Sarah, the proud Leopard of the Month!

Sarah received her Leopard of the Month award yesterday at the end of month assemblies at her school. I did take video of her receiving the award, but will have to post that on a different day. She was the ONLY kid who dressed up for the ceremony, which surprised me. I guess kids just don't do that any more...

I get hungry just reading the recipes...

I have a few sites I read on a regular basis. I've found a couple of new ones lately, and thought I might like to share. The first one is Pioneer Woman Confessions. She's super funny and it's just enjoying to read. But it doesn't stop there. She has other blogs. The Cooking blog is why I chose the subject I did. Oh man. She must use a nice camera. I can almost taste the food she's blogging about. It's not fair. I mean, I'm trying to lose weight here, and she is not showing any low fat/weight loss friendly recipes. If you go to her site, you can see her other blogs, home schooling, photography and garden as tabs at the top. I suppose I could link them, but I'm getting lazy. Oh, and she's been nominated for numerous Bloggie awards. So if you like her, go vote for her.

But there's a problem. See, there's this other site I like, Cake Wrecks, and she's competing against Cake Wrecks in the best writing in a blog category. Oh, decisions, decisions. I suppose I could vote for Pioneer Woman on all categories, except that one. Because each day, I get much joy out of reading Cake Wrecks. I laugh hard at all the awful cakes that people have the nerve to create. The author calls them Cake Wreckorators. I love it. Really, I do. I wonder what she would think about some of mine?


This one wasn't so great, but at least it tasted good.

Or this one:


Yeah, kind of scary. And let's not talk about the black icing. Eww.



Ok, So Thomas wasn't TOO bad, and this time I figured out that I could use chocolate icing and dye it black without having to use as much dye, so it tasted much better than white dyed black.



The above cake was the cake I made on my last class of the first course of cake decorating I took. To this day, I still cannot make a good rose. And it's not as if I didn't practice. But I did try.



I kind of like this one-- from the last class of my second course. Still can't make a decent rose, though. My other flowers turned out pretty decent, though.



I was pretty proud of Tigger, though. I wish I could say I freehanded him, but I'm not that good. I did use a pattern that I created using a coloring book page. I thought it turned out pretty good, though! Throughout the years, I've made lots more cakes, some better, some worse, but I guess it's the enjoyment that I get out of it that keeps me doing it. I'd love to take the courses again, though, to get better at certain techniques, and um, maybe figure out how to do that elusive Rose. I can dream, can't I?

I'm on a roll...

Just a short note to let everyone know that the past couple of days, I've been a posting fool, so make sure and scroll down and read the other posts. I think that not including this post, there are 4 more. Hope everyone enjoys!

25 Random Things About Me...

Here's how it works:

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. If you are reading this, then consider yourself tagged!


1. I was born in Victoria, Texas at Citizen's Hospital.

2. Most people know I have an older brother named David., but few know that I had a younger brother who died shortly after his birth when I was 14 months old. His name was Joseph Steven. That would have been my name had I been a boy.

3. I went to Catholic school from 4th-12th grade, but public school from K-3rd.

4. I was in the same 3rd grade class as my husband, but didn't see him again until I was 24.

5. I have lived in Victoria, TX, College Station, TX, Huntsville, TX, Houston, TX, Rosenberg, TX, Bloomington IL on a part-time basis, Thousand Oaks, CA and now Camarillo, CA.

6. I love to sing. I'm not exactly great at it, but good enough. I have a good ear for what is right and what is wrong, and I can read music. I was in the choir in high school for 3 years, in the church choir for 5 years in HS and College and last year joined the "Adult Choir" at my current church. It brings great joy into my life.

7. I love to read. I prefer fiction. My non-fiction reading would be mostly online. I am addicted to learning about new things and reading other people's blogs.

8. I know a lot about a wide variety of things. I always used to envy people who do one or two things exceptionally well, but then decided I should not limit myself. Maybe I should have majored in Liberal Arts in college. I am proud to have such a wide variety of knowledge, though.

9. I'm pretty good with technology. I have built a computer, installed windows, and even done things on Unix machines. I have also at times needed to correct settings on a cisco router or a firewall. This comes from being married to a high tech guy who has little time to fix the equipment at home.

10. I only got to know 3 of my grandparents. My paternal grandmother passed away 2 weeks before my parents were married and almost 3 years before I was born.

