family

Mar282011

Coming Atcha From MegaCon in Orlando

Hello from Orlando, FL!
[well, technically we’re home already.. but I’ll still write it like we’re there.]

Steve and I are here for a long weekend for MegaCon, a huge comic/ sci fi/ fandom convention. We drove up early on Friday and after checking into our hotel, came to the Con for a few hours to wander, gawk, snap pictures, and attend a few panels. It’s my first Con and a total blast!

After a few hours at the Con, we had dinner with Marie and Eric at Adobe Gilas at Pointe Orlando. Dinner and the company was fantastic, but poor Steve had been up for 27 hours by the time we crashed back at the hotel around 10:30. It was an early night for us all due to Steve’s 27 hours awake and Marie’s working at the butt-crack of dawn the next morning.

Kevin Sorbo

Saturday we got up super early (a by-product of going to bed super early) and took our time getting ready, eating at Golden Corral (surprisingly good!), then heading back to drop my car off and head to the Con via the I-Drive trolley. I’m actually pretty annoyed that no one at the hotel told us it took exact change only. We didn’t want to spend another $8 on parking, so we walked the 0.8 miles. I know, this doesn’t sound so horrible, right? However, we’ve been walking the equivalent of several (10+) miles each day and my feet already hurt.

C’est la vie! We walked. As Steve sat in on panel after panel, I wandered the main exhibit hall with my cousin Audrey and her daughter Melanie. Mel had her Yellow Rick Road Productions sign and was having fun snapping pictures of costumed attendees and comic book artists holding the sign. I sat in on the James Marsters and Stan Lee (!!) panels with Steve, until he went off to others he was interested in.

Stan Lee!

After a full day of panels, pictures, gawking and enjoying ourselves, we slowly walked back to the hotel and had an early dinner at Johnny Rockets at Pointe Orlando. Mmmm milkshakes and sandwiches. From there, we drove out to East Orlando and spent a few hours with his great aunt and his cousins. Mr. Up-at-4:30am was perfectly fine being out till after midnight. I, on the other hand, was falling asleep on the couch.

Sunday we were up early again, had breakfast at Golden Corral again, then drove to the Con. To me, it was a much more chill day after the insanity and thousands of people on Saturday. We attended a few panels together, then I took off to walk the entire exhibit hall floor, row by row, as he sat in more panels. Seeing Steve so excited was great. He was in his element learning about publishing comics and furthering his passion for drawing. We had dinner at Cattleman’s on I-Drive then ended up back at the hotel where we fell asleep early, yet again. Cattleman’s was good food, but grossly overpriced! $80+ for 2 steaks, a la carte everything and $6 small soups is ridiculous in our opinions!

On Monday, we slept in, checked out of the hotel and then went off to look at the house Steve lived in for several years, then visited again with his family for several hours before getting on the road home. Sadly, it rained like crazy the entire day and followed us back to Miami.

All in all, the weekend was fantastic and I couldn’t be happier that we went. It was like a mini-vacation perfect for our 6 months (almost) of being married.

** These are crappy iPhone camera pictures and I do apologize for their graininess. I have hundreds of higher quality photos that I’ll be posting soon enough. **

Feb262011

[Re-]Defining Motherhood

Several conversations with both friends and Steve over the last few days have got me thinking about motherhood. I used to think that I couldn’t be a mom unless I got pregnant and gave birth. Now I, of course, know that there are other options like adoption, foster-adoption, IVF, and surrogacy. Becca of younger years would never have dreamed having children any way other than by giving birth herself.

Over the past few months, I have come to not only accept adoption as how our children will join our family, but embrace it. I’m sure a huge part of this is my [suspected] broken reproductive system, but more on that later. As mentioned in the last non-new-blog post, we are heavily leaning towards foster-adoption. This hasn’t changed and our friend is helping gather the info we’ll need for this to happen. We are certainly no experts on this topic and have a lot to learn, but feel it might be our best option.

It’s starting to dawn on me that I don’t need to give birth to be a mother. Yes, I’m a bit slow, but pregnancy was always a part of my future when I was a child. I already mother all the little ones in my life and I obviously didn’t give birth to them, so why put constraints on my own children?

It’s tough for me, and my ridiculous reproductive health is making it worse. In short, I haven’t had a period in over 90 days. Yes, I’ve taken a bunch of pregnancy tests both at home, the clinic place, and the ER and every one of them has read a resounding not pregnant. If I actually was pregnant, then this kid would be made of steel or something seeing as I’ve been X-ray’d and taken hard core drugs for both the flu and pneumonia over the last month. Oh, and before I get all the advice to lose weight, I am working on it. However, I’m fairly certain that it’s not a weight thing. For the first 11 years of having a period, it was never ever regular. We’re talking at most 5 times a years and lasting for weeks at a time. Talk about hell for a junior high and high schooler!

