyler's soccer team and our families totally bonded. It's great because Tyler actually has a real friend - and it's one that he can see during the summer.That was a pretty tiring day. I was out in the sun for a long time and didn't think to drink any water. BIG mistake. When I got home I knew I was dehydrated. I was extremely tired. But it was worth it. The kids had a great time!

HUBBY'S BIRTHDAY

Thursday was hubby's birthday. We had a BBQ (just hot dogs and hamburgers) which was a lot of fun. Taylor really enjoyed fellowshipping with everyone. Tyler made him a pretty cool birthday card. And then Tyler made a gift together. For some reason I had not picture of the spread (sorry). But we had plenty of fruit, chips, cheez-its, jelly bellies, and the hot dogs and hamburgers. The jelly bellies were the first things to disappear. Here are the other pics of the party.

Taylor's Birthday cake. Stater Bros (grocery store) marble cake with chocolate frosting. It was SO good!!
Everyone chatting it up. Friends and Family!
Some good hockey games... Grandma v. Grandson
Me and the hubby at the end of the party. As you can see, he came straight from work. :-)

So, that catches you up for most ot the days. Yesterday we did Family Fun Friday but I will have to write about that later when I wrap up the weekend because I don't want to make the post too long.

But here are the plans for the rest of the weekend:

- Cut boys' hair
- Buy a wedding gift
- Leave to San Diego by 12:30 (1:00 at the absolute latest!!!) today
- Wedding in San Diego tonight
- Church tomorrow morning
- Hopefully somewhere in there is rest
- Get Tyler packed for camp
- Blog
- Clean

So, I am off to get started! I hope you are all having a great weekend!

Beginning Yoga

So, a quick little post... Last week I tried yoga download. I've seen so many people in the blog world talking about so I thought that would be the perfect way for me to start out in some yoga. Well, it's certainly a stretch for me. But this week I have already done yoga three times! One time my son, Tyler, even joined me in some yoga. He's 9 years old. He told me that since it was the end of the school year, his teacher was doing a lot of random things and yoga was one of them. So, he was really excited to join me. Here's a picture of me and my boy doing the Tree. HE's pretty good! He got his leg up way higher than me. :-)
Just wanted to share that really quick before I went to bed. I could probably get in to yoga and that could be something else that my son and I do together.

Have a great night!

MISSIONARIES

I promised to write a post about missionaries almost a week ago and now it is finally here. One reader asked me this question:

"how do missionaries survive financially? where do they live? i am curious about the logistics! i always want to simplify my life and live with less and just clean out everything. i just don't know where to start!"

So, now I am finally answering her question. Sorry it took so long! I will answer in three parts to the best of my ability. I have never been labeled a missionary but so many of my friends have been but in all actuality a Christian should be a missionary where ever they are. So, here it goes:

1. How do missionaries survive financially? Well, there are so many ways that missionaries survive. The most common is financial support. They either get financially supported through an organization or they are supported by their church family or they are supported by Christiaan brothers and sisters that feel God leading them to give money. Some missionaries find work in the country that they live in and financially survive that way. Also, as a missionary in another country, it is usually easier to spend less money, because most places where you would go as a missionary, the people all around you have a lot less.

2. Where do they live? Missionaries live everywhere. There are missionaries in almost every country in the world. If it is short-term, many missionaries either stay in a hotel or with another missionary that has a long-term home there. If you go through an organization, usually they set up housing for you so that makes it a little easier. If you go on your own, then you have to find a place.

3. Simplify your life - Where to start? There are so many places to start but usually the easiest is with clothes. Most people in America have WAY more clothes than they need (including myself). I usually where the same clothes over and over. And then there's that sectionof clothes that I only wear once in and a while. Well, those clothes could easily be donated or given away. What we have done in our home, is put extra clothes in the back of our mini-van and we give them to homeless people that may need some. (FYI: Not all homeless people need that. Some have quite a stash of stuff). After that, it is usually a personal preference. We definitely could get rid of a lot more stuff. There are a lot of movies that we don't watch all the time that we could easily sell. We are also trying to budget our food. We have really been taking advantage of the 99 cent only store out here. You definitely can't get everything there, but it helps. But I would definitely start with the clothes. From there, it's up to you on how much and fast you simplify everything else.

So, I hope that was helpful. I know, just writing it made me think that I should continue to simplify my life and our home.

So, it's about time for me to head off to work but before I do...

I wanted to let you all know about a couple more GIVE AWAYS that are going on in the blog world!

Bobbi at N Her Shoes is giving away the Amazing Grass Best of Both Combo. Check it out!
Heather at Hangry Pants is giving away Musselman's Healthy Picks Apple Sauce. Check it out!

Have a great day everyone!