It's a waiting game now...

My sister-in-law is 38 weeks pregnant today. I could be an auntie any day now. I'm totally excited. I can't wait to be an auntie, and I'm excited to see my brother as a dad and my parents as grandparents. Hurry up and get here Chloe Nycole. Can't wait to meet you!

PS: the pics are from the baby shower I threw for her. =)

On the road to recovery...

I just got back from spending the night at my grandparents house and thought I'd take the time to update everyone on how my grandma is doing. (For those that aren't aware, my grandma had to have surgery 2 weeks ago and has been requiring a little extra help at night so my mom and I have been taking turns spending the night to help out) So grandma is doing better. She doesn't really need help at night anymore, I think its just reassuring to her to know that someone is there if she does need help. But I think she's gonna be ok on her own now. She's going to start having physical therapy next week, and is going for ultrasound next week as well to see if she needs to have the stent placed in the other kidney. We are hopeful that she won't need this. She definitely seems to be in better spirits and is definitely trying to get better everyday. We're continuing to pray for a good recovery and are waiting for word on when she can have the next surgery that she will need.
On a similar note an old friends mom had surgery on wednesday and had an amazing outcome, so praise God for that good news.
PS: The pics are my little cousin while we were waiting for my grandma to get out of surgery. We tortured the little guy to keep us entertained. Don't worry he got his revenge by making all of us ride up and down the elevator for a couple hours. =)

The road to socialism...

I recently discovered Glenn Beck, a newscaster on Fox News. I think the guy makes alot of sense. So I went to check out some of his past videos. I thought this one was totally appropriate for the news of today. The white house is trying strongly to nationalize our banks. They are starting on universal healthcare. They have capped salaries for business people. We truly are going down the road to socialism. And like Glenn Beck says in the video...the road to socialism leads one way...to communism. We'd better get our acts together as a country and start speaking out against this. We need to hold our government, and our fellow citizens, responsible for their actions.

Thanks Mr. Prez.

So our fine president passed the stimulus bill today. Yippee. He obviously didn't watch the above video. I wonder how much further in debt with China this bill is gonna put us. What? You didn't know we were borrowing this money from China for the stimulus package? Well newsflash, we've been borrowing money from China for years. Hope they don't come looking for their money anytime soon. But I'm looking forward to my extra $13 a week in my paycheck. That'll help pay the extra taxes I get to pay because I live in California. An extra 12 cents per gallon of gas, and an extra cent sales tax. Oh and don't forget increased vehicle registration fees. Oh and the 5% income surcharge. Yup that extra 13 bucks a week should just about pay for that. Thanks.

8 days and counting...

Until the first spring training game. Yay for baseball!!!! I miss my Anaheim Angels during the off-season. Although I'm gonna miss GA this year. Kinda sad that most of the World Series champions are no longer with the team. I guess thats just how baseball goes. Hopefully they 'll do well this year.

Started my new job today. It went well, seems like everyone is really nice. But I sure hated getting up to that dang alarm clock. I'm definitely not a morning person. And I have to do it again tomorrow. Ohwell that life I guess. =)

If I were a cartoon, I'd have a lightbulb over my head

So I watched the ABC news program about children living in poverty in Appalachia and couldn't believe that people are living like that today, in America. It really made me think about something that I could do to help. I'm working on an idea. It really is just a little seed of an idea at this point but I think I'm really gonna try to make it work. Stay tuned for details....

By the way, go here to watch the whole program. I urge you to watch, its very interesting.

Things that make you go hmmm...

So I was watching the news this morning while eating my Lucky Charms and a few stories caught my attention and made me wonder. So I thought I'd share them here...

1. The House passed the stimulus bill. The official bill was still being written last night. The final draft is 1000 pages long and 8 inches thick... how did anyone read this to know what they are voting for? How do they know that something that they are against didn't get stuck in there at the last minute? How do we know that we are not paying a million dollars a day to relocate endangered ants or some other stupid thing like that?

2. What happened to Obama's campaign promise to put all bills that cross his desk on the White House website for the people to view for 5 days before he signs anything? This bill is not on the website, and the child healthcare reform bill was not on the website either. He's been in office for a few weeks and he's already breaking campaign promises.

3. The state of California is going to vote on its budget this weekend. Which means maybe I'll finally get back the money I've been loaning the state in the form of overpaid income taxes. But anyway... they say that taxes will be raised and programs will be cut. So if I'm paying more money and people are getting less services, where is the extra money going? More money is coming in in the form of taxes, and less is going out in the form of government programs so somebody must be stashing alot of money under their mattress for our collective "rainy day", right?