Anyhow, not much else to talk about. Right now it’s just a lot of adoption research. Also, we’re taking a database class together which is a little time consuming. And of course, this new blog design which had sucked up my entire life the last few weeks. Not to mention writing thank you notes, sleeping, working, and little bits of knitting here and there when I’m tired of doing everything else.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Jan142011

Finally… Party Time!

Tomorrow is the day. Finally. We’ve been planning this party/ wedding reception for a little under 3 months. Ya know, had to bask in the glow of our wedding/ Vegas trip for a few weeks. 😉

Tomorrow I get to see all the family I haven’t seen in ages, even the estranged half that, quite frankly, shocked me by saying they were coming. I get to see friends flying and driving in from all over the country to celebrate with us.

Tonight we are celebrating my amazing husband’s [huge milestone] birthday with my Twitter/ FB friends Sarah and Simon. Incidentally, it’s also Simon’s birthday! Had our friends Leung and Nancy been able to make it, we’d have a triple birthday for the 3 guys. Weird, huh?

Yesterday and today were spent shopping for, buying and prepping all the food, cleaning up the yard, rolling the flatware, cleaning up our house, making all the signs, buying the centerpieces, and doing everything else required to have a rather large party at the house. Mom, dad and I hit up BJ’s Warehouse Club yesterday and spent a small fortune on the non-perishable stuff like the plates, flatware, soda, [11 bottles of] wine, chafing dishes, and so much more. Today mom and I went back for the food. Sure, we could’ve done it all in one trip, but it seems slightly less painful to the wallet this way. Hey, I did say slightly!

During all this, I recalculated our budget. I was really surprised to find that in the grand scheme of things, we spent a LOT less money than I thought we’d have spent. And, of course, we spent thousands of dollars less catering everything ourselves than had we used a professional catering company.

We have been extremely fortunate with our super talented friends and family. The main side dishes are being made by my [for all intent’s and purposes] sister-in-law’s grandmother. Desserts are being made by myself, my mom, my brother and my SIL’s sister. All the decorations, signage, favors, I am making, except for the centerpieces themselves. We’re getting plants and I really do have too black a thumb to have grown them. 😉 The tents and chairs were loaned to us by my SIL’s family and my brother’s union hall. And there’s more… That I’ll need to figure out when I write that recap post for submissions.

After everything is said and done, I plan on submitting the party to a few different wedding websites. Not just for the budget, but for the pictures and everything else.

Oh! That’s another thing. We had a photography budget of $1200 initially, but quickly dropped it to $600. We kinda figured we could find a student or something on Craigslist for $5-600. I know I know, that’s risky. As it turns out, my friend Moe has a friend that lives in Key West who just so happens to be an Emmy award winning photographer/ videographer. And they’re giving us the pictures/ video as our gift. Yeah… I’ll let that sink in for a bit. <3

Jan102011

Party Set-Up… 5 More Days

On an entirely different note, our wedding reception is in 5 days. And I gotta tell you, I cannot wait for it to be here… then be over! I am not putting nearly as much thought and time into the reception as I did with our wedding/ vacation to Las Vegas. It’s going to be truly amazing to see family and friends we haven’t seen in years and to introduce Steve to all of them. Hey, the gifts aren’t that bad either… 😉

I mentioned a few weeks ago about the new location for the reception. It’s in the much larger part of the yard and already beautifully decorated with orchids, bromeliads, bonsai and palm trees. My father is a truly amazing, even if amateur, landscape artist. On Saturday, we (mom, dad, Steve and myself) set up 3 tent frames, trimmed tree branches, moved the tables and benches my father built, and raked up the loose rocks and branches. Dad put down an entire palette of mulch (75 bags!) and then we went back to Home Depot to buy another palette and check our options for the centerpieces. It turned out he needed another half palette, but everything is finally complete. Wow, that’s almost 200 bags!

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the setup. Kayla and Jake were instrumental in helping by standing on and in front of the golf cart, lying in the grass and licking everyone. The next pictures will likely be after the party. 😀

Dec272010

The Actual Reception Location

Seeing as it’s now less than 3 weeks from our wedding reception, my folks called us outside Saturday afternoon to start discussing the logistics and layout of the tents, tables, food, drinks, etc. I’d posted pictures on here not long ago of the yard where the party was going to be held… well that’s totally changed! Rather than party in the big open yard with bad lighting and trenches where dad pulled all the trees out, we’re having it in the yard between their house and ours.

Dad decided to hang a few more light strands around the yard to increase the lighting. It’s a gorgeous area with tons of plants and natural beauty already in place. AKA zero need for additional décor! The strung lights cast plenty of light, but there will also be several spot lights around the yard. Over by the tents, there will be more lights. Good thing my father is so crafty as there are electrical outlets all over the yard perfect for additional lighting.

