I'm a GIRL!

That's been Jocelynn's new thing the past week. She likes to tell me randomly during the day that she's a girl. Not sure if she had conversations with her cousins about this but she likes to tell me who is a boy and who is a girl. She hasn't mistaken anyway yet so that's good. I can just see her in the check out line at the store calling someone a girl when they are really a boy. Fingers are crossed that doesn't happen. She's pretty funny.

A couple weeks ago she started telling me she loves me. I love to hear it.

Jocelynn loves Nursery. She hated it the first month. It's nice that she gets so excited to put on a dress and go to church. It also helps that the Nursery leader gives them a chocolate chip cookie every week after class. She loves to play with Playdough and play with the kitchen.

Happy 85th Birthday Grandma!

My mom and I took my Grandma to Disneyland this year for her birthday. It's been about 17 years since she's been. You get in free on your birthday this year so it was perfect because we just stayed a few hours and she got a "Birthday Button." We got there at 4pm and it was still a 100 degrees outside. My Grandma is tough and never complains. We brought a wheelchair, which she did not want to get in at all but we convinced her to sit. Jocelynn loves both her Grandmas so much. It was the perfect day for her, Disneyland with both Grandmas!

I love the close relationship that they have together. When my Grandma is happy she tends to get emotional. I've realized that making her happy has become my goal. It makes me happy when I've made her cry (tears of joy of course).

We brought a blanket and got front row seats. It wasn't crowded at Disneyland. My Grandma loved it!! The workers at Disneyland kept saying Happy Birthday to her and making her feel so special. She even got out there and danced. IT was great.

We went on the carousel and I wasn't expecting my Grandma to get on but she did! By the time we dropped her off , she hugged me with tears of joy . . . mission completed! :)

Habits are so hard to break!

It all started with the door being left open. Jocelynn didn't become a good sleeper till about 10 months. After a year, I could put her down, shut the door and she would turn over and go right to sleep. It was every mother's dream. She would sleep 11 or 12 hours and then go down for a nap during the day. . . . But every mother also knows that it never stays that way, things change. . and so did her sleeping :(

When James and I got home from Oregon, Jocelynn decided that she didn't want to sleep, although she was tired. She wanted the door open and somehow . . . I started to sit down with her until she fell asleep. I don't even remember how it happened. Slowly, it went from the door open to me laying with her. Well because I would sit with her she would wake up every couple of hours needing me there. It would also take her about an hour or longer to go to sleep. What had I done?? She would freak out if I walked away! I created a habit and it was so hard breaking. I didn't want her to feel scared or that I was abandoning her but I wanted her to know that she didn't need me to sleep.

Anyhow. . .the past week was rough. I let her cry and she doesn't need me to go to sleep with her now. We leave the door open and light on but she sleeps through the night again. I hated hearing her cry, I always feel like a horrible mom to admit that I've let her cry to sleep. I was on my knees praying so hard that he would comfort her and for her to stop. I cried. It was 23 minutes the first night, 15 the second night, 5 minutes last night and I'm sure she'll go right to sleep tonight. I will never create that habit again because I don't want to go through the pain of breaking the habit!

Oregon - Day 1

I loved staying downtown. It was in the middle of everything. There were so many shops, places to eat, a mall and so much to do.

James and I have always wanted to travel and have talked about places we'd love to go. We knew someday we will be able to do this. We've been married 6 and a half years and have never planned a trip. You may ask why? Well, for many reasons but the first 4 years we were married we were both in school full time and worked full time. We wanted to finish school and the time off we did have, we wanted to be home. Planning a trip or even going on a trip seemed like more work. Now that we have a child, it seems like getting away, the two of us, needs to happen so James had some time off and we decided to spend some time in Oregon.

Our first stop when we got to Oregon was at the temple. We thought what a perfect way to start out the trip together. It was beautiful, peaceful, serene and calm.

After the temple we went downtown and we walked around (I pushed James in the wheelchair :) We heard a couple people talk about Paley's burgers so we thought we'd try it. Oh, man. The best burger I've ever had!!!!

Doesn't it look so good!

Oregon - Day 2

We got up and ate at a Bagel Cafe and headed out for the day. This was our drive. Trees everywhere and so green.

We stopped at Crown Vista House for a beautiful view. The weather was cloudy and in the 60s. James was a trooper and went up the steps.

From our drive, you could see a ton of waterfalls. We got out several times to get a closer look. The beauty of the falls just blows you away. You could hike for a closer look but unfortunately because of James knee we couldn't . . .next time. This is the first fall we came across "Latoural Falls."

This is the second fall. . ."Wykeanah Falls"

This is the second largest fall in the nation. It's about 620 feet "Multnomah Falls." I walked to the bridge to get a closer look. It was so beautiful.

"Horsetrail Falls"

We drove to the Dam and this was amazing also.

We also went to the fish hatchery where they breed fish.

We went through Hood River and there were several orchards on the way. We stopped and got some apples, peaches, and pears. The best peach I have ever had!! So fresh!

We were told to drive up to Timberline Lodge. We did but weren't very impressed. It was freezing, there was snow on the mountain tops. We had James wheelchair and we could not find where to go. It was very complicated. We decided to turn around and drive back to our hotel. We ate at a wonderful Italian restaurant. We had pizza, sandwich, and manicotti. I was impressed with how well everything tasted. It was so fresh!!

Oregon - Day 3

VOODOO DONUTS - We saw these donuts on Food Network and needed to try them before our vacation was over. This was the first stop in the morning. They were wonderful. I had the Maple Bar with Bacon on it and James had the chocolate, peanut butter with oreos.

We drove down the coast this morning. It was beautiful! There were a lot of these rocks and a lot of lighthouses.

We stopped by the "Tillamook Cheese Factory" and had some ice cream and saw how they make cheese.