4. One of the increased taxes in the California budget is a 12 cent gas tax increase. Oil by the barrel is at the cheapest its been in YEARS. Down over a $100 a barrel from last summers high price, so why am I paying more a gallon than I was last month, or the month before (50cents more a gallon than I paid in December). Shouldn't gas prices be the lowest they've been in years as well? I'm thinking we should be paying around a buck a gallon, not more than 2 bucks. And now OPEC is gonna have a meeting and slow down production? What the hell? If they can produce that much oil then why not produce it? Why cut production, just to raise prices? Ridiculous

5. So the doctor that implanted embryos in the Octo-mom is under fire for implanting 7 embryos in another lady who is now pregnant with quadruplets at age 49. The woman is in the hospital now on bedrest. This one is employed but doesn't have health insurance. So how did she pay for the implantation? And yeah maybe she didn't want quads, but she had to know that was a possiblilty implanting 7 embyos. And how was she planning on paying for the delivery and care of the one kid without insurance? Now not only are Californians paying for the Octo-moms kids, we are also gonna be paying for this lady's kids, who having a 49 year old mom, and being quads are gonna be at huge risk for developmental delays and probably need lots of healthcare. Ridiculous.

Anyway just a few thoughts for today. Hope someone has the answers...

Europe and Russia 2007

Here's all the exciting vacation stories from my last trip...
Flew to London where we had a 2 hour bus ride to get to our boat. Once we got on the boat it was quite an adventure getting unpacked with all the luggage we had. Three girls pack ALOT of clothes when they're gonna be gone for 16 days. :)
Our first full day on the ship (Sunday) was spent going through the Keil Canal separating Germany and Denmark. Apparently our ship is the only cruise ship that can fit through the canal and as we were the first trip of the season it was a big deal to the people. There were hundreds of people waiting for our ship to watch it pass through. They even had a band playing for us. We totally felt like celebrities. It took us several hours to get through the canal. (It's longer than the Panama Canal.) Monday morning we arrived in Warnemunde, Germany. Then we took a 2.5 hour train ride into Berlin. We took a bus tour of Berlin (east and west). It was very interesting to see the Berlin Wall and hear the guide explain how it used to be. Touching the Wall was very surreal. At one point they had a part of the wall with a guardtower behind it where the Soviet soldiers used to be stationed to keep east Berliners from trying to escape. We also saw Brandenburg gate and Checkpoint Charlie where US troops would check you to allow you back into west Berlin. After a visit to the Allied museum and the Holocaust Memorial, we did a little shopping, ate some ice cream, then it was time for our train ride back to the boat.

Tuesday was spent at sea traveling to Finland. Wednesday in Finland was really foggy in the morning and cold. We did a boat ride around the islands of Helsinki. All the houses had these saunas right next to the water and the guide said that they would go sit in the sauna for a while and then run out into the water and jump in. Might want to mention here that the water temperature was 6 degrees!!!! Crazy people. After our boat ride we went into the city and did a little shopping. Then we saw some girl walking down the street eating McDonalds so of course I asked her where it was and we ate there :) After some ice cream it was time to head back to the boat.

Thursday we arrived in St. Petersburg Russia, this was the part of the trip all of us were most looking forward too. After going through customs in Russia we took a bus to our canal boat. (Apparently St. Petersburg has more canals than Venice...who knew?) The canal boat was really full so we sat outside ( did I neglect to mention that Stacy and I were probably the only people under 30 on the entire ship? we were.) Anyway we didn't want the old people to freeze so we sat outside and froze. It was SO COLD. Seriously cannot stress that enough. FREEZING COLD!!! But it was really fun. Russia was amazing. The buildings are so huge and flat that you think they are fake. And they go on for like half a mile..just one building. After our canal boat ride we went to the Church of Spilled Blood, built where some one important was murdered (I cant remember who right now). The outside was magnificient and the inside was too. They totally did the inside with mosaics that told all of the Bible stories. After this we went back to the boat to rest for a while and eat some ice cream. That night we went to a folkloric show. This was really neat, it was all in Russian song and dance. Very fun. The next morning we went to Peterhof which was the summer palace of Tsar Peter the Great. This place was huge. Seriously. Picture the Empire State Building laying on its side and thats about how big it was. And totally ornate the inside was all done in gold plating. The outside had these amazing gardens and hundreds of fountains. That afternoon we went to the fortress of St Peter and Paul where all the Russian Tsars are entombed. After this our tour was done and it was back to the ship. We were supposed to leave Russia at 6pm but the KGB kept our ship there. There were all these guys in black suits on the dock talking on their phones and they kept wheeling this suitcase off the boat and then back on. One time we even pulled away and then had to go back. Our theory is that they were holding us hostage and then men on the phones were negotaiting with the president for our freedom. :)

Saturday we were in Estonia. For those of you who dont know Estonia is in north eastern Europe and was once part of the Soviet Union. The whole country was beautiful. We started off in their old town area. Visited an old church and did a little shopping. From there it was on to a real medieval fortress built in the 13th century. While there we went through the torture chamber. It was kinda scary actually. After this we went to a distillery where we "volunteered" Stacy for a vodka taste test. She had to do 6 shots of vodka. After she got good and drunk (ok not really drunk) it was back on the bus and back to the ship.