He’s also going to buy mulch to even out the ground so no one else trips like I did a few weeks ago. I’ve been checking the weather and it is going to be the perfect Miami “winter” with a high of 73* and a low of 53*. So much for my idea of wearing a cute dress! More like a cute sweater with a pair of jeans and maybe boots.

The plant house in the middle of the area

The large tree surrounded by seating, the appetizer/ drinks tent

The food tent

The whole area taken from the area where the seating tents will be located

We still need to make the favors. I bought 100 sheets of origami paper to make the candy dishes and 7lbs of candy. Also need to…
* organize the guest book canvas boards and markers
* make the flags for the centerpieces
* order the food!
* make sure we can borrow tents and chairs from Cathy’s family or else find a place to rent
* buy the centerpieces (6″ plants) and plant sleeves [or maybe make them]
* find table cloths
* clean our house!
* and probably several other things

Dec272010

Relaxing Weekend & A Big Decision

Hello dear blog friends! I hope y’all had a wonderful family and friend filled holiday weekend. Ours was pretty low-key as we didn’t travel anywhere. Friday night we went to my brother’s girlfriends’ family’s house to celebrate Nochebuena. Never before had I been to a pig roast and it was a lot of fun – as all their parties are – and the food was amazing. Certainly not for the vegetarians out there. We had loads of pork, boiled yucca, black beans, rice, salad, fruit, veggies and tons and tons of desserts. On Saturday, we slept super late, met with my parents about party logistics (post later today), then went to visit my cousins from DC and their ridiculously adorable 16 month old daughter.

We also made the decision to try to conceive (TTC) and, regardless of our child situation, we will begin the adoption process in 2 years. We do still want a lot of kids. The adopting will be a child (or sibling pair) no younger than about 5 or 6 years old. We want time to bond with them, but don’t necessarily want to adopt babies. There’s so many older kids also needing homes and we want to help them.

There was also lots of job searching, a tentative decision to focus on a few select areas of the country to move too, did about 843 loads of laundry, and baked a ton!

I hope your weekend was fantastic as well!

Dec252010

Merry Christmas!

I may be Jewish, but I love Christmas and Christmas carols. For many years, I’ve even had a Christmas tree. I still have it, but it’s packed away somewhere and our house is too small to put it up. Sad face.

For as long as I can remember (aka since 1993-ish), I have celebrated Christmas with my best friend beginning with our road trips to Newton, NC up until last year at her house in Jacksonville. I know we’ve missed a few years here and there, but this year it seems especially noticeable to not be with her and my godsons. It doesn’t help that the last time we saw each other was last Christmas. And I miss her so so much.

This year, Steve and I went to our extended family’s house for Nochebueno (Christmas Eve). I ate my first whole roasted pig – well, not the whole pig obviously! – that was roasting in a fire pit all day. And it was delicious! We were surrounded by family, friends and new friends with lots of fantastic food. And even better desserts including my cinnamon sugar biscotti and double chocolate chip and walnut cookies. (Entry with both those to come.) Huge thanks to the entire Torres clan for having us over!

I hope you all have a wonderful family and friend filled weekend whether you celebrate Christmas or not! I know I certainly will be taking advantage of my amazing husband being off work tomorrow.

Nov252010

Happy Thanksgiving!

I may complain and be overly paranoid about having children “this late in life,” but I know I am truly thankful for what I do have.

I am thankful for, in no particular order:
… my family
… my friends – strictly online or real-life
… my best friend and my 2 amazing godsons
… you, my blog readers
… having a puppy snuggle my belly and a fat cat snuggle my feet every night while I sleep
… the few hours a day that I get to spend with Steve
… our weekends together
… my creativity
… my ability to walk, talk, and breathe freely
… having a roof over my head
… not being subjected to sheer misery on a daily basis at my previous job
… my health
… so much more!

And certainly, I am the most thankful for my fantastic husband. We are celebrating 3 years together this Sunday, the 28th (though there is debate about that) and I couldn’t be more thankful and lucky that he came into my life. This is truly a case of kissing a lot of frogs before finding my perfect match. No, not “prince” because I, quite frankly, never wanted a prince. I wanted an equal in my life, someone that respected me, loved me, cherished me and had fun with me exactly as I am. I received all that and even more the day I agreed to meet Steve after months of emailing and IMing.

The date of our anniversary is under debate as our first date had some pretty major hiccups. My friends Nichole and Miles started texting and calling frantically before I was done with my first course. It turns out their apartment complex was on fire so our date was cut majorly short. We had our second date 3 days later and that is when Steve thought the official date was. To me it will always be November 28th. <3

OK, so this turned into an anniversary-type post as well. I’m still a newlywed!

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