3 More Days To Vacation!!!

I'm so excited and anxious and I just can't wait! My Dad, Kayla (my other mom), Eric (my cousin) Ben and I are all going on a trip to Anacortes, Washington to see my grandpa! We are going to be there for 5 days and I'm so excited! I really need a vacation and I think this is going to be a really relaxing one. I'm so excited about flying. This will be Ben and mine's 1st trip on an airplane together since our honeymoon. I love flying! I've been looking up Anacortes online the past couple of days and it looks like such a charming place. It' has forests, lakes, 12 miles of coastline, antique shops, whale watching, bridges, hiking and organic farmers markets. Everything that I love! Ben and I already talked about collecting "Homes for Sale" magazines while we there. Has anyone been to Anacortes Island? If you have, please let me know of anything that we shouldn't miss.

The only part of this trip that I'm not looking forward to is leaving Peanut and Otis behind. We've decided to leave them at Ben's mom's house and I'm so nervous about them falling in the pool. Everyone please pray that they will be safe at Grandma's! On our last trip we boarded the pups at a kennel. When we picked them up, Otis was so skinny and loosing his hair. The owner of the kennel said that he wouldn't eat the whole time because he was so nervous. I'm hoping that they will be more comfortable at mom's since they've been there so much before. I just hope they stay warm at night and out of the pool. I know I'm totally psycho for worrying about this but these little guys are like our children.

Introducing the Newest Member of Our Growing Family - Maddison Ellie Baran - Born on the 4th of July!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my dad's 60th birthday!
My dad is one of the greatest men I know. He raised my 2 sisters and I and my cousin Tony by himself and is now raising my 3 little cousins with his
wonderful wife Kayla.


Dad and The Boys and Papa and Nay-nay

My dad always made sure we had what we needed. I always felt that we were #1 in his life. He is always joking around and goofing off. Everyone who knows my dad will describe him as 1. Very Silly 2. Very Loving and 3. Very Accident Prone. I really love those qualities about him. I always wanted to marry someone just like my dad and I think I totally succeeded!

On Saturday we had a Birthday Party for him and many people came to celebrate.



It was a lot of fun and there was even a broken window by a stray bb. It was exciting but not as crazy as his 50th where we did a "Hawaii 5-O" pool party (complete w/Super-Soakers, a garden hose in the house, and jumping out of the 2nd story window into the swimming pool). Good times all attendees will never forget!


My Dad and His "Little" Sister - Dad and Aunt Virginia

Tonight we celebrated with a lovely dinner at CPK. Then we went to my dad's to watch him open some of his Birthday cards. He received over 70 cards all of people expressing their love for him and their fondest moments with my dad. What really impressed me was that the cards were from people of all ages.


Dad and the Boys and Dad and the Girls

The recurring complements were that he is always so funny, Christlike and loving. That's my Dad!

One of his gifts was a T-shirt from my little cousins that says "Old Guys Rule". I think that sums it all up very nicely.



Dad, they say that 60 is the new 40!
(even if you still act like the old 15)!

Dad, if all men were like you our world would be a SOOOOO much, better place.

Happy Birthday Daddy!



I love you soooooooo much!
Thank you for being you!

Which Disney Princess Are You?

You Are Mulan!

Strong and spirited. You're no one's girly girl; actually you are very determined person with a strong sense of self. Never let go of that! The only thing that equals your sense of self is your family, but the traditions of society can always be bent to protect something or someone you love.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

OMGosh!!!

When I heard about this, I just had to look it up!

Don't forget to stop sometime (or a couple of times) tomorrow 7/11/08 to get your free Slurpee!

One of Ben and my favorite stops is 7-11.

When it's hot we stop and get a Slurpee,

when it's cold we get a hot chocolate (with all the fix-ins)

and when were hungry (Ben's favorite)

Jalapeno Cheese Taquitos.

Enjoy!!!

The First Step in Recovery, is Admitting there's a Problem

I think I need help...

I am feeling really Asian right now.

Ben and I used our tax rebate money to buy me a new camera. I got it on June 4th and I really love it. I read the whole manual and I'm still learning and practicing with it.

Well, here's my problem...

I download all my pictures to Snapfish. I've already downloaded 16 albumns since I got the camera a month ago. So I was looking at this yesterday and was thinking, "Wow, That seems like a lot of pictures." So I decided to look and see how many pictures I actually took in the past 30 days. I could not believe it. I actually took 2,084 pictures in the past 30 days! It's hard to believe. I didn't believe it myself so I checked it out and I really did take 2,084 pictures in 30 days?

