Crab Anyone?

The Buffet Club checked out Ray's Crab Shack...

We've always passed by this restaurant but wasn't too enthusiastic due to the norm of no utensils nor plates. Slightly too messy for an OCDish person like me but since the Buffet Club wanted to check it out we complied. Obedient members we are..

Bibs were a must!

Our Buffet club President, Vice-President and mini members.

 The menu was seafood; appetizers came in baskets and main courses came in baggies!

fried calamari

garlic fries

1 lb of cajun garlic butter non-spicy

We ate a total of two pounds of shrimp: one lb was not enough of the cajun garlic butter non-spicy we had to order a second one because it was delish!

Dungeness crab with cajun garlic butter mild; quite pricey

Fingers were the utensils and the plates were the tables.

Hannah and Faith.. the plastic gloves came in really handy!

The damage after we left!

The cajun garlic butter sauce was incredible! So so garlicy I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth after two brushings.

Originally we rated Ray's Crab Shack 4 Bibles for the food but due to it's priceyness... we eventually gave it 3.5 Bibles.

Poca-Oakley

The Great American report and presentations are the final project ending third grade!

Three years ago, Emily was Annie Oakley. My mom made her costume. She just sewed her a vest and matching skirt.

Hannah wanted to be Pocahontas. She wanted to buy the costume. It was $30.00 and that didn't include the headband and jewelry.

I was not going to get her a $30+ costume to wear for just 2 minutes (the length of her presentation).

After much negotiating (she is pretty determined young lady) I 'convinced' her to wear her big sister's costume and we purchased a headband, necklace and white cami for her to decorate and glue feathers on it.

So Annie Oakley was transformed into Pocahontas!

So this was the end result. What do you think?

Presentation time... I also didn't have any brown boots nor moccasins for her to wear and convinced her that Native Americans were probably barefoot anyway!

Two more Pocahontas': Alice (who actually did get to purchase a costume and black wig, I might add) and Sabrina.

Her 3rd grade class: they had 4 Abraham Lincolns (two whom were girls!).

iFly? uCrazy!

Flying was never on my bucket list of things to do in my life. I can't even float in water without having to hang onto the side of a pool so flying in air without anything to hold onto was not my idea of fun. Plus I am deathly afraid of heights!

But it was for my friend, Grace, who invited us to join her family to do a little bit of 'pseudo' sky diving without the airplane and sky part.

Owen, Matthew, Faith and Grace

iFly "is a 12ft diameter vertical wind tunnel capable of wind speeds over 180 mph. Four 250 horsepower fans mounted above the flight chamber create a recirculating wall to wall airflow that is smooth and consistent making it an ideal environment for body flight. IFly's unique design has a proven track record of being safe and reliable."

Matthew 'flying'

Reliable or not I was so not going to try it.. but Grace, her husband, Owen and her daredevil daughter Faith all jumped at the challenge!

Grace flying sky high!

Owen diving in!

Faith is fearless... she gets that from both her parents!

You can check out their flying skills:

Matthew's:

Grace's:

Owen's:

Faith's:

Afterwards... no one threw up... so we went to lunch!

The 8 of us are always eating!

Happy Father's Day

Our church presents an annual Father's or Mother's Day video presentation during service. We alternate years and this year was honoring Father's Day. Daniel Garcia always does the photography and the pictures turn out really nice!

Matthew has been the best father I and the girls could ever ask for. With three demanding and very different girls in this family, he has truly embraced his sensitive, patient, understanding side of himself.  Raising girls is not easy but he tries his best to be the best father and friend he can be to his girls.

I remember one of my Sunday School teachers telling me that your daughter's first male relationship will be with her father. Her first impressions of how a man treats a woman stem from how he treats his wife.  What she will look for in a husband will be qualities she sees or does not see in her father.  Either she will want to find a mate that is just like her father or not like her father. I thank God that Emily says she wants to find a husband that is just like her Daddy!

Here are our FCC Father's Day Portraits through the years...

June 2013

June 2011

June 2009

June 2007

June 2005

June 2003

June 2001

Our "Practice-First" Graduated!

My goddaughter, Mandy, (aka nicknamed 'Munchkin' because she was so tiny when she was born) is now a grown 18-year old woman who graduated from Valley Christian High School (with honors) and will be entering Azuza Pacific University majoring in International Business.

She also received three scholarships from APU: an academic scholarship, multi-ethnic scholarship and music scholarship (she'll be singing in their gospel choir).

Mandy with her parents, Don & Cheryl and younger brother, Kyle

We are so proud!

Her VCHS Vocal Ensemble "Room 107" sang "I Believe" as a special music piece after the Welcoming address.

Mandy is third from the right

Mandy receiving her first APU sweatshirt from family friend, Ariana who also attends APU

Matthew and I are so proud and thrilled for her! (Her parents are also pretty thrilled with her achievements)

For the record, she is NOT taller than me. She was wearing 4 inch heels!