Sunday we were in Sweden. To get to Sweden we had to sail through a series of islands called the Swedish Archepelago. It took us about 4 hours to sail through them all. Some of the islands were huge and had hundreds of houses on them, others were tiny and had only one or two houses. It was absolutey beautiful. In Sweden we did a tour that took us to the place were they do the Nobel prizes each year. We also went to the palace. There we saw the changing of the guard. We ditched the tour after this and did a little shopping (ok alot of shopping, think lots of yummy, yummy chocolate.) Sweden was really neat. The streets were all cobblestone. We ate some ice cream and then walked back to our boat. While on our way back we spotted a McDonalds and satisfied our french fry cravings...

Monday night we got into Denmark. We took another canal boat ride through the canals of Copenhagen and then went to Tivoli Gardens, which is an amusement park that was built in the 1800s. While there we went on what is supposedly the worlds oldest roller coaster. To stop the train they have an employee that rides between the first two cars and pulls a hand brake. We ate some ice cream and then back to the ship for the night. The next morning we went on a 3 hour bike tour of Copenhagen. The bikes they gave us had these tiny hard seats and we all have big butts (especially after all the ice cream) and we had to ride over cobblestone streets so needless to say after the 3 hours our butts HURT!! The ride itself was crazy. There were about 15 of us altogether and one guide. We followed her through the streets like little ducklings. We just rode wherever we wanted, cutting off cars, people. You name it we cut it off. We were surprised nobody died. :) We also almost missed our ship getting back. We only had a few minutes before the ship left. In fact they called my name over the PA to make sure I was on the boat.

Wednesday was spent packing up all our dirty clothes and new purchases and squeezing them into already bulging suitcases. We ate a bunch of ice cream for our last day on board. We got back into London at 5 AM Thursday morning. We took to bus back to the airport where we got a taxi to our hotel. Our hotel was this old building that used to be 3 condos that they renovated. We were on the 5th floor. Thursday and Friday were both spent on a bus tour of London. We got to see everything from the outside but didn't really have alot of time to go in anywhere. We saw Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abby. We got off the bus at Buckingham Palace and yelled through the gate and the guards, trying to get a reaction, but to no avail. Friday we went on the London Eye. Its this huge Ferris Wheel thing right on the Thames River that takes 30 minutes to go around, but you get an amazing view of London. Friday we also walked through Hyde Park which is absolutely beautiful. Very serene and peaceful. Also very green. At the end of Hyde Park is Kensington Palace where Princess Diana lived. We checked that out and then back to our hotel. Friday night we saw Phantom of the Opera at the Her Majesty's Theatre, where the original production was first held. Its this really old theatre where the seats were so small you literally couldn't move. Saturday morning was spent packing. Then we walked around again near our hotel and did some last minute shopping. Our flight left at 5pm London time.

All in all it was an amazing trip. I would like to go to all of these places again and spend more time there. There is still so much more to see...

My Life List

I had originally posted this on myspace a few years ago, but this year I'm really trying to work on these goals, so I decided to post it here too....

So I read an article in last months Cosmo about this woman who died in the WTC on Sept 11th. Last year her mom found this list she had made of things she hoped to accomplish in her life. So I decided to make my own. Some of the things on here are silly and trivial, some of them are going to take awhile. There are obviously other goals that I have (like getting married and having kids) but I have no control over those. These I can do on my own. So here it is, in no particular order...

1. Be more self confident
2. Be more careful with who I trust
3. Learn to knit
4. Tell my family I love them more often
5. Be a better friend
6. Europe
7. Workout more
8. Learn to say no without feeling guilty
9. Go back to school
10. Learn to speak Spanish
11. Be more educated about politics
12. Shop less and save more money
13. Australia
14. Be a better listener
15. Fear rejection less
16. Be more independent
17. Take a trip by myself
18. Volunteer with a charity
19. Read and study the Bible
20. Become more tolerant of other people
21. Worry less what other people think of me
22. Be less judgemental
23. Ski more
24. Be more assertive
25. Go to the beach more
26. Gossip less
27. Read everyday
28. Trust the Lord's plan in my life more
29. Learn to scuba dive
30. South America
31. Always keep improving
32. Be more forgiving
33. Don't be so hard on myself when I make a mistake
34. Ride my bike
35. Drink more water
36. Try new foods
37. Go see Elvis
38. Go back to DC and spend some time there
39. Appreciate the simple things in life
40. Be more thankful
41. Learn to play tennis
42. Go sailing
43. Costa Rica
44. Never be ashamed of who I am
45. Live a life to be proud of

So it's a work in progress. I am sure that I will be adding things to it as time goes on. But at least now I know what I striving for...

Its all about me!

Hey, welcome to my world. I was posting on myspace and facebook, but decided to move over here. I know the world pretty much revolves around me, so here's a place to get your Jennifer fix. Enjoy. =)