Fever Update, Twilight, Alone, Preschool

I wanted to write and let you know of the fever updates. Courtney's fever remained at 103 the next day and got up to 104.5 again. But then headed down. So, thankfully she is done with it. She was negative for strep, but they sent it to be cultured anyway. She thought it was a virus, but her tonsils were covered in white patches. Eww! So, she was put on antibiotics just incase it was something more making her fever go up so high. But, I'm sure some of you guessed it, Skyler got it too. Thankfully her fever only got to the 103s and is on it's way down too. What an exhausting week. Especially since I got sick right after Court and before Sky. Not fun.

Since I wasn't feeling so well anyway, I was pretty much on the couch at night after the kids were in bed, which was a great excuse to get some reading in. I started the 2nd book in the Twilight Series, "New Moon". I started it on Tuesday night and finished it Wednesday night. I never knew I had it in me to read a book in that quick of a time. This one wasn't as great as the first. Mainly because of a serious plot departure...however I knew things would get better so I kept reading. It was always a good read, but it was a little depressing. Very good ending though. So, this morning I was feeling much better as was most of us. So, I decided to do some cleaning since we seriously needed it after 3 sickies.

Tonight we are just 3. We took Scott to the airport tonight to meet his friend, Eric there. They are flying to Boston tonight on the red eye. Not exactly the best flight plan in my mind, but whatever. I guess that's what they get for waiting so long. :) So, I'm just feeling like this is a business trip. A little bit longer but still. We really don't even have much planned besides hanging out. It will be nice though to just be able to do whatever. I have to remind myself that this was my idea. Since I had a girls vacation, I figured Scott should have a guys trip. Scott and Eric are meeting their friend Micah over in Boston. Baseball, macho men hangout, seriously bad jokes...etc I'm sure many stories will be told. I can't wait to hear all about it.

Tomorrow Courtney has "Meet Your Teacher Day" at preschool (Whittier Christian Preschool). Her new teacher is Ms. Hare. Thankfully she already pretty much knows her from school last year and it's just right next door from her class last year with Mrs. Zulueta. Her cousin Joshua will be in her class again, so she is very excited about that. We are excited too. And glad that at least one of her buds will be in her class this year. We find out who is in her class tomorrow too. Hopefully her friend Charis will be in the same room. Those 2 were so close.

Wow, that was a lot all wrapped into one blog.

105....Yikes!

That's how high Courtney's fever was last night. That was seriously scary. Their fevers have done this before, but still, I never get used to them being so high. So, of course I rushed her into the bathroom to quickly cool her off with a cold rag. If that didn't work fast I was going to put her in the bathtub. I didn't want her fever going down too quickly and putting her in shock or whatever happens. Thankfully the meds and lots of cold rags made her temp go down. I nervously sent her back to bed with just a sheet. Then I had Scott set an alarm for 4 hours from when I gave her meds, because I was sure she would be really hot by then. Thankfully she wasn't too hot the next time we checked her. However, everytime I recheck her temp before giving her more meds or if she seems really hot, it's back up to 103. So, we've been on the every 4 hours of Tylenol or Motrin (switching off). She has a doctor appointment this afternoon at 2:50p to check her out. She was complaining of her throat hurting so I'm assuming that is the culprit. Poor kid. Hopefully she doesn't give it to Skyler. They always get way more sick than we do.
On a side note, it's so funny how they react to things. Courtney has been begging me to go see her best friend, Kate. She kept asking me to call Tara. Seriously, she said Tara. (That's Kate's mom.) So, we were scheduling a get together this week and then she got sick. So, Courtney has been trying to convince me yesterday that she wasn't sick and that she was feeling much better. At some point I told her that she couldn't go see Kate if she was sick because she would get her sick. She actually listened because she started telling me the same thing back to me when she wasn't feeling good. She would say, "I'm still a little sick, so I can't go see Kate, because I will get her sick." I was like, that's right. It's so funny. She really wants to see her, but doesn't want to get her sick. I have a feeling she won't see her until church on Sunday or next week when we get together.
Oh, I hate it when they're sick.

Twilight

So, I started reading the Twilight Series of books. Let me just say they are awesome. How I came to find out about it was weird. If you are on facebook, you know that they have lots of applications on there. One of my favorite ones is "Pieces of Flair". It's a "Office Space" reference to the little buttons that they made her wear for work. Anyway, you can send these to your friends. I kept noticing lots of pieces of flair that were about Twilight. Being the dork that I am, I looked it up to find out who this Edward was and what Twilight was all about. It peeked my curiosity. So I decided that the next time I was at Target I would look for it. Well, that didn't take long. lol (I love Target.) I started reading it last Saturday. I finished reading the first book yesterday (all 498 pages). I got the next books last night and started the next one "New Moon". I'm already 150 pages into that one. It's nuts but I am so into this story. I highly recommend it. It's so fun that a few of my friends are reading it at pretty much the same time/pace. Shout out to those girls (Shauna, Diane, & Windy). It really is a fast read too. The author is Stephenie Meyer. I know what some of you are thinking, but no, it's not the Stephanie Meyer from La Serna. Darn. That would have been even better.