Mandy was such a tiny little girl.
Right after Mandy was born, her parents were doing some estate planning (putting together their living trust) and they asked Matthew and I to be her guardians (if anything happened to the both of them) and godparents. So if anything happened to them when Mandy was young,  we would be Mandy's guardian. We would be responsible for raising her and care for her as if she was our own child.

Wow.. what a privilege, honor and HUGE responsibility! We didn't have kids at the time and was just newly married! So we took our new titles seriously and proceeded to spend as much time with Mandy as possible so she would love us as much as we loved her! (We also did the same with her brother, Kyle (aka nicknamed Big Fella because he was huge when he was born)).

She was kind of our first 'practice' child.

We even took formal portraits with her.

We also took into account the importance of being a godparent. Godparent is defined in the dictionary as "a person who promises to help teach and guide someone in religious matters as part of a Christian baptism ceremony."

Although Mandy was not baptized when she was an infant rather she accepted Jesus in her heart when she was little and proceeded to grow in her relationship with Jesus from church and school activities along with being involved in Christian youth groups. She got baptized in 2007 when she (not her parents) decided it was time for her to publicly share her love for our Savior.

Now as godparents we are supposed to provide spiritual guidance for her but thankfully our job was not too hard since her parents took care of that aspect of her upbringing... as they should. I mean they are her parents. But we were always available to talk with her whenever a need arises when she might not want to go to her parents first.

Basically Matthew and I are another set of adult mentors who love her unconditionally and are available for her at anytime with full confidence and confidentiality. That to us is how we godparent Mandy and Kyle... being another set of parents to go to when needed. More importantly, we pray for her regularly that she continues to seek the Lord in all aspects of her life: make wise decisions, learn and grow from her mistakes, and surround herself with good and faithful friends.

Wouldn't you want your kids to go to someone you trust and respect if they didn't want to go to you first with a concern or need?

Tea... Not Once, Not Twice but Thrice!

I enjoyed this place so much that I had to come here... again.

This time I invited my family to celebrate my cousin Cheryl's birthday and her daughter, Mandy's (my god-daughter) graduating from high school and entrance into college!!

We ordered pretty much the same set menu:

It looks pretty on a tiered serving tray then on individual plates this time around.

Got a picture of the scone this time around too.

 But this time we added the pastries to our meal.

I expected more baked pastries like tarts and cakes. These looked and tasted very rich.

It's always nice to get together with family. I am so thankful that we all get along really well and love to eat!

My sister, Calina, cousin Cheryl and sister-in-law Hilda.

And AGAIN....

The Thrice time was with my girls; sister-in-law Matthea,  her daughter Marissa; and our most famous Family Teacher Extraordinaire, Mrs. C.

Mrs. C. taught Emily (1st grade), Hannah (Kinder and 1st) and Marissa (Kinder)

She took us all out as a treat and thank you for all that we, parents, do for her.

The girls showing off their napkin rings!

Finally.. they are old enough for me NOT to be nervous that they will break the china!

While the adults noshed on the adult goodies, each young lady received the child's plate: mini pizza, turkey wrap, peanut butter/jelly sandwich, fruit and chocolate pastry.

Thank you Mrs. C for treating us like Princesses! You are the QUEEN!!

(Ok.. I think I am now officially.. tea-ed out from this place!)

Her First Ribbon

Hannah was chosen to represent her third grade class at KHA in the ACSI Speech Meet. 

When her teacher asked me if she would want to compete in this event, I replied, "My anxiety-ridden little girl? No way! But you can ask her to see what she'll say."

Well.. she said she wanted to try. I was shocked and thrilled at the same time. Her teacher emailed me two poems, the two shortest poems from the list. She had to pick one of them. They still looked long to me but I have very poor memorization skills. I always told people I had a learning disability, the inability to memorize. That's why I do so poorly on tests. I can't remember what I read and studied.

But Hannah did not have that problem. She memorized the whole poem in three days and even added hand motions to some parts.

We had to be at Vacaville Christian School (an 1-1/2 hr drive) by 8:30am on a Saturday! Each grade (1st - 5th) and category (poetry, fable/folktale/bible memorization) assembled in different classrooms so we were not able to watch her classmates or other KHA students compete. Ribbons were also distributed back in the same classrooms.

Hannah recited her poem without error even though you can tell she was just a tad bit nervous as anyone would be in front of three judges and 25+ students and parents. She received a Superior ribbon, the highest honor given. We are so proud!

We could not video while she was competing so we videoed her when she got home.

To celebrate we took her out for a celebratory meal of her choice,  IHOP.

Breakfast is for Champions!

She also got a prize for competing. Her very own FurReal puppy she named Sparkle.

She walks, barks, growls and moves by itself or can be remote controlled!

I am so proud of her achieving this goal! And it's a competition that her sister has never competed in. Hannah is not as academically driven as Emily so it is so nice to see Hannah competing and winning something her sister hasn't. They both are very different girls! Hannah seems to have the skill of memorization, something that is also NOT from me.

Hmmm... I see a pattern.