11. I wish I had more time to devote to volunteer work.

12. I used to hate text messaging. I hated receiving the messages and sending them. Then I got the LG env2. Now I don't hate it so much but am not addicted to it.

13. I love to take pictures but wish I either was better at it or had a better camera. I love to take candid shots. I really despise those canned/posed pictures that people force you to take all the time. "Okay, everyone, get on the couch/in front of the fireplace/outside on the lawn and we'll pose for a group picture!" So, instead, I snap a lot of pictures, hoping to get a few really good ones.

14. The first thing in my mouth each morning is usually a Diet whatever was cheapest at the store, typically coke or pepsi, always flavored either cherry or lime or vanilla. Sometimes it's a Diet Dr. Pepper.

15. My mom thought I was going to be a boy when she was pregnant with me, so she didn't pick out any girl names. She tells me that she figured since she already had a boy, she didn't think she'd have a girl. She had 2 sisters. I guess she figured that's how it worked.

16. My parents and brother are all left-handed. I'm right-handed, although I can do things with either hand, but I have more strength in the right. I think that somehow I was switched/encouraged to use the right hand by someone.

17. My favorite color is purple. At one time it was green, another it was pink, royal blue, red, and so on and so forth. I think purple has been it for about 4 years.

18. I love chocolate, especially dark chocolate. Who could ask for anything more?

19. I have a confession to make. I have at least 25 Jimmy Buffett cds. I especially love to listen to his music when the weather is bad. I don't know if I have a favorite song of his, but

20. According to my kids, I am the meanest mother in the world, but for some reason they still love me and miss me when I'm gone!

21. I love rain and storms.

22. I used to decorate cakes for fun. I've made all sorts, and even made a tiered cake once. I don't think that I'd make big money off of it, but they were nice enough.

23. I can sew. I've made clothes that turned out pretty cute. I like sewing for kids, but not so much adults, because their clothes are smaller and take less time and fabric.

24. I would be totally lost without my computer. It's my newspaper, my mailbox, my phone book, my address book, my photo album, my telephone...you get the picture.

25. I really look up to my parents and hope to be like them when I grow up.

New digs!

Well, I finally got around to learning how to customize my blog into something that is more my style. I did acquire the background and information as to how to put it in at The Cutest Blog on the Block, but the rest I pretty much did on my own. The header or banner or whatever you call it, I did use the background I got from Cutest Blog but modified it to create a banner using Paint Shop Pro. I also used the same software to create my signature. I'm having a lot of fun doing this, and don't be surprised to see more changes in the future!

The promised San Diego Zoo Post, at last!

I think that this post is going to be slim on post and heavy on pictures! We enjoyed visiting the SD Zoo, as usual, but I did not get a lot of pictures. I'll have to dig up some from previous trips another day. Above would be the 2 legged juvenile creatures of the Whiteley family. the cooperated for longer than 2 seconds to take that photograph!

Here's the view from the cable car ride. Or at least the view of another cable car!


Julia had fun in the petting zoo. She latched on to one of the goats and called it Gretchen and kept chasing after it. I think he/she got tired of it and went to the "rest" area of the petting zoo.


Everyone loves a good porcupine!


Oh, the life of a polar bear in a zoo, so well fed, it doesn't even need to hunt!


There's the 2 legged critters again, posing for another picture. :)



This is one of my 2 favorite exhibits in the zoo, the Panda exhibit. You have to keep quiet to visit the pandas and there is almost always a line. This was Bai Yun, I believe, and she's had a number of cubs while at the zoo. We got to see 2 others (which is a lot, usually you see just one or two) but they were laying down, so I won't bore you with their pictures.


Had to toss in a primate picture...


Here is the other of my favorite two exhibits in the zoo, the humingbird aviary! Some of the birds are bigger than expected, and yes, they do actually stop once in a while, so it's quite easy to get a picture.



Well, that's it from this trip to San Diego! I did want to share that the plant collection at the zoo is worth a lot more than the animal collection. It is indeed incredible. I think due to being tired, and having some battery issues, I didn't get as many pictures as I normally would have. Shortly after this trip, I became the proud owner of some new attachments, including a telephoto lens for my camera. That would have been nice on the trip.

If you haven't read the previous post about Sarah getting chosen as Leopard of the Month, please read. She's super proud!

Sarah to be honored!