Cruise Pictures

Just for fun on the deck.

All of us on formal night at dinner.

The last night of our cruise.

Shauna and Bryan at dinner

Us on the formal night of the cruise

Cruise...part 2

So, after formal night we ended up going in the jacuzzi again. It was such a nice place to relax. Tuesday night we ended up watching a show on the cruise too. It was a singing/dancing show.

Wednesday we anchored at Catalina. We had to take a small ferry "tender" boat to the island from the boat to the port. Shauna ended up feeling sick on that little boat while we waited for the boat to fill up with more passengers. We got to the island and went shopping of course. Then we had lunch and went to find out where we go for our excursions. Scott and I ended up looking at a couple more shops while waiting for ours to start. We got an earlier excursion than we got assigned to also, which was nice. Then we got to go on our "Avalon Scenic Tour". Bryan and Shauna did the "Kayak Expidition". We went on this little rickety tour bus that was jammed full of people. We got to see some of the burn areas that got really close to the school and fire department. It was a little scary on some of the roads. This lady was going crazy on these roads. The coolest part was these kids who had a lemonade stand infront of their house. SMART KIDS. They knew the bus driver and gave her a free one. They sold a bunch too. Keep her coming back. We got to see our ship from pretty high up and got some awesome pictures of it too. After the tour we just looked at a few shops and walked along the docking area and went back in line for our ferry. Shauna and Bryan ended up getting back from their excursion on the same ferry. What odds?! The ride back was fun and I'm so glad she didn't get sick this time. We got to "touch the butt." LOL (That's a Nemo reference.) We were on the deck of the ferry and touching the cruise ship. It was so close. We had fun after dinner taking lots of pictures. The wind was crazy near the ledge of the boat. We were so tired while we were playing cards this night. They ended up wanting to go back to their room for a "nap". We were trying to stay awake for the "Chocolate Buffet". Somehow we missed this on our previous cruise and didn't even realize there was one. So we had to go to this one. However, they told us not to wake them up if we were leaving at 11:30 for it. So, they ended up falling asleep and missing it. Ahh...the chocolatey goodness. It was seriously huge. I was picturing a few tables with some choices of chocolate. They had the entire centrum covered with tables of goodies. There were even sculpted animals made of chocolate and ice sculptures too. Then as you decend to other levels of the centrum (middle of the ship) then there is more and more chocolate. It was insane. Then down one other level and it wraped all around the bottom of that level and around the elevators. We got a seat in the Vincent's dinning room to gorge ourselves. At least everyone else was doing the same thing. We got to see our old waiter, Cornelio there too. So, we ended up having Cornelio and Pepito (our waiter for this cruise) both with us in there. It was fun. They are crack ups too. Scott and I were laughing sooooo hard coming up with all of these things we could say to Shauna and Bryan about missing the chocolate buffet. We were cracking up. We even took pictures of our plates and everything. We were having so much fun. The eyes were definitely bigger than the stomach, however. I couldn't even come close to eating half my plate. And then the realization that it was so late took over and I needed to sleep.

Thursday was our last day at a new port. We arrived at Ensenada, Mexico early in the morning. This was Scott and Bryan's first time to Mexico. We took a shuttle over to the main shopping street to look around and shop. Picture street vendors all over the street. Literally about every 5 feet if you're lucky, there is someone willing to sell you anything they have. Your name on rice in a necklace, your name on a bracelet, purses, jewelery, wooden instruments, and many many more. You get used to saying no pretty quickly. Just watch out if you show any genuine interest in anything they have. You're bound to get an offer for how much it costs. Then the barterring begins. We found some super cute stuff for the girls. Several things we had bought there last February had already broken. But, oh well, we're helping the locals, right. Besides the fact that there is probably lead in the paint. But, that's another issue altogether. We had fun shopping and got back safely to our ship. We had fun taking pictures infront of the ship this day too.

Later after lunch we ended up going to the pool and lounging around there. Scott decided to join in a bean bag toss competition. It was fun watching him do that. After the sunning I was getting really hot and felt like I was getting burnt so we went back to our room to rest a little bit. I also got dressed because I knew what was coming next. The rock wall. Ahhh...the nerves were incredible. I didn't realize how scared I was until I was actually all suited up and in line. Bryan got to go first. They pulled him out of line to go in the middle lane (the hardest lane). I don't think the guy realized it was his first time doing this too. Then a little later it was my turn. I did ok going up a bit, then I was just getting so scared. It felt like I was going to fall off. If I had gone up another bit it felt like I was going to fall backward. I had to stop. I was so done. I was over it. I tried it and it scared the living daylights out of me and that's one for the books. I fulfilled my promise and learned my lesson in promising that kind of thing ever again. LOL My heart is going a little fast after just writing this. Shauna rock climbed too and got to go on a harder climb too than the one I was on. She did really well. Scott and Bryan decided to join a free throw competition one level down right after that too, so we went down there. We later went to dinner and took lots of pics at night too.

Friday we got back to the port of Los Angeles. It was such a great cruise/vacation. It was so much fun. We had an absolute blast. We couldn't wait to see the kids though. We were so excited to see them and they were to see us too.

