The View from My Corner of the World

Here are some pictures from my little corner of the world. This is where I spend most of my time during the week, or the most of my waking hours; at least it has a great view!

This is my new office. I moved into it at the first of the year. Look out the windows, don't look at the desk, its not pretty.

The view of our old courthouse.

The merry-go-round and the kiosks. The Dog House has the best bbq hot dogs for lunch.

The view of our civic park and the shoe shine man.

The view is beautiful from this office, the reason why I moved. I try to remember to take a minute everyday to enjoy it.

West Coast Walk For Life

Participating in the West Coast Walk for Life was a great experience. I have never done anything like this before and I am so glad that I did. Next year, I hope that my husband and children will be able to walk as well.

We started the morning bright an early with mass at 6:00am. This was a very emotional mass for me. I cried almost the entire mass; I did get there a few minutes late but I cried almost the entire time that I was there. I felt the Holy Spirit moving me that morning.

On the bus, we prayed and said the rosary. Then we watched Horton Hears A Who, which when you are paying attention, chronicles the Pro Life struggles. A person is a person no matter how small! It was a quick bus ride and we were in San Francisco before I realized it. (A nice little nap helped out.)

It started to rain just as we got into San Francisco. But it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

This was the banner for our church's group. I liked our banner because it was not in your face and it was a positive message for women and for babies.

After unloading from the bus, we walked just a block to the Plaza where the speakers were. It was here that it started raining, and then it started pouring! It was hard to hear all the speakers but what we were able to hear was inspiring. We were there for about an hour before we started the walk. I was so happy that my wonderful sister bought me a rain poncho! It was a life saver in many ways.

After walking for about an hour, there was a little tower by the water that people were going up to take pictures of the crowd. I darted up it so that I could see how big the crowd was. It was amazing seeing the crowd from above.

This was the crowd in front of us! Little did I know that there were even more people over the hill. It was about here that my other brother in law got a phone call that the group he came with was all ready done and at the park waiting for them. The people go as far as you can see and there is a hill at the far right of the picture that they went up.

Here is a close-up of our group: My two nieces are in the red jackets with white lining, my other niece is behind them in the gray poncho with blue collar, her friend is in the red shirt with white jacket, my brother in law is in the navy blue jacket with white stripes directly behind my niece and then my nephew and brother in law are in the denim jacket, orange poncho and dark sunglasses! That orange poncho was our guide and we could see it even if he got ahead of us. Again I was thanking my sister for the ponchos!

The crowd was very peaceful with many people saying the rosary. I never felt worried or nervous being among all those people. It was an amazing experience.

This was the crowd behind us! There were people as far as you could see going both ways. There was a helicopter taking photos from above. I have been trying to find them on the Internet but there has been very little publicity about the entire event.

The crowd was very diverse with priests, brothers, nuns, old people, young people, families and little babies. This one was such a cutie I had to take her picture. This was towards the end of the walk when we were walking up the hill.

At the top of the hill, I took this picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. It looked so pretty peaking out from the trees that were all around.

After coming down the hill on the other side, you can see the crowd gathered at the park in the center of the picture. There were people all through here when I took the picture of the people ahead of us! We had heard that there were suppose to be around 40,000 people there that day. Even with the rain, the people stayed and walked. I would love to find out how many actually walked.

When we made it to the park, we gathered up and then walked to our buses. They were about two blocks away in a school parking lot. The buses were all lined up and we got loaded up and were on our way in no time. I was amazed at how easily the logistics worked. We were on our way back home by 3:30pm, and I was kissing my babies at home by 8:15pm that night.

It was a wonderful day, with lots of emotions. I am so glad that I went and I can't wait to take my entire family next year!

Checking In

So much for trying to post everyday!

Just downloading some pictures for a future post, one that I had planned on posting at least a week ago. But it is off to bed because tomorrow I am heading to San Francisco for the Walk for Life! I am excited about going and can't wait to participate.

We start with mass at 6:00am at our parish church so I have to get to bed, but remember to pray for all of us traveling to the walk and for all the babies (and Mommas) that we are walking for! May it be peaceful and may we change some hearts and lives!