Sarah got selected as Leopard of the Month for her class at school. On January 30th, she will be presented her award certificate at the assembly in front of the school. I will make sure and post pictures! It's funny, she never received this award at all until 2nd grade, but now she's received it each year since. She's a good kid, so it did surprise me when she didn't receive it at least in 1st grade. I think with the old principal, sometimes your kid only got the award if you asked for it, which is kind of ridiculous. By the time she went through 3/4 of a year in 2nd grade, I was wondering if it wasn't true, about having to ASK for it. I almost commented on it to the teacher and the principal. With all the glowing notes home, good grades, etc, she should have received the award at least one in 3 years, right? Well, apparently patience worked, because she has gotten the award once each year since.

Sarah also often gets the top reader award at the monthly assemblies. That's kind of a hard one to get, if you log your reading honestly, which I expect of Sarah. It's always a pleasant surprise when she does get the award, because so many kids record pages that they have not read. She got that award at the last assembly, and I'm always most proud of that one, because I know that she honestly logs the exact number of pages read. I can't exactly tell you which parent she gets her fondness for reading from, but I think I would be her biggest influence because she sees me reading more often. In any case, both of her parents were big readers as kids, so take your pick!

San Diego Wild Animal Park

On December 30th and January 2nd, we spent some time at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal park just outside of Escondido. We saw these pretty blue birds on our way to the safari ride. Not sure what they are, but they sure are pretty!


I believe these were some type of deer. It was really quite amazing to watch these guys running around!

This was a white Rhino, either southern or northern. Whatever the case, the other type of white rhino was also at the park, but it was one of eight left in the world. The Wild Animal Park had two of them.


This was a young giraffe, not at its full height yet. They are born pretty tall to start with, otherwise they cannot feed properly. You have probably seen how tall an adult giraffe is, so in order to reach its mom's milk, the giraffe has to be born fairly tall!


They had a good number of ostrich around. I always find it amusing to watch them. They are just such BIG birds. I don't quite understand how they get around!


The next picture isn't very clear, but I just wanted to share it to demonstrate that most of the animal in this area live as in nature, not in separate areas. The one exception was the zebras. They were aggressive and pretty mean to the other creatures, so they got put in their own little area. In case you can't tell, this is a giraffe and a couple of rhinos.


I had never seen a California Condor up close. They are not very pretty, but still great to look at! It was tricky getting a good and in focus shot with a point and shoot camera, but I finally got one. It wanted to focus on the fencing around the bird.


Hanging around the condors was this beauty of a ram. They had lots of rocks for them to climb around on. I bet they were quite happy!


They had a petting area. The Zoo had goats and the Wild Animal Park had Kraal. They seem kind of deer-like.



I will post about the Zoo itself on another day. I have more blog-worthy photos from the zoo. I think my favorite part of the Wild Animal Park was seeing all the rhinos. You don't often get to see them!

Happy Birthday to my Big Baby Girl!

Julia turned 4 today. It seems like she was just born yesterday. Now instead of a helpless newborn, she's a big girl of 4 that can do many things by herself. My parents came to visit for the weekend and she was so excited. She really latched on to Grandpa Bob. I am convinced it's because they both are big hand-holders. In any case, she has found the way to his heart. Yesterday, we all took the girls to the American Girl Place to the cafe there for tea time. The girls could take a doll and they even had little clip on chairs for the dolls to sit at the table with us. They provided tiny cups and saucers as well. I'm ashamed to say that my camera got left behind, but we did take lots of pictures with my mom's camera. I forgot to copy them off of her memory before she left, so I'll have to see if she can put them on a cd for me and mail it.

Today, on her actual birthday, we took her for donuts for breakfast, chuck e cheese for lunch (where we ran into her former daycare provider and family), and then Daddy picked the girls up happy meals for dinner. Her favorite gifts included a new princess bike, play doh and sidewalk chalk, as well as Bitty Baby Twins, one was a blond girl and the other a brunette girl. I think she said that one of them was named Garby and the other Bitty. That will be subject to change, of course.

There's something that's just so BIG about turning 4, because they really get it, and they've been looking forward to that birthday for so long. 3, they get excited, but 4, they've obsessed about and planned for for MONTHS! We'll have another big birthday this year. Sarah hits the double digits in May...


P.S. I know I've promised a blog entry on the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, and I haven't forgotten. I've just been super busy. I know it'll be graphic intensive, so I'm dragging my feet...