Our Cruise part 1

Our cruise was so wonderful. Ahh...I can't wait to do it again.

It was so hard to say goodbye to the kids when we were leaving. We got to the boat early so we weren't waiting in lines and so we could get our full day out of it. It was nice to start by having lunch in the Windjammer Cafe. Then we just took a bit of time exploring the ship and checking it all out. It was great that Shauna and I had been on the same ship before. So we knew pretty much where everything was. It was fun showing the guys everything. Then we had dinner in "Claude's Dinning Room". We got to meet our new waiter staff. They were great. After dinner we decided to go to the jacuzzi and then to the spa for couples massages. This was Scott's first massage. It was sooo worth it.

The next day was our first port in San Diego. I know what you're thinking. We take a boat to get from LA to San Diego. LOL Yup! That's right. It was fun though. We already know the area well so we just took a shuttle that dropped us off at Hilo Hatties. We found some fun stuff there and then walked to the mall. We decided to shop some, have a light lunch and then go to the movies. We saw "Iron Man". It was pretty good. We knew we weren't going to make it back for the last shuttle back, so we just walked back to the boat. After all of that we decided to get dressed and go to the gym. Good thing Shauna and Bryan were there for motivation, because I don't think I would have gone straight to the gym after just walking all over San Diego. lol It was fun. When we had looked at the gym on our previous cruise we never went in, just peeked in. But this time we went in and didn't realize it wrapped around the corner and was pretty big. We had a wonderful view of the water as we worked out, however the sun was beating down on us with those windows. We then got ready for our formal night for dinner. We took some pictures on our way to dinner. It was fun to see everyone all dressed up. Well, mostly everyone. I think some people didn't understand the meaning of a formal dinner.

ok...more later...i'm going to be late to Shauna's stampin up party.

Pictures

I thought I would post a few recent pictures for your viewing pleasure. :) These were from the park last Thursday.

A new blog

So, I started blogging on myspace and realized that not everyone has myspace. So, perhaps a real blog would be better. Come on. Everyone's doing it. lol I'm not really sure what will become of this or where it will go, but we have a beginning at least. I think it will be nice to have one central spot to gather my thoughts too.

I thought I would start off with some things going on in our life right now. First of all we are going on a cruise next week! WOHO! I'm so excited. We are going with my cousin, Bryan and his wife Shauna. We are all really good friends too so I just know we will have a blast. Shauna and I actually already cruised this year together. lol We went on a scrapbooking cruise with my mom and my aunt. It was so much fun. We are cruising this time on the exact same boat. But this time we are doing a different cruise. To Catalina, San Diego, and Ensenada. This will be Scott's first cruise. He's getting very excited too. I'm sure many pictures will follow. I know already that Shauna and I will be doing a rock wall on the boat. Because she is MAKING ME. haha She wanted to do it on our first cruise but we didn't want to. So, she made me promise her that I would do it with her next time. Little did I know that it would be the same year. AHH! I'm a little nervous about it. Can you tell?

Another big thing going on of course is the lives of our children. They are the cutest little bundles of joy. They really bring so much joy to my life. They both just got asked to join the intermediate gymnastics class. So, they just started that this week. It was great to see them learning new things and taking skills they had already learned to the next level. Courtney did a cartwheel with the help of her instructor. Skyler has arm strength well beyond her years. It's amazing how strong she is.

Courtney just got signed by L.A. Models / LA Talent. It's so exciting. When she first started her class at ICA, the owner told us that she just might be L.A. Models material. I wasn't quite sure what that meant at the time, but I guess it's because they are a well sought after agency. When we went in to bring in the contract for Courtney the assistant asked us if we were signing up both of them. We both were like, um, no, just her (pointing to Courtney). She kept watching Skyler saying how beautiful they both were. She kept saying we need to send in pictures of Skyler too. We definitely weren't thinking that would happen when we went in there. We were just on our way to go camping so we had the whole family with us. Just the other day, our friend, Kat took some pictures of Skyler and Courtney. She wanted to have some practice with her camera and it was a great opportunity to get some good shots of Skyler. And they both half cooperated. Courtney kept wanting to make sure Hannah Montana was showing on her shirt in the pictures. LOL That's so Courtney. She also really likes High School Musical too. Especially Sharpay. She tells us she knows she's acting and that she isn't being nice in the movie. But that "Ashley" as she sometimes calls her, is a good singer. I think she likes all of the sparkles she wears...and of course, the blonde hair. Because then they both have the same hair. lol

Something else that's huge going on with my life is PartyLite. I just got back a couple weeks ago from St. Louis from PL's National Conference. It was awesome. I always learn so much and get so fired up. There really is so much going on for hostesses and anyone starting up their own PartyLite business. Anyone can feel free to go to my website to look at the catalogs and email me an order. Pretty soon PartyLite will be starting online ordering. So, I'm anxiously awaiting that. That would be a HUGE change for them. It will always be a party based business though, so if you would like to earn free candles, let me know.

I'm also on facebook. Oh those crazy Garnets who got me into that. I swear I signed up just so I could play this game with them. It's addictive. Let's just leave it at that.

This has been fun. Very theraputical. lol