Pray for Kate McRae

I had a post all figured out for tonight but I couldn't post it. I am heart broken. I have been praying for little Kate McRae for some time now. She was finishing up her chemo and were getting ready for another MRI to see if her tumor was gone. They were finally able to do it today and they got the news that they had feared. The tumor is not completely gone. They will be facing tough decisions as to how to proceed from this point.

This little girl is the same age as my daughter as is as cute as can be. She has a beautiful smile and so much spunk in her eyes. It breaks my heart for her and her family. The parents have such strong faith and are doing there best in coping with God's will.

Please say a prayer for them tonight as their hearts are breaking again. Pray for their strength, for their faith and for the healing of their precious little girl. Their web site is http://www.prayforkate.com/ and they have a CaringBridge web page as well.

Looking for the Light

While her poor brother was hard at work looking for the needle in the haystack, this one was only looking for one thing...

the spotlight! This kid can spot the camera almost immediately when I pull it out.

And she loves to let me take her picture! What a little ham.

The Needle in the Hay Stack

Okay where did it go? Where did it go?

I wonder if it is somewhere on the grass?

No, maybe it is somewhere in the street. If only it wasn't so small and grey, I could probably find it here on this grey pavement. Maybe next time I shouldn't take my Star Wars Lego fighter ship outside when I am doing my Star Wars fighting moves in the middle of the street.

(I just wish I could have gotten the picture of him doing the fighting moves in the middle of our culdesac. He stopped before I could get the camera out. But when I saw him looking so hard, I had to take his picture. He ended up seeing me and asked me to help him look for the Lego piece. Yes, Mom saved the day and found it in the grass!)

The Girls

The Girls '09

All the girls, my nieces and my daughter, except for the newly married one, hanging out on New Years Eve. They are all unique in their own way, and aren't they all beautiful? And what is so great is that they are all just as nice as they are beautiful. Their Nanny would be so proud of all of them!

Today was a transition day, a day spent trying to get back to the "normal" way of life.

It is only January 2nd and my husband decided it was time to take down our outside Christmas decorations. It made me sad to see them being put away, another Christmas in our past. Where did the month of December go. It seems like it was just yesterday that the kids were anticipating with joy the lights going up and getting to help Daddy put up the nativity scene and Santa.

While the kids and Daddy worked outside, I worked on tackling the laundry pile that has gotten out of control these last few weeks. In between loads I snuck in some reading. The book is "Sarah's Key" and it has haunted me the last few days; probably too heavy of a book for this time of year.

But what made the day was that I finally got to stay home, read and drink hot chai tea! That is all I have wanted to do for the last couple of weeks and today I got to. I love a glass of hot chai tea mixed into coffee. The coffee shop that I used to go to made the best chai tea and it was even better with a shot of espresso in it. So when I make mine at home, I just put my mix into my brewed coffee. It is wonderful.

I found the recipe for it last year in a Taste of Home magazine. It is easy to make and you can make it as low calorie as you want. Also since it is a mix, you can control how strong or weak you want to make it. Here is the recipe:

Spiced Chai Mix
3 cups nonfat dry milk powder
1 1/2 cups sugar ( I use splenda)
1 cup unsweetened instant tea ( I use decaf )
3/4 cup vanilla powdered nondairy creamer (I use nonfat sugar free)
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground all spice
1/2 tsp ground cardamon ( This makes the tea!)
1/2 tsp ground cloves

In a food processor, combine all dry ingredients: cover and process until powdery. Store in an airtight container in a cool dry place for up to 6 months.

To prepare 1 serving: Dissolve 3 Tablespoons of mix in 3/4cup boiling water; stir well. Dollop with whipped cream if desired. (I use brewed coffee instead of water)

I hope that it adds warmth and some spice to your life, as we begin this new year.

2010

Happy New Year!

One of my New Year Resolutions is to get back to blogging and back to creating a diary of my family's life. I have missed creating memories for my family and documenting what has been happening in our life. Once I got out of the habit of regular blogging, it became easier not to do it. The problem is that blogging was the only scrapbook that I had for our family. It also meant that I stopped taking as many pictures of the kids and what they are involved in. This makes me very sad.

So resolution No. 1 is to try and post something everyday. Here is to my family and our memories in 2010!


"Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind..."--Robert Burns.
Happy New Year everyone!