Sea World on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

Last week we went to San Diego to have some fun with the family. I'll break this up into two posts, this first being on Sea World and then the second will be on The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.

Wednesday morning we got up and got showered/dressed and ready for a day of fun. We went down to the hotel restaurant for their buffet before going to Sea World, then grabbed our backpacks, jackets, the kids and loaded up into the car to go to Sea World. It was 8 miles from our hotel, but we found it easily courtesy of Verizon Navigator (tm). Our wait to get into the parking lot was a bit longer than it should have been. We noticed that our line was going slower than ALL the other lines. I think we got the "slow" employee. We finally got parked and went to handle our tickets. James had purchased them online so we just had to go to the computerized kiosk and scan our printout and we were ready to go. First we went to see the Arctic Encounter which was pretty neat. We saw some arctic birds, polar bears (unfortunately I didn't get very clear pictures of the polar bears) and the beautiful Beluga whales.


Next, we had some time to kill before an arranged encounter, so we went to see the Penguin exhibit. Lots of different varieties of penguins, including breeds that lived in cold and warm weather. I think penguins are great fun! Cold loving penguins:




Here are some of the warm weather loving penguins:




After that, it was time for the girls and I to do a dolphin encounter. In retrospect, we should have just left Julia with James because she was scared, but James had signed up for this online so I had little choice but to take her. We got to learn more about dolphins, instructed them to do tricks, as well as touching them and feeding them dead fish. They also like to eat ice.



I'm pretty sure that by this time, it was time for lunch, and then the dolphin show. This one is always a pretty good one. We made sure not to sit in the splash zone, because you have a 99% chance of getting soaking wet!



Above is Dolly, the highest jumping Dolphin at Sea World-San Diego!

I believe after this we went back to the hotel to rest for the night shows, then went back to see the sea lions and Shamu shows- both holiday specials. It was difficult to get good pictures at these night shows, but I have one of the sea lions, one of the Shamu show and another of Shamu splashing. :)




The next day we had a scheduled breakfast with Shamu. We got there a little early and spent some time at the viewing area watching a couple of the killer whales swimming around. They are so beautiful to watch! Then we got to have breakfast with Shamu with a small private showing and some of the tricks that don't get you soaked. Although Dolphins are big showoffs, these whales like to show off too, and they do have minds of their own. They don't always do what their trainers instruct them to do! This is about as close as you can get to the killer whales because they don't do encounters with them like they do some of the other critters.





After that, we went to see the sea lions "regular" show, let the girls get their faces painted and saw the Shamu "regular" show, prior to leaving and heading over to the San Diego Zoo. I will leave the post about the zoo and wild animal park for another day, because this one has worn me out! Hope the few readers I have enjoy the pictures!

Still alive--- what a week!

Sorry that I've been lax in updating lately. It's been busy! Since Tuesday, we've been out of town. We decided to go to San Diego to the zoo, wild animal park and Sea World. The plan was to go back home Friday after we finished up at the wild animal park right outside of Escondido (north of San Diego). James asked me to drive, and we were on the highway at a stop light. I was taking a sip of diet coke and BAM!!!! Got rear-ended. For those of you that know, back in October I was involved in a car accident and our truck was totaled. We've had the car about a month, and now it's rear-ended. At first look, it just appeared that the bumper was scratched up, cracked in a spot, and dented in another, and that was it. BUT, when I tried to pull away, it was obvious something else wrong. The rear bumper on the passenger side was where it was hit, and they also got the exhaust/muffler, and it was rubbing against the tire. We were able to get it away from the tire, but decided to go check in to a motel overnight and get it looked at to make sure it was safe to go home. So, right now I'm waiting for James to come back from whatever repair shop he's gone to. I feel kind of bad for the Lexus that hit us. The front bumper is messed up, the grill, the radiator, the hood, probably part of the front quarter panel and the air bags deployed. I figure hers will be totaled. For us, a new bumper, new muffler and they might find something else wrong with it. Oh, Julia's 2 month old car seat will have to be replaced. I told her I'd order her one with some pink on it. LOL The only comfort is in knowing that it is definitely not my fault! BTW, it took over half an hour for anyone to come to the accident site, and then it was a single CHP officer.

So, enough on the accident. When we get back home, I'll work on a nice post about our trip, complete with some pictures!