That evening we went on a jet boat excursion. This is downtown right by our hotel. It was an hour long and showed us 10 different bridges. Here are a few I enjoyed.

This is the same builder that later went on to build the San Francisco bridge. You can tell because they look very similar.

For dinner that night we ate at our hotel. It was such a wonderful trip. We enjoyed spending this time together. It felt like we had so much time to do whatever but it also went by fast. We missed Jocelynn so much and couldn't wait to see her. We found ourselves talking about her often.

She had fun with Grandma and Grandma says she did so well. My mom would stay at our house at night and she slept fine. She asked "Where's mommy?" for the first two days. When we dropped my mom off, Jocelynn wasn't happy about that. Thanks mom for doing this for us! I wouldn't mind living in Oregon if family lived there too. There's so much to do. We would love to make this an annual thing to do. There was still so much we didn't do and see. We had the best time. What a great memory!

Sprint Triathlon at Camp Pendleton

I have only been in two 5k races but I love working out and would probably do more races if they were free. One night my sister called me up and told me about the Sprint Triathlon. It took me weeks to sign up but I finally just did it! In the mornings, I would work out at the gym and at night I would swim laps. I was still nervous because I know it's a lot different swimming in the ocean.

The distance was 500 yards in the ocean, 18 mile bike ride and 3 mile run.

Unfortunately because James fractured his shin, he couldn't come. My mom came over the night before and gave me a basket full of wonderful things (socks, gatorade, wrist bands, icy hot etc). She wasn't able to make it either because she had a wedding to go to at 11am but decided as she was over that she would leave with me at 430am to get down there. We got there in plenty of time and I was glad we got there early. Thanks mom for coming!!!

Here's me with my number (my favorite number is 12 so I was glad to have that as part of my number :) The anticipation was incredible. I just wanted the race to start. It was so organized which didn't surprise me because it was on base.

This is where everyone parked the bikes and started the swim in the ocean. The swim was awesome. It was so neat to be so far out in the ocean. I didn't want to start out fast so I tried to pace myself. I swallowed water several times. In the middle, I got a boost of energy and coming into shore was the hardest because a big wave would come over you and then pull you back. I thought I'd never make it but once I hit shore it was the best feeling. It took me about 15 minutes.

Bike: I changed and got onto my bike and got going. There weren't many with mountain bikes and that's what I had. I couldn't get the gears right and that was the most frustrating. I would be pedaling just as fast as others and they would zoom right by me. I took the longest on the bike ride (it took me almost 2 hours!!). I plan to get a racer bike soon. I was so happy when I was done with the bike.

Running: There weren't any inclines and this was the easiest part. The men in the marines would start running with you and pushing you to run faster or keep going. IT was incredible. Crossing the finish line was amazing and I was full of emotion. It was a feeling of accomplishment.

My mom and I before the race began.

After I changed I asked someone to take a picture of me by the finish line. My time was like 2 hours and 31 minutes. It took me a lot longer because of the bike but that's ok because I just wanted to finish and next time I can work on getting a good time.

I think the lesson I learned was that don't doubt yourself. My parents always taught me that "believing is achieving." There were times that I doubted I could do it but I tried to stay positive. I think anyone that doesn't think they can should sign up and prove themselves wrong because when you cross that finish line, it's so worth it!!!!!!!

Dance class at "Center Stage"

Friday Jocelynn started dance class. Cameras aren't aloud in the studio so I took a couple before. The first day she was a little unsure about everything. You can see how shy she is in the above picture when she is new to something. There were about 13 kids though and personally, I think that's a little too much. Some kids were crying, screaming, laughing, etc so it was kind of chaotic. Jocelynn becomes more clingy to me because she is thinking "what on earth is going on?" We stretched, and moved different parts of our body to music. I'm sure next week will go a lot better. She says she wants to go back so that's a good sign.

Here she is at home, happy as can be with her baby!

KIPS Gymnastics

Watching Jocelynn at gymnastics has been so fun. She really enjoys it. She listens really well to the teacher and even lets her help her. There are only 4 in her class. Here are some clips of her at gymnastics!

Craigslist SCAM

I thought I'd share this with everyone. Just make sure if you sell stuff on Craigslist, you accept cash and if they send a check in the mail, take it to their bank and cash it. I'm selling my parent's oak hutch on Craigslist. I got a buyer that was interested and planning to send me a check. This is the last email I got. Don't fall for it! If it's too complicated, something is not right.

He wanted me to take his check to my bank and then wire immediately about $800 back to him. He's crazy! Luckily, I understand that checks take awhile to clear. . . . check never came, of course because I told him I would be taking it to his bank. Too bad this creep has my parent's address. Read below:

Re: Oak Hutch - Beautiful for family room - $600 (South Corona)‏

From:
Sent:	Mon 8/03/09 10:39 PM
To:	Jennifer Ward (jlw12antiques@hotmail.com)

I just received the confirmation from the Bank that the payment has been issued out and was mailed by the United Parcel Service(Ups). It will be delivered to your address, but to my greatest surprise the check was issued out for 1560 instead of the actual cost of my purchase.

The Bank claimed that i requested for such an amount on the check to be issued out to you but I am very sure I only made a request for the cost of the goods to be made out to your name . This is a terrible mistake and i was just informed about this so please once the check is received please take it to your Bank and have it cashed as advised by the accounting officer at the Bank. You will then deduct the cost of my purchase plus an extra $50 to offset the cost of your run around expenses.The rest of the fund should be sent to my assistant via western union the same day you do receive the payment so that my she can make the trip over for the pick at once.

**I will need your immediate response assuring me that I can rely on you to handle this with care and have the remaining fund returned appropriately. I hope that your intentions remains noble through out the duration of this transaction and even after it** Please reply me back immediately.