Can you imagine when Ben and I have our own children? How much worse can this problem get?

I fear the future.

I'm just glad that Ben talked me into getting the 4 gig memory card.

June 2008 Photos!

Does Anyone Know Where I Can Find June 2008? I Seemed to Have Misplace It.

I can’t believe that a whole month has already passed since the last time I posted. Where did June 2008 go? It was a busy month but I just can’t believe that it’s already over.

Let’s see where to start. Well Ben passed all his classes in spring with B’s straight across. He’ll be finished in December as long as he passes all his classes in the mean time he has the summer off. My cousin Eric graduated from high school, Ben got a Grand Slam at my dad's church softball game, my finals (I got an A!) our friend's wedding was canceled, birthday's, Peanut's new haircut, Father's Day, BBQ's, Disneyland, beach trips, museums, castles, waterfalls, babies, fireworks, a virus and 3 Samoan Boys!

I can't believe that all this happened in the matter of 30 days. I really felt that if I didn't document all of this I might soon come to forget what a busy month it was. Since I don't journal, this is what I believe to be the next best thing. I just hope that there really is some way to preserve all of these posts.

Our friends’ wedding was scheduled for June 13^th in St. George and then they were going to honeymoon out here in Southern California. Well I took a few days off work for the wedding and to spend some time with them while they were here in California but the wedding was canceled. Our poor friend still wanted to come out to California just get away, so we spent a few day’s with him to cheer him up. I hope it helped. Well while he was here we did a few fun things. We went to the Huntington Library, Ben took him to the beach, we had a BBQ at moms, we went to Disneyland and we drove up to Central California and went on a tour of Hearst Castle. My wonderful friend Jackie went up with us and on our way home we stopped in Solvang and then in Nojoqui Falls National Park. It was beautiful. Ben found this little stop a couple of years ago and we always make it on our way home from up north. It’s about a 30 minute (way easy) hike up to this beautiful little waterfall. It’s one of my favorite places in Southern California. On our way home from there we found this charming little Organic Produce stand. We always stop when we see these little produce stands because we love purchasing from local growers. Well we stopped at this one and there was nobody manning booth. The only thing around was a little ranch house down the street. Then we saw a sign and a big barrel. The sign said, “Self-Serve/Honor Stand, Please drop your money in the barrel. We are too busy growing more veggies to stand here and collect money. Please drop cash or a check in the barrel. No change available, just make it up next time.” We couldn't’t believe it! I never heard of such a thing. I was so pleased that we ended up buying 1 of everything and I only spent $13.50. They had some of the yummiest strawberries I’ve ever had.

The last weekend of June, Ben and I went to Point Dume State Beach. That was a wholelotta fun too. It’s a little private beach in Malibu with trails, tide pools and beautiful views. We hiked one of the trails and spent time on the beach just relaxing.

It’s only the first week of July and already I can tell it’s going to be busy. Ben got really sick this past weekend so this is our first 4^th of July that we didn’t spend together. He stayed home all weekend resting and I spent it with my family and my adopted Samoan boys. It was a lot of fun and the boys were excited because they’ve never seen fireworks so close.

Also on the 4^th my new baby niece was born. Madison E. Baran. She was scheduled to be born the 2^nd week of July but the doctor predicted that the baby was going to be a 11-12 pounder. They decided to induce on the 3^rd and try to keep her around 10 lbs. Well by the afternoon on the 4^th every time my sister tried to push the baby’s blood pressure went up. They decided to go in and do a cesarean section and they found that the umbilical cord was wrapped around baby Madison’s neck. Well they got her out and mother and child are fine. Madison turned out to only be 8lbs 9oz. She was a lot smaller then expected. I haven’t seen her yet but heard that she is a real gem! I wasn’t able to go see her since Ben was sick I maybe carrying the virus. My sister hasn’t taken any pictures yet. If it wasn’t for me my family wouldn’t have hardly any pictures of the kiddos. I asked my sister if she took pictures and she said, “No, I haven’t had time for that.” I will go see Madison on Friday and I will post some pictures then. We also found out this weekend that my other sister is expecting another girl! So far the score will be, girls-5 boys-0.

Okay July! After getting through June I feel like I can do anything! Here I come!

I'm so glad that I have a camera to capture all of these memories. I just can't preserve the same memories in writing alone. I do not have that wonderful gift of writing that my sister Sweet Caroline has. Maybe I'll pay her to write my posts from now on???